Skype is for more than just keeping in touch with your grandmother
As Yarn continued to really grow last summer, we started getting approached by Brands looking to see if we could write them into some of our stories. The word “authentic” gets overused in content marketing & branded entertainment, but our gut reaction was, that as long as the Brand fit the storyline, why wouldn’t we include it?
Enter Skype.
At the end of August, I was introduced to Steven Abrahams, who leads Product Partnerships at Skype. He was curious to know if we were open to writing stories around how people use Skype. I was intrigued at first, to be honest, because I am a huge Skype fan going way back and was interested to hear how they are fighting back against new competitors like Facetime.
Having spent 6 years at Shazam, I felt a bit of a kinship with what started as a plucky upstart, but had become a globally beloved brand, that turned into a verb, only to realize it had to continually fight for relevancy as massive companies were embedding similar technology into products making the stand alone alternative potentially not needed.
Steven described to me how Skype had recently undergone a transformation from just a utility to more of a consumer app. I told him my history with Skype- about how I used to use it all the time, but as Facetime launched on the iPhone, I found myself using Skype less often. He said that was a typical story they hear- but that there were still plenty of people using Skype, they were just using it in different ways.
For instance, it has become a popular way to go on a first date. Many couples will meet on Twitter, exchange some DMs, then take it to the next level by exchanging Skype handles and doing a video date. Many people also use Skype to interview for jobs, especially when they need to connect with distant offices.
In the course of our conversation, Steven also mentioned in passing that Skype now had group calling. I immediately blurted out “I didn’t even know that!” and it became clear that we could help Skype inform people about these new features, all in a very natural way by integrating them into Yarn stories.
Social Norming
We agreed it was very important to write the stories around how people use Skype in a natural way. But we wanted to experiment and learn together about how a Brand can work their marketing messages into a txt message story. Our team calls this “social norming”, and by showing the product & features being used naturally, readers are more likely to utilize it if it appeals to them too.
We briefed our Creative Team, and our brilliant VP of Content, Talia Kocar, came up with 3 concepts for new story franchises that organically utilized the Skype features as part of the story. After a few chats with Skype’s creative team, we fine tuned the stories, and agreed to launch 3 concepts:
Mom’s Secret
Two siblings, Delilah and Dustin, are faced with a terrifying discovery in their own home that cause them to question who their parents really are. The story follows along as both children try to uncover secrets of their parents dark past and how it may be linked to news of a missing woman in their neighborhood.
How Skype is incorporated
The siblings uncover what they think to be their parents dark secret by communicating via Yarn Skype calls and sharing videos and images through Skype’s branded features.
Still Searching
Amy has just graduated from a great college with an impressive degree and is excited to take the working world by storm. Unfortunately, the job market isn’t as welcoming as she had anticipated. After a series of disastrous interviews, Amy is faced with the harsh reality that landing a job isn’t as easy as she thought it would be. She is forced to face the “real world” and get a job or be doomed to live with her parents.
How Skype is incorporated
From Skype group video & conference calls, to video/image Highlights and many more Skype features, we follow the main character on all the obstacles she’s presented with during her job search.
Disaster Ever After
It’s the week before Faith’s big day, and Maid-of-Honor Kailah, is doing her best to ensure her sister’s destination wedding goes off without a hitch. The problem is, the rest of the family seems to be doing everything they can to make things difficult. Tensions reach an all time high as Dad’s attention-seeking girlfriend and an impending hurricane derail Faith’s perfect wedding plans.
How Skype is incorporated
Integrating the Skype feature set throughout the storyline between characters of all ages helps highlight the universal appeal and accessibility of the Skype product across different demos.
If A Brand Is Included, Can A Story Still Be Great?
In my professional career, I have never seen a Creative team as willing to naturally incorporate Brands into content as our team here at Mammoth. It has to be a good story, but if a Brand makes sense as part of a story, not only do they tolerate it and include it- they actually embrace it.
Then we had to figure out some benchmarks we could guarantee Skype would receive for their investment. We agreed on a certain number of unique engaged readers who saw one of the Skype stories as well as a certain number of clicks from an incentivized video Skype ad.
The 1st story launched in December, with the 2nd & 3rd subsequent months after that. In that time, there were over 5.8 million total views of the Skype stories, and there were just shy of 7 million views of the Skype branded interactions within those stories. We also included Skype video ads as part of the partnership, and those got a whopping 6.29% CTR. These easily surpassed the benchmarks we had laid out, which made us very happy our readers embraced the Skype stories. Proving one of our original thesis points- that as long as it’s a great story, readers won’t be turned off because there is a Brand in the story.
Steven was kind enough to mention — “This partnership with Mammoth allows Skype to deliver new and interesting consumer experiences to engage with Skype in a popular new storytelling medium enjoyed by a broad range of audiences.”
This is all well and good, and we were happy so many people read the Skype stories- but did it accomplish our larger goal of getting people to use Skype more? We conducted some recall surveys to find out. We were blown away to find out that people who read the Skype story were 30% more likely to use Skype in the next month. Also, they were 10% more aware of Skype’s new “group chat” feature.
We love breaking new ground with partners. Integrating a massive global brand like Skype into a txt storytelling app was a unique challenge that we were excited to take on. Now that we have the results, we’re excited to see what Yarn can do with other brands that naturally fit into our stories!
