Giorgi

A custom application on Facebook to apply and share virtual hairstyles

Background

Giorgi is a well-established hair products company in Spain, with a strong market position in hair gel. They needed, however, to improve their market position with a younger demographic and with other hair products, such as mousse. With their agency, Y&R, they ran an out-of-home advertising campaign to show different and creative hairstyles in locations like subway stations and billboards. Giorgi wanted to extend this campaign through interactive marketing.

Objectives

1. Increase awareness with a younger demographic
2. Position Giorgi as current and hip – not just men’s products
3. Extend the creative concepts used in the out-of-home ad campaign
4. Allow for creativity and edginess without exceeded brand guidelines

Results

Friend2Friend created a virtual hairstyle contest for Giorgi on Facebook, an ideal venue given the perfect match between social media and the Giorgi’s target demographic, and the viral nature of Facebook. The Facebook application allowed users to upload a picture or, even easier, use one of their Facebook photos, and add a hairstyle similar to those used in the out-of-home campaign. Once the new style was created, users could share with friends and encourage them to vote on their picture. The hairstyles were carefully crafted to be slightly outrageous and have viral appeal, but to still be on brand and consistent with the brand’s other creative assets. The entire application, including the feeds posted to friend’s Facebook pages, displayed the brand colors and maintained the style and spirit of the brand.

Promotion of the campaign was multi-faceted, leveraging on-product ads and radio ads for the hairstyle contest playing out on Facebook. Prizes were enticing and hip, including a Smart Car, iPods, and other offerings that would appeal to the target demographic.

Creation of the social media campaign went smoothly and the contest launched on time. During the campaign, more than 40,000 hairstyles were submitted and over 50,000 people participated by submitting a hairstyle or voting. All comments were moderated by Friend2Friend, who removed any objectionable content immediately.

This campaign generated a tremendous amount of activity by participants, who frequently returned to vote or submit new hairstyles. The average time using the application was 5½ minutes and each user went through four pages of content while creating a hairstyle. As each vote or entry created an on-brand newsfeed to all a participants friends, the campaign made a significant impact in presenting the brand in a hip and social way across Facebook.