Social Media Campaign Snapshot: #CatchTheTablet

Background

To introduce the Sony Tablet officially to the U.S. market, Atomic created the #CatchTheTablet campaign - a fun, interactive and highly engaging social media campaign to increase awareness, build anticipation and generate excitement among consumers.

Objectives

• Build buzz and consumer awareness around the new Sony Tablet
• Get the Sony Tablet into the hands of consumers and engage fans on a personal level
• Increase fans and interactions by .5 percent

Strategy and high-level tactics used to execute the program

Atomic worked with Sony Electronics to design and create the #CatchTheTablet social media campaign which combined Facebook, Twitter and gaming elements to give participating fans in important, high engagement markets across the United States the opportunity to win a Tablet and increase brand awareness for Sony. The team built a Facebook tab, which acted as a central hub for campaign efforts. Through the hub, Sony fans could learn about and RSVP for Tablet events in top U.S. markets and use interactive maps to discover exactly where they needed to go in order to "Catch the Tablet."

Sony and Atomic social media staffers personally turned up with the Tablet in hand at different locations in the top five cities across the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago. To enter the contest, fans had to locate the team, take a photograph with the Tablet and tweet it out with the #catchthetablet hashtag. Fans could also head to a Sony Store and photograph the Tablet there.

To increase engagement among fans not located in the five cities, fans could go onto Facebook and vote to add their city to the itinerary. Sony's Seattle fans rallied and secured nearly 40 percent of the vote, earning a party in their city with free drinks, delectable food, Sony gift bags, and hands-on time with the Tablet. Two lucky people won Tablets during the party. Additionally, to help engage fans located outside Catch the Tablet tour stops in top markets, we also provided a virtual way to enter the contest to win a Tablet, by simply submitting your email address to the Facebook tab .

Over the two-week campaign, 60 Sony Tablets were distributed to fans participating in the campaign.

Results

• According to a recent article on The Next Web, #CatchTheTablet is considered the most successful social media campaign ever implemented by Sony Electronics for a product launch in the US, owing to the high level of consumer participation and enthusiasm around the concept.
• There were 41,437 engagements on the #CatchTheTablet Facebook tab, including poll votes, clicks, shares, and image and video views.
• The contest collected approximately 10,000 entries, including 600 entries from fans who "caught" the Tablet.
• The campaign inspired 1,769 tweets with the #CatchTheTablet hashtag during the campaign period, for a total reach of 2,567,711 impressions
• Sony's Facebook fan base increased by 8 percent and it's Twitter following by 4.5 percent during the campaign

Campaign Snapshot: Sony and Atomic Launch the Sony Tablet S

Background

With Apple, Samsung, Motorola, RIM and HP already competing in the tablet race, Atomic's job was to help launch the new Sony Tablet into a crowded and now commoditizing marketplace - engaging and exciting consumers, while generating strong, positive coverage from technology, business and consumer press and bloggers.

Objectives

• Launch the Sony Tablet big in the U.S. with significant and positive media coverage
• Highlight the groundbreaking design and unique features of the Sony Tablet and what sets it apart from competitors in the crowded marketplace
• Engage and excite consumers by building anticipation with social media buzz leading up to the Tablet launch
• Generate momentum toward meeting yearly key performance indices (KPIs) for Tablet that included:
  • Press coverage (overall number of articles)
  • Impressions
  • Quality of media coverage (tier 1 and 2 coverage)

Strategy and high-level tactics user to execute the program

Analysis of the tablet space via ComContext™ and analysis of ongoing monthly coverage of Sony and its competitors fostered a number of key insights and helped Atomic build a strategic, well-informed plan of attack to launch the Tablet in the US:

• Atomic felt Sony should not try to beat Apple at its own game like so many other competitors have tried to do
• We chose to focus messaging on Sony's own historical design prowess, the Tablets's unique and differentiated design attributes and its connection to Sony's content ecosystem
• We observed that top tier media targets fell into two distinct camps - those who were producing negative coverage of almost any Android Honeycomb tablet (targets we should avoid), and those who seemed to see Android tablets as a viable alternative to Apple's marketplace dominance (those we should prioritize.)
  • According to WIRED's Michael Calore, "Sony has taken a chance by eschewing the simple slate and going with a more humanizing shape. It's new and unusual, but yet familiar to anyone who's read a magazine at the beach. An admirable choice."

