2012 module

This module is about Public Relations and social media.

The project – D&AD New Blood Awards

This group assignment/ project is about creating a PR and Social Media campaign strategy as part of the D&AD New Blood Awards submission.

First what we had to do as the group was to choose between Top Trumps and Walkers brands. As we considered both brands and had ideas for them, it was not that easy to choose one. 

For the Walkers brand, we had an idea of ‘ mystery flavour ‘ or a ‘ happy taste ‘. The mystery flavours of the Walkers would be from the ingredients which spike your dopamine levels (happiness hormone). The slogan for this campaign would be ‘ Sharing walkers= sharing emotions ‘. The brief says that this campaign has to be related to wellbeing and breaking down the ‘ I’m fine’ automatic response. For this reason, we thought that the campaign should show the way to share emotions more easily. 

For Top Trumps, we discussed the possibility of renewing their social media accounts. As the brief says that they want to reach the audience of young adults (18 -25 y. o), we had the idea to reach the audience through the social media platforms such as Tik Tok and Instagram. These platforms are the most used for that age group. 

So after some more discussion, we decided to work on the Top Trumps campaign. 

Research – Social Blade

I researched the Top Trumps social media using the website called Social Blade.

Social Blade collects data from social media platforms, such as YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and Instagram. It uses that data to make statistical graphs and charts that track progress and growth. It presents the stats of uploaded posts, followers fluctuations and so on.

So I took a look at Instagram and Twitter statistics, and I paid attention to followers fluctuation the most. This is what I found out about Instagram and Twitter.

So, the followers’ fluctuation has been similar in the past years. Just in January 2020 was a large increase and decrease of followers. From Instagram posts at that particular time, the growth might be due to their participation in London Toy Fair.

However, I could not find any information about TikTok as they do not have their account there, and about Youtube.

In the third week’s session, my group members and I did a mind map with all the ideas that came to our minds about the Top Trumps project.

The audience we are focusing on is young adults (18-25 y. o.) who spend much time on social media and are interested in pop culture and trends.

At this moment, our main idea is to focus on social media platforms, mainly Tik Tok and Instagram. For Tik Tok, we plan to create trendy, humour based videos. For Instagram, come up with new promotions ways and try to do it by ourselves by creating a fake (private) Instagram account as it would be more realistic.

To understand our audience better and how familiar they are with Top Trumps, we created a survey and posted it on our Instagrams asking our followers to participate in it. Since we have international friends, Instagram is the best platform for it.

Also, we have ideas for new topics for cards, such as vines or memes. From our perspectives, we see these themes related to our visions and that we would be interested in.

One of our ideas is to create cards with memes. We chose the meme topic as memes are popular among 18-25 years old. People who feel relevant or like the meme are more likely to share or get involved. As the Top Trumps have the feature to create customised cards, we created our own.

We all together found the meme images that seemed the most known for us so that the three of us would know the meme. My task was to create the cover of the cards and the background.

For the cover of the card, I used some memes that were used for the cards, put them together, and harmonised the colours. The ‘TOP TRUMPS’ headline is one of what other Top Trumps cards have, and I matched the font of that ‘MEME EDITION’ line to have a similarity with the headline.

The background is a gradient of two colours: blue and green. I chose these colours because they vary in the cover image. However, when we received the physical cards, these colours looked a little too bright than they looked on the screen.

My idea for the first post on Instagram was to show a little of what cards will look like. However, for the announcement post, I did not want to show all the designs of the cards. So, I thought to show just the cover. I chose a yellow background to reflect the cards, and at the same time, ‘Top Trumps’ is in yellow.

Caption:

Miss Top Trumps? Or do you remember playing the game as a child but feel like you’ve grown out of it? Well, don’t worry! Top Trumps, new “meme” edition coming out on dd\mm\year. Consisting of the most popular and exciting memes of the decade. Mark your calendars!

It was quite a challenge to take the picture. Since it was my idea, I had to make it. First of all, the image in my head looks differently compared with what shots I take. The reason is that I do not have good shooting skills, and my colleges too. Also, even though I took many pictures, there were just a few proper ones, so I chose from what I had.

Challenge

Edelman’s social media research in 2018 showed that people trust brands more if they interact with clients. So, social media platforms are good to communicate with customers as one of our strategies is a challenge on Instagram. The challenge is to re-create a person’s favourite meme and post it in their story using the hashtag #memesfortoptrumps. The winner of most creative recreation would win ..£ voucher and a deck of meme cards.

As the brief requires an idea of how to engage the targeted audience who might not be able to engage with the cards in person, the challenge is the solution. Also, it would show that the Top Trumps is interested and care about their audience. That would increase the trust of the brands, and the audience would trust them more.

The link to Edelman Trust Barometer https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2018-10/2018_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Brands_Social.pdf