“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple,
awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” – Charles Mingus
Inception
During the planning period, I dug through the Facebook Insights as well as the web logs from previous recent programs housed within microsites. Suspicions were confirmed; the mobile usage was significant and growing... particularly among the most active brand ambassadors sharing links with their networks about Hawaiian Airlines.
• m.facebook.com – 2nd highest referring site (~12% of all traffic)
• 320×480 – 2nd most used screen size (14.75%)
• iPhone, Android, and iPad made up 96% of mobile device usage
• 320×480 – 2nd most used screen size (14.75%)
• iPhone, Android, and iPad made up 96% of mobile device usage
This information helped to craft Hawaiian Airlines’ first mobile-optimized social campaign focused on catering to mobile Facebook users – 60% of all Facebook users do so on their mobile devices. Business pages – like Hawaiian Airlines – on Facebook are particularly challenging as they always show up as Barbie-sized versions of the desktop experience requiring a triple zoom in order to engage. We didn’t want this speed bump to limit participation, so we designed for mobile first.
Concept Strategy
The Send-a-Friend concept was straightforward, easy, and rewarding. Players picked one of their Facebook friends and chose one of Hawaiian’s global destinations – including the brand-spanking-new NYC route – and then entered to win a pair of tickets to that destination and their friend would get another two tickets in their name. tenfour built the custom Facebook app to make it simple to enter with no forms to fill out. Just one Facebook authorization scraped an email to alert winners and then posted a single message on both the player’s and the nominated friend’s walls to notify them of the contest they had entered.
The Send-a-Friend concept was straightforward, easy, and rewarding. Players picked one of their Facebook friends and chose one of Hawaiian’s global destinations – including the brand-spanking-new NYC route – and then entered to win a pair of tickets to that destination and their friend would get another two tickets in their name. tenfour built the custom Facebook app to make it simple to enter with no forms to fill out. Just one Facebook authorization scraped an email to alert winners and then posted a single message on both the player’s and the nominated friend’s walls to notify them of the contest they had entered.
A sniffer on the entry page ensured that visitors using desktop browsers had an experience that was optimized for them, too. This version expanded upon the mobile layout with the addition of an optional field to add your HawaiianMiles account number or link to get one. This was intentionally left out of the mobile version to minimize any perceived barrier to entry.
Motivation
While the app confirmation messages alerted both people’s networks, we also baked in motivation to have players spread the word. Contestants could only enter once, but they could be nominated by their friends an infinite amount of times – adding an additional ‘name in the hat’ with each nomination.
While the app confirmation messages alerted both people’s networks, we also baked in motivation to have players spread the word. Contestants could only enter once, but they could be nominated by their friends an infinite amount of times – adding an additional ‘name in the hat’ with each nomination.
Goals
The goal of the promotion was similar to previous efforts : create fun ways to share the brand (and re-share), learn about additional routes, boost HawaiianMiles memberships and – ultimately – sell tickets. For this campaign there was also a revived interest in gaining additional fans/likes. After some analysis, it turns out there is a direct correlation between revenue earned and the number of community members subscribing to Hawaiian Airlines’ key social networks. tenfour recommended a ‘Like Gate’ or ‘Fan Gate’ to require non-fans to ‘like’ their page prior to gaining access to the promotion. The strategy worked superbly and garnered over 20k new fans during the first two weeks of the promotion.
The goal of the promotion was similar to previous efforts : create fun ways to share the brand (and re-share), learn about additional routes, boost HawaiianMiles memberships and – ultimately – sell tickets. For this campaign there was also a revived interest in gaining additional fans/likes. After some analysis, it turns out there is a direct correlation between revenue earned and the number of community members subscribing to Hawaiian Airlines’ key social networks. tenfour recommended a ‘Like Gate’ or ‘Fan Gate’ to require non-fans to ‘like’ their page prior to gaining access to the promotion. The strategy worked superbly and garnered over 20k new fans during the first two weeks of the promotion.
Rollout
Over the past year we had proactively collected the fifty most influential community members, the ones that generated the most click-backs to various promotions. For Send-a-Friend, we invited a hundred of them to help test the effort during the beta launch. The response was enthusiastic and the influencers appreciated being recognized and gaining early access to the promotion. We coupled this effort with a “Bucks for Bugs” QA with friends and family reach out to help bullet-proof the app prior to prime time. Both efforts proved to be super helpful in extending the initial quality assurance and helped to identify some key improvements.
Over the past year we had proactively collected the fifty most influential community members, the ones that generated the most click-backs to various promotions. For Send-a-Friend, we invited a hundred of them to help test the effort during the beta launch. The response was enthusiastic and the influencers appreciated being recognized and gaining early access to the promotion. We coupled this effort with a “Bucks for Bugs” QA with friends and family reach out to help bullet-proof the app prior to prime time. Both efforts proved to be super helpful in extending the initial quality assurance and helped to identify some key improvements.
Results
As we’ve seen with other programs, the mobile usage of this program exceeded expectations and hovered at ~40% for the duration of campaign. The Send-a-Friend campaign has directly added over 20k new fans (20% of Hawaiian Airlines total fan base on Facebook) 2x the client’s goal. Sharing was strong and supplemented by the 24,000+ entries that pushed wall updates to all contestants and their nominated friends. Final revenue numbers indicate an 11x ROI for the client.
As we’ve seen with other programs, the mobile usage of this program exceeded expectations and hovered at ~40% for the duration of campaign. The Send-a-Friend campaign has directly added over 20k new fans (20% of Hawaiian Airlines total fan base on Facebook) 2x the client’s goal. Sharing was strong and supplemented by the 24,000+ entries that pushed wall updates to all contestants and their nominated friends. Final revenue numbers indicate an 11x ROI for the client.
Behind the Scenes:
My initial sketches for the program flow.
A year prior, we had look at an even simpler method for nominating friends by @mentioning them and mentioning the brand. Facebook's contest rules outlawed the use of native features for contest entry shortly after pitching it.
