Two years ago, Netflix launched one of its most popular international TV series to date: La Casa de las Flores. Teaming up with Manolo Caro, one of Mexico’s hottest directors, the series has not only become one of the country’s most talked-about shows because of its star-studded cast – including legendary soap opera actress Verónica Castro – but also because of its huge cultural and social relevance due to its open and positive portrayal of LGBT topics. The series’ third and final season made its debut last week on April 23rd.

The pandemic has significantly shifted the way audiences are spending their time, with a 57% increase in usage of streaming services and a 47% increase in time spent on social media, according to DataReportal. With more people at home using streaming services, brands can no longer rely on OOH and other flashy stunts to promote their content with relevance and fuel social chatter.

With our attention spread across many channels, and even more competing entertainment options, it’s important to understand how content performs differently on each with a fit-for-format approach. By tailoring social content to user behaviors that are unique to a given platform, brands can maximize effectiveness. Despite linear TV being a more traditional format, Netflix – in partnership with Circus Marketing, who merged with MediaMonks earlier this year – demonstrated how brands can extend the value of content to digital audiences with a fit-for-format strategy, just as it did by creating an ode to the classic TV special by celebrating La Casa de las Flores before its final season premiere. 

Extending the Experience

La Casa de las Flores rapidly became a phenomenon thanks to its careful portrayal of social topics and willingness to tell stories that viewers may not commonly see in the media, depending on where they live. Given its popularity and propensity to get people talking, Netflix decided to give fans a space to reflect on the series and create a dialogue through a TV special that extended into social platforms as well. Circus Marketing worked on the ideation, scripting and creative direction for the special, and executed in partnership with Plataforma who led remote filming and small crew shoots to work within recommended safety guidelines.

Hosted by the series creator, the special aimed to generate buzz for the upcoming season by connecting fans, turning them into active participants by voting on the best and most shocking moments from previous seasons. The very same digital channels that viewers use every day became the stage for the special, with cast members chatting in video calls (both in and out of character), fans contributing through polls, WhatsApp audio and other social content. Taking this digital format over a traditional production approach enabled us to create the program within local safety guidelines. “What is really exciting is not just the project itself, but the timing and how we approached the strategy to reach these goals,” says Bruno Lambertini, Founder of Circus Marketing. 

“We used animations, audio, polls, fan art, tweets and other types of social assets to connect with users on different platforms and in different ways,” says Israel Rojas, Content Lead at Circus Marketing, noting the importance of using an omnichannel strategy to reach such a wide and varied audience. The special itself took different forms based on where viewers saw it: without standard television ratings and regulations, for example, the YouTube version was uncensored, clocking at 40 minutes in its entirety. From there, we were able to develop dozens of smaller, snackable assets distributed across social channels.

Not All Platforms Were Created Equal

What makes La Casa de las Flores really special is that while it may fit in the classic format of a telenovela, it’s widely viewed as a millennial soap opera. Given this reaction, we knew the special couldn’t live on TV only – it would have to meet its audience in the very space where they meet and discuss the show itself: online.

To prepare fans for this event weeks in advance, Netflix shared hundreds of snippets for social media, each one adapted to different platforms. This content was shared on the series’ official social media channels on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but also through influencer activations. “Not only did we create a 40 minute long video format, but we also took that to different platforms and levels from a single production – with fit-for-format,” says Yaneth Velázquez, Global Head of Client at Circus.

“Social content is really important when creating fandom,” says Velázquez. “We’re creating clusters of people looking for a show – spaces where you can consume content and extend the experience of watching it.” During the first 72 hours after launching, the special program registered over 2 million views on online platforms.

People go to various platforms for different reasons. What works on Instagram won’t work on TikTok, even for the same user, because the way one engages with content on each differs. By building upon the way that viewers discuss cultures and shows across different platforms, the La Casa de las Flores special successfully built impact in the leadup to the series’ third, final season. It serves as a great example of how a fit-for-format mindset is important to maintain relevance when casting such a wide net on digital audiences – especially when people are looking to connect with others and engage with them sharing their love for the show.

With the La Casa de las Flores TV special, Netflix delivered a piece of content that adjusted to the current times, pivoting OOH and other experience-led social campaigns into the means available today – cleverly rethinking the creative process to create buzz, connect with viewers and give these shows and social movements the interaction, engagement and recognition they deserve.

In building assistive experiences across the customer decision journey, effective channel strategy is key. Tobias Wilson, VP of Growth, recently made this point clear to Campaign, where he advised brands whose strategies were affected by COVID-19 to “pivot in a way that makes sense. If the channels you’d invested effort in were no longer viable (such as out of home or in-person experiential, in this case), the worst thing you can do is just try to haphazardly replicate that activity online.”