We observed that competitors were timing large numbers of reviews to hit on or near product announcement dates, which flooded the media with mostly positive coverage when the excitement around the product was the greatest

• Sony and Atomic organized and pitched a series of announcements, roundtables and briefings, and seeded early (pre-announcement) product with high-priority targets, to unfold the tablet story in the media, and drive sub-spikes of coverage leading up to the launch
• Atomic organized a regional Tablet tour in San Francisco and New York to give reporters the opportunity to experience the Tablet firsthand and to speak with product managers directly to learn about key differentiators and what makes the product stand out
• Sony and Atomic took the Tablet directly to consumers and influencers with the #CatchTheTablet social media program (see separate social media campaign snapshot)

Results

• The Sony Tablet launch was covered in 1,201 articles, generating nearly 1 billion impressions since the August 31 announcement. Many top tier outlets took notice and covered the launch, including Wall Street Journal, PCMag.com, WIRED, PC World, Computer Shopper and CNET, all communicating the product's unique and differentiating qualities effectively
• A number stories carried content about Sony's design prowess and content universe as positive differentiation compared to Apple and against Apple's me-too competitors
• Sony's #CatchTheTablet social media campaign was considered the most successful contest and social media promotion in SEL history, resulting in an 8 percent overall increase in Facebook fans and a nearly 5 percent increase in Twitter followers
• In addition, trade press covered the campaign, the SEL communications team and Atomic in publications like PRWeek, PRNewser and The Next Web

Netgear: The move from Big IT to Smart IT

Assignment

NETGEAR hired Atomic in 2010 to help the company up-level coverage, exposure and visibility across all markets, continue to build its strong customer base in the home and grow SMB and mid-enterprise adoption of its networking, storage and security solutions.

ComContext research showed that coverage for its market categories tended to be product news and reviews driven with a focus on speeds and feeds, and lacked dynamic market commentary or mainstream dialogue.

Atomic recommended a series of steps to broaden and invigorate coverage across its categories, in addition to developing an overarching theme to amplify and tie its efforts together - The move from Big IT to Smart IT:

• Connect the dots and tie products together
  
• Unify the brand
  
• Tie to what NETGEAR products do - Achievements, futures, trends
  
• Talk enterprise and prove it

Results

In the first 90 days, Atomic raised awareness and shifted NETGEAR's positioning from widespread associations of blue router boxes for the home, to the reality that the company is a world leader across a range of home entertainment products, "Smart IT" products for the mid-enterprise, and retail-tested solutions for Internet service providers. Results were up by every important measure.

• Total coverage up 380%, from 81 to 388 articles
  
• 49% of coverage is feature length vs. 17% in previous quarter
  
• 17 reviews placed vs. 11 in previous quarter; also nearly twice as many reviews in process to 52 from 30 (product already in influencer hands)
  
• Press release volume up 60%

Analyst Event & Biggest Newsday Ever

Assignment

On November 5, 2010, Atomic supported NETGEAR's Analyst Day for the investment community at the NASDAQ building in New York City. CEO Patrick Lo laid out NETGEAR's growth plan for the next five years along with a summary of 10 separate news announcements to hit the same day.

Results

The day's activities and news announcements drove 40+ articles and broadcast clips unified under the "Move from Big IT to Smart IT" theme, equaling 50 million impressions:

• Resulting coverage highlights included four company feature and profile stories in the New York Times, Motley Fool, Investor's Business Daily, and VentureBeat.


• 3 video interviews appeared on Fox Business News, Forbes Video Network and TheStreet.com.


• In total, 40+ unique articles appeared from top-tier publications including Investor's Business Daily, New York Times, PC Magazine, InformationWeek, IT Business Edge, Motley Fool, CTO Edge and ZDNet and captured a total of 25,161,925 in reader and viewership circulation.

ArcSight

Assignment
ArcSight hired Atomic in early 2009 to elevate the company's profile in the larger security and business media and expand the positioning of the company to a broader category of enterprise threat and risk management. In addition, ArcSight product news had received minimal coverage even from the security-focused publications.

Strategy
Atomic recommended a strategy that elevated ArcSight products beyond the technical security event management and highlighted the problem that ArcSight helps to solve. In addition, Atomic leveraged the company's history as a CIA-funded venture and its customer base in the government sector to position its vision and products as core to defending national security. With cyber attacks on the rise, ArcSight could comment on the security of the country's critical infrastructure.

Results

• In the first 7 months, ArcSight coverage increased by more than 700%, to 329 articles with coverage spanning business, technology and vertical publications
• Successfully hosted a media event at the company's annual customer conference that resulted 7 stories in the first two days in publications such as Federal Computer Week, Government Computer News, InternetNews, NextGov, Government Security News and SearchSecurity.
• The AP quoted CEO Tom Reilly as a "cyber expert" in a story on how the government should be protecting the Web. The article has been printed in over 90 U.S. publications.
• Atomic launched 3 products for ArcSight in the first 7 months of working together. Amongst its competitors, coverage from the average product launch has been 6 articles. For its most recent product launch, Atomic set more than 25 media and analyst interviews resulting in over 30 articles.
• ArcSight executives are regularly quoted in a number of articles about protecting national critical infrastructure and have become "go-to" experts on cyber security issues by a number of journalists.

