Social Media Viral Campaign: Don't Speed Up-Simply Be Yourself

CAMPAIGN RATIONALE:
According to recent reports from DAAT (Drug and Alcohol Action Team) and Asian drug charity Nafas, there has been an alarming rise in the rates of drug usage amongst young girls in the UK. Provoked by the superficial ideology of beauty being “Slim and Trim” which is promoted by the various media outlets and women’s magazines teenage girls as young as 14 are being driven to use the powerful speed drug (amphetamines) in their desperate attempt to lose weight.
Since the company specializes in the area of larger size womenswear, as a response to the current alarming scenario, launching an online viral campaign called “Don’t Speed Up- Simply Be Yourself” could be a great opportunity for the company to establish itself as a socially responsible brand in the mind of customers. This campaign is a much-needed one and would be the first its kind. That being, a Weight Loss related Anti-Drug Campaign, which would be targeted at young women to raise awareness: not just to prevent substance misuse, but also to change their ideologies related to the stereotypical image of beauty.
In order to maximise impact of the campaign and to reach the target audience (females of 14-22) effectively the organization can promote the campaign through the launch of a viral video on 1st April 2010 in its YouTube Channel, which will be linked to its blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. The second phase of the campaign would be taking place from 7th April2010- 7th July 2010 through a novel online and interactive competition The Curvy Fashionista’ (in a new website which can be created by the company solely for the campaign.). The website will provide information about the dangers and risks of using Speed Drug. It will also be used as the platform where there will be a blog related to the campaign and the place where the competition will take place. Participants can register into the competition through their Facebook and Twitter Accounts. The competition will be based on the Spring Summer 2010 Western Wear. Any girl can upload photos of themselves following the S/S2010 theme. They can upload the photos on the website and pass on the links of the photos to their friends via Facebook and Twitter asking for their votes. This will be a 3 months competition where participants will have to post one photo/week throughout the entire period. The participant getting the highest votes at the end of each month will be getting a £100 shopping voucher from Simply Be.
Depending on the response to the campaign, the company might choose to carry on the campaign and the competition based on the Autumn/Winter 2010 line-up.

Campaign: “Don’t Speed Up- Simply Be Yourself”
Type if campaign: Awareness Raising.
Client: Simply Be PR team
Timescale: 1st April 2010- 7th July 2010 (3months)
Budget- Agency fee: £3000*3=£9000
Voucher cost: £100*3=£300
Total campaign cost: £ 12,000

SUMMARY OF OBJECTIVES & GOALS –
• To raise awareness regarding Weight Loss Related Drug issues.
• To sustain target groups interest all through the campaign period
• To raise public awareness about the issue at hand
• To drive traffic to the Campaign website.
• To drive traffic to Simply Be’s website.
• To increase the number of fans and followers on Simply Be’s Facebook and Twitter Account.
• To initiate conversation amongst target group regarding the issue on the campaign blog.
• To get a minimum of 50 participants/ month
• To get a minimum of 100 voters/ month
• To be mentioned in Women’s Magazines such as : Glamour, Prima, Bella, Cosmopolitan etc.
EXPLANATION OF STRATEGIES AND RECCOMENDATION-
Stage-1
• Make a Social Media Press Release to announce the beginning of the campaign, which can be picked up by journalists online.
• Release a viral video on the company’s YouTube Channel the links of which shall be given on the company’s Facebook and Twitter Account.
• The website that shall be created for the campaign shall be stated at the end of the video.
• Members of Simply Be can watch the video from the links and if further interested can go to the campaign website.
• For Facebook it shall appear on members Home page from where other people can see it.
• For Twitter-members can retweet it to others.

Stage-2
• On the 7th of April2010 the website of the campaign will be re-promoted through Facebook and Twitter when the News of the competition “The Curvy Fashionista” will be announced.
• Members will have to come to the website in order to know the terms and conditions of the competition.
• The website shall also have the video embedded in it and a blog related to the campaign.
• People who are just interested in competition and were not aware of the campaign will get to know about the campaign.
• The blog can be open to comments and shall have links of related blogs (which shall generate further traffic into the blog and the campaign website resulting in greater awareness of the campaign)
• Participants will get to upload their photos through the website.
• To gain votes they can forward the photo links to their contacts on Facebook or Twitter.
• This will bring in more hits to the campaign website thereby creating further awareness of the campaign.
Stage-3
• At the end of every month participant getting the highest number of votes shall be getting a £100 voucher from Simply Be which the participant can use to buy any item of women’s wear or women’s accessory from the Simply Be website. (This shall generate greater traffic to the Simply Be website)


MEASURING:

• The number of video viewers can be seen from the number of views on the Youtube channel.
• The number of hits to the website can be calculated by registering the URL of the website into Google analytics.
• The number of views and hits on the blog can be measured by feeding the blogs URL into Google analytics.
• The popularity of the campaign can me measured by the number of visitors to the website.