Aussie Home Loans leaps into social media with Amnesia

Aussie Home Loans has embarked on a full social media and digital campaign to support its new TVC of a skydiving financial adviser.  

The TVC ad – based on the idea that wherever the adviser lands, he can save customers money, was the last work from agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Lowe has since become Aussie’s agency.

But the new interactive campaign is the work of digital agency Amnesia Razorfish. It integrates across several social media channels.

It features real life Aussie Home Loans mortgage adviser Duanne Brown. He’s been persuaded to make the first parachute jump of his life on April 6. He tells his story on YouTube:

As well as a dedicated YouTube channel, consumers are invited to get involved by guessing on an Aussie Home Loans site using Google Maps where in Australia he will land. The winner will get $3,000, while 50 runners up get $300.

The blogosphere has been involved by Amnesia asking financial bloggers to hide a code somewhere on their site. Users who find it can use it to have further guesses about the landing spot.

There is also a Facebook group where Duanne asks for advice on coping with the jump, and he also has a Twitter account where he banters with supporters.

March 20th, 2009 at 11:34 am

  • Email This Post
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • MySpace
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • Sphinn
  • Technorati Favorites
  • Delicious

Comments


  1. Ben Heuston
    20 Mar 09
    2:42 pm

    2. Does this sort of campaign really lend itself to social media? I think consumers will see through this.

    The You tube site has been live 16 days today and has had under 300 views, Flickr had 3 or 4 views on the first and last photos I viewed at 2.30pm. Given the jump is 17 days away lets hope it improves….this so far looks like a fairly poor execution to me.

  2. Gerry
    20 Mar 09
    3:08 pm

    3. I agree with Ben. All credit to Aussie for trying something fresh and different but i just don’t think Aussies will actually care about this. Entertaining? Fail. Starts a debate/discussion? Fail. Worth passing on? Epic Fail

  3. Andrew
    20 Mar 09
    3:27 pm

    4. Given Australian’s relationships with their homes in general, coupled with the economic climate at present, this campaign has to be the most juvenile campaign on air. And the biggest wasted opportunity.

    Both Saatchi and the client need a smack in the chops.

    Guess Saatchi got theirs.

    And the client who approved it??

  4. mumbrella
    20 Mar 09
    3:49 pm

    5. Hi Ben & Gerry (got any ice cream you can sell me? Boom, boom…), and Andrew, too. Thanks for your comments.

    For what it’s worth, I think you’re being a tad harsh, particularly to Amnesia.

    Consider that their starting point is inheriting a TVC of a financial adviser jumping out of a plane. They don’t have the option of telling the client they should have been involved from the beginning – clearly they weren’t.

    But what they have done is created an idea which works across several different social media channels. They’ve executed that very professionally across each channel. (Although I do score you down for not PR-ing it, chaps – that is arguably a tad naive)

    However, one element that is particularly impressive is the idea of hiding codes to have extra guesses on various financial blogs. That is an excellent way of getting bloggers directly involved. I can’t think of that having been done in Australia before.

    Granted, this isn’t a campaign we’ll be talking about for years to come (unlesss the parachute doesn’t open – is there a crisis recovery plan for that?), but it’s solid, utilises social media intelligently and will, I’m sure, at the very least deliver them a return on their client’s original investment.

    Cheers,

    Tim – Mumbrella

  5. Gerry
    20 Mar 09
    3:58 pm

    6. fair point tim, fair point…totally take your point about inheriting a legacy and having to polish the proverbial turd..I just think the ‘smarts’ you mention above will go largely unnoticed by 90% of people except a few of the techies at digital agencies across town …as to your point, they havent PR’d it…you’re totally right…critical error.
    I guess i will be eating humble ‘ice cream’ if this campaign is a big success..won’t bet on it though..but as i said, nice effort…playing in the social media space is about trying new things, not everything sticks..maybe this will..

  6. Ben Heuston
    21 Mar 09
    5:25 pm

    7. Tim, take your point of having a go and Gerry’s of polishing the turd; they were given a hospital pass. My point was that where elements of social media doesn’t serve a campaign as its been developed don’t use it. Otherwise it just puts cost into a campaign for no return. I say this in a recent post on my site.

    Where you find a campaign that you believe is both well executed and has the stats to prove it has hit its marketing objectives I’m sure that would be very well received by your readers. I’m keen to see some real home runs in this space.

  7. Ken Baker
    22 Mar 09
    1:06 pm

    8. They said it would never fly

    When the Wright Brothers took their wood, wire and bike wheels out
    They said it would never fly
    When Edison struggled for months with filaments to ignite our world
    They said he should not try
    When England almost alone stood against Hitler’s efficient war machine
    Their chances were not high
    When every man and woman who stands before us the crowd and tries
    The rest of us ask why

    Good luck you Aussie Home Loan champs, your pioneering style behoves
    Respect because you’ve flown
    Like Edison you’ve become a beacon light in Australian business groves
    Because you tried and grown
    Like England when all was lost you’ve moved to a higher plane and won
    And in this its clearly shown
    That you continue to lead the way, where others will only follow
    Making comments unbeknown
    That the world will one day mark this innovation in reality marketing …
    And that you have got the bone.

  8. FAILED
    22 Mar 09
    5:07 pm

    9. Another continued example of how everyone’s a social media expert these days. Remember how everyone was a search expert? Oh hang on… everyone still is.

    This has fail all over it. There are very few agencies who have the right to be termed experts in this space and they’re not the ones who created this piece.

  9. Joel
    23 Mar 09
    1:42 pm

    10. So many overly critical negative people.

    I say good on Aussie and Amnesia for actually getting involved. The number one problem with social media in Australia is that there is a lot of noise and talk and very little action or follow through.

    Whether it performs or not is yet to be seen, so how about we pull back on the sledging and “Im more of an expert than you are” pissing contest and try and actually grow the industry by supporting it?

    Great work on getting this across the line and actually doing something with social only.

  10. eunmac
    23 Mar 09
    3:12 pm

    11. I don’t beleive we (Amnesia) have ever said we were experts in social, in fact we’re just like most agencies… trying to figure out how it all works… but we ARE prepared to have a go. This includes making mistakes and epic fails (if it should happen). So we enter into each project being prepared to take a couple of arrows in our backs and we’re quite prepared to take critisism if it makes us better at what we do.

    What I do find slightly strange that judgements can be made without knowing what our goals and criteria are for the project. We have not stated what the campaign objectives are at this point in time. In fact there seems to be a misconception that Social media must produce reach and frequency to be a success. What does 160 views in YT mean? Failure? So… what if 10 of those views were all journos who wrote stories seen by thousands? Still a failure?

    It’s OK – we know at the end of the campaign, people will make judgements either way. All we can say is that we do listen and hopefully we will be able to share some of what we learn.

    Cheers,
    Iain, Amnesia. (http://twitter.com/eunmac)

    PS: @failed – Is it not a basic courtesy of social media (including blog comments) to disclose who you are so that a conversation can take place and people can understand your thoughts in an objective light? I don’t know who you are, but I’m not hiding from your argument or feedback should you wish to make yourself known.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. The problem with all these “Social Media Specialists” « Joely Righteous