The Blog - Archive for brands

20 Oct 2011
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10,000 new customers in the trees

by Mark P. Filed under: Case studies

Using our “community space” platform,  RUSIC, we built a social photo sharing competition for the Go Ape summer campaign. Will from Go Ape explains it more succinctly than I…

In Spring 2011, we challenged Simple Web with the task to come up with a mechanic that would wrap up an inviting offer in something that was cost effective, on brand and allowed anyone to “share their adventures”. Our ethos is to encourage people to live life more adventurously so when Simple Web presented the Rusic platform as an ideal way to get people to share imagery it seemed to tick all the boxes – slick photo uploading, automated sharing, self moderating and adaptable. Once launched, word spread and the interaction was fast to pick up and sustained throughout the life of the campaign. Results spoke for themselves in eight weeks the campaign generated close to 10,000 new customers in the trees!

 Will Blair – Go Ape Head of Marketing.

What?

The basic premise of the campaign allowed users to upload a photo of themselves being adventurous… They were then encouraged to share their page (with photo and bio) with their friends and family to gain votes and comments. The person with the most votes became the winner. A pool of prizes from sponsor companies was made available for the winners.

Every entrant and voter was rewarded with a voucher on completion of their task, i.e. entering the contest or voting for a photo.

How?

The campaign was built in days using the RUSIC social contest platform (created by Simpleweb). This allowed us to build a campaign very quickly using Facebook and Twitter to allow quick registration and social sharing. Users simply click an icon to interact with the campaign and then they are free to enter, vote or comment freely on the campaign. As users’ are using their “real” online persona, moderation is kept at a minimum as they were accountable for their actions directly as their avatars and links to their social profiles were displayed.

The Result

The results were way better than we expected. Within the four week campaign there were over 600 entries, 2,000 comments and 10,000 votes and a huge engagement rate. Some entrants generated over 2,000 page views, with the “most popular” entrant receiving over 800 votes. This demonstrates a very powerful aspect of social competitions; the brand influencer or the social evangelist, is a very powerful force that can be harnessed for very cost effective online peer to peer marketing.

Based on the high engagement rate we shouldn’t have been surprised at the voucher redemption rate. But we were. Wow. Over £160,000 worth of bookings were generated via the vouchers distributed through the competition. That’s over 60% conversion rate from the campaign.

When we analysed the actual web stats in comparison to the contest stats the correlation became even more interesting. The actual booking conversion rate on the main Go Ape website also increased, and while there’s not enough data to take this any further, optimistic speculation on the two sets of stats is easy.

Once the contest had ended, Go Ape were so happy with the result that after the results had been announced the contest was re-opened to allow users to gain more vouchers and prizes by creating captions for ten of the best photo’s. This ongoing, we’ll report back on this…

28 Aug 2011
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Mrzyk and Mariceau video. Style is priceless (NSFW)

by Mark P. Filed under: Community

This saucy little video by Mrzyk and Mariceau is one of the simplest, mesmerising music videos I’ve seen in a long while. Low budget, very simple to look at, making an average tune (Sébastien Tellier – Look) fantastic.

Simple is great and style is priceless.

To quote one of the comments from Youtube:

I’m a woman, i just watched another woman’s butt for 4min, and i found it the most beautiful thing evar. félicitations monsieur Tellier, félicitations Mrzyk et Moriceau

27 Jun 2011
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Golden iClouds

by Mark P. Filed under: Knowledge

Once aware of the Golden Ratio you will see it everywhere. Trees, fingers, plugholes… Apple. It’s natures natural frequency. Eight divided by five. It even underlies the cycle of our brain waves! Which is why perhaps that we have such an affinity for it.

Seeing this breakdown of Apple’s iCloud is a beautiful introduction to the  golden ratio and its use in day to day design.

Where else does Apple demonstrate this principle? I wonder if it’s related to the religious type response certain people have for Apple products.

8 Oct 2010
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This weeks Best Viral Ads 8th October

by Sarah Bale Filed under: Community

On a weekly basis most of us will see a large number of ads and campaigns through Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, email, etc that we then share with our friends – harnessing the viral effect. Sometimes these will be advertising genius, other times they will require crisis management, a lot of the time they will quite simply just be hilarious. At Simpleweb, we have decided to compile a list of our 5 top Viral ads of the week to share with you.

In no particular order…

1. Tippex

I think I could be one of the last to see this one as I only heard about it this week at a talk I went to by Will King, CEO of King of Shaves. This is an absolutely brilliant example of how a company, Tippex, have made a pretty boring, declining product into a fantastic advertising campaign.  Last time I checked the channel had had over 23 million views! If you look at all the comments as well you can see some of the hilarious things that people have typed in – Tippex seem to have thought of everything!

2. Cebu pacific

I absolutely love this and actually came across it in a news article. Whether it is a PR stunt or passenger video gone viral, to be honest, I think it is great either way! In the last 6 days it has had over 7 million hits!  That is 7 million hits for an airline most of us had probably never even heard of before, but will not easily forget – genius!

