Finally, A Panel to Sink Your Teeth Into: Two Case Studies

The Exchange Series IV: The Consumer Experience in a Multi-Platform World was one of the last panels of a very long Wednesday here at ad:tech, and since vaguery seems to be a common theme this year, my expectations for this panel going into it were admittedly low. However, I stumbled upon what was perhaps the most informative, energetic session I’ve attended as actual case studies of innovative, integrated, collaborative campaigns for T-Mobile/MTV and Nim’s Island/Stardoll were shared. If you were looking for concrete examples of actual campaigns and their specifics, this was the panel for you.

On panel to discuss their campaigns were Pooja Midha, VP, Business Development for MTV Networks, Dan Fietsam, Executive VP/Executive Creative Director for Publicis in the West, and Vijay Rao, VP, Associate Director of Communications Planning at Optimedia comprised the T-Mobile/MTV team. Matt Griswold, Director of Interactive Marketing for Fox Walden and Glen Ginsburg, Senior VP of Sales for Stardoll were on hand to discuss their Nim’s Island/Stardoll collaboration. Unlike a traditional panel with a moderator, this session was truly a show and tell of successful, experimental campaigns. To get right down to it, lets go through each case study. First up, T-Mobile and MTV....

Case Study: T-Mobile Sidekick and MTV

Situation: Sidekick initially launched by WOM, not traditional advertising. As a niche, iconic product of the young & hip “born digital” crowd, the challenge was to move this product from niche to mass, and to maintain authenticity in a noisy marketplace.

As Dan Fiestam of Publicis explained, they spent a lot of time digging into qualitative understandings of their core targets--and the collaboration with MTV was a natural choice with such high audience cross-over.

The core elements of the Sidekick communications plan set the focus for the entire integrated campaign:  create awareness; TV isn’t dead (product placement integration; focus on relationships; accentuate the innovative product integrations. “We wanted to be really contextually relevant-- focus on really compelling content and usefulness with respect for the consumers space,” explained Vijay Rao of Optimedia.

The Campaign: “Constantly Connected”
The entire focus of the campaign was to provide a rich, multi-touchpoint user experience, encouraging brand engagement on consumer’s own terms. The heart of the campaign centered around the creation of an original, branded series called “Connected” in which characters represented core audience segments, and which of course featured the Sidekick as part of the story.

Using MTV’s rich content delivery platforms, this fully integrated campaign combined and synergized efforts across SEO, social media/viral efforts; promoted across all MTV content platforms, and virtual world integration. Key highlights of the campaign were:

-Rich microsite with robust content delivery features was home to the “Connected” series
-Deep content integration via social technologies- created cross-platform branded spaces on mass and niche social networks based around series characters
-Created branded games within MTV virtual world properties
-Integrated into online editorial content with VH1 blog placements about the series characters
-Multiple touchpoints across digital platforms including character profiles on popular social networks
-MTV embraced “Connected” as its own content and TV spots were created to support the series

Their Results?

-"Connected" was the largest MTV Network Digital Program
-People spent an average 4.5 minutes on the “Connected” site
-700k+ streams of “Connected” shows
-More streams than several MTV hit shows
-Stickiness of microsite outperformed many other MTVN vertical sites

Key Insights:
-Encourage brand engagement on their (consumer’s) own terms
-Maintain authenticity under guise of content providers (ex: branded MySpace Live Events/ profile page-- used as entry point for conversation by offering compelling content)
-You must give them a value proposition to engage with your brand on their own terms

Case Study 2: Fox Walden’s Nim’s Island and Stardoll

Next up were Matt Griswold of Fox Walden and Glen Ginsburg of virtual Stardoll to elaborate on their Nim’s Island movie release/Stardoll virtual world collaboration. Nim’s Island (starring Little Miss Sunshine’s Anna Breslin) is targeted specifically to tween/teen audiences which posed a unique challenge for its marketing.  Griswold’s approach was to get the target audience excited about and identify with movie themes of adventure and the characters themselves by following certain campaign tenets: provide something of value; incorporate brands directly to experience for maximum engagement; create multiple touchpoints; create platform for discussion; make it fun. Stardoll, a virtual shopping world targeted to tween/teens with a registered user base of 16 million was deemed a perfect partner to execute a campaign with such lofty goals. Below is an overview of their collaboration:

The Campaign:
-Nim’s Island Virtual Store Launch in “StarPlaza,” Stardoll’s premiere shopping center
-Created pop-up store revolved around Nims (usually poo poo branded presences in virtual worlds, but admittedly I am already too old and not part of the V-world generation...I stick to my Twitter and Facbook)
-Deep, rich content experience including deep association through showcasing movie images along with virtual goods
-Campaign evolved overtime....offered ultra-exclusive content including “Stardollars” giveaways through unlocking secret codes and getting digital assets like animals (Selkie the seal) for their virtual rooms..Selkie spread virally through virtual world
-Very co-branded to integrate, not disrupt, users’ experience and maintained respect for user’s life online

Their Results?

-70% of campaign CPMs came through virtual worlds ...not banner ads
-Over 1 million-related items in user suites (rooms) and interacted with 13 million times
o Served up over 300 million total impressions!
-Sampled movie exclusive movie featurette to users-- 2 weeks after Starplaza initiative
o 250k views overnight
o 10k comments on video-- excellent target feedback which identified real intent to see the movie

“The most powerful campaigns integrate directly into game-play of a site,” commented Griswold on the success of their campaign.

The beauty of this session is that attendees finally got some concrete examples of all of the “engage the consumer” speak we’ve been hearing this whole conference. Its too bad that the session was at the end of a long day and had fewer attendees than most of the other panels. Both of these teams successfully demonstrated that these kinds of integrated engagement campaigns do indeed generate results. So, top take-away lessons?

-Focus on engaging consumer through content and experience vs. messaging to consumer
-Provide Compelling content
-Provide Rich experiences that enhance user’s life online
-Foster communication and interaction with brand on consumer’s own terms
-Its about integration, not disruption