We’ve been thinking a lot recently about online conversations, and the potential for brands to connect with their audiences on social media.
We’ve looked at Paddy Power’s recent super league skit as a great model for brands responding quickly to topics their audiences care about. And we’ve recently launched a new project with Twitter that taps into the world of online conversations.
Putting Twitter’s meme community in the spotlight
Football is huge on Twitter. It’s the go-to place for fans and the media - even players themselves - to respond to matches and discuss the latest developments. There’s a lot of in depth analysis, but it’s also a pretty irreverent space. Jokes and memes abound.
If Twitter could highlight this and join the conversation in an authentic, entertaining way, it would serve as a great reminder of the platform’s capacity to connect people, while also showing Twitter cares about its users.
To achieve this, Twitter had a great idea: take meme of the moment - songs by The Streets remixed with Fulham manager Scott Parker’s post-match interviews - and crown it Meme of the Season. Then, elevate the existing fan mash-ups by painstakingly CGI-ing Scott Parker into The Streets’ original music video for ‘Don’t Mug Yourself’, creating the most amped up version of the meme possible.
We launched it with Twitter last week, and it’s proved a huge hit with fans: 9 million views in less than 36 hours, with people sharing their delight in the comments:
Collaborating with the content creators
A vital part of why this works is Twitter’s approach to working with the original creators of the memes.
The meme was born in August last year when Fulham were promoted to the Premier League. Responding to a fan Tweet likening Parker’s post-match interview to The Streets’ ‘Dry Your Eyes’, Mark Pickard (@MarkyPickard) took the audio, remixed the song, and posted it on Twitter.
Inspired by his efforts, Adam Collings (@Adam_Baron23) took the audio from a later interview and created a new mash up, this time to The Streets’ ‘Don’t Mug Yourself’, the song we eventually used for Twitter’s version.
We reached out to both creators to involve them in the process, and of course made sure they were prominently credited at the start of the video. This put real users and their creativity at the heart of the creative - similar to the way we worked with the great and good of Scottish Twitter last year - and in doing so, drew attention to them rather than Twitter itself.
Engaging Tweeters themselves in an authentic way goes a lot further than simply talking at them about the product, or choosing a random celebrity as the face of your campaign. As the success of the mash up shows, this approach spreads the joy to audiences and makes a real impact.