Experiential Marketing: Budget over $1 Million
April 6, 2009
Kids’ cable network Nickelodeon, despite now being 30 years old, knows a thing or two about slime. Green slime, to be precise.
In 2008, the network, along with experiential marketing agency Oasis, concocted
a slime fest on steroids: Nickelodeon’s Slime Across America tour.
The 15-city mobile marketing event featured a fully interactive, 18-wheel Slime Mobile equipped with five sliming stations. It served as the epicenter for programthemed activities as well as free, live entertainment from Sony BMG artists, such as The Naked Brothers Band, Tiffany Evans and Menudo.
Between events, kids took advantage of the Slime Mobile’s Virtual Sliming Zone, where they could digitally capture their personal sliming moments and later download them from the event’s official Web site.
The tour also provided Nickelodeon partners with a chance to strut their stuff. Cheetos was on hand to promote its Messiest Summer Ever sweepstakes, as were toy manufacturer JAKKS Pacific and cable TV companies Comcast and Time Warner.
Slime Across America reached 30,675 kids, tweens and adults and dispensed more than 345 gallons of slime. The kids recorded more than 3,000 user-generated videos, 37 percent of whom went home and retrieved them from Nick.com. Nearly half then forwarded the videos to friends. More than 5,300 kids raced through the Cheetos TRAX Obstacle Course set up at the events, and 7,700 youngsters showed the marketers a little something about targeted results with their JAKKS Pacific Super Slimers.
The campaign, which was promoted by nearly 3,000 spots on local cable affiliate partners, generated about 20 million impressions online, on TV and in print vehicles such as The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. Perhaps the tour was described best by this 11-year-old from Atlanta: “I spent my whole life wishing I could be slimed on Nickelodeon. Today, you made my dream come true!”
To whip up excitement around Sony’s Reader Digital Book, the company partnered with AIM and soon thereafter sought to change airline security forever.
The companies created a four-month experiential marketing initiative that, in part, set up product interactions with busy consumers when they had a bit of spare time—while waiting at the airport. As it turns out, it was the first-ever demonstration of an electronic device allowed beyond security checkpoints at airports in major cities such as Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles and Dallas.
To go with the travel theme, the so-called Reader Revolution campaign developed a sweepstakes with partners Hawaiian Airlines and the Four Seasons Maui that gave people the opportunity to win the grand prize: a trip to Hawaii, where the winner could enjoy some downtime and a good book… on the Sony Reader, of course.
The results were sky-high. During the campaign (which is the subject of a video case study at theaimagency.com), brand ambassadors known as Reader Revolutionaries conducted in-person product interactions with more than 2.2 million prospective customers. Web site traffic increased 500 percent, which led to over 100,000 online trial experiences. More than 300,000 impressions were generated with no media spending. Almost 10,000 people participated in the sweepstakes. Bottom line: Sales of the Sony Reader increased by 300 percent.
For the third year in a row, Procter & Gamble’s Charmin brand rolled out its NYC Restroom Experience in the heart of Times Square.
The fully, branded, 12,000-square-foot oasis opened Nov. 24, 2008, and closed on New Year’s Day. During that time, visitors were greeted with a holiday-themed winter wonderland that included family photos, a laser-light show and, of course, immaculately maintained restrooms.
As in past year, the NYC Restroom Experience was flush with success. The effort, developed once again by Charmin agency Gigunda Group, hosted 300,500 guests from all 50 states and more than 118 countries. Additionally, 39,000 family photos were snapped and 80,000 postcards were mailed to those unlucky enough to miss out on all the good, clean fun.