Twitter launches video with aim of making platform relevant to Australians
Twitter Australia has partnered with Sydney-based production company Broken Yellow to create a three-minute long video celebrating the different people who use Twitter, in an effort to make the platform more relevant to Australians.
The content video released yesterday features Sally Fitzgibbons, Adam Goodes, Mark Scott, Hamish & Andy, Kyle & Jackie O, Allesandro Del Piero, Darryn Lyons, Peter Overton and Nina Las Vegas and involved co-ordinating footage from astronaut Reid Weissman who was orbiting earth at the time of the project.
Speaking to Mumbrella, Twitter Australia director of media partnerships Danny Keens said: “This whole concept was born from an idea that I had almost 12 months ago. When we opened the office here we started to see there was all these incredible Australians who had embraced the platform from musicians to politicians to journalists to movie stars.
Happy #AustraliaDay from the team @TwitterAU. Thanks for helping make Australia the greatest place on earth!!! https://t.co/jt5JypL3iZ
— Twitter Australia (@TwitterAU) January 25, 2015
“I was very humbled by how Australians had embraced Twitter and I was trying to find ways to demonstrate that. We had a whole bunch of collateral available to us featuring Americans,” Keens said.
“We went and looked at some of the most followed Australians on the platform, we did outreach to them to see if they were interested in speaking about Twitter. Everybody that we outreached to said they’d be more than happy to speak on the video. At that point I said we just had to do this.
“This is an incredible opportunity to go and film something. It was never meant to be an ad. It was meant to be a way for Aussies to talk about all the things they love about Twitter.”
The video is being shared via the Twitter Australia profile and on the platform’s YouTube account. Keens said it will also be shown at conferences.
“It’s not going to air on television. It’s not piece of marketing collateral that we planned to put marketing spend behind. We didn’t get marketing dollars to do this,” he explained.
“We found these guys Broken Yellow, who are the local production house who made it. One of the things that made it possible was they get Twitter and they totally got that this was an incredible opportunity to work with us and make a video. We had zero budget, none of the VIPs that appeared in the video were paid.
“The team at Broken Yellow did it at rock bottom prices because they just wanted the opportunity to work with Twitter.”
The Broken Yellow team, Navid Bahadori, Brendan J Doyle and Mario Lendvai, said it was “incredibly eye-opening to work with a company so huge but that had the vision and the attitude of just go and do it”.
On getting involved in the project Bahadori told Mumbrella: “It goes back to our Australian of the Year stuff when last year we made the official video for Adam Goodes becoming Australian of the Year and the Twitter team in Australia saw that and thought they wanted to profile Australians in the same way.
“They contacted us and said we love what you did for Australian of the Year and how you’ve made this personal connection with these amazing, different people and we want to do something similar. That was the seed of the idea and it grew from there.
“In terms of selecting who was to do it, it was a process working with Danny and Twitter on getting a good representation of the Tweeters out there, it wasn’t just about celebrities. It was about showing the different ways how people are using the platform beyond social interaction.”
On the production’s budget Doyle said: “It was only two of us on the road with about 13 bags of gear – a lot of the stuff. It was just two of us out there making it work.”
Bahadori added: “Because we’ve been a group for so long, it’s intrinsic in what we do and we know how we work. When we get a budget we’re pretty results focused in the sense of what can we do that’s going to blow people away.”
Broken Yellow does work for clients including Woolworths, Coca-Cola, CBUS and Toll Holdings and is also behind the Australian of the Year Awards, producing and designing the Awards under commission of the ABC for four consecutive years.
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
Linkedin
topics
Danny Keens
Hamish & Andy
Kyle & Jackie O
Mark Scott
Peter Overton
production house
Sally Fitzgibbons
Twitter
Video
I’m a massive Twitter fan. It’s a phenomenal service for communication which is why this video baffles me.
For a start its 3 minutes long which is 90 seconds too long for what it is trying to do.
It also basically sells the service as a traditional news outlet or as a place for brands, teams or celebrities. It’s leaves out the main reason people use Twitter and that is to communicate and talk with other people.
It’s a micro-blogging service that allows anyone anywhere in the world with an account and an Internet connection to talk to any other person with an Internet connection and an account. When you think about that it’s amazing and yet this video left me cold because it didn’t sell any of that. Twitter is the first true global communications platform and this video sold celebrity.
Shame.
User ID not verified.