The NewHouse Agency takes second in American Petroleum Institute competition
Syracuse, NY – This week, members of The NewHouse, the student-run advertising agency of the Newhouse school, won second place in Energy Tomorrow: America’s Challenge. The team presented an integrated marketing campaign to energy industry executives in San Francisco, California on May 12.
Syracuse University was one of three schools represented in the national finals for the competition, which was organized by EdVenture Partners. The challenge was to create an advertising campaign to educate college-age students on national energy issues, and was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute. The winning school was from the University of New Mexico, and the third place team was from Ball State University.
The team was led by junior advertising major Evan Davis (Longmeadow, MA), and consisted of junior advertising majors Steve Prosonic (Camillus, NY) and Dave Biles (Penfield, NY) and sophomore advertising majors Allyssa Kaiser (Zimmerman, MN) and Rodney Fleming (Parsons, KS).
The strategy behind the campaign was to “promote energy with energy” by developing a series of energy drinks called Joule that would subtly double as educational tools about energy issues.
“We knew we wanted a really big, bold idea. And an incredibly well-targeted idea. So we turned to the best resource of all: our peers. We gained some great insight into our target and went from there,” Davis said.
The proposed campaign was designed to promote the drink, and not the energy issues themselves. It centered around an energy drink with six flavors: crude, natural gas, coal, solar, nuclear and wind. The drink can would serve as a vehicle for delivering key facts and statistics. Another key component was vending machines, placed on college campuses across the nation, to distribute the drinks.
The team was accompanied to San Francisco by Professor Brian Sheehan.
“Joule is surprising in its impact: it has the earmarks of an idea that could actually succeed in the market, potentially on a gigantic scale. Their presentation was also stellar. They were exciting to watch and presented their work with the flair of seasoned professionals. I was just happy to be associated with their success,” Sheehan said.
This is the fourth time The NewHouse has placed in a national competition in the last 2 years. The agency won the GM+U Marketing challenge in December 2009 and the Honda CR-Z Media Challenge in December 2010, both sponsored by EdVenture Partners.
For more information about The NewHouse or this campaign, contact Jen Brotman, agency president, at (908)-723-3842, TheNewHouseAgency@gmail.com.
This semester has been incredibly interesting thus far as my team has worked with Home Headquarters, a non-for-profit organization in Syracuse that helps to build and reconstruct houses in the area. The organization also helps community members better understand the Home buying and owning process. This organization has been great to work with not only because the client is open minded and eager to hear our feedback, but also because it is an organization that plays an important role in the Syracuse community.
Since the beginning of the semester, my team has been focusing on re-designing the current Home Headquarters website. We are in the process of moving the site from an .html format to a Wordpress site. Ideally, we want to set this site up so that multiple employees will be able to update it regularly with ease.
Currently, we are collecting information from the website and editing it/discussing what we like and don't like. From here, we are hoping to set up the Wordpress site and transfer the data. We are also hoping to install various plugins that will help the organization properly reach its target market. Overall, our goal is to make their current site more concise and consumer friendly. We just want to make sure that the consumer can get everything they need in an organized fashion.
One of the principles we've learned in working with Home Headquarters is that for any company or organization to grow into success, they must have roots in accessibility and availability, especially in this day and age when everyone is using the Internet in some capacity to find information, products, and services. Advertising is more than just selling a company brand and product. With the multiple platforms that customers interact with brands, advertisers offer the service of managing customers' interactions with the brand. Here with Home Headquarters, we are focusing on their Internet presence.
We are all learning so much, and can't wait to see the final product!
This semester TNH is launching a social media campaign for Hudson Grove & Co., a high-end jeweler based in NYC that provides engagement and wedding jewelry for the LGBT community. After receiving the client briefing, I was already excited to start working on such a unique product. Working on a product marketing to the LGBT community provided valuable lessons in uncovering the behaviors and characteristics of an unknown target demographic.
