Marketing 2.0: Evolution of Contest Marketing at Cisco

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1 Marketing 2.0 Evolution of Contest Marketing at Cisco A Case Study From Cisco Marketing Organization‟s Perspective September 2010

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The following case study- “Marketing 2.0: Evolution of Contest Marketing at Cisco” compares three video contests led by three different organizations within Cisco over the past two years who collaborated to showcase best practices and the overall impact of social media video contests on marketing. Please keep in mind that there are several differentiating factors between the three contests as new social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have developed and been more heavily used by businesses over the past two years.

Transcript of Marketing 2.0: Evolution of Contest Marketing at Cisco

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Marketing 2.0 Evolution of Contest Marketing at Cisco

A Case Study From Cisco Marketing Organization‟s Perspective

September 2010

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Digital Cribs„Heaven or Hell‟

„Why I Want Cisco Telepresence‟

„What If Your TV Could..?”

http://bit.ly/d7O4nj

http://bit.ly/9eUAdI

www.ciscocontest.com

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The following case study compares three video contests led by three different organizations within Cisco over the past two years who collaborated to showcase best practices and the overall impact of social media video contests on marketing.

Please keep in mind that there are several differentiating factors between the three contests as new social media

channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have developed and been more heavily used by businesses over

the past two years.

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Cisco Service Provider Game MarketingContest Comparison

Digital Cribs

“Heaven or Hell‟

“Why I Want Cisco

Telepresence”

“What If Your

TV Could…?”

Contest

Launch Dates

10/28/2008-11/28/2008

1 month

06/23/2009-10/09/2009

3.5 months

05/13/2010-07/13/2010

2 months

Contest Details

Create a video 3 minutes

or less

Global program

Create a video 3 minutes

or less

Global program

Create a video 3 minutes

or less

Global program

Contest Location Online Online Online

Contest Focus Awareness Product Awareness Awareness

Contest Objectives

Generate video submissions,

awareness & views of all

Digital Cribs video content

Drive end user driven viral

communication about Cisco

Telepresence using video

submissions.

Get fun, creative, technology

video submissions from

consumers to help increase

perception of Cisco as a leader

in the video space

Prize Structures

(2) USD$10,000

(10) USD$500

TOTAL= USD$25,000

(2) USD $3000

(2) USD$1000

TOTAL= USD$8,000

+5 hours free Telepresence

(1) USD$10,000

(3) USD$500

TOTAL= USD$11,500

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Cisco Service Provider Contest MarketingMarketing Comparison

Digital Cribs

“Heaven or Hell”

“Why I Want Cisco

Telepresence”

“What If Your TV

Could….?”

Promotional Budget

(excl. prizes)$63,500 $25,000 $20,000

Introduction Method Traditional and social Traditional and social

Traditional and social

Introduced internally first to

encourage pass-along also

included „seeded videos‟ created

at local events

Unique Marketing

Techniques Used for

Each Campaign

Heavy focused on video syndication of submitted videos

Blogger outreach to traditional Cisco segments

Vibrant media advertising

Contest promotion internally

Contest promoted in executive Blogs

LinkedIn & Twitter added to the promotional mix

Tweeted ideas to spark people‟s imagination

Targeted outreach to non-traditional Cisco segments via social media and live locations (Mommy blogger outreach, certain schools)

Poster created for email distribution and displayed in local businesses and schools

Promotion integrated into events and conferences

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Cisco Service Provider Contest MarketingContest Comparison

Digital Cribs

“Heaven or Hell”

“Why I Want Cisco

Telepresence”

“What If Your TV

Could….?”

Total Accepted

Video Submissions50 25 178

Total Video Views

(over entire contest

period) 350,000 32,000 5,900,000

Average Views per

Day (scaled to

account for varying

duration)11,700 views per day 300 views per day 98,000 views per day

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By the “What If Your TV Could…” campaign, we learned how to promote a contest at less than 1/3 the cost of the “Heaven

or Hell” promotional budget and reached more people

BUT…

How well did the new marketing techniques used for the “What If Your TV Could…” contest work?

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We Planted the Seed by Creating a Cisco TV Contest Brand…

Twitter. New Account @CiscoContest

Objective

Contest-specific account

Follow targeted audience

Results

155 followers in 10 weeks

Total reach: 488,636

174 Tweets

* Twitter only. Excludes 1000‟s of mommy blogger followers, write-ups in many other online publications and blogs, and Facebook.

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…Which Many Have Embraced: WOM* Promotion Appeared on Over 47 Sites

*WOM = word of mouth

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Mommy Bloggers: 12 Influential Bloggers

Objective

Increase reach by engaging a pre-determined set of influential mommy bloggers

Ask to promote contest to their followers, and submit their own video for Flip giveaways

Results

Over 1,293 comments on mommy blogger sites

Generated 307 hits to the Contest web page

Total Reach: 122,786

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Mommy Bloggers in Action

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College and Specialty School Outreach

Objective

Reach students in media programs to encourage video submissions

Mail posters (email and US post) for distribution on campus

Results

Reached over 65,000 students

Drove over 1,200+ visitors to contest page

.

