At Archer Troy, the coronavirus (COVID-19) wreaked havoc. In 2020, the agency lost more than 60% of its annual sales, because its main clients come from the industries most affected during the pandemic.
“It affected us a lot, we lost emblematic projects and clients that are part of the entertainment industry, the restaurant sector and shopping centers. The truth was, the impact was tremendous, “said Miguel Ángel Arciniega, founder and creative vice president of the agency.
But, beyond lamenting, the team at the agency led by Arciniega decided to modify its way of working to ensure the evolution of its clients in line with the market and that its messages really meet the expectations of end consumers.
“The world and people have changed, we have to do the same but hand in hand with consumers because they are the ones who now have control,” added Abraham Quintana, integration leader at Archer Troy. “We have to change our messages and be more natural and less advertising to ensure our relevance and recognition.”
Under this premise, the agency presented Archer Media Works, a unit specialized in digital media that is governed by three pillars that are the basis for the development of any project they carry out: strategy, content and media.
Rubén Ceballos, the firm’s strategic creativity leader, explained that at a time when brand adaptation is no longer enough, the key is to join people’s conversations to generate engagement.
“In digital, brands live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, so it is necessary to build it all the time with closeness to the user, interact with him through content that improves his life, not only memes and articles, but information that adds and satisfies specific objectives, “he said.
In 2020, under this methodology, Archer Troy’s team developed three projects. One of them is ‘Lost Voices’, a campaign that seeks to raise awareness about femicides in Mexico.
The video, which was replicated on March 8 to give the victims a voice, shows 10 mothers, sisters and daughters of women who were murdered singing the National Anthem. Every 10 seconds one of their voices disappears until only one is left. This was the way to convey a strong message: nine women are murdered every day in the country.
The initiative, created for the NGO Voces de la Ausencia, achieved 3.8 million organic impressions, 2,400 visits in one day to the website created to spread the stories of the murdered women in Mexico and 211,000 impressions in the first 12 hours after the launch of the creative piece.
Another project is ‘Outstanding Fan’, with which, with the help of the Marie Stopes Foundation, they turned hate into love in just five days and without investing a single peso. The agency took advantage of the hate that the NGO that provides contraception and safe abortion services received on its Facebook account from Jaime, an Internet user who commented on each of the publications.
Instead of blocking or ignoring him, they decided to make him a prominent fan of the page so that his comments would stand out, they also thanked him publicly for talking about the subject, as they assure that it is the first step to legalize it. The initiative reached more than 83,000 people and generated 7,689 engagements. In addition, 16,496 new followers were obtained in five days.
“Ideas come from day to day, that’s something we must learn,” said Abraham Quintana.
The third project is ‘Encierro’. Archer Troy did it together with the production company Humano and consists of a series of live shorts filmed and transmitted in real time through the Filmin Latino Instagram account, to entertain people during the health contingency caused by COVID-19 .
Between June 8 and 12, five characters told five different stories through monologues, allowing live interaction from viewers. At the end, a story was filmed with the special participation of actress Paulina Gaitán. The initiative, which consisted of 208,000 minutes of playback, achieved more than 300,000 hits and exceeded 160,000 views in just one week.
“Without a doubt, the bet now is co-creation, the users are the owners, so we will be working to achieve better results for them. Today more than ever we are committed to evolution ”, concludes Miguel Ángel Arciniega.
