online+ad+critique

//** Company: Volkswagen **// //** Advertising Agency: DDB Stockholm **// //** Release Date: October 2009 **// //**"The Fun Theory" Campaign**//

Concept Volkswagen has always been a pioneer of innovative advertising. Who can forget the infamous "Think Small" and "Lemon" print ads in the sixties that gave Leo Burnett Agency a run for its money? Contemporary ads by Volkswagen are no different. The "Fun Theory" campaign is a series of social experiments that advocate good behavior by making the public environment more fun. These experiments were captured in video and generated significant marketability.

In "Piano Stairs", Volkswagen and DDB Stockholm turned a set of subway stairs into a life-sized piano. The idea is to encourage people to be more environmentally responsible by using the fun musical stairs instead of the escalator. The experiment was a success and increased stair-users to 66%. In another video, the campaign made picking up trash fun by making a garbage bin sound like a 50ft-deep well. The experiment entitled "The World’s Deepest Bin" had positive results similar to the "Piano Stairs".

[|"Piano Stairs"]

[|"The World’s Deepest Bin"]

In addition, Volkswagen started "The Fun Theory contest" where people got to submit their own social experiment to thefuntheory.com. Through this, Volkswagen was able to incorporate interactivity in their campaign.

**Online Buzz** "The video became a social-media hit — by December it topped Unruly Media’s Viral Video Chart, with the highest number of blog posts and tweets of any video in history" (Margolies). Within two weeks, the first video of the campaign, "Piano Stairs", generated over 200,000 views on YouTube. Currently, it has close to 15,000,000 views. Further, "The Fun Theory contest" gathered more that 900 entries from around the world. This gave Volkswagen a deeper push in their campaign.

According to ViralBlog.com on the other hand, the word "piano" increased from 0.03% to 0.09% shortly after the release of the "Piano Stairs" video. As well, statistics indicate that "Volkswagen is being mentioned several times per hour with the word fun and a link to the campaign" (Roumen). We can therefore conclude that this campaign generated a considerable amount of buzz in the online community.

**Increased Sales/Brand Awareness** Though the company spent under the typical TV commercial budget ($150,000), the ROI (Return on Investment) yielded beyond positive. According to Volkswagen, "traffic to its regular website increased 40 percent, and sales of its BlueMotion cars increased nearly 20 percent, now totaling a fifth of overall Passat sales" (Margolies). What's important to note in this campaign is how the ads have nothing to do with the Volkswagen cars whatsoever. The Volkswagen logo was only presented briefly after each ad. Through this, Volkswagen affiliated their brand identity with social and environmental responsibility while establishing the "fun" factor - a marketing goldmine.

//** Company: IKEA **// //** Advertising Agency: Forsman and Bodenfors **// //** Release Date: September 2009 **// //**"IKEA Facebook Showroom" Campaign**//

**Concept** This marketing campaign utilized Facebook in order to promote a new IKEA store in Malmo, Sweden. Essentially, a Facebook profile was registered under the new store manager's name, Gordon Gustavsson. Within two weeks, the profile uploaded twelve photos of showrooms. People who tagged themselves first with the furniture and appliances available in the showroom photo won that particular item.

[|"IKEA Facebook Showroom"] **Online Impact** This marketing strategy by Forsman and Bodenfors is simple but highly effective. By utilizing the "tagging" tool in Facebook, they were able to generate traffic in the IKEA facebook profile and subsequently raised awareness for their brand. As well, the ROI is almost unbelievable. Creating a Facebook profile costs virtually nothing yet the amount of publicity this campaign produced is immeasurable: "thousands of blogs have posted showroom pictures when writing about the campaign... Tweets about the competition poured in from all directions... IKEA conquered all major social media sites with one smart competition on Facebook" (beesfeed).

**Interactivity/Brand Awareness**

One vital factor about the campaign is its interactivity. Rather than spreading the message from one agency or through IKEA themselves (print ad, TV commercials, etc.), the campaign allowed Facebook participants promote the brand. What's crucial about this dynamics is that this type of promotion not only reaches a wide range of demographics (Facebook users) but also makes its advertising personable. Real people in real communities are active participants of the campaign. Hence, IKEA affiliates itself with the community. Arguably, this is the strongest facet of the campaign.

"The Bees Awards." Beesfeed.posterous.com. Posterous, 22 Aug. 2010. Web. 5 Feb. 2011. .
 * Works Cited **

Margolies, Jane. "The Laugh Bug." Changeobserver.designobserver.com. 19 Apr. 2010. Web. 3 Feb. 2011. .

Roumen, Matthijs. "Volkswagen’s Viral Video Serie: The Fun Theory." VIRALBLOG.COM – VIRAL IDEAS & SOCIAL TRENDS -. 11 Oct. 2009. Web. 3 Feb. 2011. .