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Targeted Outreach via Posters at Colleges, Specialty Schools and BusinessesTraditional methods help seed the contest even in the virtual world.

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Paid Promotion on Social Media Channel

Objective

To extend the reach of the contest via social media channels

Strategy

8 sub-campaigns for test and deployment

The 2 strategies to place media within Facebook are based on cost-per-click and cost-per-thousand impressions payment methods

Results

• 203.5 Million impressions – with slightly over 50,000 converting to the landing pages and campaign visitors

• The ROI for this program has been 3-4X the performance of similar programs

• The net CPM basis was $0.08 per 1,000 impressions vs. $0.63 + for comparable “Cisco” programs

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Global tax laws must be considered for contest marketing and legal terms and conditions

Multiple prizes helped boost awareness and video submissions

Clearly identify your target audience prior to contest to ensure promoting to relevant outlets

Promotional spend helped increase awareness of the contest

Video syndication and blogger outreach helped promote contest

Announcing more than 1 winner was a good idea but a higher-value grand prize augmentedwith more smaller prizes would have helped boost participation

Determining stakeholders is crucial to contest success

Promotional spend critical behind success of campaign

Created an easy-to-remember URL

Ensure contest rules are put-in-place early on to (example: using the popularity vote to create a community and spread virally)

Duration of contest is very important to sustain momentum

Blogger and college outreach were very effective and helped increased awareness

Go-to-market strategy was fully integrated and worked well

Not only did introducing the contest internally first helped with testing but it also helped increase “pass along” effect

Creating an event to announce winners not only helped extend the life of the contest but also provided a platform to share Cisco‟s vision of video, thus directly tying back the contest to related solutions

Early seeding with sample videos submissions spurred ideas and provided content from day 1

2008Digital Cribs

“Heaven or Hell”

2009“Why I Want Cisco

Telepresence””

2010“What If Your TV

Could…?”

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Objective

Use opportunity to announce via a live social stream broadcast to position Cisco

as a thought leader in the video market & to give „share of voice‟ to the greater

community.

Impact?

Achieved 15x playback rate during the post-live broadcast period

Tweets around live broadcast reached over 50,000 followers on Twitter

Cisco‟s Murali Nemani, Director of Video

Solutions Marketing, Cisco Service Provider

Marketing, will announce the contest winners

and discuss Cisco‟s role in helping to develop

new television platforms that give consumers

more of what they want.

Live UStream Event Combined with Talk2Cisco

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Contest + Event Combo Has Exceeded Expectations for Cisco TV Contest…

Video submissions: 178

Video requests (# of times videos were viewed): 5,900,000

Comments/Ratings Average: 22,000 ratings, 1,000+ comments

Event attendees: 1,609 attendees

Total reach: 488,636

…BUT we wish we had known or done a few things sooner

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9 Lessons Learned

1. Test: Test and test front and back end web functionality and video loading in all browsers. (If your contest requires a certain browser, make sure you state it up front)

2. Metrics and Rules: Ensuring that clear metrics and contest rules are established before you begin your program.

3. Start of promotion: Beginning blogger outreach one week prior to the contest versus during the contest will help further increase word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Resources: Estimating amount of time and effort it takes to sustain social media momentum throughout the contest period.

5. Continued Momentum: Lining up team members dedicated to engaging in social media long term and splitting the workload among them. Making this part of somebody‟s job responsibilities, hiring part-time and/or temporary help would help further.

6. Timing of announcement: Leaving two weeks before announcing winner in order to get winners on Telepresence.

7. Budget: Promotional spend is critical to the success of the campaign. Don‟t underestimate budget. A video contest including promotional spend and building out the website costs an average of $100,000.

8. Prizes: Make sure the prizes are motivating & the contest is FUN.

9. Collaboration: Willingness to learn from and share with each other to develop a successful benchmark.

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Many Thanks to…Doug Webster, Robert Barlow, Murali Nemani, Deborah Strickland, Sara Cicero, Stacy Melillo Spognardi, Mike Kisch, Richard

Mullen, Jeffrey Marusak, Steve Lau, Paul Lanyi, LaSandra Brill, Heike Stabenow, Karen Snell, Dennis Marpuri, Petra Neiger,

Leslie Lau, Don Nelson, David Deans, Rhoda Rosales, Martin Hardee, Alex Pista, Brian Gin, Patricia Klein, Stephen Liu,

Merwin Shanmugasundaram, Janet Starkey Wallin, and Lindsay Kniffin of Cisco for their contributions to this presentation and

partnership on the Contest.

A very big thank you to everyone who promoted the contest using social media channels.

Supporting Agencies:

3Marketeers-Social Media Support & Facebook Ads

New Marketing Labs-Social Media Support

Somnio-Video Design

Solution Set-Back end vendor

The Platform-Front end vendor

Artua LLC / "STK BIS" LLC-”TV” logo designer

By Zoya Fallah

[email protected]

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