Dr Pepper's 'The Pepperhood' campaign showed that using games in social media can boost brand affinity, increase purchase among light users and drive trial.
The basic insight was that young men love playing online games and like sharing something they have found first, which gives them kudos.
The brand launched The Pepperhood, a social adventure game based on a fictitious American-style college fraternity played on the web, mobile, Facebook and in the real world.
Using instant rewards and quick progression, Dr Pepper encouraged a big number of game plays and frequent return visits each time a new game was launched.
Participation was driven by giving away merchandise, including Xboxes, Pepperhood sweatshirts and enormous foam hands. The ultimate winner was crowned president of the UK chapter of the Pepperhood live on MTV.
Driving trial of the product was essential and new players were rewarded with free Dr Pepper. Some 27,500 sampling coupons were delivered to non-users. More than 70,000 players registered, generating one million page views, while dwell time was about four minutes, high for a game of this nature. More than 4,000 pieces of user-generated content were uploaded to the site.
The Pepperhood campaign was the only significant new brand activity undertaken by Dr Pepper during a five-month period. In that time, sales increased significantly. The Facebook fan page's number of active users more than tripled from 60,000 to 210,000.
The judges described the way the campaign was devised as 'bold', adding that 'it really did understand the target consumer and how to shift behaviour'.
HIGHLY COMMENDED
ASOS
ASOS created the digital equivalent of people camping outside its shop to promote its online summer sale, earning the biggest day's revenue in its history.
The online clothes retailer set out to replicate the anticipation people feel when queuing up for a sale. To do this, ASOS offered early entry to the online sale for the brand's fans on Facebook. Those who 'digitally elbow' their way to the front of the queue would enter first. They could do this by amassing points in a series of online games. The games were played nearly 500,000 times in 96 hours, while sale revenue from Facebook more than tripled.
Judges said the campaign was very powerful and that few brands use insight from a game to the levels the brand achieved with this project.
ALSO SHORTLISTED FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
- Skype, Say it with Skype; Unilever, Lynx Excite;
- Skoda, Solving the mystery of a successful social strategy