Social Media Success Story: 31 Days of the Dragon
This is an oldie, but goodie from 2008. Computer manufacturer HP teamed up with word-of-mouth marketing specialists Buzz Corps to launch the 31 Days of the Dragon campaign. Per HP, they wanted to “deepen their commitment to the blogosphere and support new media initiatives that build strong relationships in a unique community of writers, reviewers, fans and enthusiasts.”
HP provided 31 “HDX Dragon” computer systems to 31 carefully selected bloggers/influencers to give away to lucky readers on their own sites over 31 days (one per blogger). A key success factor, HP/Buzz Corps really took the time to to know the bloggers. Each blogger was allowed to set their own contest/giveaway rules that were customized to the respective audience and goals.
The bloggers created their own custom marketing materials (microsites, graphics, logos, videos, RSS feeds) and shared/cross promoted with each other. The net relationship was more of a partnership with each other and HP vs. a traditional product giveaway program.
Impressive Takeaways
During the promotion, the 31 bloggers heavily promoted the contest, HP, the HDX Dragon and each other, demonstrating the collective power of the community banding together. Each participating blog site not only saw a 150% – 5,000% increase in traffic, but also sustained traffic levels for several months after campaign was finished.
Impossible to achieve with with traditional media, here are the results based HPShopping.com, month over month data:
- 84% increase in sales on the HDX Dragon System
- 14% increase in overall traffic
- 10% increase in overall consumer PC sales
- 50 million impressions (Alexa data)
- Treasure trove of consumer feedback and traffic stats to be used in future planning and development
- 10,000 reader/entrant videos on YouTube.com and Blip.tv
- 380,000 links discussing the giveaways (per Google)
- 25,000 entries received by the 31 participating blogs
Costs
$250,000 for the 31 computer systems given away including shipping, software, etc. Zero dollars spent on media. While the costs for Buzz Corps aren’t available, they’re likely to be in the $75,000-100,000 range (my guess). Even if they were higher, they were worth every penny for the amount of exposure and good will created for HP. Mucho props to them for pulling off such a successful social media campaign.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Those are amazing stats. Can you imagine some of the impression numbers being generated by the newest generation of microbloggin services and aggregators.
Companies that got an early start have a clear advantage when it comes to tested campaigns and reliable bloggers. As the amount of companies leveraging social media increases so will blogger income, or at least some of them 
nick on June 3, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
i think the key here was the time they put into knowing the bloggers. the play is leveraging networks which have voluntarily formed – those of the bloggers. people CHOOSE to consume this content – they form their own community. by encouraging messaging and each contest to be catered to the individual segments, the message resonates, has a higher trust factor and seems unique, though it all traces back to the same commerce play by HP.
great example, g$.