Conversations over drinks have their own personality, and this is felt in the casual way people approach even the most unpleasant experiences in such a context. For the few admins of the Apollo111 page, the inbox of private messages gradually became, besides its strictly functional role, an informal community platform. Unlike the classic story – the brand communicates something to consumers – many people, each individually, were looking to have some interaction with the brand: asking for information and favors, providing feedback, offering suggestions, or getting involved.
“This is the insight from which the strategists and creatives at Rusu+Borțun Cyber Growers agency started in creating the #aboutlastnights campaign for Apollo 111 Bar & Terrace, the first local campaign with private messages turned into memes. Thus, they aimed to bring private messages out of anonymity and formalize the community created in the so-called underground of the Apollo 111 brand. To offer a little behind-the-scenes preview, based on user-generated content.
‘Following the community building trend in digital, the freshness of our approach comes from the process chronology. We followed the path: from private message to meme. While most brands work first to get content from users and secondly to generate conversations and build communities, we used already existing user content and transformed it into memes, obviously without disclosing the name of the message author,’ said Miruna Macsoda (Managing Director of Rusu+Borțun Cyber Growers).
Conversations began to appear as the authors claimed their private messages and slowly, the community began to organically surface. #aboutlastnights started on July 3, and so far, 22 messages have been posted. The reactions have been surprising, with the campaign being well received by both the target audience and the specialized press.
Unlike other digital campaigns, however, there is no set deadline for its end, because the community doesn’t end, it exists.
‘As for performance indicators, so far, the posts that went viral have brought us new followers, but at the same time, we were happy that the core of the new engagement happened within the existing follower community. The organic reach per post has increased by 3.5 times, and the number of reactions per post by 5 times. The countless ‘haha’ emoticons were a clear sign that people had fun, and since Apollo111 is a brand for going out, it’s a sign that we are doing our job well,’ added Miruna Macsoda.
The teams that created the campaign include: Liviu Baciu, Ennifer Anefi, Lucian Sora, Miruna Macsoda, and Cătălin Rusu from Rusu+Borțun Cyber Growers and Bogdan Dumitrache from Apollo111.”