This requires brands to not only look at digital channels they may know, like owned social feeds, but beyond what may have been previously thought possible, reaching audiences where they’re at in this moment. This need led MediaMonks, Reporters Without Borders and DDB to collaborate in building the Uncensored Library, a Minecraft map that users can explore to discover stories written by journalists who have been jailed, exiled or even killed for their work, even if censorship stops them from accessing such stories through other channels. Recognizing Minecraft as an increasingly important space for global youth to gather, socialize and exchange ideas, the virtual library demonstrates how far brands can go to actually connect audiences like never before.

We’ve long advocated for digital, user-centered strategies, which are even more critical as brands look for ways to connect with socially-isolated consumers. We find that customer obsessed organizations (which we explore in-depth in our latest report) are better set up to reimagine what these connections can look like and execute them swiftly.

“Astute brands seize the power of digital and flex it to their categories’ unique need profiles to build experiences of irreplaceable value,” according to Dipanjan Chatterjee, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester, et al., in the report, “Generate Brand Energy With Digital Experiences: Engage, Excite, And Entangle Your Customer.” Focusing on user needs is vital for brands that want to maintain and improve their connection with consumers. By reinforcing native user behaviors and aligning them with brand values in a creative way, brands can offer relevant solutions that build an emotional impact.

Improve Connections by Fostering Interactions

In today’s changed landscape, brands can no longer rely on face-to-face interactions with their customers. “As we come to grips with a world where we can’t shortcut to experience through physical engagement and personal proximity, the challenge is to deliver on the original intent of digital,” says MediaMonks founder Wesley ter Haar. “Interactive, tactile and personalized moments of magic that create conversation, conversion and commercial opportunities.”

Spotify has exhibited these moments of magic since its start, by receiving, connecting, and interacting diverse social and cultural inputs from thousands of channels and content. One such event is Spotify’s recent digital-native take on musical award ceremonies, including a livestream around the world and via TV broadcast, awarding winners across 57 different categories chosen by user-driven data.

In the months leading up to the ceremony, fans were encouraged to promote their favorite artists and music on social media to boost their chances of winning. “Knowing that their behavior could have a real impact became an incentive for fans to help their favorite artist win by consuming their music on Spotify, whether it was by listening to their tracks, adding them to playlists or following them on the platform,” explains Alejandro Ortiz-Izquierdo, Creative Director at Circus, which merged with MediaMonks in January 2020. 

Tasked by Spotify to build the visual identity surrounding the show, the creative team led by Ortiz-Izquierdo and Alberto Guerra, used a data-driven approach as inspiration. Its main motif was the polygon, designed by connecting the top five streaming cities in Mexico, the regional focus of the show, together. Other polygons took shape by connecting the top streaming cities for different artists, resulting in a series of unique shapes used to develop graphic materials for all communications. “After this, we launched a personalized campaign that focused on celebrating the power of the fans through the data that they generated on Spotify,” says Ortiz-Izquierdo. “From the get-go, there was a great response from the users, with a lot of excitement, engagement and involvement. When we launched the awards, people actually campaigned for their artists.”

Users’ excitement to engage highlights an important part of meeting consumers’ needs in impactful, new ways: operating with transparency. With a focus on user-generated data at every level of the award show’s planning and visual design, listeners understood how their actions made impact. And it drove results, too: “With the event, the number of conversions to premium users grew; new users, streams, and general behavior on the platform increased from the moment we launched the list of finalists,” says Daniela González, Head of Digital Strategy at Circus.

There Are No Borders, Your Playground is Digital

In a world defined by globalization, digital platforms allow users to connect, engage and share with people all over the world, irrespective of nationalities, languages, or cultures––and this, in turn, helps them define their own identities and the communities with which they seek to connect. 

If brands want to connect with their target audience, especially with Gen Z, it’s vital for them to remain aware of how communities are built and redefined. This includes understating the new ways that younger consumers reshape the ways they gather, build identity and engage with brands, which is the focus of a recent whitepaper from IMA, our influencer activation team.

Social channels, in particular, have allowed people from different backgrounds and across the world to connect in virtual spaces, where they can congregate with others who share their interests, beliefs and values. But to recognize these interests and what truly resonates with audiences spread across the CDJ, brands must improve their digital maturity through smarter investments in personalization.

“Social media has become a true melting pot, where everyone and everything fits; interests, similarities and differences in culture, ethnicity or gender, as well as attitudes, personalities and values. Making room for all users to feel at home within a massively globalized world,” says Bruno Lambertini, Founder and CEO of Circus. 

The rate of hyperadoption, in which consumers quickly develop new behaviors, has picked up at a critical time when meeting consumers’ needs across the customer decision journey has become table stakes for brands. By recognizing and rewarding such behaviors through relevant channel strategies, brands better position themselves to bring diverse audiences together online ––and across the world.

