Experiencing Beats By Dr. Dre
Beats by Dr. Dre is a brand that everyone knows. Whether you’re into music or not, the headphones are iconic and on the heads of today’s top pop stars and rappers.
Beats has created a mascot, the Beats Pill – “small but loud” speaker dudes, who aren’t afraid of telling it like it is. Recently, we revealed how our offices in Europe have been bringing the Beats Pills to life in a cheeky social campaign.
But the Beats Pill isn’t just a mascot – it’s also the name of the real life speakers that you can purchase in store. And when Beats asked us at We Are Social New York to help launch the Pills speakers in style, we decided to spread the word that they were ready to purchase in a truly social way.
We used a creative social media campaign that would target some of America’s most outspoken influencers – a perfect fit for the Beats brand. First step: identify them. Who’s the loudest? The funniest? Who has the most to say?
With a focus on visual platforms like Vine and YouTube and people known for their gift of the gab, our influencers ranged from Will Sasso (Mad TV), Bobby Hundreds (The Hundreds), Nicholas Megalis (Vine Comedian/Artist), Kid Fury and Crissle West (Podcast Hosts), and Harley Morenstein (Epic Meal Time), among many others.
Our concept was to create a real-life version of one of each influencer’s posts from their most popular social channel presented in a custom package.
For example, ‘The Daily Show’ host Jon Stewart’s Pill character came in a box inspired by his television show. The logo, the marquee lights on the side, and the red news flash bar on the bottom are all elements taken directly from watching Jon on TV.
Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s character came in what looked like a real-life version of a blog post on his page. The logo, the pink colors, even the sassy caption underneath are all classic Perez.
But we didn’t stop with the customized boxes. We created short and snappy Pill videos featuring each of the characters, addressing each influencer personally with a call to action to respond to them on social media. The videos were uploaded to an iPod, the boxes all packed up and the Beats Pills characters sent to their influencers.
The response we had was impressive.
Vine comedian KC James used his Pill as a prop in one of his Saturday Night Rap videos, in addition to sharing the whole kit on his Instagram account. Over 16,000 of KC’s fans liked his photo and over one hundred fans expressed their excitement about the activation.
Nick Megalis shared an equal amount of enthusiasm for receiving the gift and his fan comments lead off with, “Ahhhh I want it !!! So proud!! U deserve it!”.
Podcast stars Kid Fury and Crissle West of The Read thanked Beats on their show, tweeted an excited message to their fans about the gift, and posted on Instagram. The images received nearly 10,000 likes and comments that echoed the appreciation of the recipients.
Street wear influencer Bobby Hundreds has a mascot of his own – Adam Bomb. We sent him a kit centered around the Beats Pills, which we suggested could be his new mascot. Bobby featured the kit on his Instagram and blog. He was blown away by it. A great tip of the hat from a man who has based his life around details and design.
Personal, intimate and highly customized – our Beats Pills influencer outreach made the product visible, the brand approachable and created relationships with a host of high profile, valuable personalities.