How would you Break the Ice?

My friend Janice Diner, a mentor in everything to do with Facebook, directed me to the following site created for Hershey's Ice Breakers products. I can't endorse the product - admittedly I have never tried one - but their Facebook group in itself is worth talking about.

- The campaign is centred around the topic of 'breaking the ice' with someone new and the prospect of finding love (or, a good date). How can anyone resist that topic?

- We can all relate to the posted advertisement about dreaming we had the courage to go up to someone and tell them how we felt....and then chickening out.

- Breaking the Ice videos is the most compelling reason people stay on their page. It's a series of interviews with young people in major Canadian cities offering their best pickup line. Each week, fans cast their votes for their favourite video/line. The brilliance, from a PR perspective, is that it is controlled. They aren't waiting for people to send in their own videos, they are doing "streeters" and posting their best ones. This feeds perfectly into another element of the site, the ability to post your best Breaking the Ice tip and get in the game...that is, presuming they missed you on the street!

- Product information is up and centre and while instinctively I would have buried it lower so not to look as promotional, they celebrate their products and its unique shape and make-up and it works.

- What perhaps fits their theme the least is a simple contest for a trip to Ibiza Spain. To enter the contest all you need to do is input some contact information, which you can do up to 5 times a day... while it may be a less connected aspect of their campaign it's likely a good way to get people to come back regularly, so more points for thinking of this too.

I'd be currious to see a case study on the campaign to see if sales went up as a result. But as awareness campaigns go, well done. Thanks Janice.

Conversation trumps broadcast in research but not in budgets

I read with great interest Sean Moffitt's recent Buzz Canuck post that included industry statistics so good that I am going to print it off and carry it with me!

His points, based on research published in Forrester, are the following:

- Known trumps unknown

- Conversation trumps broadcast

- User trumps expert

- Owned site trumps content site

While I can't agree more, the reality is when it comes time to budget allocation (for the majority of industries), media relations and the desire for media endorsement still gets most of the budget.

I'd like to visit this post in a year from now and see if this still holds true. For now, news coverage is still the big client attraction. It's what keeps them happy, or causes them to look elsewhere.