In responding to any crisis, brands always run the risk of coming off as exploitative—even when they have good intentions. As ad plans become further disrupted and brands seek to refocus their strategies, there’s one piece of advice that they can take directly from consumers themselves: be helpful and stay true to your purpose.

Ad Age reports that in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, “77 percent of respondents expect their brands to be helpful in what has become ‘the new everyday life.’ Only 8 percent feel they should stop advertising.” This finding drives home just how important customer obsession is in supporting audiences, a theme that’s explored in-depth in our report, (Re)Activate Customer Obsession.

The report notes, “We’ll look back on this moment as a time in which brands have realized the value in living up to their commitment to service, finding ways to build impact and provide comfort to their customers. This is the recipe for customer obsession—in which an organization ‘focuses its strategy and its budget on the technologies, systems and processes that win, serve and retain customers,’ as defined by Forrester.”

The sentiment echoes what MediaMonks’ APAC VP Growth Tobias Wilson wrote over at Campaign Asia: “The psychographic profiles of your consumers … have also changed—so make sure that you’re obsessing over your customers (mindsets and situation) first and foremost, not thinking about how your marketing plans have been disrupted and how much of a pain that is.” But what does that look like? Below, we examine a handful of brands that have answered the call by serving consumers’ needs within a “new normal.”

Google Arts & Culture’s Virtual Museum Tours

Museums have shuttered their doors to support social distancing, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore some of the world’s best collections from home. Using the same technology that powers Street View on Google Maps, you can take your own personal tour through the hallowed halls of the museums—a refreshingly futuristic way to discover and observe artifacts from across human history. It’s worth noting that Google Arts & Culture has offered such tours for years, though social distancing has prompted a resurgence in interest in the platform.

Digitized collections help reinforce the reason why many of these institutions exist: to help patrons connect with history and culture. This goal powered our redesign and launch of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website, which collects stories and digitized artifacts related to more than 300 inductees. Focused on content exploration and discovery, the platform demonstrates the museum’s dedication to “to engage, teach and inspire through the power of rock and roll” in a time where digital has proven essential to social connection.

Pernod-Ricard and Other Distilleries Produce Hand Sanitizer

Famed liquor brand Pernod-Ricard has shifted its factories to produce and bottle hand sanitizer for FEMA. The frenzy to buy hand sanitizer had become a meme in the earlier days of the COVID-19 spread across the US, but has become more troubling as governments have faced shortages. The move shows that Pernod-Ricard is willing to pull out all the stops to mobilize at speed and skill to meet important needs, regardless of profitability—sticking true to its values to “live together, better.”

Snapchat Drops its “Here for You” Feature Early

Originally scheduled to release in April, Snapchat dropped its “Hear for You” feature on March 19. The tool surfaces up mental health content for users who search for terms related to anxiety, depression, suicide or bullying—and it’s easy to see how many users’ anxieties have ramped up in the past couple of months.

As a brand, Snap is dedicated to “empowering people to express themselves, live in the moment, learn about the world and have fun together,” a mission that the brand has interpreted in surprising ways. Speaking to The Verge, a Snap spokesperson explained how that sense of connectivity and community informed the tool’s development: “Here For You was informed by studies that show that connecting with friends, whether in person or online is often the best defense against feelings of loneliness and anxiety.” By quickly pushing the feature before its scheduled release, the move follows the advice of Michel de Rijk, APAC CEO of S4Capital, that “in times like this, it’s more about speed than accuracy.”

Facebook Offers Tools for Small Business

Among those hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic are small businesses. In addition to offering a new section of its app that keeps general users informed about COVID-19, Facebook launched its Business Resource Hub, offering tools and resources for brands to keep connected with their customers or facilitate remote working, including a Small Business Resilience Toolkit to prepare—and bounce back from—a crisis. Facebook also unveiled a $100 million grant program to further support small businesses.

In 2017, Facebook changed its mission statement to “bring the world together.” While people are physically distancing themselves, many small businesses continue to operate as essential pillars of their respective communities. By helping them keep the lights on, keep their employees supported and keep the world moving, Facebook continues to serve that mission.

While this moment in time has been difficult for many people in different ways, it’s inspiring to see brands step up to wield their platforms and influence for social good. By placing people first—whether customers or employees—and finding new ways to embody their purpose, brands can instill goodwill and continue to support their consumers when it’s needed the most.

Put your plan in action to better serve customers.

With social distancing taking hold around the world, people are turning toward screens and machines now more than ever for connection, comfort and entertainment. Despite this unprecedented opportunity to connect directly with consumers through content, many brands feel hampered by those same social distancing policies, which limit their ability to produce content.

