Branded content is an emerging discipline in Australia. Most marketers are making TV ads and calling them content. Telstra wanted 2nd Chance Song to be an example of branded content best practice, relying on the shareability of the content and digital distribution.

Telstra, Australia’s largest telco, were struggling to connect with young people. Aggressive competition and a perception that they were old fashioned were hurting the brand. So they asked us to help them reconnect with young consumers through music, one of their key marketing pillars.

Looking into the history of Australian music, we realised that while some average songs made it to the top of the charts some great ones never got the recognition they deserved. Knowing this, we decided to give one underrated song a second chance.

A team of music experts dug through a back catalogue of Aussie songs. We discovered ‘Don’t You Think It’s Time’, a song that launched the solo career of Aussie music icon, Bob Evans, but only got to No.22 on the charts. To give this song the second chance it deserved, we set about making it the most covered song in Australia.

Knowing we needed to reach young consumers, we decided on a digital and content-led approach, which was a first for Telstra. We chose some of Australia’s most respected and socially connected musicians to kick things off. Megan Washington, Luke and Katy Steele, Illy and Sheppard all released versions of the song. Next, we invited YouTube content creators to get involved, spreading the concept to hundreds of thousands of followers. For a relatively small budget, this gave us massive reach and credibility with our target market.

Media partnerships with music websites and an interactive YouTube Masthead drove people to the landing page. There, aspiring musicians were given all the tools they needed to create their own covers. For music fans that were unlikely to create music, we made sure discovery was as easy as possible. YouTube playlists and annotated end frames on YouTube videos allowed them to spend time exploring the campaign.

The content exceeded all targets for engagement and sharing. Over 99% of the comments about the campaign on social media were positive which is a huge result for Telstra, who are normally the target of complaints online. The campaign scored high on likeability (85%) and impression (86%), against a target of 65%.

The average time on site was well above target, which was a great sign that fans were enjoying the content. A further indication came from the thousands of YouTube views that were driven through annotated end frames at the end of our content.

Social posts achieved click through rates as high as 4.63% compared to the average 0.82%, which is unheard of for Telstra.

Perhaps the best validation of our content was that we got people talking. One in five people that saw the campaign spoke about it with friends and family or shared it online.

2nd Chance Song was a resounding success. In just three weeks over 350,000 music fans visited the website and the equivalent of 621 days of video was watched.

The public voted for their favourite cover and EMI Music Australia professionally recorded the winning version. EMI even filmed a music video for the winner. This proved to be a great PR story, earning coverage in Australia’s largest news publications, popular morning TV shows and music websites.

We created genuine conversation. One in five young people that saw the campaign spoke about it with friends or shared it online.

The campaign generated over 3.2 million YouTube views during the campaign period alone. This was double the campaign target and more views than any top rating music program on TV this year.

As a direct result of the campaign, young consumers’ likelihood to consider Telstra jumped by 77%. More importantly, they are now 14% more likely to recommend Telstra products to their friends.

2nd Chance Song is a pure branded content play. We worked with content creators on a number of levels to give an underrated song a second chance, including the original songwriter, famous local music acts and YouTube musicians.

We encouraged the public to help by submitting their own covers of the song. These were popular in their own right, with a number of the covers generating over 50k views on YouTube.

In total, we created 30 videos, 21 radio ads, 60 digital assets and 50 pieces of social content. The content ranged from Bob Evans teaching fans how he plays his song to a professional music video for the winning user-submitted cover.

All this meant there were over 621 days of Telstra branded YouTube content watched and most importantly, young people are now 77% more likely to consider Telstra.