Plead Your Case
Issue 19 | June 2011
Agency
BBDO New York
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars; Creative Director: Arturo Aranda/Jeff Greenspan; Art Director: Danny Adrian; Copywriter: Chris Baker
Production Team
Production Company/Interactive Company: Tool Of North America; Executive Producer: Eric Weiner; Agency Producer: Tara Johnson
Date
June 2010
Background
AT&T needed a way to increase sales of Smartphones and data plans during the holiday season.
Idea
Plead Your Case was a Facebook experience that allowed users to build a case for why they deserved the smartphone they wanted for the holidays. Plead Your Case centered around Roger Gideon, a high-profile attorney who would argue the reasons why the user deserved their choice of smartphone with parents, significant others, and loved ones, making it easy to ask for them for the gift they wanted.
Results
This experience doubled AT&T’s average for sales generated by an online promotion. 74% of people who engaged with the idea shared it with others.
Our Thoughts
I followed a few links and found that the AT&T Marketer behind this campaign is called Chris Bacchus. On Twitter he has 4,705 followers. That’s amazing. Some of those will be fawning account guys at BBDO but only some. What it tells us is marketers in the USA ‘get’ social media. The lessons I take from this funny campaign that gets to parents through their kids is that on Facebook it’s about listening and responding in as close to real time as possible. You want Roger Gideon to help you get you the phone you want NOW. Not in a week’s time. NOW.
What also impresses me is the assumption that both kids and their parents will (a) be on Facebook and (b) talking to each other there. I am banned from visiting my children’s Facebook pages.