“Of our tools, we see radio as the one that is closest to the end of the brand funnel. It can drive people to the store to take action.” - Deborah Jourdan, Sr. Director Consumer Marketing at Cricket Communications
Vision: Cricket Wireless saw an opportunity in social media but knew that motivating large participation in local campaigns using only web-based tools can be difficult. Their idea was to combine the strengths of social media with the activating reach of radio. The starting goal was to build community on the top social media sites: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Idea: Cricket created a campaign called the Wallet Drop. Its purpose was to build the company’s level of social media interaction and drive traffic into retail locations. The two-week promotion focused on a number of Cricket Wireless branded wallets that contained prizes, including a free phone and cash prizes from $1 to a $5,000 grand prize.
During the promotion, the wallets were dropped at secret locations. People who followed social media feeds got clues to the locations. Radio was added to take the “hope” out of participation. Cricket enlisted local radio’s trusted personalities to talk about the giveaways on the air and to post the clues on their own Facebook and Twitter feeds.
Result: The campaign was a huge success, with increasing followers on Facebook and Twitter and strong foot traffic in retail locations. As a second achievement, they accomplished high levels of online chatter about Cricket, with followers reposting information from Cricket’s pages to their own. Deborah Jourdan, Sr. Director of Consumer Marketing at Cricket says, “We feel the number of people talking about our brand is the most important measure of success.” The Wallet Drop campaign with radio tie-ins was launched in eight markets. According to Jourdan, the campaign has become a local marketing best practice for the company.
Source: Arbitron 2012 Dive Deeper Series
