This is the first in a series of ‘Social Media Success Stories’ where I seek to highlight the best or most imaginative social media campaigns I come across. Campaigns featured here are those that and offer valuable insight into using social media in new and successful ways and as such give me inspiration for campaigns I work on.
KLM is a Dutch airline, based in the Netherlands and believe strongly in promoting their heritage and staying true to their roots – their uniforms, tableware and even their meals are proudly created by Dutch nationals.
Their latest Social Media campaign, Tile and Inspire takes a step further to showcasing Dutch heritage, by inviting users to design a Delft Blue pottery tile with their photo and favourite saying on, with the potential that it will be included on the livery of a Boeing 777 aircraft in service for the airline. A special application was provided on Facebook, on Hyves (a social network in The Netherlands) and on their website, making it simple to create the tile in a suitable format.
4,000 entries were picked from over 77,000 that were submitted across the globe to be created into the final aircraft livery. The entries were judged on originality and each successful entrant was emailed a link to a photo of their tile on the aircraft and a behind the scenes video of how it all came together.
“With this Delft Blue aircraft, KLM is establishing a link between its history and the social media. The successful online Tile & Inspire campaign has enabled us to actively involve our passengers in relation to an age-old Dutch product: Delft Blue. Delft Blue is of course inextricably linked to both Dutch culture and KLM.”
The campaign was an incredible success for KLM, raising awareness and causing a stir. KLM gained 50,000 new fans on Facebook alone, with the accompanying video presenting the aircraft receiving over 440,000 views on YouTube.
Not only does KLM benefit from the immediate success of the campaign (the numbers above), but this aircraft is in active service and travels across the world – with its unique livery, it’s bound to get people talking at the many destinations it serves.
Have you come across a unique and innovative Social Media campaign or just want to comment on this one? – please comment below.
Sarah Cheverton August 1, 2011
Great timing on this one, James as I was only talking about social media’s power to boost social campaigns to friends yesterday – friends who are quite hard to convince of the benefits of social media…
I really like the current campaign from Amnesty supporting the women of Nicaragua in their fight to repeal the abortion ban in their country. We’re supporting the campaign on WVoN, and I’ve been really impressed with the feedback it’s getting through our social media networks.
The campaign gets visitors to the site to create a unique design butterfly, which takes only seconds to create and can then be downloaded – it’s perfect to use as a profile picture for those who want to publicise the campaign further and I’ve seen a few of our readers and contributors using the image as their profile pic on Facebook already.
Check it out for yourself at Amnesty: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/podcasts/butterfly.html?utm_source=aiuk&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=WHR&utm_content=butterfly_nib
We’re promoting the campaign by getting our readers to send in their butterfly pictures to create an online gallery, too: http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/do-it/send-a-butterfly-to-help-repeal-nicaraguan-abortion-ban/
Thanks!