The Offer: Just because college students only live in dorm rooms for one year at a time doesn’t mean their dorms have to be ugly or boring. So says luggage brand Vera Bradley, known for its colorful and paisley-patterned accessories and travel gear. With help from social media marketing platform Brickfish, Vera Bradley launched the “Dress Your Dorm” back-to-school Facebook app to give students the chance to win gift cards, ID cases, or a grand prize of a total dorm room makeover from a Vera Bradley design professional.
The Data: More than 3,800 people entered the contest, with 197,434 views and 12,086 votes cast on the various submissions. The campaign brought in a total of 215,345 engagements for the brand within a single month.
The Channel: Fans who registered online could use the Brickfish platform to literally dress a virtual dorm room with Vera Bradley furniture and products. Entrants could then post their creations to the brand’s Facebook page. Submitted entries could easily be shared via the full gamut of social networks.
The Creative: Chicago-based Brickfish allowed users to click on a “viral map” to see the exact number of people viewing contest-related content anywhere on the Web. Visitors could also sort entries by “most viral” and most popular.
The Verdict:
Kevin Drew Davis is executive creative director at Digitas Chicago and San Francisco. Davis has also led creative teams at Wieden & Kennedy and The Richards Group and has collaborated with top brands, including Audi, Calvin Klein, and Coca-Cola. Read our Q&A with Kevin for more.
The “ask” of the entrants is simple and refreshing, providing a bit of “self-expression” to enter and experience the product (as opposed to what could have been a complicated video creation). This campaign really understood its target audience, and successfully transfers perceptions of a handbag company into the home décor realm.
