zTrends
When I got to Zimmerman, I noticed client work centered around planned content, which left little room for real-time social activations and trending content. But coming from a PR background, I knew there was room for reactive content that would engage our client’s audiences.
I pitched a small-scale program to my supervisor, that focused solely on real-time, reactive content. She allowed me to troubleshoot the program so I could document any successes to get agency buy-in. For two weeks, I spent my mornings sweeping the major platforms for trending content that could be relevant to our clients. Once I found something that had potential, I would strategize with the content analysts and creative teams, so we could present the opportunity and a potential creative direction to our client. More often than not, the clients trusted our instincts, so we activated and saw results.
We named the program zTrends and put together a presentation to get cross-departmental buy-in. We even created a zContentLab, a physical space dedicated to planning and filming content using current social trends. Once internal teams understood the agility necessary on their parts to make zTrends work seamlessly, we activated successfully across several clients. zTrends continues to grow in the agency and we’ve even had account teams approach asking how they could activate, after seeing an adjacent success.
Below are a few of the successes we’ve seen, both with microtrends and macrotrends. These are only a few examples of dozens, and though none of these examples are viral, they do show a strong pattern of engagement for our clients, from activating on opportunities to which they were blind before zTrends.
Le Ranch
After a banana taped to a wall sold for $120k at Art Basel, the transaction got a ton of press. The banana had been covered by CBS, CNN, NYT, MSN, NBC, The Guardian, HypeBeast, USA today, etc.
We wanted in on the fun, so we quickly created an image of Jet’s Ranch taped to a wall, since everyone knows our Ranch is the epitome of art.
The timely activation was appreciated by our fans, garnering a 7.81% engagement rate, well above the monthly average of 0.55%.
zContent lab
Below are a few videos we ideated and created for Office Depot, using the zContent Lab. These videos used a rigged probe lens and took about a day of production, total.
Jet’s Game
On December 2, Sungwon Cho—a video game voice actor and popular YouTuber— commented that he always grabs a bite of Jet’s whenever he’s back in his homestate of Michigan. Needless to say, we rose to the occasion.
We asked him to message us so we could send him something special, and shipped out some Jet’s swag. When he received the gift, SungWon tweeted an image to his 573.3k followers, thanking us for the drop.
The comment got 7 retweets, 13 comments, and 579 likes.
Dancing Man
early January, we noticed a meme that was picking up speed on social: a dancing man made of special characters, paired with clever copy.
We knew this could be a great opportunity for Jet’s.
We proposed a dancing man adaptation that would highlight our superb delivery service, and the activation got a 5.3% engagement rate, well above that monthly average of 0.65%.
Gonna Tell My Kids
When “I’m gonna tell my kids” began to trend on twitter, we picked up on the conversation and found a way in for the unique square-shaped slices of Jet’s Pizza.
The activation got a 10.49% engagement rate (on twitter!), well above the monthly average of 0.62%.
