I first heard about the campaign from a friend who asked if I had entered the contest to win a guest appearance on the TV show “Mad Men”. Being a favourite of mine I had to look the contest up. From the micro-site promoting the campaign, I found out that Banana Republic was putting on a contest involving a chance to be on the show. The site directed contestants to go to a Banana Republic store and pick up a code. You then had to enter the code online and set up a profile with a photo in your best “Mad Men” outfit for a chance to win a walk-on role on the popular TV show. Next you had to get voters to come to the site to vote for your picture. Intrigued, I decided to go into a Banana Republic store and found myself buying clothes. I am not a Banana Republic shopper, previous to this I found their clothes rather boring—I guess it worked.
In the store I received a style guide booklet that showed me how to achieve a Mad Men look by putting together different clothes and accessories in the store. In addition to the style guide (which was well-designed), they were also giving away a coupon for $25 off any purchase of $100 or more from August 13 – 25th. Using the coupon I made my purchase and went home to enter my code and upload a photo on their site, entering the contest.
So Banana Republic and AMC were successful in getting their customers to engage with their products in unique ways. They were able to direct people to spend money at their stores by promoting an irresistible sale, advertise an exciting contest and create a buzz. All this while promoting the season premiere of the TV show “Mad Men”. The integration of a popular TV show with a strong corporate partnership was key in attracting the right kind of customers to their stores. Through a set of various interactive processes (customers physically going to stores, voting online, sharing with others to get votes, visiting the website to check their votes, etc.) Banana Republic executed a successful and dynamic campaign. The concepts and ideas behind the campaign were brilliant, as was the integration of different kinds of media.
The main tool that held the campaign together was the “Mad About Style” micro-site which contained and promoted the entire “Mad Men Casting Call” contest. The micro-site allowed visitors to quickly register an account by entering their code, and upload a photo. The site also featured a photo gallery of all the contestants, easy-to-use voting technology, a simple online form, and a PDF copy of their style guide—and the campaign’s graphic design work, printed materials, and photography were all top quality.
Okay, all good stuff so far. So what would KIMBO Design do differently? Building upon this strong campaign we would have fixed the weak elements in the social media side of the campaign with some additions to their site. Facebook and Twitter are invaluable tools for spreading the word online and should have been used to hit a larger and varied audience. The navigation on the micro-site also needed improvement. External links in the main navigation made the micro-site confusing to use and there was no indication to the user which page of the site they were currently on.
With a different navigation style, the site would have been much more user-friendly. A faster and easier way to find your friend’s photo should have been used for the photo gallery. Flipping through thousands of entries to find a friend will turn users off. Also a “Search” button would have helped users find what they were looking for right away.
A strong micro-site with social media functionalities will greatly improve and enhance a brand’s integrated campaign. Banana Republic could have capitalized on some of these basic social integrations which would’ve increased their reach and moved more product. Maybe next year will be different and I’m still hoping Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner selects me as the winner.
More Links About this Integrated AD Campaign:
