An omnichannel campaign with on and offline touchpoints

As we often hear, communication is key. This is even more the case when you want to address an  audience so specific and so unique as the Generation Z. As pure digital natives, young people between  18 and 24 years old do not consume information as older generations do, and their preoccupations are certainly not the same. 

So, how can we stimulate their curiosity and interest? Which channels should we use to be sure they  get to see our message? It was clear that the whole campaign needed to have strong digital roots. 

Bringing its expertise and know-how, SQLI worked closely with Tamedia, to first define the  objectives of the campaign: 

• Leverage awareness to promote 24 heures and La Tribune de Genève to 18-24 years old’s 
• Develop a reading habit for these 2 titles publications with Gen Zers 
• Create a communications concept for this audience 
• Be a driving force for the development of new activation mechanisms

Mission

After finding out some of the issues that matter the most to this generation, it was decided to focus  the campaign on 3 main topics: 

• The environmental crisis 
• The Covid-19 pandemic 
• Everyday discrimination

By using strong and appealing key messages such as “Information is the greatest source of  emancipation” and “I inform myself to act, to commit myself, to choose”, our goal is to place the  24 heures and La Tribune de Genève as reliable and affordable sources of information, which can help  the younger generation build up their own opinion and better understand what’s going around  them, whether it is in Switzerland or abroad.

In October, we organized a photoshoot session with local non-professional models in the streets of  Lausanne and Geneva. The shots taken were used as a basis for the visual aspect of the campaign, for  example on front pages of the newspaper “20 Minutes” (part of the TX Group, which holds Tamedia as well), sponsored  TikTok ads, and on owned media landing pages.

Knowing that young people are 1.25x more likely to discover new brands and products via  endorsements by celebrities, it was decided to run a paid partnership campaign with local influencers.  All part of Generation Z, they were selected because their content reflects the everyday life of young  people, not afraid to tackle serious subjects, such as discrimination or the climate crisis  with humor and a light-hearted tone.

Instagram

For 42 days, 6 influencers posted about the Youth subscription on their profile. Among the 3 main  topics, they were free to choose the one they wished to address, reflecting their true personal beliefs. In total, 3 stories, 4 reels and 1 feed post were posted.  

TikTok 

When you want to interact with Gen Zers, TikTok immediately comes to mind, right? For that reason,  we also asked the influencers to share this new offer with their TikTok communities. With a  community of almost 5 million followers and close to 117 million likes on his account, Léo Monferini,  the TikTok star, contributed greatly to spreading the message to Gen Zers. 

The TikTok campaign lasted 42 days and 4 influencers took part in it, creating in total 5 TikToks.

As we know, Gen Zers are mainly students. Therefore, it was mandatory to be present not only online,  but also in the place where they spend the majority of their time: universities.  

One way to be present was to hang posters advertising the Youth subscription on public and free  bulletin boards.  

First, we went to different campuses of Western Switzerland, and hung posters advertising the Youth  Subscription on public bulletin boards. To make them look like small ads, we precut small tabs, with a  QR code leading directly to the subscription page. 

In order to create content for the rest of the global campaign, we went directly to the source, and interviewed  some students in Lausanne and Geneva. After briefly introducing ourselves and presenting the project,  we asked them short questions about their opinions regarding information, where they inform  themselves, etc. We concluded the interviews by shooting some general knowledge questions, for  example the name of the actual US Vice President, who is the President of Switzerland or the name of  the latest Covid-19 variant.