Eight would-be Survivors live on a billboard for three days in media first
Multimedia outdoor campaign scores thousands of entries for Survivor SA 2018
Strategic content and production agency 10th Street helped attract three million people across South Africa for M-Net’s Survivor SA Facebook Live billboard campaign.
The campaign, a partnership with Retroviral Digital Communications, JCDecaux and Reel Robot, also attracted 2000 new followers to the Survivor SA Facebook page and secured 2000 high-quality video entries from hopefuls wanting to secure a role in the reality TV show.
“This was a huge project for us as it is a resoundingly successful first in South Africa’s fast-evolving media landscape,” says Darren Kerr, director and executive producer at 10th Street. “The success of the event demonstrates the rapidly increasing power of social media when combined with great live activations and audience involvement.”
The campaign’s objective was to get as many Facebook users as possible to tune into the Survivor SA Facebook page for a live stream of Wild Card contestants battling it out in a public space.
For three days starting on 23 November 2018, eight contestants lived on a billboard at the corner of William Nicol and Sandton Drive in Johannesburg, competing in various challenges, with the winner receiving an automatic slot in the next series of Survivor SA.
Ordinary contestants had until 26 November 2017 to submit their entries on M-Net’s website, with the campaign attracting the bulk of the 2000 video entries sent in.
Being the first of its kind, and being shot on a tight budget, the three-day production offered some unique technical challenges for 10th Street. The seven-person production team, equipped with high definition cameras and live streaming via Terradek devices from an outside broadcast van, had to shoot from across a busy intersection and contend with bad weather.
On the first night of broadcasting, all eight contestants and six cameras were hit with a major storm. With everything left exposed, some of the technical gear was damaged.
“We spent a lot of time in pre-production to prepare for the shoot, but we had to adapt to every obstacle as it came up,” Kerr says. “In the end, it was worth it because we reached a massive audience on a channel that offered instant feedback, interaction and engagement. Viewers were excited because they could watch the content from anywhere.”
