Monday, August 16, 2010

Sprite NBA Slam Dunk Fan Face Off


Agency: George P. Johnson
Client: The Coca-Cola Company

Sprite, a leading Coca-Cola brand, had been noticing a decrease in sales among its undergraduate college-age consumers. Each year, Sprite sponsors the “Sprite Slam Dunk Contest,” a feature of the NBA All-Star Weekend. Looking to reinvigorate its existing consumer base and engage a broader audience, Sprite sought to maximize its exposure through the competition through a digital footprint.

The agency created the “Sprite Slam Dunk Fan Faceoff” – a Guitar Hero-style game pitting one dunker’s fan base against the others. Since not many web surfers think to visit Coke.com or Sprite.com directly, the immersive flash game was built as a microsite within the NBA.com site (nba.com/dunk_fanfaceoff). The site allowed users to interject their own creativity into the game by creating an avatar, or “dunkfan,” based on common characters found in the basketball game environment. Users were also able to print out and craft their own paper dunk fan models, or post an image of their dunk fan to their Facebook or Twitter profile. 


Each user experience built on the other. After designing their dunk fan avatar, the user could  compete in online games for prizes and giveaways. After each activity, the user’s name and hometown state was posted on the leader board. A multimedia promotional effort was used to drive traffic, including social media outreach, and online and print media.

During its first two months, the site had nearly 130,000 visitors and served up over 1.2 million page views, each averaging nearly 4 minutes per visit. The NBA.com team called the Sprite Slam Dunk Fan Faceoff  the “coolest brand engagement in the site’s history.”

Sprite Step Off



Agency: George P. Johnson
Client: The Coca-Cola Company
 
Recently, Sprite was looking to more deeply engage the multicultural segment of its target audience of undergraduate college-age consumers. Sprite developed the idea of sponsoring and hosting a multi-cultural ‘step’ dance competition open to step troupes from college campuses across the nation. 

With a $1.5 million prize pool and nationally televised content, the contest would display the spirit of stepping as well as provide a behind the scenes look into the stepping competition itself. Videos, outtakes and other social aspects were woven throughout the competition’s website. 


Launching the site brought up a three-minute video featuring step teams and information about the competition. The website invited visitors to learn more about the events, the art form and lifestyle of stepping, eligibility requirements and event locations.

Online, teams could register to compete in a specific event and fans could stay connected with their favorite teams. As competitions took place, updates were posted and photos and videos were shared. A ‘Competitors’ section highlighted each team still in the running; the last 14 teams left standing were given their own page with editable bio and blog sections.

To drive traffic to the site and the competitions, a multi-media campaign was implemented, including radio, social media and onsite collateral.

The site received more than 2.2 million page views and over 600,000 visitors. Each visit averaged more than 5 minutes. In total, more than 80 teams competed in 22 events across the U.S. A majority of the semi-final regional events, as well as the final competition, completely sold out. 

Zombie Singles


Agency: Noise Digital
Client: Nokia

In early 2009, Nokia released the game Resident Evil: Degeneration for its mobile gaming platform, N-Gage and was looking for a fresh and innovative way to engage and leverage the game’s fans. Also, due to the fact that it used a proprietary hardware and software platform, the promotion needed to generate awareness for the platform, as well.
Research showed that the largest zombie and horror followings were located in North America and Spain. The site was built bilingually for these two markets. 


With a budget of just $100,000, Noise Digital was charged with selling 10,000 units within the first two months of the campaign, obtain 1,000 unique zombie profiles and 250,000 page views. They chose a web-based campaign.
The user experience on the site centered around “The Zombifier,” a custom flash application that allowed users to create a realistic custom avatar with wounds, incisions and other gory zombie aspects, as well as a zombie profile replete with personality traits.  The grand prize was a trip for two to the Tokyo Game Show, and a meeting with Resident Evil creators at Capcom.

To achieve objectives, Noise Digital developed a contest that required viewers to regularly visit the site, interact with their profiles, and share it with friends to boost their chances of winning. To encourage repeat visits, users could collect friends or “fiends”, rate pictures based on their “Bore or Gore” factor, and “bite” (i.e. poke) other zombies. A social media seeding campaign targeted Resident Evil, zombie and horror fans.

Zombie Singles generated 104,310 game downloads within the first two months, placing Resident Evil: Degeneration as the  top-selling game on the N-Gage platform. As of November 2009, there were 27,000 unique profiles on the site and over 3 million page views. More than  50% of registered users returned to the site at least once per week during the contest time period.