My team kicked off the semester with extensive research into both the LGBT community and the jewelry industry. We discovered that by engaging the online community, Hudson Grove & Co. could potentially become the industry leader, as there are not many jewelers out there that cater specifically to this market. What was even more promising for Hudson Grove was the finding that the LGBT community utilizes social media and engages in the online world at a significantly higher level than the heterosexual community. Specifically, they reported frequently interacting with websites that both cater to their community and take an activist stance, promoting gay marriage and LGBT equality.
This finding was key to our social media strategy for Hudson Grove. At the core of the campaign will be a blog where Hudson Grove will ignite conversation about the fight for LGBT marriage rights and social equality. By posting news articles and issues within the community, Hudson Grove’s blog will serve as a platform for the community to talk about the movement. Furthermore, as conversation spreads online, Hudson Grove will be forging relationships with potential clients who will turn to the brand when in need of wedding jewelry. To supplement the blog, TNH will also be setting up the brand’s Facebook and Twitter pages to further direct consumers to the blog and increase their presence online.
photo taken from wordpress.com
Keep your eyes out for the blog and social media sites soon!
What type of condoms do you use? Personal question I know, but when you think about condoms what are the first three brands that come to your mind? Let me guess …
Trojan, Durex and Lifestyles
That’s what everyone says. Not anymore. ONE condoms is taking on the big boys and they are starting this journey with the help of TNH. If you haven’t heard of ONE, take a look. ONE condoms are unique. They come in circular wrappers with over 250 witty designs and are packaged in tin cases. What’s your favorite saying?
Last semester our team conducted research in order to position ONE in the market and develop a strategy to most efficiently build brand awareness and loyalty. We analyzed MRI data, did netnography studies and conducted several focus groups. The findings helped us develop two campaigns, based on the common theme of empowering women. We decided that the competition effectively targets men, so why not take advantage of targeting women? Plus, when it comes to sex, women are most likely going to make or break the decision. That’s right boys, like it or not, she has the final say. So, in order to build awareness for this relatively new brand, we decided to reach out to women and reassure them that they have the power when it comes to sex, and that ONE will provide them with the extra confidence needed when making condom-related decisions. Also, while creating a relationship with females ONE indirectly targets men – if she wants ONE I’m sure you guys will have no problem using ONE. Great strategy.
This semester our team moved on to two other projects. The first project was a website makeover – ONE was in need of major renovating. After in-depth research on both ONE and the competitions’ websites, we developed an inclusive report, explaining ONE’s weaknesses and opportunities, while our creatives went to work building website templates. The second project, which is currently under way, is a social media strategy. We’ve already conducted the research, now we are working on the strategy. Overall, this semester has been extremely hands on and our team has produced great work full of great ideas!
So next time you are in Target, pick up a package of ONE condoms – Even if you do not plan on using them, the innovative sayings will be sure to make you laugh. And, if you think you’re creative enough to design a better wrapper, submit your idea to the Design ONE contest.
A few brands have been going retro with their campaigns. I'm talking song or a jingle retro. Nationwide Insurance is by my side. Like a good neighbour, State Farm is here. The scene is getting pretty crowded if you ask me! UPS stands out thanks to its excellent cinematography and the great insight that went into the ad - no one knows or cares about whatever the hell "logistics" means. With this commercial, UPS defines it for you in an emotional way, and hence now owns that word in your dictionary. Pretty brilliant! Unfortunately they don't seem to be maximizing the potential of this strategic idea. I see so much more that can be done to turn this into a social campaign and build more hype around the services! Here are a few keywords to work off of: simplifying life, cross-border relationships, support for small businesses, stories, stories, stories...
If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably heard of Steiner Sports Memorabilia – they’re the industry leader in memorabilia. You can’t watch a Yankees game on TV without hearing their name, and you’ve probably noticed Steiner signs at the Carrier Dome. So when I found out that the man who started it all, Brandon Steiner, is a Syracuse alum and wanted our agency to do some work for them, I was ecstatic at the opportunity.
