1.  #4dez Storytelling through WhatsApp

2.  Digital First 3.  Heilbronner Stimme 4.  Allee 2, 74072 Heilbronn, Germany 5.  Daniel Stahl, daniel.stahl@stimme.de, Reporter, +49 152 56615072 6.  as above 7.  daily circulation “Heilbronner Stimme”: roughly 80.000,

reach of www.stimme.de: over 2 million visits in March 2015, 300.000 unique users.

8.  70 years ago, during the second world-war, Heilbronn was attacked and partly destroyed by the British Royal Airforce - we told the story of that day through WhatsApp.

9.  ages 14 to 30

#4dez Engaging young people with the

local newspaper “Heilbronner Stimme” through a story told in WhatsApp

The Story On December 4th, 1944, during the second world-war, the town of Heilbronn was attacked by the British Royal Airforce. 6500 people died. The city still bears some marks from that day. 70 years later, we told the story of that day for young people through WhatsApp. We told the story over six hours, at the exact same times the events had happened 70 years ago.

The Idea ●  Tell a locally well-known story for a younger

audience. ●  Reach young people not yet associated with

our local newspaper. ●  Try new ways to publish content.

The Audience ●  Users had to register by sending a

WhatsApp-message saying “Heilbronn” to our number.

●  2500 users took part. ●  Most of them were under 30. We had users

of all other demographics as well.

Why We Used WhatsApp ●  Experiment with a well established

messaging-service. Get recognition of young people who are active there.

●  Test WhatsApp for further projects. ●  Messages appear in lockscreens of users. ●  Storytelling reaches users in a very

personal, almost intimate, environment.

Promotion ●  Invitation to register for the project in the

newspaper and on our Facebook-channel. ●  Reached out to local schools-classes who

were learning about the war and the attacks at the time. Invited them to register for the storytelling-project.

The content ●  about 30 text messages ●  7 pictures, 2 infographics, 1 GIF, 1 video ●  Further we built a web application explaining

the bombing in detailhttp://sawfish.stimme.de

Two-Way Communication ●  Users were able to interact with us. ●  Many users sent us short messages during

our live-reporting.

Thank you for this historic story. Great idea. With the pictures and the short infos, I could relive that day. I didn’t know, how extreme the bombings were. The live-storytelling was something to talk about in my group of friends. Keep up the good work.

Thank you for these impressions! In that night, my grandpa met my grandma. Unfortunately, I don’t know more about this. They never wanted to talk about it.

How intense. This sends chills down my spine.

Thank you for this project. It really was interesting. I think, it’s nice, that the Heilbronner Stimme keeps up with changes and by that also addresses young people.

Evaluation I - The users reactions ●  We asked the users to evaluate our service. ●  More than 80 percent “liked it a lot”. ●  More than 90 percent want to receive more

news through WhatsApp.

How did you like the project?

Told the story reasonably. I liked it a lot. This wasn’t suited for WhatsApp. Too much information in a very short amount of time. I would have liked to recieve more infos.

Would you like to more often receive news and updates through WhatsApp?

Yes No

Evaluation II - Our learnings ●  Younger users want to interact with us.

Communication through WhatsApp is not one-way.

●  We structured the storytelling concept bearing in mind a young and mobile audience. Thus we learned a lot about creating and publishing content digital first.

Benefits for “Heilbronner Stimme” ●  Positive effect for the brand among

younger people. ●  Reached young people never before

associated with “Heilbronner Stimme”. ●  Recognition from young people in our area

as innovative newsroom. ●  Learnings for future WhatsApp-projects.