Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
660-679)
MR NICK
GILL, MR
NICK CONSTANTINOU
AND MS
ROBERTA FUKE
9 JULY 2009
Q660 Stephen Hesford: On your site,
Kevin and Dave, the actors that did that, how old are they?
Mr Gill: They were a minimum of
25. I believe the average age of the actors that we use across
WKD communications, not just digital, but for TV commercials,
is 28.
Q661 Stephen Hesford: Would you not
agree that the actors on that web page there could be taken for
younger than 25?
Mr Gill: No, because we research
and we make sure, when casting, that we look at a range of people
when we are looking at the age of our consumers and the actors
we are looking for, and we specifically recruit and cast the people
who are and look, at a minimum, 25, again, to discourage under
age people.
Q662 Stephen Hesford: Further, I
would not only say that they look potentially younger than 25—I
do not know which one is Kevin and which one is Dave—one
of them, potentially, looks perhaps 18, or even younger. If your
cut off has the entry age of 18, which Dr Stoate has just shown
to be complete rubbish, and the industry standard is 25 and over
and somebody potentially looks on the edge of 18, are you not
entering dangerous territory for an audience which is actually
too young to buy alcohol?
Mr Gill: These actors have been
specifically cast. They were one of a number of people who we
looked to recruit for this particular campaign and we stipulate
to all the casting agencies that everybody has to be over 25 years
of age. The average age of WKD casting is 28 now. These individuals
are over 25. I am not sure of their exact age, but we can guarantee
that they are over 25.
Q663 Charlotte Atkins: Roberta, you
do public relations for WKD.
Ms Fuke: That is correct.
Q664 Charlotte Atkins: Do you get
asked questions about the target audience? Do you feel comfortable
with what we have discussed so far, that clearly the age limits
do not seem to be a major focus for WKD and, therefore, could
well attract under-age drinkers?
Ms Fuke: I would disagree that
the age limits are not a focus for WKD; they absolutely are. They
are very responsible producer—and I have worked in public
relations for 25 years and have worked with some people who are
not quite so scrupulous—says that a lot of legislation and
a lot of guidelines are applied to all of the activity. The agencies
are thoroughly briefed at the outset and are given, not only the
Portman Guidelines, but Beverage Brands' own guidelines to comply
to both in terms of content and in terms of targeting. So targeting
is very clearly focused on adult drinkers, so of-age drinkers,
and making sure that the content is appropriate. Also the content
of the site and the content of all of the activity that we look
at is something that needs to be considered a little bit further,
because we are not focusing on the consumption of alcohol; the
focus on our work is about encouraging people to share a sense
of humour with the brand, if you like. So a shared sense of humour,
slightly cheeky, slightly irreverent, yes, not encouraging people
to consume the product. It is actually just about social situations.
Having a laugh with your mates is an appropriate way that we tackle
that in terms of communicating with audiences. So I appreciate
what you are saying in terms of concern; I disagree that it is
not being carefully managed.
Q665 Dr Naysmith: Mr Constantinou,
can you explain what "viral marketing" is and how it
is used for your campaigns?
Mr Constantinou: Yes, viral marketing,
again, has been at the forefront of new media as it has grown
over the last few years. It is an opportunity for us to engage
with our clients' consumers. To play on Roberta's comments, to
build on those, we do look for slightly humorous, engaging, compelling
content that we can supply to our clients' consumers to spread
the word of mouth around the good brand values of our clients,
whether it be Diageo or any other alcohol brand. So it is, in
effect, a piece of content that can be passed on from friend to
friend and it can multiply the brand values and the knowledge
of the brand amongst the target audience. Again, we are held to
strict marketing codes by our alcohol clients, which happens to
be Diageo in AKQA's instance, where that content has to be targeted
at the above legal purchase age and, in my experience, that is
what we have been doing for eight years and we have never ever
been asked to target or have never created a piece of content,
whether it be viral marketing or an online destination that we
have been talking about, above the legal purchase age.
Q666 Dr Naysmith: Is it going to
be more difficult to control than other forms, because you can
pass the message on to anyone, can you not, once you are through?
Mr Constantinou: Yes, that is
true, but because we can hold some of the content within the destination
sites—so an address on the Web that we control, just like
this website here and other websites that we have actually created
ourselves—again there are some measures in play to stop
under age audience accessing that content. So there are measures
you can employ. To build on Nick's comments, which I agree with,
Facebook tends to have an older demographic than maybe some other
social networking sites such as Bebo, which we avoid religiously
because we know the audience profile on that very popular networking
site is of a younger spread.
Q667 Dr Naysmith: Do you use any
network sites that have a younger spread?
Mr Constantinou: Not for alcohol
brands at all. We have a number of clients within our office,
some who do actively target a younger audience, but not for alcohol,
obviously—that is for gaming clients, et cetera.
Q668 Dr Naysmith: I am going to come
back to you in a minute and ask you about your Smirnoff Sea
television commercial, but I would like to ask Roberta and Nick
if they have anything to add about the technique of viral advertising,
or is it exactly the same as Nick outlined?
