FanSection Blog

In case you haven’t been following along recently, the death knells are being sounded for social media advertising by everyone from Silicon Alley Insider to AdWeek to The New York Times.  In fact, you can’t seem to surf the Web these days without stumbling on to dozens of articles and blog posts touting the failure of various campaigns on Facebook and other social networks.  Seeing the NYT jump on the pile this weekend is especially ironic given the fact that they just recently announced that a Facebook advertising campaign of their own was extremely successful.  Here’s an excerpt from a post on The Editor’s Weblog:

An internal memo from Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy said that the goals of the campaign were to increase the company’s number of Facebook fans, “raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center, and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome.”

So with all of the naysayers out there throwing already throwing dirt on social media advertising, I wanted to once again revisit what it takes to for a brand to be successful in a social environment.  I’ve written several posts on this subject in the past here and here, but this case study for the Texas Department of Transportation should further illustrate how brands can be successful on Facebook and other social networking sites.

Texas Department of Transportation
Campaign Date: Aug-Sep 2008

Challenge
Sherry Matthews Marketing and its client, the Texas Department of Transportation, needed to raise awareness of the TxDOT’s message for “Drink. Drive. Go To Jail”.  Their key objective was to deliver an interactive program that reached consumers in a relevant way by injecting their core message into the natural user experience.  Their key campaign measurement was user engagement with the TxDOT brand message.

Solution
To address the TxDOT’s objective, Sherry Matthews approached Watercooler about including custom, integrated content within Watercooler’s fan communities.  Watercooler then developed sponsored trivia on FanSection sports applications.  Trivia is the most popular feature on the Watercooler network with over 350 million questions answered per month.  Using sponsored questions allows brands to interact with FanSection users in a very natural setting without requiring them to take any special steps or actions.

The TxDOT’s campaign consisted of the following elements:

• Seven custom trivia questions created by Watercooler and Sherry Matthews
• Sponsored questions were added to the trivia games of the applications for all sports teams in the state of Texas tailored to the mascot/fans of that particular team
• A sponsored trivia question was served up for every 5 regular trivia questions until all seven were served
• Display ads and question explanations were used to reinforce the brand message
• Three questions were re-worked and served again midway through the campaign to demonstrate user education and message retention

Engagement Orientated Results
The campaign was a resounding success as all client objectives were met.  Over 110,000 sponsored trivia questions were answered by FanSection users across the applications and social networks on which the campaign ran in the first three weeks.  Additionally, the three lowest performing questions in terms of correct answers were re-worked and added back into the mix to test the ability to increase accuracy, and thereby message retention.  The results have been significant as the reworked questions showed increases of correct answers between 120% and 480%:

• Question 1: 29% correct answer rate grew  to 64%

Correct Answer: 6 months is maximum jail after 1st DUI

• Question 2: 13% correct answer rate grew to 75%

Correct Answer: $17,500 is the cost of a DWI can cost you

• Question 3: 31% correct answer rate grew to 75%

Correct Answer: Getting a DWI with a minor in the car can be a felony

These results indicate that sponsored trivia is a great way for brands to educate users and in return, insure that the brand message is learned and retained.

Conclusion
While not having obvious direct ties to sports, The Texas Department of Transportation’s brand message was seamlessly injected into the core Watercooler user experience through the creation of engaging, relevant trivia questions.  Sponsored trivia is a versatile and interactive solution that can connect with users and drive message retention for virtually any brand across the suite of 800+ Watercooler sports and TV applications.