Last semester, our team created a full social media campaign for Steiner Sports’ holiday sales. You can get a little snippet here. We wanted Steiner Sports to help women “Beat the Game Face.” The overall premise of the campaign was that every year, guys are forced to put on a fake game face when they receive a boring present. But if you get your man a Steiner gift, they won’t have to fake anything – and you’ll “Beat the Game Face.”
This semester, we’re continuing to work for Steiner Sports, but with the holiday season over, we’re starting some new projects. Look out for this in the coming months, but we will be running some sort of “pimp-my-room” competition for the Syracuse fan that bleeds orange the hardest. Additionally, we will continue to help Steiner Sports from a social media/tech aspect – building the brand’s presence on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. will be key.
But if you need any ‘Cuse gear and can’t wait until we run our contest, head on over to the Steiner Sports website and start shopping. After all, lax season just started up, so I recommend checking out the lacrosse collection.
And keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming projects…
As an advertising student for the past four years, a once prevalent thought that used to cross my mind every once in a while has marinated and festered into a nagging belief that refuses to exit the confines between my ears. It is a belief that stems from the fact that nearly every student of the advertising profession (notice I didn’t say advertising student) is so caught up in pleasing their peers that the lifeblood of the advertising profession tends to be an afterthought. By lifeblood, I am referring to the general masses. You know, the people with the purchasing power necessary to fuel the big old machine that is advertising and marketing.
Too often, in my opinion, do I witness my advertising peers place themselves on a sort of pedestal as if a power has been invested into them to be able to judge what is considered good work or bad work. As such, constant over analysis by self-proclaimed “experts” has become the norm. You’ve heard the conversations between these “experts” before. They go something like this:
“My god, I can’t believe they used Helvetica.”
“That car is riding on the mountains because it represents freedom.”
But the point of the matter is that it is irrelevant what we as students of advertising like or consider good work. Do you think the average person sees an ad and recognizes the Helvetica font? Of course not. Do you really believe that your average Joe sees the car ad and thinks, “Boy, I’ll be so free in that car to drive anywhere?” Of course not. Instead he’s more likely to say something along the lines of, “What the hell is that car doing in the mountains?”
So what am I getting at here exactly? What is my belief?
We as students of the advertising profession need to stop thinking about just pleasing our peers. We need to stop thinking about ourselves as the authority in determining the merit of an ad. Instead, we need to start focusing on the average consumer and what they want. After all,
it’s their money that determines the merit of an advertising campaign.
Editor's note: Matt didn't realize that his view aligns very closely with Sir David Ogilvy in Ogilvy on Advertising. "Good advertising is salesmanship," is the thesis of the book. If you agree at all with Matt, you should pick it up.
If you've been following TNH, you might remember our our nontraditional marketing stunt of bras in the quad (check out our article in the D.O.). Our client at the time, Feel Your Boobies, believes in quirky and nontraditional methods of communication to raise breast cancer awareness around the nation (unintentional rhyme). Going with that theme, we pulled off a little bit of non-traditional advertising for a video competition the organization was hosting. The objective was to create a 60-second or less online video reminding your friends to "feel their boobies" to check for breast cancer. FYB came to us to drum up student interest in the competition.
We used this, ahem, eye-catching ad to draw attention to the competition.
The FYB video competition - aimed to remind friends/family to feel their boobies - was a huge success. Syracuse had more than 5 entries in the competition as a result of our work. The grand prize was awarded to a very deserving (and cute) baby.
This semester we are transitioning to a totally new client - AutoRef - who wants to revolutionize the online car buying process. It is an exciting client because we will accompany them through their development for the next few months. We are currently in the research stage, with a focus on potential consumers, and throughout the semester we aim to progress through the creative stage with promotional material.
And while on the topic of cars...
In my opinion, the 2-minute long Chrysler Super Bowl ad produced by Wieden + Kennedy (an agency that will never cease to amaze me), was one of the best of the night. It was executed better and felt shorter than the majority of useless 30-seconds spots.
Make sure to keep an eye out for AutoRef and don't forget to Feel Your Boobies!