Mr Gill: I would absolutely support
exactly what Nick said in terms of how viral marketing is used.
It can add extra brand value to your brand. If you create content
that is compelling enough that people want to engage with and
want to send on to their peer group—some recent examples,
like the Cadbury's gorilla example that has been highlighted of
late, where that content from a viral perspective was released
online first before it was even aired on TV—it creates huge
credibility and talkability for the brand.
Ms Fuke: I would agree with both
of my colleagues here actually. I think the reality, again, goes
back to objectives as well. So content, yes, and objectives, in
terms of what the consultancies are being requested to deliver
against, which is maintaining market share in a declining market.
The market, from our point of view in the RTD market, is declining—a
55% decline in 18-25 year olds since 2002 and a 12% year-on-year
decline. So our objective and our brief, our challenge, if you
like, is to maintain that market share in a declining market.
Q669 Dr Naysmith: I want to ask you
about Smirnoff. You were given the brief by Diageo to "Seed
the Smirnoff Sea television commercial" and to "create
an iconic buzz and talkability amongst legal purchase age to 30."
Can you please explain how you see the commercial before it is
aired on television? Presumably you have just heard that.
Mr Constantinou: Yes.
Q670 Dr Naysmith: How do you do it
in this instance? What is the purpose of doing it in this instance?
Mr Constantinou: In this instance,
the purpose of the brief that we received from Diageo was to amplify
and extend what was a lot of money spent on quite an expensive
TV campaign and to extend that campaign into the new media environment.
That is the overall purpose. The brief, as you quite rightly said,
stated "legal purchase age to 30", "male orientated",
which is the brief that we took. We executed that, as you see
from the sheet I have got in front of me, with a casual online
game for that target audience. To explain why we created this
digital asset: to meet that objective of extending the TV campaign.
Casual online gaming: on average 200 million people a year globally
are engaging in fun, simple, quick casual games. That is a fact—you
can look that up yourself—and the split of demographics
that are engaging with casual online games are pretty evenly split
between male and female and from an age point of view, on average,
in the mid-thirties. So as a vehicle to extend the TV campaign
online, we viewed a casual game—if you read back the brief—as
it hits the sweet spot over what we were trying to achieve with
that audience.
Q671 Dr Naysmith: One purpose of
the strategy was to send people to the Sea website to play
the "Smirnoff Purifier" game. Is that right?
Mr Constantinou: Correct.
Q672 Dr Naysmith: And that resulted
in entering a prize draw, and they were also asked to forward
the game to their friends?
Mr Constantinou: Yes; absolutely.
Q673 Dr Naysmith: What sort of data
would you collect from the players of the game and how is this
data being used?
Mr Constantinou: To actually enter
and access the game you have to go through the same verification
age which has been discussed by the panel over the last few minutes.
Q674 Dr Naysmith: We are not too
impressed with it, and I suspect most people hearing about it
will not be too impressed either.
Mr Constantinou: I take that feed
back on board. To access that game you have to go through that
verification gateway and then you can access the game and you
can play it without really providing much data. When you have
to enter the prize draw for the year's supply, we follow, again,
the Diageo marketing code, which has some specific terms, conditions
and guidelines over which data to collect and which terms and
conditions they need to accept, et cetera, which were implemented.
Q675 Dr Naysmith: What sort of data?
Mr Constantinou: I do not have
that knowledge in front of me at the moment. I would rather not
give you an incorrect answer.
Q676 Dr Naysmith: Just general type
of data, was it: their drinking habits or that sort of thing?
Mr Constantinou: No, no. In terms
of online behaviour or people interacting with online destinations,
the one learning that we have all seen over the last five, 10
years is that when you are asking users to submit an entry to
a competition the last thing you want to do is create a form with
28 fields for completion; so we do try to keep it simpler and
shorter and not ask too many questions.
Q677 Dr Naysmith: Can you tell me
what kind of questions?
Mr Constantinou: It will be first
name, last name, email address, probably reconfirm date of birth,
et cetera, and there will be a list of terms and conditions, which,
again, Diageo legal provide to us, which are in line with the
marketing code guidelines, which you have to tick the box and
agree to through an online form.
Q678 Sandra Gidley: You have mentioned
codes of practice, the Diageo code and the other code. How do
they differ from the advertising code which regulates what is
allowed to be on television? They are clearly laxer because what
is on the Internet would not be allowed on TV.
Mr Constantinou: My view of those
codes is that our clients actually are a lot closer to the audience
and the pace of change in new media, which is pretty intense.
Q679 Sandra Gidley: I am talking
about responsibility now, not selling. How do your codes differ
in, for example, the age range that you are allowed to target
or sexual prowess that you are not supposed to put in a TV add
and it seems to me that some of the stuff on the Net might flout
that.
Mr Constantinou: The code and
the guidelines to which I have been exposed follow the same rules
across all channels. So Diageo make it very clear that we are
expected to follow the same content and placement rules as they
would expect of their above the line agency and new media agency
and print agency and PR, etcetera.
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