In April, The Super Mario Bros. Movie hit Aussie screens, and with it came Paramount ANZ‘s first AdSelector campaign.
As the launch partner for AdSelector, Universal Pictures International (UPI) used the product’s interactive capability to give viewers the ability to choose their own content experience, and let them ‘choose their player.’
Given the options of Mario, Peach, and Bowser, each character unlocked a trailer that brought the viewer into the character’s world, promoting the movie’s release date as well as giving a call to action to view in cinemas.
Mediaweek spoke with Paramount ANZ’s digital sales director, Di Ho, about bringing the Super Mario Bros. Movie campaign to life, and the results that AdSelector has seen.
Diving into the world of AdSelector for the first time, Ho said that UPI made a perfect launch partner due to their willingness to dive in and create “a really great and fun campaign to launch with.”
“We are really fortunate, as UPI and their agency EssenceMediaCom have been great partners, and really leaned into testing new innovative ad formats for CTV. The client understood the power of immersive storytelling and was excited by the opportunity for interactivity and giving viewers the choice to engage with tailored content.
“Having three key movie characters and trailers made it such a great campaign, giving viewers the choice of the trailer, they wanted to interact with really drove awareness and consideration for a very important film release for them.”
Behind the scenes, Ho said that putting the campaign together “was a really collaborative process” between Paramount and the team representing The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
“With the partnership, we worked closely with the client UPI, the agency EssenceMediaCom, Innovid, and our teams internally. Our strategy is very much underpinned by making sure campaigns are very easy to implement, to ensure that it’s a seamless experience for our customers.
“What we were able to do with the client was access global assets, and then really localise that for the Australian market and the ad format. We essentially held a creative brainstorm to determine what assets we use, the placements, and the messaging within the AdSelector experience, and then worked very closely with the agency to ensure it was really simple for the client. Once the creative was built, we had relevant approvals along the way to make sure everybody was happy with the end results.”
By any metric, the campaign made a major impact – delivering an engagement rate 225% higher than the global benchmarks and over 46,000 in-video engagements. Behind those numbers, Ho says that “creativity, context and content” were key in driving the results of the campaign.
“UPI recognised that there was an opportunity to gamify the ad experience with AdSelector, and the creative really echoed the game Super Mario Bros with a strong call to action that encouraged viewers to choose their players.
“Super Mario Bros is so iconic, so engaging with fans who know and love the game was a great starting point to really drive that brand recognition, and then providing an integrated and meaningful call to action really engaged and elevated the advertising experience.”
The benefits of using characters that are so well loved shone through as well, with data showing that people engaged with the content and wanted to immerse themselves in the world of Super Mario Bros
“The majority of people that engaged with AdSelector actually watched all three trailers and content pieces, which was really fantastic to see,” said Ho. “That really showcased that contextual relevancy within the premium content environment on 10 Play delivers fantastic results for brands from an engagement point of view.”
With The Super Mario Bros. Movie campaign under their belts, and several other AdSelector campaigns running currently, Ho said that there have been a handful of key learnings for the Paramount team and the brands that work with them.
“As the first campaign, it gave us data on how marketers and brands can use this technology. We are seeing consumer trends, where people are looking for deeper connections with brands that they can interact with. Interactive and immersive realities, unique content experiences, and using formats like AdSelector highlight our ability to tap into this, which then brings to the forefront the power of leveraging a client’s existing content assets to deliver brand outcomes through storytelling.
“Finally, with the choice being user-initiated, that’s really important for a client because it provides that deeper insight into what their audiences are interested in, and how that can inform their future marketing and content strategies.”
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Top Image: Di Ho