IN-DEPTH CASE STUDIES
MICHAEL REEVES, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR AT RED BEE
something they want to come to. This is the holy grail for brands: that people search you out to spend time with you because it’s fun.”
HERE WE ARE NOW… With that in mind, Red Bee have a framework in place designed to reflect customer experience. “The first point to make when you’re
creating content is that it has to be either useful or entertaining. Now, that might sound obvious, but people forget about it. If the primary purpose of your content is neither of those things, simply do not do it . At the start of every project ask yourself, ‘Would my audience want to watch it, and why?’ Under those two broad headings— usefulness and entertainment—Reeves identifies three further factors. Useful content provides users with the information they need when they’re in a position to act. Content that establishes a brand’s authority—‘how-to’ guides and product reviews—build trust and generate a sense of closeness between the brand and its audience. “But if you want to be liked, loved and discovered, particularly in the realms of social video, you need to entertain.” This was the strategy underpinning
Red Bee’s work with Halfords, who were keen to supplement a wealth of useful, trusted video content about cycling with something more playful and engaging in tone.
RIDING THE CONTENT CYCLE As a bike retailer, the Tour de France looms large in the Halfords calendar. Interest in cycling is high and the brand’s audience is ready to receive relevant information. Throwing a spanner in the spokes, however, is the fact that Halfords are not among the event’s sponsors. That puts certain terms out of reach: the brand can’t capitalise on the event’s name or associated imagery. “They couldn’t say ‘tour,’ ‘France’ or do anything particularly yellow, so it was all
their content team. “Content fits into the customer
about the outlook,” says Reeves. “The cycling community were delving into Halfords’ YouTube channel, but the brand wasn’t really reaching any casual buyers. We had to do something that would go beyond the normal community at the time of the Tour.” Enter a character called the Bike
Whisperer of Halfords. Played by Canadian comedian Tony Law, the Bike Whisperer possesses mysterious healing powers and communicates with machines via their bells. A series of films were shot in which he gently
experience strategy. The PR team, the social media team, the website team and the people who work on customer experience in-store all fit together in one team. Everything is linked up.” Halfords also hired their own in-house team of videographers, editors, a social media planner and a studio manager, with the option of bringing in additional help as required. A content calendar was put in place and built around the audience’s interests and schedule. The brand has also looked for easy efficiencies: a workshop in Halfords’ Maidenhead HQ serves as a studio and if it looks authentically bike-focussed, that’s because it is. Presenters are drawn from Halfords’ own staff, which means the brand is harnessing the enthusiasm and knowledge of the people already working for them.
At the start of every project ask yourself, would my audience want to watch it, and why?
freaked out real Halfords customers with his finely tuned sense of cycle psychology. Funny, sharable and cleverly calibrated to generate warmth for the brand, the Bike Whisperer embodied the brand’s dedication to service and provided the Halfords’ audience with something inherently fun to watch. The videos received a raft of enthusiastic press coverage as well as 800,000 views on YouTube, equivalent to two years of watch time. Half of those views were earned organically and Halfords saw a 13.7 per cent increase in digital sales year on year. Red Bee created eight of the brand’s
300 pieces of video content last year and provided insight and advice on the broader strategy. Key to the ongoing success of that strategy, says Reeves, has been the way Halfords structure
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The project was not, however, without risk. “Halfords had never done anything like the Bike Whisperer before,” says Reeves. “They’d never done anything that was pure entertainment. In the past they’d looked for an exact ROI on their content. Here the ROI was more long- term—it was about building brand associations.” So, successful video content is
grounded in what your audience wants, and has to cover a spectrum of responses—prompting people to act, building trust and generating genuine affection. As video evolves into the principle vehicle for information online, it’ll become incumbent on brands to draw users towards them and create their own digital watercooler moments. Telling the long tale, after all, is what it’s all about.
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