Results and Effectiveness

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, students, parties, direct marketing, etc. The virals were viewed 7,387,844 times. And in the end, the youth campaign drove 468,147 visits to My Computer, My Stage. Immeasurable was the pride the participants had in creating (on their own) such a successful and substantial campaigns.

Creative Execution

We decided to spend zero money on media, and invest all the money in the youth. We partnered with the One Show Student Program, and held workshops at 18 communications universities around China. We went to where the core 1% of influential youth where. And we invited the industry's best to teach the youth about viral marketing. Then we briefed the youth. Create a viral campaign to promote HP My Computer, My Stage. Awards would be given for creativity and effectiveness (traffic driven to the campaign site). The youth were free to create whatever they felt would produce the best results. Viral videos, stunts, events, direct marketing, etc. And they were given tracking codes to include in their campaign, so we could monitor the results.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

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 pride themselves in setting trends. If we could engage them, we knew they would influence the youth mass. Given that HP's youth campaign was about personal expression, we didn't want to just talk at our target. We wanted to include them in the conversation. So for the first time in China, we asked youth to plan and execute our promotional campaign for us, on their own.