New Belgium

Friend2Friend got consumers talking about New Belgium through 7 thousand personal stories and references that were distributed “socially” on Facebook. As a result, New Belgium gained 10 thousand new Fans and over a million social impressions during a short, targeted campaign.

Background

What’s Your Folly? New Belgium Brewery wants to know. The New Belgium Brewery has a distinctive style that features a love of beer, bicycles, and a passion for environmental causes. New Belgium has a well-developed website and blog, and a Fan Page that successfully extends its creative brand image to Facebook.

New Belgium wanted to offer its Fans a fun and entertaining way to engage with its brand on Facebook, while staying true to the brand image and targeting authentic New Belgium fans. They turned to their PR Agency, Backbone Media, and Friend2Friend to create a fun activity that would engage current fans and recruit new ones through their friends.

Objectives

1. Engage the existing fan base on Facebook and reach out, socially, to their friends
2. Leverage the style, vernacular, and creative assets already used on New Belgium’s website
3. Create a contest based on user generated content that fits with the brand image
4. Increase the number of Facebook Fans with true fans, not just consumers looking for the next brand giveaway

Results

Friend2Friend leveraged vernacular from the New Belgium website and created “What’s Your Folly?”, a contest where Facebook members can become a fan and list their folly to enter a weekly drawing for a limited edition New Belgium cruiser bike. The contest pages and resulting “Folly Gallery” were designed using New Belgium’s distinctive creative assets, and faithfully stayed on brand.

In a five week period, almost 7,000 users participated and submitted follies, generating over 1 million social impressions through newsfeeds, wall posts, and Fan Page visits. New Belgium gained 10,000 new fans, and users spent a significant amount of time interacting with the campaign, averaging 4 and a half minutes per user.

New Belgium was delighted with the passion and creativity of the user-entered Follies. Follies were unique and often very consistent with New Belgium’s own brand messaging, showing that the branding was getting through to, and resonating with, users – a significant achievement in this short-attention-span world. The user interaction and the average time spent on the campaign – nine times the length of a typical television commercial – demonstrated a level of engagement unparalleled by other forms of advertising. In addition, the resulting Folly Gallery of almost 7,000 follies gives New Belgium a base of branded user-generated content to jump-start their next campaign.