Ladbible Viral App Launch

We got together with the ‘LADbible’ to help drive downloads of their new app by creating an ‘out of this world’ documentary style video that showed the LADbible app being launched into space.

The challenge

LADBible’s roots are at The University of Leeds, with the company launching as a social media publisher in 2012. LADBible typically repurpose ‘highlight’ content, created by the viewers, and has become a hub of entertaining, humorous content. Since launching, LADBible has now developed into a group, owning UNILAD and Tyla.

The aim was to encourage downloads of the new LADBible app, engaging LADBible subscribers and non-subscribers who were between the ages of 16-30. And to do this, we needed to be standout. LadBible subscribers are typically into humorous video content so we had to keep the content traditionally LADBible in style!

With user-generated video content at the core of LADBible’s success, the biggest challenge for us at Bearded Fellows was to help them find their voice and style. We needed to present content that emphasised how well LADBible knew their audience and that nudged people to download the app.

The results

This first piece of original content received 1m views and rocketed to number 1 on the app store in 24 hours. In the first week the video received over 2,000,000 views across all of LADbibles social media channels, and the style of video chosen has gone on to dictate the brands current and ongoing video content.

The campaign shifted LADbible from a large online social media platform to the biggest media platform in Europe.

The success of the campaign was recognised at the ‘Prolific North Awards 2016’ where we went on to win ‘Video of the Year’ and Best Micro Enterprise at The Big Chip Awards 2016.

We researched and tested different styles in the run up to the app launch: commercial, short social content, and docu-style.

Based on the engagement and feedback each style received, we recognised the strongest style for the brand was a docu-film led by a brand rep… a lad!

We devised a piece of hero content for the campaign which focused on the launch of the app into space. We took the presenter into the Pennines, strapped an iPhone to a helium balloon with the app running and launched it into space.

The app launch was a big moment for the LADBible and it was something they wanted to share with all their followers.

The audience engagement focused on the question of whether the launch was real or fake…

Our team of Bearded Fellows are bursting with video and animation ideas to help your brand reach infinity and beyond.

Get in touch to see how we can help.