PAUL (THE ORACLE) IS BACK!

TitlePAUL (THE ORACLE) IS BACK!
BrandKIA MOTORS
Product / ServiceSORENTO
CategoryA10. Best Integrated Content Campaign
EntrantINNOCEAN WORLDWIDE CHINA SHANGHAI Shanghai, CHINA
Entrant Company:INNOCEAN WORLDWIDE CHINA SHANGHAI Shanghai, CHINA
Contributing Company:INNOCEAN WORLDWIDE CHINA SHANGHAI Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
T.h Yoon Kia Motors China General Manager
D.k Kim Kia Motors China Vp/Marketing Dept
J.l Jin Kia Motors China Manager/Marketing Dept
Y.m Zhou Kia Motors China Associate/Marketing Dept
Jung Jun Lee Innocean Worldwide China/Shanghai Group Account Director
Jay H. Kim Innocean Worldwide China/Shanghai Campaign Director
Tony Jin Innocean Worldwide China/Shanghai Art Director
Vicky Kim Innocean Worldwide China/Shanghai Campaign Manager
Joongho Chu Innocean Worldwide China/Shanghai Campaign Executive
Johnston Lee Run Advertising(Shanghai) Co./Ltd General Manager
Capo Bao Run Advertising(Shanghai) Co./Ltd Creative Director
Ronnie Jiang Run Advertising(Shanghai) Co./Ltd Deputy Gm
Stella Zhou Run Advertising(Shanghai) Co./Ltd Associate Ad
Leo Lee Allyes Quanshi Eastern China Branch Business Director
Harry Zhao Allyes Quanshi Eastern China Branch Account Director
Steven Zhou Allyes Quanshi Eastern China Branch Account Manager
Stely Yu Allyes Quanshi Eastern China Branch Art Director
Raymond Teng Allyes Quanshi Eastern China Branch Senior Social-Marketing Manager

The Campaign

Branded Entertainment was popular in China, since regulations about product/brand placement in on-aired contents is not strict so far. However, all the contents for TV should be censored before its airing. As a sponsor of UEFA EURO 2012, KIA motors wants to create contents that communicate with audiences in real-time. We focused on online platforms, which is able to realize the broadcasting video contents which are completed by the result of every game, and consumers certain choices made in online. We chose the Youku (Chinese Youtube) & SINA Weibbo(Chinese Twitter) as the main platforms for our branded contents.

Results

As a official sponsor of EUFA EURO 2012, KIA Motors wanted to enhance its recognition & preference in China. What we tried to do was set up an IMC platform using the hottest commcuniation tools in China such as smart-phone, SNS & Viral video. We believed that we could provide people with a brand new way of enjoying EURO cup if these are worked in one theme successfully. We picked up game prediction as a idea for our campaign and developed a smart phone-based game application, to let Chinese people predict every games with that application, and give them a free trip to the winning country as a big prize. To promote this campaign with very limited media budget we created contents with 'prediction' and decided to bring back Paul the octopus - the icon of football prediction. We brought back the icon of football oracle 'Paul the octopus' and made him resurrected in China. We appointed Paul as a special advisor of Kia motors sports marketing department, and opened official weibo for realtime communication with the audience. We also made the series of viral video called 'Paul is back' the interactive sitcom of 21 episodes. In every episode, Paul predicted the result of matches one day before, and received prize or punishment at the beginning of next episode, depending on the result of prediction. After calculating the every possible case of match results, we created over 70 different video clips and completed the each episode right after the game result came out. We also made people choose the method of punishment for Paul's wrong predictions, by voting in Paul's Weibo. In this way, some of the episodes were actually completed by consumers choices in real-time.

This content was made to promote a smart-phone based prediction game application for UEFA EURO 2012. After we created this character, we appointed him as Special Adviser to the Sports Marketing Dept of KIA Motors, and opened his Weibo (Chinese Twitter) for real-time communication with audience. We also used Youku(Chinese Youtube) as a platform for our series of video contents, and executed banner ads in video sites & portal sites.

During the 5 weeks of campaign, over 800,000 people downloaded this application and the sitcom 'Paul is back' was viewed over 3.2 million times in major video sites. Paul's Weibo earned over 48,000 fans. His postings were viewed by over 18 million weibo users in total & everyone started talking about Paul in online. Paul's Weibo ranked as the most active Weibo with weekly average 40,000 reposts in 2 consecutive weeks. We got more than 150 media exposures including TV, newspapers and online. Most of all, official KIA Weibo earned more than 100,000 new fans during this campaign, the number of fan grew by 350% in total, and recorded 3,090% daily fans growth compared to before the campaign started. Eventually KIA weibo ranked as one of the Top 10 Weibos, thanks to this campaign.