A case study by Gazprom-Media Sales House: How to integrate an educational product into bloggers’ video content and reach over 50% of the affinity audience of a video hosting service

Gazprom-Media Sales House (part of Gazprom-Media Holding) conducted an advertising campaign to promote a new brand in the Science and Education segment. Learn how to package knowledge into interesting content for young audiences in the new case study.

Objectives

To raise awareness of the educational program.

To ensure the flow of targeted leads to the brand’s website.

The brand’s product is a new educational program that helps the younger generation learn the basics of a profession now in order to become a first-rate specialist in the future. Unlike a physical product, it cannot be put on display or unpacked on air: its benefits and features cannot be visually demonstrated either. Educational services are always associated with a rather complex selling offer that requires a lot of explanation, recommendations, and stimulation of the consumer’s interest in various ways. All these objectives can be achieved through influencer marketing with the right choice of bloggers and opinion leaders.

Idea

As part of the campaign, it was important to use a format that would help to achieve both the image and performance objectives of the brand. Taking into account the product’s specific features and the interest of the teen audience, the team went beyond simply enlisting influencers: integrations were placed exclusively in the video content of Science, Education and Lifestyle bloggers. To maintain a balance between utility and interactivity, the advertising message was communicated in a style familiar to the young audience.

Solution

First of all, the criteria for relevant bloggers were defined. The following factors were considered in selecting the influencers:

neutral content without profanity and demonstration of alcoholic beverages or political position;

residency in Russia;

young people in graduating classes as the predominant audience;

the lowest contact price.

As part of the release, bloggers also had to give the brand a monopoly on advertising placement. This prevented any mention of other companies in the content environment. Furthermore, native integrations into appropriate popular science topics ensured brand safety and healthy traffic. The social context helped to further engage viewers and establish a trustworthy communication with the brand.

In the videos, bloggers talked about the segments of the educational program, showed a visual block of the website interface, and encouraged viewers to follow the link in the description. For a more detailed analysis of the campaign’s effectiveness, unique UTM tags were assigned to each of the content creators’ channels.

Results

The advertising campaign ran for three months. During this period, more than 10 integrations were placed on top channels that met the selection criteria. Thanks to the careful selection of channels and the creative approach of the bloggers, we received native content that was organically integrated into the videos, allowing us to exceed the target number of views by more than 60%.

Through influencer marketing, we were able to reach over 50% of the video platform’s affinity audience, with an average ER of 5.07%.