MAKE A CHANGE

TitleMAKE A CHANGE
BrandPANASONIC ASIA
Product / ServiceECO IDEAS
CategoryA02. Best Use of Social Media
EntrantACCOMPLICE Singapore, SINGAPORE
Entrant Company:ACCOMPLICE Singapore, SINGAPORE
PR/Advertising Agency:ACCOMPLICE Singapore, SINGAPORE

Credits

Name Company Position
Tobias Wilson Accomplice Managing Director
Francis Choo Accomplice Creative Director
Ed Choa Accomplice Digital Director
Gavin Foo XPR Managing Partner

The Campaign

Panasonic Asia needed to gain buy-in from consumers around their core, but harder to grasp Corporate Social Responsibility message - Eco Ideas. Panasonic embarked on a plan that leveraged a whole spectrum of social media channels centred around Facebook and used such channels to grow massive online communities for engagement and education, around an initial KPI of 5,000 Facebook Fans. The initial campaign 'Make-A-Change' was aimed at engagement via user participation that was intimate, fun, and rewarding. MAC asked users to create their own 'Eco Advertisements' on the back of a series of pre-designed ad templates. Users were also encouraged to spread their eco-message by sharing with the community, where the most popular ad submission would go not only towards a prize win, but have their ad actually published in KrisWorld magazine. Supporting social media outreach mechanisms such as Twitter, popular bloggers, community forums, and content-specific interstitials were employed to drive recruitment and participation. All communication tactics had to be completely integrated, reaching all possible touch-points from an end-users' perspective, not an advertiser's perspective. The campaign saw growth of nil to 29,381 fans, with a total potential reach of 8.8 million Facebook users.

The Brief

Goals: Become the global leading benchmark for Panasonic from Social Media perspective Integration of all platforms onto one leading platform for audiences Objectives: Setting up of relevant portals (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and microsites) Devising a campaign that creates and drives traffic and momentum to channels Build a massive community while communicating Panasonic’s key messages KPI of 5,000 Facebook fans Gain valuable feedback from audiences Target audience: Facebook suggests that there are “96,965,380” Facebook users across Asia. Given Panasonic Asia’s regional reach, Panasonic’s target audiences are consumers and would-be consumers interested in Panasonic’s green initiatives, eco products and consumer technology.

Results

The Make A Change (MAC) initiative began on 1st June 2010 with zero fans and achieved 29,381 Facebook fans within a period of 4 months on October 2010. MAC initiative exceeded the KPI (5,000 fans) by 580% and saw a growth rate of 260 new fans per day. In terms of content, 362 posts were generated from fans daily with each post garnering 3,700 impressions resulting in a total audience reach impact of 2.5 million Facebook users in Asia, daily. By October 22, Panasonic Asia was ranked #8 out of 3.9 million hits for 'Panasonic Asia' on Google for search ability. Panasonic Asia beat industry average of 4,596 fans per page (Sysomos Marketwire, Nov 2009) with a total audience reach of 9.3 million Facebook users in Asia (Facebook, Statistics).

Execution

Panasonic’s first campaign, “Make A Change” (MAC), was launched in June 2010 and ended in October 2010 according to plan. To kick-start the campaign, popular bloggers were engaged at the Panasonic Eco Ideas Declaration in June 2010 to drive initial traffic. The Make A Change campaign was an inclusive activity aimed at engagement via user participation that was intimate, fun, and rewarding. MAC asked users to create ‘Eco Advertisements’ on the back of a series of pre-designed ad templates – and then to post pro-environmental ad copy that most appealed to them. In doing so, fans were personally involved and invested in their first step towards eco-friendliness. Users were also encouraged to spread their eco-message by sharing with the community, where the most popular ad submission would go not only towards a prize win, but have their ad actually published in a regional magazine.

The Situation

Panasonic Asia needed to gain buy-in from consumers around their core, but harder to grasp Corporate Social Responsibility message – Eco Ideas. Panasonic saw that Eco Ideas was a key differentiator between them and their competitors and thus embarked on a masterplan leveraging a whole spectrum of social media channels centered around Facebook - and leverage such channels to grow massive online communities for engagement and education. The KPI given was 5,000 Facebook Fans.

The Strategy

Unlike other run-of-the-mill social media campaigns, the larger engagement strategy centered around 'Community First' - whereby all content, messages, incentives and related tactics had to be completely integrated, and reaching all possible touch-points from a consumer's perspective, not an advertiser's perspective. This meant blending above the line, event, PR and blogger relation tactics to directly touch consumers on a conversational level, and more importantly, to get them involved in the campaign directly. It also meant that on a creative level, the overall look and feel of the entire program needed to be less mainstream to really differentiate the social medium apart from the rest of Panasonic's marketing and communications.