Back in February this year, tour operator Contiki launched what appeared to some be a rather complicated competition.
The promotion, This Way to Amazing, used a mashup of YouTube, Google Maps and Streetview, Facebook and music to try and drive more people to its website… and products, obviously.
The idea was that over the course of four weeks, users would be given a clue on a map to guess the location. Simple, right?
Not exactly. Users then had to browse the map, zoom in, and then negotiate a walk down the location on Streetview to find its precise whereabouts.
The idea was that users would be so enchanted by the experience that they would share the competition around their various social networks and enter the competition at the end of each week (a new location was put in play every seven days).
At the time of its launch, Contiki officials were promising confidently that the game would take the social community “by storm”.
A lofty prediction given that every travel brand on the planet appears to trying some kind of social-related competition these days, often nothing more complex than uploading a picture to Facebook or tagging content on Twitter with a hashtag.
Similar to the now famous and barnstorming success of the RFID tags at the Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel, Contiki has managed to get quite a good response to the campaign.
- Over the course of the four weeks the game was played 200,000 times by users.
- 83% of those ending up on the main Contiki website after playing the game were brand new visitors.
- Average “engagement” time from players was more than ten minutes across the game and subsequent visit to the site – a figure officials believe “shows that players were engaged with the game, as well as with associated brand/product messaging”.
- 43% of unique players shared the game on their respective social networks on completing it.
- In the first week following its launch, Contiki saw a 102% increase in brand name mentions on Twitter.
Over time Contiki will obviously be monitoring sales to see if there is a significant uplift in bookings of its tours, but as an awareness raising exercise (especially referencing the “new visitors” element of the results), Contiki will be happy that the exercise struck a chord with players of the game.
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Sounds good and big haun to Contiki for trying something different. Wonder how many new bookings they got. So hard to measure…
Well done Contiki for understanding the importance of engaging consumers in a social media based campaign… This shows how much more consumer will share their experience when they have worked harder for the result! Great to see they have measured their success on brand awareness and not just number of entries.