Engagement Meter: Brands ring in the new year

Unmetric, a social media intelligence firm focused on brands uses its analytics platform to uncover the top performing campaigns, content and videos in the APAC region. Unmetric's Engagement Score rates each piece of content from 0 to 1000 depending on the amount of user interactions, which allows easy comparison of content regardless of the number of fans or followers a brand has. For the weekly Engagement Meter feature, Unmetric curates the list to pick the most creative, innovative or unusual initiatives. Here is a roundup of a few of the best in the period of 14 through 20 February.

New Years doesn’t just call for new beginnings, it also calls for new campaigns! Take a look at the top five engaging brand campaigns from Asia this week.

1. Kit Kat Philippines
Engagement Score: 1,000

Why just have a Kit Kat when you can have a Kit Kat ice cream cone? The iconic brand that has stood for break time introduced an ice cream version of the candy and had customers all the more excited for their break. The post, which used word play to introduce the new product, received over 125,000 Likes in just a week. More than 1,500 fans decided to share the news with friends and the post ultimately got a sky-high engagement score which is almost five times the normal for the food and beverage category.

Above just launching a new variation to its product, Kit Kat tied in brand messaging and its famous tagline. This smart move gave its fans a new yet familiar snack to look forward to.

2. Closeup India - #CupidGames
Engagement Score: 1,000

Around Valentine’s Day, Closeup ran a love-themed contest where users had the chance to win gifts worth Rs. 10,000 and more. The contest dared players to make bold moves. In the last week, #CupidGames and #TweetHeart were the most used and most engaging hashtags for the brand. What’s more, the brand even had a follower growth rate of 10.4 per cent which is more than 25 times the personal-care industry average.

It's never too late to show off your bold moves! Play #CupidGames, do the dare & win prizes: http://t.co/2I96tq88Fx pic.twitter.com/UNIbWrMhM5

— Closeup India (@CloseUpIndia) February 17, 2015

The extremely cheesy video for the campaign continued to receive new views even after Valentines’ Day ended. It received close to 50,000 views in the last week. The channel attracted more than 1,400 new subscribers with the campaign videos.

Closeup made a smart move by leveraging the timely event and also showed its advanced knowledge in social media marketing by using in-video links and direct links that encouraged users to participate in the contest without going through any extra effort. By reducing redirection fatigue and mentioning prizes to be won upfront, the brand was able to get more people involved in the game and in return received a ton of engagement.

3. Lifebuoy Singapore
Engagement Score: 1,000

Lifebuoy used the fact that all those who’ll be celebrating the Chinese New Year will be exchanging hongbaos, for their Chinese New Year post. The brand attempted to raise awareness about the amount of germs that are present on dollar bills and also gave fans an opportunity to win special gift hampers. This post garnered over 700 Likes and 150 shares, thus making it one of the top five most engaging New Year greetings from a brand. This post contributed to over 90 per cent of all Likes, Comments and Shares the brand received in the week.

The personal care brand used the opportunity of Chinese New Year to reinforce its brand proposition and messaging while also chiming in on a larger conversation and wishing fans a happy holiday. Talk about efficient content.

4. Kirin Brewery
Engagement Score: 878

With the introduction of its citrus beer, Kirin was able to get over 235,000 new views on its 15-second spot in a week. This gave the brand a video view growth rate of 19.2 per cent which is a lot higher than the industry average of 0.17 per cent.

On Twitter, the brand received over 600 retweets and 190 favorites on this tweet.

>「とりあえずチューハイ！」の方へ< 3/17発売の「ビターズ クワトロ」を試せるチャンス！相性抜群のおつまみ『トンデンファーム荒挽ウインナー』とセットで抽選で444名様にプレゼント！ http://t.co/f3IMraSuc5 pic.twitter.com/8w7OBnzAho

— キリンビール / KIRIN BEER (@Kirin_Brewery) February 18, 2015

By complementing the new campaign with regular type content as well, Kirin Brewery was able to outperform competitors and the rest of the industry on social media.

5. Malaysia Airlines - #KeepFlying
Engagement Score: 833

Malaysia Airlines’ put forth its first significant marketing since its two 2013 tragedies, a Chinese New Year video that hinged on tradition and emotion. The 11-minute long video received over 1 million views. This gave the brand a video growth rate of 17.2 per cent and subscriber growth rate of 7.9 per cent, both which are more than 10 times higher than the aviation industry average.

The company's music video for the same campaign received over 150,000 views and stayed in line with the concept of the campaign.

On Twitter, the hashtag #keepflying was used over 930 times and also gave the brand its most engaging tweets.

Open your heart and see the blessing in the smallest things. #keepflying https://t.co/Xb1eknItPK

— Malaysia Airlines (@MAS) February 8, 2015

The format of content matters just as much as concept. By choosing to make its New Year campaign a video and placing it on YouTube, the aviation brand was able to keep viewers engaged even on an 11-minute video, while the average length of a video in the industry is almost half of that.

About the author

Ranjani Raghupathi is marketing executive at Unmetric. You can follow her on Twitter @ranjanithinks.