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Monday, 12 January 2009 at 01:19

In October 2008, Nokia partnered with Netlog to promote its Supernova mobile phone, to its target group. And what a group it turned out to be. More than 40,000 users visited the Supernova brand page and more than 23,000 immediately became a friend of the page, creating a lasting brand loyalty between Netlog users and Nokia. The collaboration was so successful that it continues to be endorsed internationally as an example of integration best practice.

What made the difference?

What made this collaboration unique was the fact that the audience was allowed to decide whether it wanted to be involved or not. Unlike other integrated marketing strategies, this created an optimum level of engagement between brand and consumer.

How did it work?

The campaign centred around three characters – Anna, Jade and Luca – who featured in the Nokia TV ad. Consumers were invited to follow their exploits in real time through Nokia 7610 handsets.

The Nokia brand page http://nl.netlog.com/supernova included an iFrame that enabled visitors send a text message with “something you always wanted to say”. After the text was written, a giant Supernova Nokia phone was displayed enabling the user either to keep it this way or forward it to its friends.

In parallel, the campaign followed the stories of three characters - Anna, Jade and Luca- and their evolving story lines across three time zones, through a 24/7 feed of content, for over six weeks. The idea was to create a mix of scripted content and real life audience interaction: Netlog users were able to learn about the characters through their text messages, photos, videos and calls also from Nokia’s main campaign site, somebodyelsesphone.com.

By activating a friendship with a brand, which works the same way as adding a new friend, a message was automatically sent out to all of the user’s friends to inform them about the new friendship. The message was integrated in users’ LOGS, a highly popular feature that gives an update about what friends have been doing lately on Netlog. Similarly, the changes on the Supernova brand were immediately forwarded to the whole friends base.
In this way, every friend of a Nokia fan could see the new friendship evolving, allowing the campaign to go viral. Users became friends and even brand-ambassadors, allowing interaction between Nokia and its friends, allowing Nokia not only to get its message across, but also to get feedback on its communication.

Even now, more than 23,000 users are now ‘friends’ with the brand page.