Double act, double duty

The Hamish & Andy double act is being put to the test in a ‘double duty’ marketing strategy that executive director and former CMO at US ingredient and meal kit brand Blue Apron, Dani Simpson, is banking on to build fast brand awareness, consideration and sign-up new customers in a single sweep.

‘Hubbl & Andy” ads – in which Hamish is kitted out in a giant Hubbl suit helping Andy making content discovery less painful and is now blasting across media channels from TV, to OOH and direct communications with 2.8 million Binge and Kayo streaming customers – have been pre-tested. Simpson is convinced it will work.  

“We don't really have enough time, we don't want to have to do 12 months of awareness to move into consideration to move into purchase,” she told Mi3. “So the way that the campaign is constructed – and all of our research showed us – is that we really needed this to be a product and brand campaign. It has to both build awareness and sell product at the same time and the research told us that was that was possible Hamish and Andy. We believe they’re the two that are going to really help us get there.”

Simpson says research on the campaign before launch “tells us that we've actually broken down that past barrier of awareness, consideration and conversion in the one campaign”.

It’s just over a week since Hubbl launched its consumer effort with Hamish & Andy, which has marketing budgets pouring in from Foxtel, Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi along with prominent in-store displays.

Viewer overload

The idea for Hubbl is born out of the influx of streaming apps globally and the subsequent overload of choice for viewers. An Accenture “Reinvent for Growth” report last year said 66 per cent of Australians “feel overwhelmed” with the number of streaming services to choose from and 92 per cent said they would be interested in a single app that can provide all those services on a single platform – the global figure was 85 per cent. Another 25 per cent said it typically takes them more than 10 minutes to choose something to watch.

Hubbl aggregates both the content and subscription management of streaming services and couples it with a front end UI loaded with a bunch of new viewer-friendly intuitive features that allows Hubbl users to switch seamlessly between linear TV feeds (via broadcaster apps like  9Now, 7+, 10Play, ABC iView and SBS) to content across multiple SVOD and AVOD streaming services and YouTube. It also centralises subscription billing and management for multiple apps.

The hard bit is jamming all that into a marketing campaign, build brand awareness and consideration from zip and convert customers all at the same time. 

“Hubbl & Andy is one part of that – we wanted those authentic and likeable kind of brand ambassadors that could quickly connect with the audience. We felt like that would kind of supercharge that awareness piece and give us some cut through because whilst we're not first to market, everyone's talking about the same products but not necessarily delivering on them. Hamish and Andy are a shortcut in that awareness phase.”

More than 7.7 million Australians have more than two streaming apps, according to Nielsen CMV and it’s this pool Hubbl is targeting.

High home penetration

Simpson won’t talk market penetration numbers but when asked if Hubbl could get to 20 per cent of homes in the first year, she said: “It's reasonable but we will be looking for more than that. We have really high ambitions for the product. We really do believe it is for for everybody. The Glass TV is probably not for everybody but the small device [puck] we feel is something that can answer that 92 per cent [interested in a single app managing multiple streaming services].”

Although Hubbl is going mass and mainstream to launch, the biggest early sign-ups will come from 2.8 million Binge and Kayo subscribers, says Simpson.

“They’re our absolute bread and butter because they're the ones that are already heavy streamers. The way we're looking at it is who feels it the most pain here? So instead of it being in a certain age bracket or income level, it's who feels the pain?”

The next quarter will deliver a verdict on the Hubbl & Andy launch triggering consumer demand for Hubbl’s hardware and experience. Simpson won’t divulge targets other than Hubbl reaching 70 per cent awareness in the next 18 months. 

Next for Hubbl is aggregating gaming and music apps which Simpson says opens up a new pipe for Hubbl expansion. 

One to watch.