Gone are the days of badly drawn islands on falling apart parchment. Now, the “X” that marks the spot is found not in a sealed glass bottle drifting aimlessly at sea but in everyone’s pocket. Access to these hidden treasures are at our finger tips, we just need to know where to look to reap the rewards.
As seen before with the Brandwatch – Game of Thrones case study, some companies have successfully combined the real world interactions we have with digital campaigns to achieve huge numbers of engagement. This could be due to, as Smilansky (2009) puts it, having a ‘lived experience’ gives more chance of things being remembered.
Let’s take a look at some examples of how customers and brands have struck gold using digital hunts.
Jimmy Choo – Catchachoo
Utilising the geo-location based app Foursquare they sent a staff member out with a single pair of trainers to check into well known fashionable locations. After checking in they only remained for a couple of minutes before moving on. If participants could track them down while still at each location, they would win the pair.
After media coverage of the event they saw a 33% increase of in store sales. A down side to this approach is that the potential win reach was limited to only people in London at the right time. Additionally, they set up separate social media profiles for the treasure hunt meaning people began following the campaign rather than the brand.
Not too bad an attempt though for their first ever social media campaign. More details of the campaign can be found here.
H&M & Boiler Room
The retailer hid 20 pairs of tickets amongst their Cracow and Warsaw stores for a highly sought after and sold out event. Alike the Boiler Room format of hosting disappearing events in secret locations they used Snapchat to give vanishing clues for participants.
The campaign racked up an impressive 3.8 million unique views and gained almost 1000 snapchat followers.
What’s good about this treasure hunt is that they did it on the perfect channel that their target market, 18-25 year olds, use. They also used a great ‘associative link’ which Till (1998) says can benefit future recognition.
LG Ticket Hunter
With the aim of boosting sales to more 16-24 year olds, LG set up stalls in multiple UK cities with the first 25 people to find the stalls receiving two VIP tickets to various high profile concerts. To assist participants they generated an online map that gradually zoomed into the precise location whenever the #LGtickethunter was used.
The choice of prizes and format ensured the competition reached a large portion of their target audience. On the first day alone they received 5,000 interactions, building to 50,000 by the end of the campaign.
When digging for treasure don’t fall in your own hole!
That’s what Chipotle did. Their 20 day treasure hunt campaign ‘Adventurito’ incorporating a selection of problems to solve for free burritos started out well. Yet a ‘tactical’ fake twitter account hack to provide clues may have caused more of a stir than originally intended.
The fake hacks gained over 12,000 retweets which, on the face of things, is great publicity even if people knew it was fake. However, customers felt duped by stunt and as a result brand ad awareness, and purchase consideration plummeted. As seen in Aula, they effected customers expectations of the brand which resulted in reputational damage.
Whats to think about?
We’ve seen that customers are motivated to participate if they feel they could be rewarded, but at the same time retailers are rewarded by the increased interaction they receive from their participants. It’s almost a win win.
Some things to take away from these treasure hunt initiatives is that the right channels should be used to engage the aimed target market. Also, baring similarities to the previous post on loyalty schemes, the right set of rewards that fit the market need to be used. Let’s not forget though that even after the campaign starts rolling it needs careful monitoring to ensure you don’t get lost on route.
Aula, P. (2010). Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management. Strategy & Leadership. Vol. 38, No. 6, pp. 43-49.
Smilansky, S. (2009). Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experience. Kogan Page Publishers: London.
Till, B.T. (1998). Using celebrity endorsers effectively: lessons from associative learning. Journal of Product & Brand Management. Vol. 7, No. 5, pp. 400-409.