I miss the days of good advertising jingles. Recently, I haven't heard any so I decided to search for the best-ever advertising jingles. Here's the list, courtesy of Forbes (updated in june 2010).
In Fall 2010 The NewHouse Agency entered Honda's national CR-Z Media Challenge, sponsored by American Honda Motors and Edventure Partners. The competition challenged teams of students to create a non-traditional public relations campaign with social media to increase buzz for the Honda CR-Z amongst the Generation Y target. The team representing Syracuse University was made up of Adam Beilman, Yang Yang, and Jennifer Brotman, all advertising students in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Specifically, the goal of the competition was to generate excitement among the target using free and earned media. While event marketing and Facebook seemed to be the obvious choice, our team pursued a different route in getting the target to experience the Honda CR-Z. The catch was that we only had $150 to generate as much publicity as possible. It was imperative that we create a convincing message that resonates with the target.
Honda provided aprofile of the “Generation Y” demographics. They are single males and females between the ages of 18 and 35. They are in college or college educated, with a household income of $40K-$60K. That’s all well and good, but we need to understand their lifestyles as well.
Our biggest strength is that we are a part of Gen Y, and we understand how we and our peers think, feel and experience life.
It was easy for us to figure out how best to tell the story of the Honda CR-Z since we already speak "Gen Y". The brief for this campaign included psychographics for the target, and we have to admit that they were spot on.
Whenever we travel, our biggest concern would be if we have access to power outlets and WIFI so that we can work on our laptops. We constantly feel the need to be connected to our friends and family and seek out the latest technologies that allow us to do so.
Gen Y wants to save the environment without sacrificing style and performance in their vehicle choices.
If anyone tries to sell us products that are “environmentally friendly," we’d question their intentions. The whole Green movement comes off as patronising to us, sometimes we even question why we’d have to make all these sacrifices to save the earth when really our generation wasn’t the one that created this whole mess in the first place. We still have a passion for protecting the environment, it’s we just don’t think it has to come at the expense of our passion for enjoying life!
That’s why the CR-Z appeals to Gen Y - it lets us have the best of both worlds - we get to save the environment without compromising on fun things like speeding on a highway or cruising around the city with our friends.
Gen Y wants driving to be about the journey too
When we first start driving, we're given our parent's old beat-up minivan. It was not fun-to-drive, it was not stylish and it was far from meeting our needs as a part of Generation Y. We wanted to stand out from the crowd, but not like a minivan does. With these cars, driving was never about the journey - we just wanted to get to the destination without getting teased or called a soccer mom.
The Honda CR-Z changes that. It had style and performance and makes us feel like we are in control. Driving was finally about the journey and we wanted to take our Generation Y peers on the journey with us through our campaign.
Everyone remembers his or her first car. Just as vividly, they remember the first car that they actually bought.Buying a car is an emotional experience. It’s not enough to just get the facts during these purchases. All of the marketing language can be overwhelming. You can tell me that the CR-Z is a sport-hybrid and a two-seater car with driver-centric controls. You can impress me with the expansive cargo area and intuitive technology, but that doesn’t really set the CR-Z apart. What I need are the emotional benefits that are attached to these features.
We need to connect on an emotional level with the car and its features in order to make this high involvement purchase. We want to see how the CR-Z can meet our lifestyle needs.
Since the CR-Z is the only Sport Hybrid out there – I know that it stands for innovation, and that I don’t have to feel guilty about taking the car over public transportation on my way to school or work. Because it’s a two-seater, I know that my passenger would be someone I have a special relationship with. It creates room for intimacy within the car. The driver centric controls and different driving modes make me feel like I’m always in control. And the expansive cargo area wouldn’t just be more room for my stuff, it represents the freedom to take off on a road trip with a friend.
We have demonstrated that trying to capture the attention of our consumers with merely a rational hard-sell of product benefits is difficult. But a brand with a message that inspires Gen Y’s hearts can move them into action. That’s why we decided to tap into the target audience’s life experiences for an insightful message for the Honda CR-Z.
Introducing, “CR-Z: You & Me.”
