2016 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards Gold Winner - Atomic 212
Company: Atomic 212, Sydney, Australia
Category: Award for Innovation in the Use of Events
Entry Title: Lucy The Robot
Lucy the Robot - Viral Campaign
US tech company, Double Robotics, wanted to launch their robot in Australia. A user can manoeuvre it from the comfort of their home or office.
Objectives:
Launch Double Telepresence Robot to the Australian and Asian markets Support existing North American, French and UK activity
Context
Awareness was nil. Where normally this would be considered a disadvantage, the team decided to turn this into their advantage by tapping into the fact that customers had no preconceptions of robots. Therefore the territory of robots presented a wonderful opportunity to engender the imagination and interest of customers.
Budget constraints meant that something extraordinary was required.
Insight
Absolute relevance and absolute entertainment drive fanaticism.
Strategy
Robots ignite the imagination ... but can also lack personality. Atomic 212° recognised the need to create an engaging story and ignite the imagination. The robot needed personality. We also needed a launch platform that would cost almost nothing, providing powerful positive value to everyone’s experience. Some would say we were asking the impossible.
Strategic concept:
Seek out and identify a positive, almost fanatical world event of such significance that the eyes of customers and media would be focused on it.
Give the robot personality, drive massive user generated content and more importantly drive media generated content.
This is how we did it.
We identified the launch of the iPhone 6s and developed an idea adding relevance and entertainment to those fixated on the event. We focused our execution on Lucy Kelly, the girl behind the device – she was positioned as a young, energetic, innovative woman who did not want to stand in the wind and torrential rain. We placed the humanoid robot outside the George Street Apple store in Sydney to line up for the global release of the iPhone 6s. It queued for days and interacted almost constantly with Apple fanatics, the media and people passing by.
Our robot set about being the first person, droid or human, to buy the iPhone 6s. With Sydney being the first Apple store to release the 6s globally, our robot was the first to purchase it globally.
The story simply was: Robot buys first iPhone 6s in the world.
Support
The campaign was driven by PR, branded content marketing and social media. We targeted a number of mainstream publications like news.com.au or The Australian, and television programs like The Project, as well as well known technology websites like Mashable.
Phase two came after the mainstream phase – we used the hype to target business titles and programs regarding the practical uses of the device in the workplace.
A microsite was developed to support lead generation and sales.
Results
“The result represents a new record for a genuine viral marketing campaign both in terms of speed and reach,” Fabiano Destri Lobo, Global Mobile Marketing Association.
Reach: The story was covered in 4,000 stories across print and broadcast – including The Australian, Gizmodo, BRW, Seven News, Nine News, The AFR, and Mashable. Globally, it translated into 32 languages, reaching 123 million people in total, with an average frequency of 7. Estimated media value $73.2 million.
Sales and leads: 12,452 enquiries generated in 72 hours - $44,777,392 in sales opportunities. Brand: recall +780%; favourability +1200%.
Innovation: The robot was first out of the Apple store – first iPhone 6s sold was bought by a robot.
As an added benefit the Apple store PR team invited the robot to be part of its own marketing effort.
The results were remarkable by both Australia and global standards, and according to the Mobile Marketing Association have set new benchmarks for true genuine viral media campaigns.
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