The brief requires an digital marketing strategy that effectively taps into the emergence of new platforms,

technologies and applications that facilitate people’s ability to make social connections.

It needs to generate hype and conversation around its innovation, whilst positioning V as the coolest energy

brand that is the catalyst of unexpected and memorable social experiences.

Duration:

One year

Budget:

$1,000,000

Target Audience:

18 – 24 year old energy seekers

The energy drink market has grown from 1.1% to 13.7% of the total

beverage market over the past ten years, accounting for approximately

$500 Million in yearly sales.

V has a 53% of market share in Australia with Red Bull as the major

competitor holding 41% of market share.

Despite a consistent growth in volume sold since 2001, the energy drink

market has seen a stall in revenue growth in 2011*.

* Source: Nielsen Topline Review, August 2011

In 2011, V spent $6,367,000 on advertising across the board, with only 5% of that

($321K) online*.

The plateau in 2011 sales can be linked back to limited new information being

communicated about energy drinks to the public.

Where energy drinks were once a new and exciting product, they are now everyday

products. This is reflected by an 84% growth in the grocery sales category over the

past year**.

The need for advertising stems from the image of the energy drink brand in general,

and to continue revenue growth V must position itself as still being a cutting edge

product that is growing in interest and innovation with the times.

* Source: Adquest Millennium July 2010 – June 2011 ** Source: Nielsen Topline Review, August 2011

• Create interest for the brand and what it offers consumers

• Inspire people within the target audience to interact with

the brand in a positive manner

• Motivate purchase intent through the activity surrounding

the brand

• Shift the perception of the brand amongst 18 – 24 year

old energy seekers to becoming the facilitator of fun, social

and memorable experiences

After much comprehensive research into the target audience of 18 – 24 year old energy seekers that included living

as one of the people in questions for six years up until five and a half moths ago, and climaxing in seventy-five

surveys to gain a genuine insight into the category (yes, I was ‘that guy’ up the back of the Big Day Out with a

clipboard and pen), I had an epiphany into what this stage of life is all about:

• Life from 18 – 24 is all about beginnings and endings

- They end high school, they begin university, they begin their first serious relationship, the end their

first serious relationship, the end their university degree, the begin their career, they have their first

existential crisis and they end their career, they begin traveling, they end their travels, they turn 25.

• The other insight that came out of the research is that they will often start on a path (whether career, uni, travel,

etc.) without any clear plan of where it will lead them. They just start it because it’s what they want to do!

• There is one overwhelming constant that remains unchanged throughout all of these crazy times: they always

make time to have fun with their friends.

With the above insight in mind, V will run multiple online campaigns

around the theme of starting amazing adventures / social experiences

without any clear direction of where they will take you.

The one constant across the experiences is that they will be social,

and you will take friends with you as well as meet new ones along the

way!

The rationale behind this is that if your audience can feel an

emotional, even nostalgic connection with the brand, they will have

the brand in mind when engaging in behaviour indicative of the V

Social campaign.

This campaign aligns with V’s current slogan: It all starts with V, only it

is now being taken the a new level for 2012, adding: …But where will

it end?

It all starts with V

But where will it end?

Take the ride

Buy the ticket.

Imagine that you fit the above profile and psyche of an energy-seeking 18 – 24 year old.

Imagine if there was a way to align all of your social activities, interests, friends and upcoming plans into the one

simple, synchronized schedule that fitted around whatever you want to do, wherever you wanted to be, and with

whoever you wanted to do it with.

Or even better, a system that creates all of your upcoming plans (whether social, business, travel, etc.) around your

own interests, schedule, personality, friends, location and wealth, without you needing to make any effort of your

own. A system that takes all the above factors into account and generates the perfect recommendation of what you

are doing with your life in the crazily busy, constantly changing, upcoming months.

If such a platform existed, you would never need to worry about missing a social opportunity. You would just need

to be prepared to seize them!

V could be the facilitator of this social processor. Best of all, it is ran entirely with the sole purpose of achieving V’s

marketing objectives of interaction, interest, purchase intent and a brand perception shift. PRESENTING…..

THE V ENERGY DREAM MACHINE (or alternatively something less cheesy)

This is a micro site that calibrates all of the information from a user’s relevant social networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,

Google+, Tumblr, etc.) as well as all relevant information that they submit to the site itself (upcoming travel plans, industry

category of work, festivals to attend, favourite console games, etc.) with the information and plans of all their friends across the

social platforms.

