Nissan's annual Keep Summer Rolling Sweepstakes is one of their largest initiatives of the year, taking place across the United States and Canada with the intent of reintroducing Nissan owners to the servicing options offered by Nissan. This includes their premium brand Infiniti. Oddly was brought in by strategic agency The Marketing Store to consult on how to make this even better than before.
Initial Consultation
Following initial conversations, we looked at the data available from previous years of the campaign, and ways that consumer attention have shifted since the introduction of the annual sweeps. From this, we came up with several recommendations regarding the success of the campaign. These included:
- The introduction of a mobile version of the campaign
- A redesign of the creative
- Several important changes to the user experience
- Implementation of social media.
Our goal was to bump up the number of repeat visitors considerably, and cut down on drop-out caused by a laborious data entry procedure.
Concept Creation
The UX and creative teams got busy, first wireframing the current user flow for the sweeps site from previous years, then writing up recommendations for changes. Each recommendation was matched to a business requirement, and brought in front of the client for approval. Following approval, the artists would create visualizations of how the recommendation might look when implemented for a visitor.
Bringing mobile support to the sweepstakesUsers could register and check their accounts on mobile devices for the first time in the contest's history.
At the same time, the mobile versions of the sites were being planned. The interface of which was being streamlined to allow all the functionality of the desktop sites, but optimized for mobile use. A fresh new look and feel was created, in keeping with the overall campaign message of “keeping summer rolling”.
Addition of Social
Bragging rightsGreat performances in the games were rewarded with badges.
SharingIf I get a badge but my friends don't see it, am I actually better than them? We encouraged users to share their badges with friends on Facebook and via email.
For the implementation of social media, we did not want to go with the standard (and thus often overlooked) Facebook “like” button or “tweet this” alone. We gave people a genuinereason to spread the word about Nissan’s annual sweeps by introducing a series of mini-games played in Facebook. Each week of the campaign a new game would be introduced, along with a system of virtual rewards – badges that users could collect and brag about to friends. The purpose of the games would be to bring the option of re-entering the contest to the minds of participants.
Results
Game portals for each brandWe skinned the games and game portal itself to match the different brands. This sped up development and helped us release new games every week for the duration of the campaign.
The campaign wound up being the most successful in the history of the contest, with fully a third more registrants participating in the initial weeks than previous years. At the same time, service calls to the call center were reduced by another third. And unlike previous years, the contest continued generating brand recognition through the social game portals, which kept being found and used by people long after the initial contest interest passed on. Numbers of repeat entrants to the sites increased, meeting and surpassing targets set for the campaign.
The Keep Summer Rolling campaign is a great example of smart implementation of brand messaging with media that meets how users currently access the internet. As a cross-platform, cross-device campaign with social integration, it stands out both in terms of return-on-investment, and beautiful design.