This campaign from Sprite is a great example of pulling together a couple of tactics to make a very compelling and engaging brand experience.  I find that too often agencies don’t stretch themselves to expand a core idea beyond the initial focus.  This example, developed by the FullSIX Group, goes above and beyond to integrate celebrity, viral video, user generated content, and SocNet leveraging the following:

Celebrity: The campaign’s core revolves around the up and coming English artist Katie Vogel as she tries to build a successful music career.  You get to follow her through her journey by watching YouTube videos and her Facebook updates.

YouTube: Katie’s music videos are posted for fans to rate and review.  The YouTube Channel links directly to Facebook!  Remember that at this time Facebook is not owned by Google — this is the first I’ve seen a YouTube channel integrating with Facebook.

Facebook: You can be-friend Katie on Facebook and follow her on her journey to be a star!  You can post to your Facebook feeds directly from YouTube!

For more details check out this article on Clickz (article here).

My Two Cents:

• This is the first time we’ve seen YouTube integrated with Facebook.  Keep an eye on this — it may open up some really engaging opportunities.
• The first video includes Katie breaking up with her boyfriend — it’s a bit too convenient to be true.  I’d be careful to mix reality with fictional elements.  You will quickly alienate your fan base if they don’t trust you.
• Katie doesn’t post enough.  She needs to be very active to keep the fan base engaged.  It appears she is only posting updates every couple of days.  I’d highly suggest the she updates every couple hours.

Walt Disney World

Last week I took my seven year old son and three year old daughter down to Disney World for the week.  We had a great time — my daughter is a huge Princess fan and was in awe the entire time.  While exploring all that Disney has to offer I started to think about how the magic they pull off in the parks translates to Internet Marketing.  Here are five things that I think Disney does that can be applied to online campaigns:

1. Make your audience feel special. As soon as we walked onto Main Street USA a Disney cast member approached us and asked if we’d like to meet someone special.  We followed her behind some curtains for a private meeting with Cinderella.  The Disney cast member just grabbed us off the street and provided us with an experience that we will never forget.  When developing online campaigns look for opportunities to reward influencers or brand fans in ways that make them feel as though they are getting access to something that is not available to everyone.
2. Immerse your Audience in the Story. Wherever you are in any Disney park you are surrounded with the specific experience.  If you are in Animal Kingdom’s Asia zone all you see is 360 degrees of Asia.  If you’re in line for Mt. Everest you’re surrounded with the Yeti story.  Disney goes to great lengths to ensure that the audience is immersed in the story.  All lines of sights are carefully planned to ensure that there is nothing to take you out of the experience.  We can apply this tactic when developing online experiences and campaigns — when creating a campaign how can we ensure all the touch points reinforce the core message.
3. Anticipation and Reveal. As you take the ferry across the lagoon into the Magic Kingdom you slowly make an arched approached that hides Cinderella’s castle building up the anticipation until almost the end of the trip.  The same build up and reveal is done with Animal Kingdom’s tree of life.  We can create a sense of tension and release with online campaigns by drawing our audience into the message, letting the audience explore or hunt for a solution, then providing the reveal.
4. Let your audience participate. My favorite part of our trip was taking my daughter to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Cinderella’s Castle.  For the price of a small car my three year old had her hair done up as one of the Disney princesses.  She was living the fantasy.  When developing online campaigns look for opportunities that allow your audience to participate in the message.  We’ve seen a lot of this in the Social Networking space and Advergaming but I believe it is a tactic that can be further expanded upon.
5. Make it convenient to buy. The kids are pretty much asking to buy stuff every time they pass a strategically placed kiosk, push cart, or store.  But you don’t want to be lugging around the Mickey snowglobe and Pirate musket all day — no problem!  Disney will have any purchase sent directly to your hotel room.  Can’t get that great family photo — no problem!  Disney photographers will follow you around taking the perfect picture that you can pick up on your way out.  (I’m pretty sure that all of the Disney lighting has some secret element that makes your pictures look like crap while the professional photos look perfect).  For us marketers the message here is that the close is the most important part of the sales process — look for every opportunity to take away reasons for losing the sale.