Case Study: OnePlus uses Twitter to announce the launch of its Hyderabad store, garners 21.2 million overall impressions

• The launch was the first-ever Twitter campaign in the market that enabled physical, tangible on-ground interaction with a brand.
• It helped OnePlus garner 21.2 million overall impressions and viewership of 1.2 million for the live stream of the launch on the service.

Meet Twitter Next, a.k.a the team driving brands to create human-centric ideas worth talking about. It comprises of strategists, planners, technologists and producers. Together they help businesses launch new products and connect with audiences through one-of-a-kind technology and data-driven campaigns on Twitter. One such campaign was OnePlus’s Nizam Palace store launch in Hyderabad.

In the midst of the pandemic, instead of backing down, OnePlus pushed the boundaries and opened the doors to its largest store in the world. The brand chose Twitter to plan its virtual store launch and deliver maximum impact. The strategically planned campaign, which used technology to cut through an ever more cluttered media landscape, delivered 21.2 million overall impressions and viewership of 1.2 million for the live stream of the launch on the service. The launch was the first-ever Twitter campaign in the market that enabled physical, tangible on-ground interaction with a brand. With every Like that the livestream received on Twitter, the inaugural curtain at the store in Hyderabad lifted, in fact, the velocity and quantity of incoming Likes were used to create an acceleration on-ground. This innovative campaign unlocked several technological and creative opportunities, paving the way for many such innovations in the future.

Rishabh Sharma - Head of Twitter Next India, shared, “The OnePlus Nizam Palace launch was a first of its kind experience for us. We’ve been collaborating with OnePlus India for a very long time and much like them, Twitter Next is always looking forward to testing and learning through technological advancements. Experiments are the core of innovation, and we’re hoping to uncover many new potentials as we continue to push our limits and that of our partners.”

Siddhant Narayan, Head of Marketing, OnePlus India, said, “The digital launch of our largest ever OnePlus Experience Store on Twitter was nothing short of phenomenal. As a community-centric brand, it is crucial for us to have our community at the heart of our initiatives. Therefore, we partnered with Twitter to drive a first of its kind digital unveil of the OnePlus Experience Store, while ensuring our community remained at the core of this unique digital engagement initiative.

This resulted in an incredible impact of over 1 million live views and over 650,000 engagement impressions from our community. We look forward to driving several such innovative, digital-first campaigns with Twitter in the coming future while bringing the best of experiences to our community.”

Let’s go behind-the-scenes to understand how Twitter Next and OnePlus did it.


Caught on camera during a brainstorm: Twitter and OnePlus team members

The Ask: OnePlus turned to Twitter to maximise its audience reach. At a time when people were staying home and maintaining social distance, the brand wanted to bring its customers even closer through an exciting experience. Staying true to its value to #StopAtNothing, OnePlus was ready to push its limits for a high-engagement launch spread over four to six weeks.

The Target/Desired Outcome: OnePlus laid out clear deliverables for the campaign, and Twitter was presented with the following tasks -

• Generate awareness and excitement around the OnePlus Nizam Palace store launch through compelling digital content.
• Through a technological experiment, create a bespoke solution that resonates with the brand’s audience and generates positive customer sentiment.

Let us bear in mind that these goals had to be achieved with limitations on travel, to ensure the safety of those involved, and in the absence of the brand’s fan community on ground - the life of every launch event at OnePlus.

The Roadmap: The teams set out with the OnePlus community at the core of their thinking process, knowing that in the old-normal, the event would have been on-ground with the entire community in attendance. The task at hand was to replicate the same sense of connection and excitement virtually.

Devising the plan of action -

• After a thorough analysis of existing OnePlus conversations and multiple brainstorming sessions between the Twitter Next Planner, Strategist and Technologist, it was inferred that the passionate OnePlus community is always looking forward to engaging, participating and sharing.
• The team then laid out a framework that would not only grab the nation’s attention but also get everyone participating in the campaign by joining in for the launch.

Changing courses throughout the journey -

• Multiple discussions with OnePlus, external partners and internal contributors led to several changes in the initially drawn skeleton to ensure adherence to the brand’s tone of voice and alignment with their campaign vision.
• The nature of the launch was such that it required close coordination with the on-ground staff at the store site in Hyderabad. Logistics and technical opportunities had to be understood from a distance in order to come up with a creative and watertight plan of action.

Roadblocks encountered and how they were overcome -

• Unexpected weather changes in Hyderabad leading to heavy floods pushed the event causing delays as well as operational challenges.

A well-thought change in the launch timeline, along with creative revisions helped achieve the intended impact.

Final engagement goals for the campaign days

• Create anticipation: Getting the audience to opt-in for the launch event.
• Create an experience: Consistently communicate and reiterate to immerse the audience as if at an on-ground event.
• Own conversations on launch day: Scale reach of the launch event by owning Twitter timeline.
• Sustain conversations post-launch: Keep people talking for the next 48 hours by delivering an engaging experience and reminding them of what’s more in store.

Standby, Rolling, Action:

Pre-event

• Teasing the brand’s patrons for the launch with a series of Tweets, OnePlus used Twitter’s Heart-to-Remind functionality to cue people in for reminders for the event’s live stream.
  

Everyone who liked the Tweet and opted-in for the reminders received personalised Tweets on the launch day, calling them to join the event.

Leading up to the launch day, OnePlus kept the buzz alive and the conversation going, reinstating the excitement around launch through a series of Tweets.

Event day
On the day of the launch, OnePlus took over Twitter’s premium real estate via the Promoted Trend Spotlight to ensure maximum visibility and scale the reach of the event broadcasted via Twitter live.

Post-event

To sustain conversations after the launch, OnePlus continued to roll out exciting video Tweets giving people a peek into how the event was executed amidst challenging situations.

The Impact:

• The first-of-its-kind store unveil campaign recorded a whopping 21.2 million overall impressions, with the Live stream making 4.64 million impressions across timelines.
• Around 10.2K people opted-in for reminders to the launch event on Twitter.
• While the Live video recorded a viewership of 1.2 million, the overall video views for the campaign stood at 3.3 million.
• The Live stream received 9K hearts within minutes to open the curtain and unveil the store.