2009 was a landmark year for Chicago’s digital efforts, bringing exciting new products for clients including Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese, DeVry University, Delta Faucet Company and Reynolds.
Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese Hosts “Freshen Up Your Fridge” Contest
The spring season encourages spring cleaning — that one time of the year to dispose of the unnecessary items and start fresh. Keeping this concept in mind, MS&L developed the Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese “Freshen Up Your Fridge” contest in June as part of a program to help drive brand awareness and purchase.
MS&L Chicago and MS&L Ann Arbor worked in conjunction to develop the Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese microsite, FreshenUpYourFridge.com. The microsite housed key information about Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese, including recipes, fresh tips and contest information. To enter, consumers were instructed to share how their eating habits could be improved through a fresh refrigerator makeover, in efforts to win a new Whirlpool Gold® Latitude™ ENERGY STAR® refrigerator, a year supply of Daisy Brand Cottage Cheese and an in-home visit by a registered dietitian to help them choose the right foods for their refrigerator.
As MS&L leveraged the microsite through blogger outreach, entries flooded in. Web sites including About.com showcased the contest and additional blogs quickly followed suit. Upon the conclusion of the program, the final tally of entries came to 4,115. With a Facebook fan page still under construction, we expect to leave an even larger digital footprint in 2010.
DeVry University’s Social Media Channels Continue to Grow
Since their launch in late July, DeVry’s social media channels have seen steady growth. DeVry’s Facebook fan page has exceeded 7,000 fans. On Twitter, the University has obtained more than 1,000 followers. The number of subscribers and viewers keep increasing via DVU’s YouTube channel, with 7,120 video views and 168 subscribers. DeVry’s branded LinkedIn channel continues to garner additional members, providing DeVry and Keller access to more than 2,200 and 3,470 LinkedIn group members, respectively.
Green Goes Silver, and Digital, for Reynolds
In spring 2009, MS&L was charged to launch Reynolds Wrap Foil from 100% Recycled Aluminum (RWR) as a fresh spin on greening the kitchen. This was a prime opportunity to penetrate social media — a territory the brand had never stepped foot in previously.
MS&L Chicago and MS&L Digital collaborated to create a social media program to connect consumers more deeply with the brand and create an authentic brand personality. This included blogger outreach, the creation of a widget and a Facebook fan page.
In order to build immediate buzz around the new product with RWR target demographic, MS&L executed blogger outreach to a list of top-tier, “green,” home and mommy bloggers. Response was overwhelmingly positive, with many bloggers sharing their excitement for the foil with their readers. The launch of MS&L’s blogger reach focused on a free rebate that was only available on Earth Day. Bloggers were thrilled about this offering, and information about the new product and the Earth Day rebate was picked up by more than 800 blogs, scores of Twitterers and generated more than 149 million impressions.
Coinciding with the launch of Reynolds Wrap Recycled and Earth Day, MS&L launched a widget available for download through ReynoldsRecycled.com. In the week prior to Earth Day, the widget served as a countdown clock to amp up excitement for the holiday, as well as the new product.
After Earth Day, the widget transformed into a Recipe-of-the-Day tool, accompanied by a weekly tip on simple ways to green the kitchen. The widget was a great success, generating 93,078 unique visitors, 6,061 downloads and 1,452,038 page views.
Finally, we developed a Facebook fan page that includes polls, recipe ideas, general green tips, photos and videos. Since its inception in April, the page has garnered more than 1,600 fans and continues to grow, offering new content weekly, and encouraging fan interaction.
Delta Faucet Company Explores the Digital Landscape
In July, MS&L Chicago started work on one of its new cornerstone accounts, Delta Faucet Company. As the team jumped in to transition the business from the incumbent of nearly 30 years, we immediately started helping Delta definite its goals in digital — a previously untapped territory. Not only were they ready to begin including bloggers and other content creators in media outreach efforts, but they were interested in self-publishing across social media channels and participating in social communities. And not just for one brand but two, Delta® and high-end fashion faucet brand, Brizo®.
MS&L Chicago and partner MS&L Digital collaborated with the clients to develop overarching digital strategies for Delta and Brizo. Throughout the process, we developed “personalities” for each brand’s audiences and articulated how to best reach them. Though we’re just gearing up now for a big program in 2010, it hasn’t been all planning and strategizing - we’re monitoring in digital, making placements at blogs like Kitchen and Residential Design (shown left) and Remodelista, tracking conversations on Twitter and message boards, and spurring activity on Facebook and elsewhere.
All in all, 2009 has been a great year of innovation and collaboration, and we expect to see additional digitally-integrated activities emerge in 2010.
- Like many of our projects, this article was a collaboration between Chicago and Ann Arbor, with contributions by Assistant Account Executive Angel Hakim, Senior Account Supervisor Christiana Brenner, Director of New Media Relations Charlie Kondek and Account Executive Ash Mathew
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