Sprout Mobile Rich Media

Company: Sprout
Client: Disney – Alice in Wonderland
Campaign Name: Alice In Wonderland – Mad Hatter Yourself
Campaign Dates: 2/15 – 3/9
Ad Unit (Running in demo mode)

Note: If the user has already gone through the application experience in this ad, they will be presented with a version of the ad that features them as the Mad Hatter. To return the ad it is original state click the invisible button in the top right hand corner of the unit and then refresh the page.

Case Study

Campaign Strategy
Disney came to Sprout for help with an online display ad that would entice consumers to engage with Alice in Wonderland’s fantasy world while virally promoting the film. Sprout was already building a Facebook Connect application for Disney that allowed participants to “Mad Hatter” themselves and see the newly released trailer. This was an ideal opportunity to build an ad that would integrate the app experience (at Sprout we refer to these next generation ads as Engage Ads). The strategy was to improve the ad’s effectiveness through the incorporation of user generated content while extending the reach of the app well beyond the social networks and websites where it was embedded.

The target of the campaign was US moviegoers of all ages and the primary targeting was accomplished through a careful selection of movie related publisher sites. They key was delivering a unique experience to the film’s core following, thus fueling the viral spread of the application experience and awareness of the film.

We already had a compelling application experience that allowed participants to take a photo of themselves with their webcam, or use one of their Facebook photos, as part of the process of Mad Hattering themselves. We took that functionality and reformatted it as a standard IAB 300×250 ad unit, streamlining the interaction flow so that users started with the photo capture experience. Once participants had completed that entire user flow they were added to the Mad Hatter’s Army showcase – a web based gallery embedded into the full application – on the Disney site and within Facebook. Finally, users were able to share themselves as a Mad Hatter directly into their Facebook feed. A key element to sharing experience was the interactive piece of content that the app published into the stream, rather than a simple image or video. This drove significant interaction rates above and beyond benchmarks for in-stream content, greater than 5%.

Sprout’s Alice in Wonderland ad was one of the first “head-in-hole” style apps placed into an ad; additionally it was the very first unit to incorporate conditional content to improve performance. Conditional content allows Sprout Engage Ads to remember if a user interacted with them in the past and if so, present them with unique creative based on their previous interactions. In other words, Engage Ads allow advertisers to remarket to users from within a single ad unit rather than forcing advertisers to build two separate pieces of creative. In this case, if a user had interacted with the ad, they would be presented with an alternative version featuring them as the Mad Hatter! This surprising and delightful experience thrilled users and drove significant virality.

The above strategy was aimed at accomplishing the following goals:

• Extend the reach of the application experience beyond the sites where the main application was embedded
• Create a viral experience that allowed for the creation of user generated content that would be shared into the Facebook stream where engagement rates are very high
• Offer an experience with high engagement time to drive fan acquisition for Disney on Facebook

Execution & Use of Media
The Alice in Wonderland ad was launched a month in advance of the film premier and was intended to drive a critical mass of participants to the embedded application and thus provide enough momentum to leverage the viral aspects of the experience. This was key to getting the most value from the main application which Disney planned to have in place for the theatrical run of the film. The ad was also designed to coordinate with Disney’s other efforts to drive buzz for the film by focusing on particular market segments outside Facebook and on non-Facebook Connect sites.

The Alice in Wonderland ad experience begins with a simple animation that reveals the Mad Hatter character, played by Johnny Depp. The call to action appears as Depp’s face fades away to reveal copy that reads “your photo” and highlights an option to upload your photo with your web cam. A simple interface allows users to quickly take their photo, adjust its sizing, and position it to fit into the face of the Mad Hatter character. Once complete, they agree to the terms of service and proceed to a short interstitial video preview of the film. From there, they are asked if they’d like to share their creation into their Facebook or MySpace stream. They can also add a custom message once they are redirected to the social network of their choice.

If the user is presented with this ad a second time after they have interacted with it, it will feature them as the Mad Hatter and offer a different user experience. On the second impression they are presented with an exclusive trailer, a link to purchase tickets, and a Twitter feed that surfaces conversation about the film. As before, they are also offered the opportunity to share the ad again and continue to spread the word.

Results & ROI

Few ads can boast the level of engagement that the Alice in Wonderland ad campaign was able to achieve. During the initial 9 million impressions there was a .25% interaction rate, which is well above standard rich-media rates. Of those that interacted with the ad 80% went through the experience of turning themselves into a Mad Hatter by using their webcam to take a photo. Overall, the user experience led to extremely high conversion at each interaction step and almost 10% of participants chose to share their creation into the stream.

The second ad impression also performed well and drove .2% of those exposed to purchase tickets to the film and 5% viewed the exclusive trailer. On a third impression .9% of users chose to purchase tickets and 17% chose to view the trailer. In addition the unit boasted an average engagement time of 2:25 minutes and help drive over 120 thousand people to Mad Hatter themselves in aggregate through the ad and main application.

The unit performed as a highly effective tactic that translated a fun and engaging app experience into an ad unit. It fully achieved it’s goal of extending the reach of the application through earned media via the simple and easy publish flow for sharing into the Facebook and MySpace streams. Within the first 9 million impressions it drove over 37,000 in-stream impressions interactions on Facebook. Of course, part of the unique value of the campaign is that it also extended this earned media into the embedded application gallery as well. All in all, this first of its kind ad was a complete success for Disney and Engage Ads will certainly be part of upcoming campaigns.

Video about how Sprout Engage Ads work

Questions?

Contact:
Roland Smart
roland@sproutinc.com
(415) 515-0878

Thank you!