My Kreepy Teacher case study can be viewed here

Introduction:

#MyKreepyTeacher was arguably Kreepy Krauly's most successful digital marketing campaign in the brand’s history, if not its most ‘viral’ campaign.

Our campaign was a branded content, news hijacking tactic - supported by traditional and digital PR methods - that 702 called ‘an astonishing piece of creative! The timing is perfect. It shows enormous courage.’

The campaign is one of the most successful PR campaigns to have ever originated from South Africa as it had the potential to be viewed by two billion people, globally, and made a direct impact on Kreepy Krauly sales, in the midst of a pandemic - a 20 per cent increase year on year.

Statement of the Problem:

Despite being the world’s most ubiquitous pool cleaner, the Kreepy Krauly brand is under threat from competitors (Zodiac, Polaris, Premier, Intex) with larger market share and budgets.

However, opportunities still exist for Kreepy Krauly, locally, as South Africa is the sixth-largest pool market in the world, comprising 800,000 private and 2,000 public pools.

We required a creative solve to:
• Remind South Africa that Kreepy Krauly is the original, best-quality pool cleaner
• Cut through the competitive clutter and own the pool-cleaning conversation, in order to enhance purchase consideration (and, ultimately sales) during the spring-summer transition.

Key Insights:

Research led our creative approach:

• We have anecdotal evidence that remarkable, branded content can work to drive word-of-mouth spread of the Kreepy Krauly brand, as well as directly impact sales

• Video streaming content consumption is at an all-time high, based on social media penetration, and the increase in streaming service engagement, due to lockdown

• Whatsapp provides an opportunity to leverage dark social in a way no brand in South Africa has ever leveraged it (11.5m represent our core audience: 9.6m 25-34 year olds, 1.88m 35-45 year olds)

Objectives: 

• 500,000 organic views / 5,000,000 reach with #MyKreepyTeacher
• 15 Tier 1 pieces of earned media coverage
• Achieve a direct impact on Kreepy Krauly sales

Message Formulation:

We purposefully utilised the key takeouts from My Octopus Teacher to juxtapose animate object qualities with Kreepy Krauly to create an emotional connection between content and audience

• Kreepy Krauly is the original majestic creature of the deep
• A Kreepy Krauly is like an alien
• We are so similar in so many ways; looks, intelligence

Communication Channels:

• Social media: WhatsApp (primary), Twitter, Facebook, YouTube (secondary)
• Traditional media: Print, online, broadcast

The Results:

Within 96 hours we pitched the original My Octopus Teacher YouTube trailer as a reference, went through two rounds of script reverts, a production and distribution schedule, received the green light, shot, edited and distributed #MyKreepyTeacher ...

Media relations:

• We ran traditional media relations in parallel with social content dissemination to ensure momentum and consistent campaign build. We distributed content to media - one-on-one - and pitched bespoke angles

• Proactively secured interviews and subsequent coverage for Kreepy Krauly in the most influential titles across the country (and eventually, the globe).

This campaign paired an instinctive, research-led idea with a brave client, unheard of turn-around times and an agency and production company unwilling to let a shoestring budget derail a concept that we truly believed (in our guts) would succeed at a mainstream level. We dominated the news cycle for an entire week with features on every key, media platform.

Results:

• From concept to viral in 96 hours
• 20% increase in sales YOY
• Two billion people reached
• 5 million views; 30+ tier 1 pieces of media coverage