The Trust for Public Land: From Hollywood to Save The Peak

The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national, nonprofit, land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, community gardens, historical sites, rural lands, and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come. For the past several years, The Trust for Public Land has sought to acquire Cahuenga Peak, a 138-acre parcel of land located directly adjacent to the Hollywood Sign in the Santa Monica Mountains, from private land developers whose aim is to build luxury housing on the peak. Through an agreement with the land owners of Cahuenga Peak, TPL was given an exclusive option until April 2010 to purchase the land for $12.5 million. If the campaign failed, the land would be sold to the highest bidder. If successful in raising the funds, Cahuenga Peak would be donated to the City of Los Angeles and made into an extension of Griffith Park.

In mid-2009, with less than one year until TPL's exclusive option expired, Atomic was brought on board to drive media and public awareness to Cahuenga Peak, as well as TPL's integral involvement in the campaign to save the land from development.

A ComContext analysis of historical media and blog coverage of TPL and other land conservation related non-profits clearly identified the most important journalists covering the space, surfaced the topics most actively being followed, profiled the media dialog around various land conservation projects, and suggested gaps in coverage and content that TPL could potentially fill. Armed with that information, Atomic sought to raise the campaign's profile by driving awareness through a multi-tiered media program across the local and national level, leveraging partnerships with notable figures to maximize the urgency of the campaign, educating local communities and the general public about Cahuenga Peak, driving visibility and recognition for campaign donors through creative events and broadening recognition of TPL's tenure as the leading non-profit organization conserving public land nationally.

Atomic's Digital Ops team sought to raise Cahuenga Peak's online presence during the campaign with the creation of a microsite, SaveHollywoodLand.org, intended to feed up-to-date information on the campaign and accept donations from the public.

The microsite also hosted blog posts from various celebrities and political supporters of the campaign, including Dame Elizabeth Taylor, LA City Councilman Tom LaBonge, James Kyson Lee (NBC's Heroes) and many others. Additionally, Atomic utilized social media networks by setting up a "Save Cahuenga Peak" Facebook page, Twitter page and Flickr page.

Within one week of the campaign launch, over $1 million dollars were received via the microsite and directly mailed donations. Within two weeks, the "Save Cahuenga Peak" Facebook page had gone from several dozen fans to over 19,000 fans.

Atomic, in conjunction with TPL, realized that the best way to garner attention to the plight of Cahuenga Peak was to utilize its iconic neighbor: the Hollywood Sign. With the support of Los Angeles Councilman Tom LaBonge, Atomic and TPL came up with an eye-catching stunt that entailed covering the Hollywood Sign with a banner that read, "Save The Peak". The banner unveiling coincided with the campaign launch date.

The campaign launch announcement, along with the covering of the Hollywood Sign, sparked a media frenzy. Within a week of the launch, the campaign received coverage in all the major media outlets including: the Yahoo! launch page, The Ellen Show, Associated Press, USA Today, New York Times, BBC, CNN, NPR, Access Hollywood, all major national morning shows and over 780 additional broadcast and print placements.

Atomic drove partnership efforts with Tiffany & Co Foundation, which donated over $ 1 million dollars to the campaign as well as the Getty family, which contributed an undisclosed amount. Lastly, Atomic solidified celebrity campaign ambassadors such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus (CBS's New Adventures of Old Christine), John Slattery (AMC's Mad Men), Julian McMahon (FX's Nip/Tuck), Aisha Tyler (FOX's 24), Tippi Hedren, Katherine Morris (CBS's Cold Case), Bryan Cranston (AMC's Breaking Bad), Beau Garrett (Fantastic Four) and many others.

On April 26th, 2010, The Trust for Public Land held a press conference announcing a $900,000 donation from Playboy Founder, Hugh Hefner and that it raised the $12.5 million needed to save Cahuenga Peak from development. The announcement and press conference received coverage in a diverse array of large media outlets including: CNN, National Public Radio, Extra!, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian (UK) and the cover of Variety magazine.

In total, the "Save The Peak" campaign garnered over 8,000 online and print articles and 5,939 mentions on broadcast television and raised a total amount of $12.5 million.

As a result of this campaign, Cahuenga Peak will be donated to the city of Los Angeles, which will in turn, make it a part of Griffith Park.