AUSTIN, TX: Hasbro, the toy manufacturer, believes livestreaming can help its brands achieve new forms of consumer engagement – but only if it is underpinned by sound fundamentals based around quality and relevance.
Victor Lee, Hasbro's SVP/Digital, discussed this topic at OMMA @ SXSW, an event held by MediaPost during the 2017 South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference.
Lee pointed to some examples of how offerings like Play-Doh modeling kits and its iconic Monopoly board game have tapped into the power of real-time broadcasting on platforms such as Facebook Live.
"It has the filter of: is it good enough to tell the people that appreciate what we have to say?" Lee said. (For more details, read Warc's exclusive report: Hasbro's brands play well with livestreaming.)
Drilling down into this subject, Lee suggested that Hasbro follows certain guiding principles in deciding when it chooses to livestream.
"We look at 'live' as: Is it good, first? And it's not 'live' as a vertical. It's: Is it a good message? Is it good content? Is it worthy, right now, to say it? Is there a purpose of saying it now? And, sometimes, when we go live, it's, 'Let's go live now,'" he said.
As hinted at by this spontaneity of approach, brands may need to manage much of their livestreaming activity in-house, according to Lee.
"What 'live' does for us is it gives us permission – a little bit – to do things that you don't have to spend months briefing an agency [on], and looking at creative back and forth," he said.
"It allows us to really be 'now'. Because we're in this moment with phones and everything, if you're not in the 'now', then you missed out."
More specifically, Lee proposed that brands would have to move beyond "Don Draper Syndrome", meaning they must be able to act at real speed and with genuine boldness.
"You don't need six months to plan something great. You can't," he explained to the SXSW audience. "It really isn't breaking the agency model. It's opening it up to say it's no longer a time-stamped thing.
"I get it: we need stuff that is great and produced in that way. But we also have to let go of the fears."
Victor Lee, Hasbro's SVP/Digital, discussed this topic at OMMA @ SXSW, an event held by MediaPost during the 2017 South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference.
Lee pointed to some examples of how offerings like Play-Doh modeling kits and its iconic Monopoly board game have tapped into the power of real-time broadcasting on platforms such as Facebook Live.
"It has the filter of: is it good enough to tell the people that appreciate what we have to say?" Lee said. (For more details, read Warc's exclusive report: Hasbro's brands play well with livestreaming.)
Drilling down into this subject, Lee suggested that Hasbro follows certain guiding principles in deciding when it chooses to livestream.
"We look at 'live' as: Is it good, first? And it's not 'live' as a vertical. It's: Is it a good message? Is it good content? Is it worthy, right now, to say it? Is there a purpose of saying it now? And, sometimes, when we go live, it's, 'Let's go live now,'" he said.
As hinted at by this spontaneity of approach, brands may need to manage much of their livestreaming activity in-house, according to Lee.
"What 'live' does for us is it gives us permission – a little bit – to do things that you don't have to spend months briefing an agency [on], and looking at creative back and forth," he said.
"It allows us to really be 'now'. Because we're in this moment with phones and everything, if you're not in the 'now', then you missed out."
More specifically, Lee proposed that brands would have to move beyond "Don Draper Syndrome", meaning they must be able to act at real speed and with genuine boldness.
"You don't need six months to plan something great. You can't," he explained to the SXSW audience. "It really isn't breaking the agency model. It's opening it up to say it's no longer a time-stamped thing.
"I get it: we need stuff that is great and produced in that way. But we also have to let go of the fears."
Data sourced from WARC
