Innovative digital campaigns

Saturday September 19, 2009
Innovative digital campaigns
By EUGENE MAHALINGAM

Thinking out of the box to get hits.

EARLY this year, fast food giant Burger King launched an online campaign on Facebook called The Whopper Sacrifice. The concept of the campaign was to “dump” (delete) 10 of your friends from Facebook to receive a coupon for a free Whopper hamburger.

According to reports, 233,906 friends were removed by 82,771 people in less than a week.

Burger King launched the online campaign on Facebook called The Whopper Sacrifice – AFP

And Facebook members even created unofficial groups, offering to let other members add them as friends and then delete them for Whopper Sacrifice purposes!

Facebook had the campaign banned less than two weeks later, claiming that it was a violation of user privacy.

Some observers felt Facebook pulled the plug on the campaign for fear that it would affect its online user traffic.

Whatever the reason, one can’t deny that it was a ‘killer’ campaign, winning many accolades at Cannes Lions this year.

Says Universal McCann chief executive officer Prashant Kumar: “It was a very simple campaign, yet it was so effective. I myself got sacrificed a few times!”

On the local front, a host of online campaigns have been compelling enough to create a huge stir with its respective target audiences.

Prior to the launch of Proton Holdings Bhd’s Exora multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) earlier this year, Universal McCann and creative agency McCann Erickson worked on a digital-based naming contest for the vehicle.

Because the MPV was going to be Proton’s first vehicle with fully homegrown technology, an ultrasound image of a partially complete Exora in a mother’s womb was used to attract participants for the naming contest.


Tiger FC’s website

Needless to say, the month-long campaign that ended in September last year was a hit, attracting 251,763 entries, 84% of which were online submissions while the rest were via SMS.

When the car was finally launched this year, it was almost simultaneously launched on Twitter to capture the fancies of the Twitterati, which comprise some of the leading influencers in Malaysia.

“The campaign was so successful that it even became a case study for social media. The ultra sound photo was used to show that it was Malaysia’s baby. We wanted to cultivate a reaction that Proton was homegrown,” says Prashant.

“The Twitter campaign elicited excellent reactions and even became a case study for social media.”

He adds that Proton spent very little on media in the campaign.

Universal McCann claims that even before the launch of the MPV in April this year, Google had showed 1.5 million links to Exora.

Another digital campaign that was worked by Universal McCann was an online game for insurance company, Axa Affin Insurance Bhd.

Called Turning Point, the online game allowed a person to experience life by managing his or her wealth while balancing it with the quality of the person’s life.


The ultrasound image of Exora.

The game challenges a person to manage their wealth at four different life stages – fresh graduate, newly married, married with children, and golden age, which were represented by four levels in the game.

The aim was to drive relevance among ‘digitally-savvy young white collars, who, unlike their parents’ generation, live in a world that does not save, plan or think about tomorrow. Whoever made the ‘most money’ in the game would be the winner – participants also stood a chance to win cash prizes.

The online gimmick, which was held in 2008, attracted over two million visits in just two months, with over 4,000 participants taking part. Over 10,000 referrals were generated.

Axa Affin’s gross premiums surged over 50% as a result of the campaign.

“People loved it,” says Prashant.

Media Specialists Association president Tan Siang Lin recalls a website that was set up in 2004 to promote Tiger FC, the football marketing platform for Tiger Beer. (The campaign, developed by Grey Direct, won the Best of the Best award at the Direct Marketing Association of Malaysia Awards.)

“What I like about this campaign is it was based on local insight, developed with local craftsmanship, and it will always be attractive to the local audience,” she says.

The website had on it a ‘fantasy league’ that visitors could participate in, contests and online games.

The website had attracted about 100,000 unique visitors and over two million page views in the last two years, Tan says.

She says a successful campaign was one that was unique and different.

“Think out of the box. To get the message out, marketers and agencies need to spend considerable effort conceiving creative and innovative approaches, as well as packaging and distributing that message,” Tan says.

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