I’m a big fan of Instagram these days (I post there more often than Facebook, and even used it to find a photographer for some family portraits) but haven’t been impressed with with way brands are using it (Nike and a few other sports brands aside).
However, Smirnoff New Zealand made excellent use of the photo-sharing service throughout December with their #PurePotential campaign.
The gist of the idea was that Smirnoff NZ asked users to take a picture of the ingredients in their fridge, tagging the photo @SmirnoffNZ and #PurePotential and that the brand would give them a recipe for a vodka-based drink they could make with the ingredients. These recipes came in the form of high-quality videos, perfectly sized and paced for Instagram.
As far as I can tell, they responded to almost every single one of the fridge images that Kiwis uploaded (including this one of my very bare fridge).
It worked well by taking advantage of that fact that user’s are used to giving their followers an intimate look at their lives using photos on Instagram.
It wasn’t just a social campaign, either. They had out of home ads (billboards, bus shelters, wild postings) throughout Auckland (and, I presume, New Zealand) related to the campaign, driving to Instagram and pushing the "Pure Potential" message.
PS: I’ve been impressed with a lot of the advertising work I’ve seen from New Zealand since I moved to Auckland a few months ago, and I’ll try and share more of it when I can.