Whether stuck working at home or seeking a partner somewhere in the world who can safely secure a shooting location, there’s never been a more necessary time for speed, quality and value. Thankfully, even if mobility and personnel are seriously limited, you can still strategize around offering impactful content with just a single room, a single actor and a smart media plan, which was the recipe used for our Northgate Market Super Bowl campaign.

We’re confident that resourceful brands of any size can likewise generate high-quality content under great restraint, including at home. Below are just a handful of ways that they can do so, either by themselves or with the guidance of a creative and production partner.

Considerations for Shooting at Home

Livestreaming is a relatively simple alternative for brands seeking to build an authentic, transparent connection to those at home. In fact, TV broadcasters around the world have begun livestreaming their reportage from home offices, sometimes even with a pet in tow. While livestreaming is great for maintaining a connection with audiences, brands should pay special care toward having the necessary equipment setup—even for the simplest of livestreamed experiences.

“Livestreaming has a lot better value than most people think,” says Lewis Smithingham, Director of Creative Solutions at MediaMonks. “But while people don’t need satellite, giant server farms or origin servers, it’s worth asking yourself: what happens if I lose my feed, if my kid kicks out my power cable, or the dishwasher blows a fuse?” Anticipating hiccups like these in a professional context becomes especially imperative given the fact that networks are under strain while millions of people work from home or stream content simultaneously.

Partnering with an influencer can mitigate some of these concerns: they offer that same penchant for authenticity and are well-experienced when it comes to connecting with fans at home. The more casual atmosphere of an influencer speaking directly to their close audience can also ease worry about a momentary loss of connection. In addition, content creators are adept at producing first-rate content at home without the need for having a director “on set” to achieve quality, having all of the equipment on-hand that they need.

And speaking of equipment for producing traditional video: while rental houses may still be open in some parts of the world, you can never be too certain when situations change overnight. This is where there’s still value in leaning on a global partner who can zero in and identify regions that safely and securely enable production.

But a safer bet would be to simply use your smartphone, if nothing else is readily available. Their cameras have become so advanced that any flagship phone is likely to offer a professional-grade output. (If you don’t believe us, have a look at any of these films shot on smartphones.)  That said, different teams using different devices can lead to compatibility issues; for example, some phones might be more difficult to export to post than others due to differences in file type or software compatibility.

Can’t Shoot Anything New? Easily Refresh Existing Assets Instead

This moment offers an opportunity for brands to really get creative and think more agile in terms of content production—and one of the simplest ways to do so is by refreshing or optimizing existing content in a way that quickly results in relevant assets at scale. We’ve taken a similar approach in transforming a handful of existing assets into a social awareness campaign that grew more effective week after week, using performance metrics to continually optimize and drill deeper into audience segments.

This same method could be incredibly useful for brands who must reassess a content strategy, optimizing it to better reach consumers at home via digital channels. When high-quality stock video is added to the mix, you can keep your creative content current by translating the brand narrative to different contexts with the footage available.

But a more unique way to refresh existing content and offer something new is through animation. There are a handful of different techniques used by our global animation team to produce animations for brands, two of which work well with existing assets: the cut-out technique, which animates flat assets and backgrounds, or 2D motion graphics. Both of these methods are highly scalable, adaptable and fast to produce, making it easier to squeeze value or quickly iterate new content when needed.

Innovate with Entirely New Ways to Shoot

Before social distancing, a lot of businesses balked at the thought of remote work—and most of them probably discovered they can remain just as productive from afar after all. The same can be said for shoots on set; consider having a production team—with minimal personnel to ensure regional safety regulations—overseen by your team via livestream, as if you were there in-person. A team distributed across the globe can help identify where and when these opportunities are possible, ensuring they’re executed with safety and security in mind.

Those with bigger expectations in mind can take a cue from game engines. “If I were a camera operator, I’d be learning how to operate a camera virtually,” says Smithingham. “Do an activation within an online game. There are ways around this and do shoots virtually; if you look at The Mandalorian, the whole thing was shot in one room. Brands can lean into that and do wild and crazy stuff.”

Content shot within a virtual space would certainly challenge brands to rethink their content production strategy. But it could also help them be seen as innovators—and become more relevant at a critical moment: interest in videogames has spiked in the past few weeks as a means of entertainment and gathering with friends virtually.

By marrying together a technical and creative mindset, brands can find the most effective and accessible solutions to generating content while working from home. “We don’t think anything is impossible,” says Smithingham. “From ensuring livestreams don’t miss a beat to connecting with content creators who have high-end tools in house already, any challenge is doable or fixable.”

There are more ways to (Re)Activate Customer Obsession.