This is a tagline we have coined to serve as the overarching theme of all of our campaign efforts. We believe that it resonates very well with Gen Y’s psyche and speak to them on three levels.
First, the vehicle only has room for a driver and a passenger. Many of our target buyers are beyond their college days and may have moved off to a different city. They are independent but certainly still seeking some sort of companionship. When only two people are in a car together, it generally indicates a special relationship or friendship – something the target hopes to attain and maintain. Put two close friends or a couple in the car and any trip is bound to be fun. Especially so if it were a roadtrip, which has a strong appeal to Gen Y because of its connotations of freedom and bonding experiences between the two individuals. You & Me.
Then, the experience with and within the vehicle is a fantastic selling point. It is an indisputable human truth that we all treat our personal cars with as much care and love as if they were real people. The CR-Z has potential to become like someone very dear to us. We will take it to all our favorite places and really enjoy the rides thanks to its intuitive technology. We wouldn’t be afraid to flaunt the car on a night around town – its stylish appearance is something we can really be proud of. While these young drivers care about utility, they care much more about enjoying the ride and looking great while doing so. In this case, theCR-Z itself becomes the second part of the relationship.You & Me.
Finally, social media is the single greatest cultural phenomenon that Gen Y has collectively adopted as its own. In fact, we created it. A quick survey of the more successful social media platforms would reveal that most of their founders and developers are Gen Y: Facebook, Foursquare, even Twitter… This has to do with the fact that Gen Y prefers circulating their own information. We want to believe that we have specific interests and the information we put out should reflect that. We also want to network with people who share our interests to create a wealth of topical knowledge. That is why we prefer to spread information from one person to another, hence the whole premise of social media. This method of communication that is so unique to Gen Y and we developed our campaign around this knowledge. You & Me.
This strategic message also ties in nicely with the CR-Z’s existing advertising campaign tagline of “complete opposites in complete harmony.”
From there, we needed to figure out how to convey the message of You & Me in a way that would get us free, earned and social media.
We thought about our peers and what they like to do. We know they frequent the Internet and social media. They watch user generated content and TV. When they see something interesting or humorous, they want to share it with everyone. For example, when I see a funny video, I never hesitate to make my friends watch it with me or at least share the link with them.
Gen Y also really likes reality shows. Particularly those that feature dating and relationship issues. Because our target audience is single and we wanted to focus on bringing two individuals together, we decided to develop our own speed dating reality show around the Honda CR-Z.
Speed dating is a recent pop culture phenomenon. In essence, it is a matchmaking process where large groups of people would gather to meet each other in the hopes of finding someone else with similar interests. Typically, this is done in a casual setting such as a restaurant, and participants would go from table to table to talk to one another. This is popular with Gen Y becauseour generation doesn’t follow the traditional dating model. We like instant gratification, and things happen quickly these days. We have online dating sites, and we watch shows where people go from meeting to being engaged in the span of 10 episodes. For our campaign, we planned to put our own spin on the idea of speed dating and make it a reality show. The content coming out of this would both create publicity for the CR-Z and showcase its features.
We wanted a bachelor and a bachelorette, who would each go on four different dates. These main characters would be given the car and a route to drive with each date. The catch? The date lasts only as long as it takes to drive to the destination.
We decided to house our reality show and therefore the base of our campaign on YouTube (Channel Link: YouAndMeCRZ). When many people hear the phrase “social media,” it often implies Facebook or Twitter. Of course, these are mandatories in this day and age. However, YouTube and its new interactive features gave us an innovative opportunity to connect with our target and to actually go viral. Online videos can be passed on many ways, from emails to Facebook wall posts to someone watching over your shoulder in the computer lab or the office. We didn’t have to “beg” our friends to “like” or “follow” a page - this video series had legs of its own. The YouTube platform also makes for a great base for the social media campaign because it is a great destination for the other pages to link and anyone can discover it very easily.
