The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a campaign kick-started through the use of social media to create awareness for the disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).  This genius campaign - requiring social media users to carry out a challenge, post a video of their challenge and then tag their friends as nominees to do it next - went viral, particularly in the Unites States with celebrities, politicians and athletes even participating by sharing their ice bucket challenges both on TV and online, gaining huge publicity for the campaign.  Despite the subject of the campaign being a particularly negative one, the Ice Bucket Challenge kept things light-hearted by having people throw freezing cold water over themselves and post it as a video on social media for everybody to see.  

The challenge requires the participant to stand in a bucket of ice cold water and pour another bucket over their heads.  Following this they would then step out of the first bucket and pour that over their head to complete the challenge.  After completion of the challenge, the person would then donate some money to the ALS charity and upload the challenge as a video onto social media - usually Facebook but did span out over other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc. - and tag three friends as nominees.  The challenge was easy to participate in only requiring users to carry out the challenge itself, record it and then upload it.  The vast majority of users that took part in it kept their posts clean, without any bulky URL link included in the description of the post making every individual post easy to view.  The challenge also ties with the guilt factor as it is difficult to completely ignore a personal and public nomination from a friend for charity.  It was for this reason that a nomination, more often than not, was accepted and thus growing the publicity of the campaign.  Not only did it tie with the guilt factor but also the feel good factor as it gave the person carrying out the challenge something to be proud of (doing something for charity).  

As previously mentioned, the challenge had users linking with one another through nominations via tagging online.  Once the challenge was completed a user would tag three friends through use of each social media website's tagging systems - Using "@" on Twitter.  Typing another user's name on Facebook.  Typing another username on Instagram etc.  The Ice Bucket Challenge also had users linking with one another competitively with users striving to make their challenge video more extreme and eye-catching than the people that had gone before.  On top of this, this challenge was very easy to get involved since it only required the challenge itself to be completed, recorded then uploaded thus, giving people an opportunity to have their content go viral.

On Facebook alone, it was reported that over 2.4 million unique videos relating to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and over 28 million relating discussions were achieved by August 18th 2014, this statistic has since increased dramatically as the challenge continued throughout the remainder of August and later.  To give you an example of the growth scale of this campaign; on August 13th 2014, there were 1.2 million relating videos on Facebook alone.  In just five days this figure had doubled and could well have tripled following the eventual end of this campaign.  Between July 29th and August 18th 2014, it was reported that over $12 million was raised for the ALS Association due to the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Facebook's Data Science team released an image showcasing the spread of the challenge which initially stemmed from Boston.  They believe that it was a former Boston College baseball player, Pete Frates who originally challenged users on his Facebook.  Facebook's statistics in addition to Instagram's 3.7 million videos containing the relating hash tag, "#icebucketchallenge" shows that this campaign was an incredible one. 

References:

https://www.als.net/icebucketchallenge/?gclid=CjwKEAiAkb-zBRC2upezwuyguQ4SJADZG08vdLFkZq8A_BLfvN1l8lQz2lXIejNWHx_mytVByqDQxRoCFQzw_wcB

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29013707

http://time.com/3117501/als-ice-bucket-challenge-videos-on-facebook/

                                                                                                                                                

Lay's - Do Us A Flavor

In celebration of their 75th anniversary, the potato chip company, Lay's created a campaign called "Do Us a Flavor" which offered a $1 million prize for the best flavour suggestion and 2 separate prizes of $50 000 for runners up.  Throughout the campaign, social media users would suggest an enormous number of suggestions in hope that their suggestion would be chosen by Lay's to be the next flavor to be produced for their 75th anniversary.  It's a fairly simplistic campaign which makes it absolutely genius as it comes with so many benefits for Lay's despite it's simplicity.  

Initially posted on Facebook, the campaign required users to suggest what they deemed to be a tasty flavour that they believe would taste great in a packet of crisps.  This gave customers their opportunity to voice what flavours they would like to see, however outrageous their flavours may be.  The campaign also attracted attention from those seeking a sizable cash prize since there was $1.1 million on offer all in.  This engaged each customer as it gave them a motive to spent time on their suggestions and possibly research how well received it was by other customers.  Essentially, Lay's had created a campaign which let customers do their research for them giving Lay's an idea as to which flavours would be well received and which would not.  Whilst suggesting ideas, it was also possible for users to share their feedback on other ideas posted by other users.  Putting the competitive part a-side, customers were able to think up genuine ideas together with feedback from one another.  

