In this blog we regularly feature creative examples of social site marketing that have made a real impact. One such was Chevrolet’s Purple Your Profile Day in support of last year’s World Cancer Day on 4th February. More than 2 million people turned their Facebook/Twitter profile purple on this day.
The idea for the Purple Your Profile campaign started when Chevrolet brought their agencies together to plan a creative marketing campaign for the 2014 Super Bowl. They wanted a campaign that would show the human side and personality of Chevrolet and that would also use social media to inspire people to participate in the campaign. Moreover, the campaign should “outlive halftime” by remaining relevant well past the Super Bowl.
As the creative team brainstormed ideas, it became clear that an excellent way of bringing together the business and human aspects of the brand was to highlight Chevrolet’s 11 year relationship with the American Cancer Society. The team therefore developed an integrated digital marketing campaign that would help Chevrolet and the American Cancer Society raise awareness of World Cancer Day on February 4th.
The success of the campaign was phenomenal! Over 1.3 million people changed their Facebook profile photo purple. For every 100 people that did this, 37 of their friends clicked through to the Purple Your Profile app after seeing details on a Facebook news feed. Chevrolet’s free Facebook page received a 467% increase in new likes, a 321% increase in post reach and a 397% increase in engagement. There were also 1.5 billion impressions served from paid Facebook media.
The campaign surpassed even Facebook’s expectations! Facebook had predicted that it would take Chevrolet 4-6 weeks to achieve their target of 1 million participants and the corresponding donation cap of $1 million. Instead, it took just under two weeks. Nor was Facebook the only social media platform involved: over 700,000 people changed their Twitter profile to purple, and the related advert – Life – has had almost 2 million views on Youtube .
According to Paul Edwards – Chevrolet’s VP of Marketing – ”The best social media campaigns don’t tell the brand story; they tell the audience’s story. Chevy’s Purple Your Profile campaign not only went viral, it turned passive viewers into active participants.”
The Purple Your Profile campaign surpassed all expectations! Reflecting on its original aims, it achieved all three! It showed the human side and personality of Chevrolet, used social media to inspire people to participate, and the impact lasted way longer than the Super Bowl itself. Let’s take inspiration from this brilliant integrated social marketing campaign and create one of our own to celebrate in 2015!
*SOURCE: http://www.iprospect.com/en/us/our-blog/how-chevy-found-new-roads-through-social-and-search/
