Case studies
Hill’s Science Diet – DOG BOWL 2010
Situation
Hill's® Science Diet® was re-launching its nutritious line of dog treats, Simple Essentials Treats, and wanted to create excitement about the product line in a relevant, timely manner.
Execution
To create Super Bowl excitement around Simple Essentials Treats, Elm worked with INNOVA Marketing to publicize an event that introduced the dog treats line to pet owners while engaging the media in a highly visual, timely event. The result was DOG BOWL 2010: Touchdown Treats Championship featuring talented pooches performing football tricks in a canine themed football arena during Super Bowl Week in Miami. Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver, Hines Ward, took part as a celebrity judge along with an expert dog trainer and local media personality, who selected the “Most Valuable Pooch” (MVP) in football and awarded the winner with Super Bowl tickets. It turned into a highly successful media event that attracted high-profile news headlines from across the globe.
Evaluation
DOG BOWL 2010 stole the spotlight during Super Bowl Week in Miami with an NFL reporter calling it “the real story this week!” Elm secured national broadcast stories on CBS Sunday Morning, ESPN3 and South Florida’s Morning Show along with feature stories with MAXIM, NFL.com, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Miami.com. Elm landed more than 45 stories and over 55 tweets securing a total of 19 million audience impressions that successfully generated national awareness of Hill’s Science Diet’s Simple Essentials Treats.
OfficeMax – ElfYourself.com
Situation
In 2006, OfficeMax wanted to establish itself as a holiday shopping destination while creating a unique personality for the brand that would differentiate the office supplies retailer from its top competitors. To accomplish this, OfficeMax launched ElfYourself.com in 2006 as part of its “A Gift from OfficeMax” holiday campaign created by Toy and EVB where twenty online game and entertainment sites were released. At ElfYourself.com, consumers could upload their photos to elf bodies, select a dance, and watch themselves star as dancing elves in videos that could be emailed or posted online.
Execution
To create awareness of ElfYourself.com, Elm worked alongside partner agencies to secure national and local broadcast, print, radio and online coverage for the campaign, which helped the campaign explode across the web and into one and ten Americans’ households nationwide. With mass appeal, the holiday website made its way onto morning news shows, website of the day features, entertainment “must do” lists, holiday gift guides, technology stories, and more. Since 2006, Elm has secured thousands of press opportunities for the ElfYourself campaign!
Evaluation
Over the past four holiday seasons, OfficeMax’s elves have become an annual holiday tradition and popular culture phenomenon that has spread across the globe. The campaign is recognized as the most viral web campaign on-record with more than 378 million visits and has ranked among the top 1000 websites in 50 countries during the holidays. ElfYourself has been featured on CNN American Morning, ABC World News, Good Morning America, The TODAY Show, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, The New York Times, USA Today, CNET, TechCrunch and many more. In addition, a survey of visitors found ElfYourelf.com encouraged more than one-third to visit OfficeMax during the holidays. A complete recap of campaign results can be viewed on Viral Blog, which Elm provided. As a result of the entire marketing team’s efforts, the campaign has secured numerous accolades including ad:tech Awards, RACie Awards, Hermes Awards, PROMO Interactive Awards, and Bulldog Awards for Excellence in Media Relations & Publicity.
For a list of a few more of the companies we've worked with, click here.