The site is embedded with a timeline of upcoming events that synchronizes the relevant information of all of their friends who

align with their plans and generates a ‘social calendar’ that filters the awesome adventures and social experiences that they

have the opportunity to begin.

The user journey is as simple as landing on the site, submitting as much or as little information as they’d like, linking how ever

many social networks they’d like, and generating awesome upcoming social experiences as far ahead as they wish to plan.

Want to know a cool adventure to start today? No worries, it will be generated. Want to know a cool adventure to embark on in

the next week, month, year? V will tell them where to begin it. They simply decide where it goes.

+ Personal

Information

The V Energy Dream

Machine

User chooses what information about themselves to input into the micro site for the benefit of creating a holistic profile of themselves

The information synchronizes with that of their friends, V

supported events, any other major events that are of

interest to them and calibrates their social

experiences accordingly

The user now has the opportunity to

connect with their friends who have been

included in their results to begin an

adventure with

By submitting their information and interacting

with friends in this environment, V puts them in

the running to win a prize that aligns with their own

(and the brand’s) interests

Why 18 – 24 year old energy seekers will use this product

This branded micro site is something they will actually use because it has a practical value to them. They are

able to sync their social life and generate ideas for what events and experiences could come up for them in the

future.

The competition aspect is the final hook, where by interacting with the site, they have the opportunity to win a

prize that aligns with their wants:

- Travel overseas with their friends

- Attend their music festival of choice with their friends

- Win a console and home theatre system to play it on with their friends

- Start a business venture with their friends

Why it will prove effective for V

This whole user experience is designed to have the target audience spending time with the V brand, and

aligning the brand with their own view of life that has been highlighted in my audience insight. On top of the

emotional connection and brand affinity, the site acts as a massive data capture of consumer information that

lives long after the campaign.

Social Photo Commentary Competition

To align with social media and driving people to the target site,

one approach is to create a viral photo commentary campaign

through all social media platforms.

It would revolve around V uploading a photo of something

exciting starting, and asking people to answer the simple

question of “Where will it end?”

People comment on the picture in question and the winner is

rewarded with a prize aligning with the V brand (5 tickets to a

music festival, brand new Playstation or Xbox, etc.)

It all starts with V…

…Where will it end?

Submit comments below: - - -

Facebook check-ins for discounts

In order to keep the online conversation around V, there is an opportunity

within Facebook to generate updates through the ‘check-in’ function.

Facebook is the ideal platform for this campaign as it is the most populated

website in Australia with 10,682,000 monthly active users and 971,000* of

them within the target audience of 18-24 year olds engaged with social

media.

By aligning with the strength in the petrol and convenience store channels,

V could run a campaign across 7-11 or another store that when people

check-in on Facebook, they receive a 20% discount off a can of V.

* Source: Nielsen Answers, January 2012

Facebook Network

To create awareness of the V Social campaign, running standard Facebook ads to drive traffic to the site as well as

V Australia fan page can be targeted to reach on the right target audience.

YouTube Takeover

Males 18 – 24 are the biggest consumers of video on the internet, and account for 678,000 of the total audience

of 8,684,000 on YouTube per month*. A complete homepage buyout accompanied by the latest TVC to kick off

this campaign would drive traffic and awareness for V.

Console Gaming Network

Console gaming is almost exclusive to males within V’s target audience and has an aligned interest with the V

product already. Advertising within the PlayStation and Xbox networks can include standard in-game banners as

well as takeovers of the Network Home screens that can click through to the V micro site.

Social Gaming Networks

This is a rapidly growing market that allows V do run more than standard creative, and have deeper interactive

experiences with an openly social and receptive audience that can be targeted by their social network user ID’s.

* Source: Nielsen Answers, January 2012

Revenue Split

To make the campaign successful with a balance of development costs and

traffic driving, reach & awareness costs, a 80 / 20 split of visible ads /

development and content creation costs should be implemented.

Breakdown for the next 12 months

Dev + Content creation:

$120K – Development cost of The V Energy Dream Machine micro site

$40K – Ongoing costs of maintaining and improving the micro site

$40K – Production cost of video + banners for the campaign

Visible ads:

$800K into digital placements in appropriate environments

Total = $1,000,000

It all starts with V…

…But where will it end?