In all, we produced 10 videos in the series - introductions to our suitors, Jen and John, and 4 dates for each of them. While many hours were spent editing after the filming, very little production was needed beforehand. The people in our videos were not actors, and the shows were not scripted. They were real people going on real dates. This ensured a genuine message from genuinely interesting people. In total, we produced almost an hour of original video content. The following is a highlight reel of particularly entertaining moments during the dates, accompanied by links to the youtube.com channels where you can view all of the videos:
Alongside the YouTube component, we created a Facebook fan page (Link to page) as an additional platform for our audiences to engage with us and stay updated on all of our upcoming events. It also facilitated our fan photo competitions. This was a two part initiative. The first one occurred on Halloween, when people were out in large numbers partaking in festivities (Link to page). The second one occurred before a football home game against our rivals, the University of Connecticut. This game had the highest expected turnout of the season (Link to page). We positioned the car in spots with high foot traffic in front of a large CR-Z: You & Me branded banner. Fans got the opportunity to check out the CR-Z and pose for a photo with it. After the photos were uploaded on our Facebook page, the people featured in the photo that got the most “likes” were awarded gift cards.
We also utilizedTwitter as a means to broadcast our activities (Link to page). Later on, when we got media coverage, our share of voice on Twitter grew exponentially with retweets and mentions.
Quickly, over the span of just two weeks, the videos became viral. We stopped being the gatekeepers to our campaign - our viewers were making their own connections with each other. As more people passed the videos on to their friends and family through emails, word of mouth and social media, the number of views we got increased exponentially. By creating a “reality” show atmosphere, we facilitated real conversations with real people. Generation Y is not very open to traditional advertising messages. We facilitated positive product placement, which is good because audiences should subconsciously register the benefits of a product. If people talk about a product in a way that’s not believable, it is actually harmful to the brand. For example, on Burn Notice the use of the Hyundai Genesis is poor product placement because it made people mad that it was blatantly obvious, therefore insulting their intelligence. Gen Y is willing, however, to watch an entertaining show featuring people and places that they know, and then pass them on to their friends.
Another factor that bolstered the viral potential of our speed dating videos was the fact that we were relentless in our public relations efforts. We drafted a press release to send out to the media channels we wanted our campaign to be publicized on. But more importantly, and true to the spirit of our campaign message You & Me, we leveraged personal relationships with the media personnel. We researched the connections that we had within each medium, alumni or otherwise, then reached out to them personally.
We reached out to a variety of media outlets to reach the target in Syracuse and beyond. We reached out to the The Daily Orange because it is one of the top campus newspapers in the nation and is a morning staple of many SU students. As for the Syracuse Post Standard, it is the newspaper of the city of Syracuse and is the 10th best read by percent of DMA in the country. Our hope was, if we were covered by the Post-Standard, it would spread our message well beyond the campus area to all of Syracuse. We also reached out to the Newhouse School’s news department with hopes of getting press on the school’s webpage and social media profiles. Finally, we identified some key blogs we’d like to have cover us: Campus Basement is a satirical news site which has expanded to 5 New York colleges and is wildly popular among Syracuse undergrads. College Candy is a blog targeted to college women which primarily discusses dating and pop culture.
From the onset, various news outlets were interested in making public the fact that we had made it to the top ten of this competition. We maintained our networking efforts with them thereafter so that they were also interested in covering the success of the campaign as it progressed.
Once our videos became viral, more news channels wanted to tell our story, getting us the earned media coverage we desired. Since an important part of public relations campaigns is to measure their effectiveness in generating publicity around a cause, our next segment is dedicated to this purpose. We will look at the successes of our campaign through how well we met the original objectives set by Honda, the impressions generated, and its equivalent advertising value.
At the onset of this campaign, we did not fully understand where our social media impressions would actually come from. Our YouTube series exploded in popularity, more than doubling our projection for views. Originally disappointed with the number of fans and followers we thought we achieved on Facebook and Twitter respectively, we learned that we were still being shared and talked about beyond our own control and beyond our imaginations. This means that our campaign truly became viral because people were passing our videos on. This embodies the idea of "You & Me" because people were truly discussing the campaign amongst themselves.
