The ROI of Reality

Energy company E.ON’s YouTube reality show challenged an ordinary Swedish family with energy-saving missions – and got E.ON customers in the country to reduce their energy use by 14.5%. “This is the kind of piece that really pulls you in,” said Eurobest Juror Dora Osinde, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy Germany. “Doing long-form content on social isn't easy. But if it’s a really good story, people will spend time on it.”

IKEA used the reality show format as a creative before-and-after, challenging Gen Zers to survive in a typical ‘90s home with no flatpack furniture. This was an entertaining way to demonstrate the impact of a ubiquitous brand: it gave Spain an opportunity to reassess what it truly loved about IKEA and increased product sales by 169%.

Smartphone payment app Mercado Pago partnered with reality TV show Big Brother to explain its investment feature in an accessible way. By investing the show’s final prize pot in the Mercado Pago app and having the show’s host provide weekly updates, it showed how to supercharge a product demo to make it entertaining. It resulted in the highest number of investments ever made and increased app traffic by 28%.

Proving that seniors have a place on prime-time TV, health insurer Triple-S launched the first reality TV singing competition exclusively for over-65s. The contest generated more than 18m media impressions and attracted viewers of all ages, demonstrating how diversifying the format can build brand affinity with different audiences.

Streaming platform Hulu wanted to show off its diverse roster of reality shows. So it threw a party filled with all the biggest reality stars from different networks – and filmed it. As with any good reality TV gathering, chaos ensued, and Hulu used the juiciest moments as media. The footage achieved 131m social media impressions in four weeks, showing how to bring together popular personalities to create buzzworthy moments.

Also mixing elements from different shows was male grooming brand Old Spice. In a series of far-fetched challenges, contestants competed to become the greatest fashion–cook–singer–entrepreneur–artist–mechanic–designer in Brazil. Old Spice reached 31 million people, demonstrating how to combine different shows to come up with a niche format.

Helsinki airport’s #LIFEINHEL social media series followed Chinese influencer Ryan Zhu as he moved into the airport for a month. It achieved more than 2.27bn impressions – 81.4% of which were from China – showing how a popular personality can help engage another market. The content served a double purpose, too, with Ryan’s feedback being used as research for potential changes to the airport for Chinese customers.