Teaming up with Facebook in this specific campaign, Lay's were able to change the "Like" button on Facebook to "I'd eat that".  This created a light-hearted tone to the campaign and added further attraction to it as well whilst still allowing users to rate one another's suggestions.  Customers were also able to link together as they commented on one another's suggestions through use of the Facebook comments system.  This, like previously mentioned, allowed the users to come up with realistic and genuine ideas which may actually turn out to be rather tasty.  Customers also linked together through the competitive nature of the campaign with customers able to spot other's ideas and taking inspiration from one another in order to claim the $1 million prize for their own.   

With this campaign, Lay's were able to gain a knowledge of what their customers wanted by giving them their say in what was to be created next.  It also increased sales as customers will purchase the winning flavour simply to give it a try.  It increased the company's attention within the social media world since the campaign trended around social media with large groups of people discussing their suggestions. All together, there was over 3.8 million unique flavor suggestions and well over 1 million voters throughout the duration of the campaign and a 500 000 user increase to their Facebook likes tally.  Lay's, the following year launched the campaign once more and received a staggering 14.4 million suggestions.  It's needless to say, the campaign was a resounding success.

References:

https://storify.com/deecee0/did-lay

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/us-flavor-lay-launches-1-million-chip-flavor-192908678.html

http://kwhs.wharton.upenn.edu/2015/05/lays-lesson-in-brand-awareness/

                                                                                                                                                

Breaking Bad - Name Lab

The Breaking Bad Name Lab campaign was introduced in June 2013 and is a Facebook exclusive app specifically produced to attract attention to the iconic title logo of the television series by decorating the user's name with aspects of the Breaking Bad logo (the periodic table).  This, in return, attracts a larger audience who may have used the app to watch the television series and thus generating a larger cash return, paying for the development costs for the app's creation and then some.  The app requires the user to sign into Facebook on the app which then inputs their full name producing a decorated name constructed from elements of the periodic table.  The app produces a selection of different layouts giving the user a choice from which to choose from.  The user then has options to download and share their pictures which then spreads the campaign.

The Facebook application allows users - who already watch the Breaking Bad series and are massive fans of it - to decorate their name with aspects of the periodic table which are initially used to create the iconic Breaking Bad logo.  However, it also allows Breaking Bad novices to explore the Breaking Bad logo which gives the television show new attention which could then lead to new viewers and thus a larger audience.  It engages the audience by giving them something to interact with.  It requires the user to input information into the app for the final piece to be reveled, the final piece being a personalised Breaking Bad style name.  Once the name has been generated, the app provides an option to download the final piece, also allowing the user to save it for their Facebook profile picture or cover photograph allowing them to personalise their Facebook profiles for free.  Overall, the app provides a unique experience for viewers to get involved with the television series and builds excitement for the upcoming episodes (acts like a tease).  

Name Lab provided many ways in which the users could link together and the main one was by sharing the application itself.  Once the user had gained their final decorated name, the application provided an option to share both the app itself and the final generated picture on Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest and Tumblr.  There shared posts would then be visible to anybody who follows or are friends of the person who clicked "share".  In these shared posts the users were also able to tag specific friends who they felt may be interested in the app as well.  Like many social media campaigns, this campaign came with a trending hashtag to accompany the main advertisement, "#allbadthingsmustcometoanend".  This hashtag then allowed users to take to the majority of social media platforms and discuss the series to their heart's content and also allowed viewers to check up on news about Breaking Bad.  

Within the first four minutes of the release of this app, over 20 000 people had used the application and since launching on June 26th 2013, the app have has been used by well over 1.4 million people.  Shortly after release of the app, the Breaking Bad Facebook page gained over 80 000 likes taking their tally to a massive 4.7 million likes.  Since the app was also shared onto different social media platforms, I presume this also would have gained them further sizable follower increases meaning that the audience of Breaking Bad had grown substantially rendering this campaign a successful one.

References:

https://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2280164/amcs-breaking-bad-name-lab-app-lets-fans-mimic-credits

https://www.facebook.com/BreakingBad/app/541868445869371/