In an ever-changing advertising landscape, advertisers and sales houses alike need to keep abreast of the latest consumer trends, capturing the consumer’s attention in new innovative ways. This week’s egtabite puts the spotlight on such a creative case by the French sales house M6 Publicité, aimed at both entertaining viewers and engaging them by jumping on a current trend: The Emoji Hunt.

The hunt is on

The M6 Emoji Hunt contest, created for the French postal service La Poste, was inspired by the Pokémon craze of 2018, where people were encouraged to hunt Pokémons through an augmented reality app on their smartphone. The Emoji Hunt was also sparked by the increasingly frequent use of emoji’s in a wide range of communication channels – both by consumers as well as brands.

The 360° Emoji Hunt targeted young audiences and included both linear TV and digital elements, such as a TV and online campaign, a personalised contest on the 6Play VOD platform and a campaign on social media. The topic of the campaign was the new range of stamps La Poste was launching.

At the beginning of the ad breaks on linear TV, a 6-second intro board was shown, announcing that an emoji stamp, created by La Poste, would be shown in the upcoming ad break. This emoji of the day was shown only at the end of the break – encouraging viewers to watch the break in its entirety, then go online on the 6Play platform and participate in a competition to win a trip.

Cross-departmental collaboration

The format was developed by the Marketing Innovation Team at M6 Publicité, a department of 4 people, who had to coordinate the campaign with TV Sales, TV Planning, Ad Operations, Creative Web, Creative TV, Communication, Financial Department and Legal Department. Overall, around 30 people were involved in the project. The campaign was developed in direct contact with the advertiser, with the involvement of their creative agency Starcom.

The pricing package was divided into three parts: ad space on linear TV and the 6play VOD platform, the contest hosting on a digital channel and creative & tech fees. The ad space on linear TV included a 6-second intro board (announcement), a 30-second La Poste spot and a 6-second emoji board (“emoji of the day”). The pricing for this ad space included a premium fee that was higher than normal, including legal, creative and technical fees.

Results and future

The campaign, which ran for five consecutive days, provided strong engagement and yielded an 18% uplift in recall and attention on La Poste’s spot, a 12% click rate on the website and left 89% of viewers with a positive image of the brand. The Emoji Hunt was a stand-alone campaign.

M6 Publicité is currently looking into the creation of similar experiences, combining an introductory board, a final reveal board within the TV ad break and an echo in the digital space. Formats such as personalised Quiz Breaks, allowing viewers to interact with the brands in real-time, are currently in development.

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