Leo Burnett and Douglas White; the story of

The key to any successful campaign is to clearly identify your objectives before starting.

Message
Target Population
Concept
Delivery Strategy
ROI

Below is a summary of two approaches to Social Network Marketing that were used in a recent campaign for G.O.D. founded by the style gurus Douglas Young and Ben Lau; one of the most recognised brands in Asia.

Heavy weight Leo Burnett and new kid on the block, Prosperity Research Ltd. used different approaches to achieve success for the client. Below is a summary of how this played out.

Pitch – Effectively use online or Social Network Marketing to increase visibility of Delay No Mall a new concept mall opening in Hong Kong.

The Top Down Approach

Approach – Leo Burnett conceived a highly stylised series of videos that were placed in a limited number of the internet sites (youtube). They then used their significant industry presence to drive buzz through mostly industry related online publications.

Outcome – Decent amount of views, high industry recognition and good WOW factor. But unclear on how this targeted the important demographic – customers that have access to the retail outlets. This approach of getting high level industry acknowledgement has significant value in securing G.O.D. international recognition. However, by directing the campaign toward industry and insiders, the benefit to the average customer is less clear. Additionally, this appears to be a one off campaign so the opportunity to build an audience maybe lost, meaning that money spent on this campaign did not add to the equity. Many of this campaigns attributes appear better suited for a print campaign rather than Social Network Marketing.


The Bottom Up Approach

Approach -- Prosperity Research Ltd. conceived a series of 3 videos examining different stages of the development of Delay NO Mall. Key personalities, fun and music were integrated into the videos to gain a wide fan appeal. Without having industry leverage, Prosperity Research Ltd. did it the old fashion way – hard work. After identifying key sites that were demographically rich information was seeded. This was in the form of still images, news releases, and the 3 videos. The process was:

Research
Build buzz
Release video
Interact with viewers
Repeat for next 2 videos

The effect of this process is profound. Instead of creating a sliver of interest in an infinite amount content choice, we started to build an audience. By interacting with the key demographic in an ongoing and natural manner; we built expectation of what was to come. The fan base continues to grow because we are spending the time to nurture the relationship with the customer. By building the audience we create greater value.



Points of difference

Leo Burnett –

Brilliant concept and well placed
Glaring absence on search engines
Seen in online industry magazines limited access to key demographic
Short term strategy that you would tend to see in print campaigns
High WOW factor
Entrance into the big league

Prosperity Research Ltd.

Scaled down concept (no budget!)
Captured front pages on all major search engines (English and Chinese) for 3 weeks running
Seen more (by count) by customers
Fully utilised the democratic space on the internet to build a bottom up campaign – people first
Long term strategy in place to build the fan base
Effective honest solution that delivered
Added value by creating equity in the campaign – investment in your customers and brand should continue to create benefits long after the campaign is done

In summary there are two very succesful campaigns that took distinctly different approaches and arguably had different goals.

All the best,

Doug