The extensive print and online media coverage we achieved only helped in driving traffic to our social media pages and truly building excitement about this campaign in Syracuse. We were covered by all the aforementioned news sources that we reached out to. We were also approached by Citrus TV, the primary source of news on campus. Specifically, both Citrus TV News and Citrus TV Noticias, the English and Spanish news shows, inquired about our campaign separately. They asked for interviews about our campaign and our videos.
We met Honda’s primary and secondary campaign objectives. We raised awareness of the Honda CR-Z among the target buyer in many ways. People saw the car around campus, they took part in our photo events and they participated in our “speed” dating series. People watched the dates and voted for their favorite daters. They passed on the videos and talked about them on social media and in person.
Not only did the photo events and the “speed” dating series raise awareness, but they created buzz and excitement about the Honda CR-Z among the target buyer. People talked about the dating series. They encouraged their friends to watch it. Everything was passed on between you & me.
We raised Honda’s environmental image among the target audience by engaging in conversation with our photo event participants and passersby, many of whom wanted to know more about the hybrid features. Although unintended, the participants of our dating series talked about some of the hybrid features of the car, such as the engine turning off at a complete stop. Since these conversations were in the videos, all viewers were able to see the car in action and essentially experience its’ features for themselves.
We obtained coverage for the Honda CR-Z in traditional media outlets that reached the target audience. As you’ll see here, we achieved and exceeded our media goals that we laid out earlier.
We have prepared a video to summarize our campaign, its coverage and our overall results.
As this video just demonstrated, we were highly successful. Just to recap, On YouTube, we have now received over 8,200 total views. This just goes to show how viral our campaign really is. With YouTube, we can prove that we successfully reached our target. According to YouTube Insight, our impressions were almost equally split between males and females, and Generation Y-aged viewers were overwhelmingly the largest pool of viewers. Also, of the people who viewed our YouTube videos, one in four were watching multiple videos in the series at one time. As for Facebook, we had over 14,000 impressions, with nearly 85% of our impressions coming from those in the target age range.
Twitter also gave us nearly 5,000 total impressions through our use of it as a broadcast medium. Others also tweeted about our campaign and retweeted links to our news stories. Retweets and mentions of our activities created what we called “twimpressions” – impressions equal to the number of followers we couldn’t have reached otherwise. This is a unique PR opportunity exclusive to Twitter. Between these three forms of social media, there were over 25,000 impressions and the total value was worth more than $1900 in equivalent advertising.
As for media generated, between traditional and non-traditional media, there were more than 650,000 impressions. Overall, we achieved more than 681,000 impressions, with a total earned media value of more than $5000.
We believe that we’ve developed an effective 6 week campaign considering the small market and budget that we had to work with. We spent less than $150 and earned more than $5000 worth of media impressions. To put that into perspective, we generated impressions at a cost of about 22 cents per thousand. Not only is this pennies on the dollar compared to traditional media advertising, it also resonates effectively with the target.
Admittedly, Syracuse is not the largest media market in the world. Honda could make Speed Dating into an actual show, where episodes like ours could occur in cities across America or the world. The scaled campaign could achieve overwhelming value. If this became an actual reality show picked up by cable TV, we project that this campaign would be worth nearly $6.5 million dollars in equivalent media in one season. Our social media campaign achieved remarkable results considering it was housed in the Syracuse market. If extrapolated out to the rest of the country, we would have attained an additional 8 million impressions through social media alone.
Numbers and projections aside, we’ve created a campaign that truly resonates with Generation Y. We’ve discovered a way to create product-based entertainment without cheesy or fictional product placement, which the target can see right through. These consumers are living in social media similarly all over the world. Many of us are sharing the same life experiences, and we could connect with the You & Me campaign because of its’ online home and viral nature.
You & Me could extend to other, larger initiatives by Honda. “You & Me” could be the anchor for other social media and environmental initiatives. We’ve created a PR campaign which connects with a target that has been traditionally untouched by cold and boring car advertising. Honda can seize the opportunity to engage these consumers and make the CR-Z the car of Gen. Y.
