Case Study: Coles Group & Myer blog marketing campaign - Part 1 of 2

I have come across some posts about the marketing impact of blogs (Check out "Case Study: Dosh Wallets - Blogger Outreach" from Julian Cole and "Woah, A Blogger Mentioned You" by Zac Martin) in the Australian market and thought it was an opportune time to share some of my own learnings on the topic.

For those who don't know, Nuffnang is a marketing blogging agency who match advertisers up with bloggers. Since November 2008 we have built a database of 1100 of Australia's biggest bloggers and work with them to develop engaging campaigns for Australian brands. Pleasantries aside, Nuffnang has recently completed its first round of campaigns so I can now subsequently…drum roll…….ting!... roll out some red carpet and provide some very interesting findings on how we have managed to run a successful blog marketing campaign. This post ended up being too long for a quick read during lunch or short gaze in between Outlook and powerpoint so I have decided to split it over 2 posts.

The brand we worked with for this campaign was Coles Group & Myer.

Objective:

To generate awareness and buzz for the Coles Group & Myer gift card within the blogosphere.

Strategy:

We sent out a $10 Coles Group & Myer gift card to our bloggers and asked them to take up one of two challenges. The winner of each challenge won a $100 gift card;

Challenge 1: Spend your $10 in the most creative way

Challenge 2: Spend your $10 in the most frugal way.

We promoted the competition on our own blog (which our bloggers frequently access to see what competitions we are running / products we have to give away) and via an EDM to our entire blogging network which at that stage in August was 882 (today we have over 1100).

Results:

We were not sure how the Australian blogosphere would react to such a campaign so it really was a toe in the water for us as well as Coles Group and Myer, but the client was pleasantly surprised, as we were. Note that these numbers do not take into account any sponsored posts (advertorials) which would normally be included in a campaign. Therefore for a larger campaign using our biggest bloggers, reach would be significantly higher.

Number of bloggers participated: 25

Total blog views: 44,512

Comments / reactions to these posts: 142

User generated photos: 260

Challenge 1 (most creative post) winner:

http://violetlebeaux.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-turn-10-into-about-700-nuffnang.html

Challenge 2 (most frugal post) winner:


http://www.nointrigue.com/blog/2009/08/31/a-three-course-meal-for-two-for-10/

This ends the first post, tomorrow I will discuss our key learnings from this campaign which will help us, and hopefully you, run a more successful blog marketing campaign in the future.