Case Studies: Social Media Driving Real Results - Part I (Jay-Z and Ashley)

The music soften, the audience quieted and the lights dimmed.  The keynote speakers were about to start and I could not wait.  One by one millionaire entrepreneurs, best selling authors, marketing innovators and thought leaders hit the stage giving us new perspectives, ah-ha moments, and delicious tidbits. 

Then Nick Parish, the North American editor of Contagious, spoke about social media. My hope was that he would NOT talk about how to get more followers, make money or anything remotely related to building awareness.  I wanted to hear about innovation--and something that businesses can really use to drive measurable (hard) results.

And Nick delivered:

• Bing/Jay-Z Decoded Campaign - When hip hop mogul Jay-Z launched his book Decoded, Bing and Droga5 came together on an amazing campaign that used Bing's search to help drive an international scavenger hunt for pages of Jay-Z's new book. For a month, there were pages from the book referencing Jay-Z's life around the world, covering hundreds of thousands of miles.  Clues were released through radio, Twitter, and Facebook.  On Bing.com/Jay-Z, people could put the pages of the book together digitally and win prizes. This campaign helped Bing to increase relevance to younger, more urban groups and drove awareness of Bing's search features. It helped Jay-Z build up tremendous anticipation for his book and drive sales. See more the about the campaign. 
• Theashes on Twitter - A Massachusetts woman who tweeted about knitting and Glee now has over 10,000 followers because cricket fans in Britain and Australia confused her handle with a cricket match and started to send her messages about game.  Annoyed by the barrage of tweets, Ashley responded "I am not a freaking cricket match" which caught on like a wild fire.  Vodafone, the official sponsor of The Ashes, saw an opportunity to leverage Ashley's popularity. They gave her tickets to the match.  Qantis flew her over and Ford gave her a car.  This was a juicy and cheap PR opportunity that created good will and engaged fans across continents.  As for Ashley, she got a free trip, new experiences, a lot of media exposure and now sells T-shirts with her famous tweet.  

The success of both of these campaigns were (apply these to your own business):

• Timeliness and relevance to current events - As the sponsor of The Ashes, Vodafone leveraged Ashley and her followers to help boost exposure for the tournament.  Jay-Z's book was about to launch and Bing used it to help them gain relevance with a younger audience.
• Social media was used to connect and engage - If it was not for the fans' passion about cricket, Ashley's story would have never happened because she would not have had 10,000 followers annoying her with their cricket-related comments.  In the case of Decoded, Bing and Droga5 were able to keep folks engaged by connecting online and offline experiences through Bing maps, bing.com/jay-z and clues through Twitter and Facebook. 
• Social media was only a component of a larger campaign - Traditional marketing media still matters. If The Ashes did not have PR and television as part of the advertising mix, Ashley's story would not have hit the masses.  If there were no out-of-home (OOH) and radio for the Jay-Z campaign, the scavenger hunt would not have been as successful.
• People actually cared - Jay-Z has a huge following because of his celebrity and cricket is a big deal in Europe and other parts of the world, so it was easy for them to gain momentum.  While many businesses and people may not have that same star power, there are opporunties to leverage the events, places, emotions, and causes that people care about to create the same kind of engagement. 

More case studies showing how to use social media to make a real impact coming soon in part 2 of this blog...