Cases

How do you cut through the clutter of cell phone publicity and raise awareness for a new text-messaging phone?

Thumbs up for LG’s National Texting Championship.

A new generation of mobile phone users has emerged that is “all thumbs.” Over the course of five years, text is overtaking talk, becoming a major form of communication in the US. In the last six months of 2006, more than 93.8 billion text messages were sent. Recognizing this new communications revolution, LG Mobile Phones wanted to use the popularity of texting to create a national consumer campaign to generate awareness for its new text-messaging phone, the enV.

Find a teens that isn’t texting, and you’ll probably be hard pressed. Based on survey data and an expert audit, Ogilvy PR confirmed that teens, tweens and young adults were the ideal demographic for the enV. Research further reinforced the belief that a campaign focused on the art of text messaging would powerfully resonate with this key target audience.

From this insight, the first national US text-messaging competition - the LG National Texting Championship – was born. Launched in Los Angeles and culminating in New York, thousands would compete for the National Texting Champion title. An extensive media campaign included pre-event teasers, strategic media exclusives and an aggressive outreach to the business, trade, consumer lifestyle and entertainment press. Our goal was to reach local and national media based in Los Angeles and New York and use them to spread the story nationwide. Non-traditional media strategies were also employed, including outreach to notable blogs, online and offline calendar listings, strategic postings on social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace, and e-mail blasts to colleges.

OMG! The combined Los Angeles and New York outreach created a giant media splash. The LG National Texting Championship dominated mobile phone media coverage and successfully reached the target youth consumer audience as well as trendsetters and technology influencers. Securing more than 700 hits from key trade, business and consumer media, top media placements included the TODAY Show, Good Morning America, FOX News, The Early Show, Reuters, Associated Press, NPR, Last Call with Carson Daly, ESPN Cold Pizza, New York Daily News, New York Post, TIME, In Touch Weekly, MSNBC, Yahoo!, the Los Angeles Times. The campaign soared past its target goals and was heralded as being one of the main reasons the enV by LG continues to be one of Verizon’s top selling mobile phones.