The Brief

To promote HP's new youth campaign 'My Computer, My Stage', we were given a budget of USD 50,000. So we knew we had to reach the core 1% of Chinese youth that create and share content. The core youth group that prides themselves in setting trends. If we could engage them, we knew they would influence the youth mass. So for the first time in China, we asked youth to plan and execute our promotional campaign for us, all on their own.

Creative Execution

HP's campaign 'My Computer, My Stage' has always been a platform for personal expression, so we didn't want to just talk at our target. We wanted to include them in the conversation. We wanted to go beyond asking youth to simply participate by creating content, and empower them with complete control to create their own promotional campaigns. They were free to express themselves in any form of viral marketing they would think of.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We decided to spend zero money on media, and invest all the money on the youth. We partnered with the One Show Student Student Program, and held workshops at 18 universities around China, and invited the industry's best to teach the youth about viral marketing. Then we briefed them. Create a viral campaign that drives traffic to 'My Computer, My Stage'. Our goal was to have 500 viral campaigns that would drive 200,000 visits to the site.

Results

More than 10,000 students participated in the workshops. 731 viral campaigns were created. More than 100 were non-traditional viral campaigns such as events, stunts, parties and direct marketing. The virals were viewed 7,387,844 times. And in the end, the youth campaigns drove 468,147 visits to the My Computer, My Stage site. In the end, HP had spent zero money on media, and instead invested everything in creating a new partnership with the youth.