Results and Effectiveness

The campaign was successfully viralized within the targets at zero media cost. The QR code included in the campaign drove the target audience to MBC's official website, where they can legally download the contents. We had 513 peers(max) download the file per hour, and more than 45,000 peers in two weeks. Two weeks after the seed file was uploaded, the paid viewers on MBC's official website had increased by 39%. We also have received many responses and messages for reflection through variety of media & SNS, about our successful campaign regarding the issue of legal download.

Creative Execution

In order to reach those who can't be reached through traditional media, we created our own 'Torrent' file to communicate our message and used torrent as our media. To expand campaign widely, media team picked the No.1 TV show in Korea called 'Infinite Challenge' that gets the highest hits on torrent sites/communities, and included the campaign message delivered by a top celebrity from the show in between the file. Then we seeded the file on torrent immediately after airing. We were able to expand the campaign widely just by seeding one torrent file, because it turned into self-reproducing media. Also our pinpointed targets becomes another campaign messenger. By just one person downloading the file, it automatically becomes a seeder(media) to expand the file to other peer(targets) that again become seeders to other peers. Through this method, the campaign was delivered successfully at no media cost.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials via torrent is a serious problem in Korea. Torrent downloading has become so accepted that torrent users are unaware it’s illegal and they don’t even trying to download copyrighted materials in legal way. As for this problem, MBC- one of the biggest broadcasting company in Korea and a victim of this issue, had decided to take the step to raise awareness of this serious problem to these desensitized target. Even if they are illegal downloaders now, they can be a major MBC’s download service consumers. The goal was to create an issue on illegal downloading communities, inform and educate the target about illegal downloading, and also lead them to legally download contents from its official MBC website. But the targets can’t be reached through traditional media and the budget was low. So we delivered our message by understanding their habits.