Vote Carrie: Blog Campaign Strategy
09/26/2004
The innovative folks at TBS interactive marketing are using a double-edge blog strategy to promote Sex and the City. A blog and ads on blogs. One might say that TBS has created an integrated blog campaign.
Strategy: Vote Carrie Adverblog - Carrie Bradshaw is running for president on the new Cosmopolitan Party ticket. Like all savvy politicians Candidate Carrie has a blog - votecarrie.org complete with interactive polls, survey results and of course Candidate Carrie’s platform. It's all in the details...note the ".org" extension.
Yeah...it’s a “fake blog” but unlike other fake blogs e.g., Dr. Pepper's Raging Cow blog, Vote Carrie doesn’t pretend to be more than it is…a lighthearted play on politics with a goal of promoting the TV series.
Strategy: Vote Carrie Blog Ads – Running on sites like Blogcritics, Wonkette, Instapundit and MetroBlog.
The entire campaign is fun, interactive, supports the brand and is so Carrie! I had to find out the story behind the strategy. Richard Turner, Director Interactive Marketing for the Superstation, kindly and generously provided a behind the scene explanation along with a few insights about the campaign.
Vote Carrie Marketing Strategy
"All of our interactive efforts are designed to convert passive viewers into active participants and, eventually, active viewers." Richard Turner, TBS Director Interactive Marketing.
What were the goals/objectives?
Primary goal for all of interactive and promotional efforts is to drive ratings; the following is a sub-set of this overarching goal:
-To increase consumer awareness of Sex and the City on TBS by capitalizing on topicality of election and popularity of blogs
-To 'live' our brand with a fun and humorous take on political blogs
-To generate press coverage of innovative promotional effort
-To potentially drive site traffic (through links as well as increased relevance for search engines)
How were the ads placed?
We had a set budget and working within that budget we hand-picked an equal amount of liberal and conservative political blogs. We also folded in independent/nonpartisan political blogs as well as pop culture and opinion-maker blogs.
Sidebar: Ads were placed through Blogads. "Just sent out an avalanche of blogads, our biggest single order yet, for Sex and the City. Something I really wouldn't have expected a year ago." - Harry Copeland, Blogads
From Investors: "The growth of blog readership shouldn't be ignored, according to Copeland, whose company brokers blog ads and takes a commission. He said at the start of the year his group of online publications was delivering 5 million impressions a month. The number has increased almost 1,000 percent to 45 million now."
What was considered to be “success?”
Unfortunately, we can't demonstrably prove increased ratings, so our criteria was number of editorial/press hits and traffic to the blog. By both measures, we consider it a success (although not a cultural phenomena like JibJab's This Land).
Marketing Questions: Is the Vote Carrie strategy a preview of future marketing trends? Will more brand-blogs use ads on blogs to drive traffic to the adverblog? Would a double-edge blogging campaign work for your brand?
Read More
Fake Blogs as a Marketing Tool - TSMI Trade Show Marketing Report
Ranging Cow The Interview - Business Blog Consulting
Ads on Blogs Blogs as Ads - ClickZ
