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NEWS
FRIDAY / JUNE 22 / 2018 LIONS DAILY NEWS
Flipboard pitches tent to canvass Lions marketers GABRIELLA SCHWARZ (LEFT) AND AMIE GREEN
FLIPBOARD, the US-based international social news aggregator, literally set up camp at Cannes Lions to emphasise the importance marketers should place on the quality and relevance of editorial content when working with media.
The company’s website is famous for sourcing and curating quality articles from a variety of digital publishers to read in a magazine format, online and on mobile. Its unique selling point is enabling readers to create personalised portfolios of news, based
on their respective interests. This creates an equally unique mindset that should appeal to marketers, said Amie Green, Flipboard’s head of brand marketing. “We focus on finding and discovering new ideas because not all screen time is created equal
therefore, via the lens of discovery, we can help you better yourself and cultivate this unique mindset.” She added: “This opens new avenues for a consumer to see a marketer’s brand, and we help advertisers connect that in their communications.” To enable marketers to discover the Flipboard way of reaching consumers, the company launched a series of talks called Flipboard’s Curated Conversation at Moo (the online print-and-design company) in a tent outside the Palais. Additionally, it ran a series of billboard ads along the Croisette highlighting the type of storytelling platform Flipboard is. “We get to the world’s publishers and package content based on your interests and what you care about,” added Gabriella Schwarz, Flipboard’s managing editor. “We’re in a unique position to declutter your world and create a unique place for brands.”
Shortlist? We’re on the shirtlist! PATRICK Godin and Michael Romaniuk of Toronto agency Zulu Alpha Kilo have got the t-shirts — now they are working through a laundry list of Cannes experiences, from re-enacting the Titanic scene on a yacht through starting a dance party in the Gutter Bar to sharing a legendary moment with an advertising legend. The two young Canadian creatives won a trip to the Cannes Lions via Bell Media’s 2018 Carte Blanche advertising competition. “It’s our first time in Cannes and we wanted to maximise the experience and also have some fun,” Romaniuk said. “So we decided, because we’re not on any shortlists, that we’d make a shirtlist of all the
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ZULU ALPHA KILO’S PATRICK GODEN (LEFT) AND MICHAEL ROMANIUK
things we want to achieve in Cannes.” The mission has caught the imagination of Cannes delegates, helped along by a social-media campaign on Instagram and Twitter. “It’s been great,” Godin said. “Peo-
ple have been stopping us on the street, suggesting ways to help. We’re doing pretty well. We’ve already done the Titanic scene, judged some international work and hung out in a French villa, and I hope we’re about to share a legend-
ary moment with Bob Isherwood.” The pair are also looking for new challenges to add to their shirtlist. “Getting our picture in the Lions Daily News is definitely going up there,” Godin added.
TOMBRAS GROUP PRESIDENT DOOLEY TOMBRAS
MoonPie tweets success MONG the Twitter accounts run by brands, the MoonPie feed has rapidly established itself as one of the funniest, wisest, and most touchingly ironic. “MoonPie has existed since 1917, but the owners realised that they were a nostalgia brand that was over-indexing with Baby Boomers,” Tombras Group president Dooley Tombras, said. “They had little traction with millennials, and we wanted to find a way to connect with potential future buyers, so we suggested using social media in an ironic and humorous way.” The key moment in the campaign was when Tombras suggested naming MoonPie as the official snack of the Lunar Eclipse in August 2017: “It was their Super Bowl moment,” Tombras said. “We launched the campaign a month before the eclipse and sales grew rapidly. Then Hostess, a rival snack bar also tweeted claiming to be the official snack of the eclipse, and we re-tweeted the claim and added ‘LOL OK’.” At that point things really took off. MoonPie’s reply was in turn re-tweeted 200,000 times, and the reporting around it generated one billion media impressions. “We picked up an extra 100,000 followers overnight on Twitter, and sales went through the roof, to the point where the factory had to shut down because it was unable to source enough ingredients to fill the re-orders,” Tombras added. “We had significantly boosted the badge value of MoonPie, and we had turned the product into a permissible indulgence for a whole new demographic.”
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