Integrated

#comeonin

Sydney Opera House

Issue 39 | June 2016

Agency

DDB Sydney

Creative Team

Chief Creative Officer, DDB Group Toby Talbot Creative Partner, DDB Group Peter Galmes, Creative Technology Director, DDB Group Shaun O’Connor Art Director, DDB Sydney Trong Ronakiat Copywriter, DDB Sydney Shane Geffen

Production Team

Executive Producer, DDB Group Sora Nobari Head of Integrated Content, DDB Sydney Sevda Cemo Producer, DDB Sydney Anna Wright-Hands Production Co-ordinator DDB Sydney Isabella Harris Content Director DDB Sydney Robert Crispe DOP/Editor DDB Sydney Fraser Kelton Sound Engineer, DDB Sydney Danny Grifoni

Other Credits

Sydney Opera House Chief Marketing Officer Anna Reid Lead Campaign Manager Kate Kenna Strategy, Planning and Media Manager Nicolas Gronier Campaign Manager, Visitor Experience Casey Rogers Marketing Coordinator Kate Courtenay Digital Content and Social Media specialist Holly Jain Managing Director, DDB Sydney Nicole Taylor Managing Partner, DDB Sydney Mandy Whatson Director of Planning, DDB Sydney Fran Clayton CEO, Interbrand Kieren Cooney Head of Corporate Brand Mango Sydney Tina Alldis Account Director Mango Sydney Alyce Cowan Account Manager Mango Sydney Lauren Mason

Date

January 2016

Background

Everybody who had ever been to Australia had dozens of snaps of the Sydney Opera House. It was one of the most pictured, Instagrammed architectural icons of the world.

But of the 8.2m people who visited the site every year, only a small minority – 1% – actually went inside. The challenge was to find a way to turn the snappers into visitors.

Idea

The insight was that most people had no idea about what they could do inside. So, customised geo-location software was built to monitor Instagram posts. Within minutes of a tourist posting a photo of the building, a mobile-response team shot and shared a personalised video inviting them to #comeonin in to try on the costumes, share a sound check with an artist or take a behind-the-scenes tour.

Their experiences inside were filmed, and the tourists invited to re-share them on Instagram, thus spreading the word.

Results

The project ran for four weeks in January, with 126 unsuspecting Instagrammers invited in for their personalised visit. During this time, over 5m people got to peek inside the Opera House.

Total impressions hit 17m, of which 2m were social, 1.8m with influencers and 13.9m generated by PR.

Our Thoughts

This is just a really clever, simple idea using the core of the problem – everybody takes a picture but no-one goes in – into an opportunity.

Its secret is that it plays to the strengths of Instagram (and most other social platforms): hyper-localisation, real (or near real)-time responses, and personalisation.

But it also highlights that, if you want to play with social media, it's got to be a collaborative effort. DDB Sydney couldn't have pulled this off without creative technologists, data analysts and the staff inside the Opera House.

If I had one doubt about this campaign (that there's an element of creepiness about the response tagging) it has been banished. The truth is, when it's fun and rewarding, people don't mind.