Tweet for a sweet

Background

To help sister agency Draftfcb Johannesburg drive home the fact that the new Toyota Etios is fun, light-hearted and unexpected – in other words, ‘here to make you smile’ – experiential and digital hotshop Hellocomputer put an unusual twist to the old ‘hoot for a toot’ and asked passersby to ‘tweet for a sweet’.

Idea

Wit the help of 3D visualisation agency Thingking, an empty shop window was turned into an interactive promotion for the Etios. Using paper sculptures and discarded pieces of plastic, old toys and kitchen utensils, the rubbish was recycled into a machine that delivered a sweet to anyone who tweeted the hash tag painted on the window outside.

Results

Google Analytics reported 730,512 Page views for the Etios Smile Hub in the two months the hub was live, of which 82.76% were new visits.

There was an average of 781 visits per day.

The average bounce rate of the microsite was 14.05% which was very low, indicating that visitors browsed the unique content, a major purpose of the website. The average visit duration of the site was just over four and a half minutes.  

5,926 pieces of content were shared via social media, 3,420 of which were Etios-centric

Over the two-months, 248 Test Drives were booked.

In this period, the Etios became the third best-selling car in the country.

Our Thoughts

This is exactly the kind of brand activation that many marketers find bewildering. For starters, it’s not actually about any of the car’s features. If it’s about a benefit, it’s only that this is a car that makes you smile.

Briefing an agency to ‘make people smile’ is not something everyone can do. It means aligning the brand around values rather than attributes. In its turn that means attributing sales or, indeed, hard numbers of any kind, to the campaign is going to be hard. So why do it? Because it doesn’t cost very much and, in support of TV and other traditional media, it gets people talking. And smiling. And even buying.