3. Sony Ericsson

As a part of the launch campaign for the new Xperia™ X10, Sony Ericsson have created a sequence of videos all entitled “Product Testing Institute.” The videos comically film models, seniors, glam rockers, toddlers, surfers and guidos comparing various SMART phones to see which one they think is the “Smartest”.

4. 10:10 How to cut carbon emissions

We have chosen this one because of the controversy it has caused across the media – resulting in it being removed.  The short film entitled, ‘No Pressure’ and directed by Richard Curtis, was apparently an attempt to “bring this critical issue back into the headlines whilst make people laugh” - the problem being that not too many people were laughing (read the full apology from 10:10 here).  Whatever your personal opinion of it (funny or not), it is a great example of how quickly and easily an audience can make their opinion heard by the masses.

5. Subaru

This ad makes fun of the four-door sedan crowd, in a highly humorous way, in an aim to set their new Legacy apart from the rest… very clever advertising!

So there you have it, our top 5 viral ads for this week!  What are your’s?

30 Apr 2010
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Our 5 favourite Facebook fan pages!

by Sarah Bale Filed under: Company

As we look at how we can help our customers with their Facebook fan pages, we thought it would be a good idea to tell you about our favourite 5 Facebook fan pages and explain why we love these pages.

1.Redbull

An immediate favourite that comes to mind is the Red Bull fan page. Their fan page is so interactive and incredibly well thought out. They know their target audience and they use this knowledge to engage people with interesting content.

Examples of this include, “Red Bull athletes” who regularly post comments through twitter that feed onto their “athlete” Facebook tab. They have fan only downloads, and a “procrastination Station” where you can play on games and race “the bull” whilst collecting red bull cans for points. They even have Red Bull Web TV!

My favourite feature however is “Drunkish Dials.” This is a catalogue of voice messages from people who have, rather drunkenly, called the toll free number on the Red Bull can! And it is hilarious! Their innovative, fun and engaging page really is Facebook fan pages at their best!

2. Victoria’s Secret Pink

Victoria’s Secret Pink Facebook fan page is incredibly clever and creative in the way it advertises its products. Their landing page is “The Scoop” which shows you various interactive features, all leading you to their websites.

There are various games to play with leader boards, all advertising their range of products. One of the best things about this is that it is themed, so their front page is always changing and the ideas are kept fresh and interesting to all existing fans.

They also interact regularly with their fans on their wall, telling them about new products and games but also to say Happy Birthday to whichever fans birthday it is every day!

3.Duct Tape

Duct Tape’s brand of tape called “Duck Tape” is another example of how you can use your Facebook fan page. This is initially funny because they have created a new product based on what some people, incorrectly, believed their name to be (duct/duck), and then run with it for their fan page! They do not post messages to their fans everyday, nor do they have lots of interactive games and links to their website. What is great about their page is how fans interact with each other about their brand.

The fans post photos of their use of Duck Tape and write comments about Duck Tape on the wall. Duck Tape may post a message every now and again, but there are daily posts from their 1 million+ fans about how much they love the product and how it can be used anyway!

The difference between this fan page and others, is that they do not need to advertise themselves directly in this channel, the fans do this for them on their page by demonstrating how great and useful their product is! Instead, it seems to form a platform where Duck Tape represent the brand and allow fans to discuss it around them.

4. Smirnoff

Smirnoff have a number of different fan pages, including a central page and more local pages, but they all follow the same themes. They use competitions very cleverly to engage more uniquely, to inspire. The prizes are all intriguing and creative, and they are presented in a very attention- grabbing and interactive way.

They have free giveaways, party guides, cocktail menus and a lot of other great marketing features that other brands utilise, but it is their use and presentation of various contests that we really like about the Smirnoff page, who would want to miss out on some of these experiences?!

5. LoveHoney

One important point to make is that you do not have to be a big brand to get this right. LoveHoney is a great example of how a small business can use Facebook to engage with people whilst telling them about their brand.

Their page is relatively simple, it does not have all the graphics that some of the other fan pages do, but it is the content that makes this fan page successful in our opinion. They make regular, interesting posts, that users often comment on, not just about their products but about other relevant products and news.

They have various, frequent competitions that engage people and get people interacting on their wall. They have a number of tabs along the top, the virtual “Gift Shop” tab for example, that enables fans to send virtual toys to their friends on Facebook. There is an “exclusive” tab, which is also their landing page, where they post a new exclusive offer every month to all their fans and a prize draw every Monday where one lucky fan wins one of their products.

Facebook enables brands to have a personality and LoveHoney certainly has made the most of this; displaying itself as approachable, friendly, fun and interesting.

So, these are our chosen 5 from a choice of many! All very different brands using their fan pages in very different ways, all, in our opinion, very successfully!