Situation:
After Newsweek wrote an article calling it a “dying city”, the people and businesses of Grand Rapids, Michigan were in a strong state of disagreement. A trio of residents in this west Michigan City decided it would get the word out to the contrary, their town was flourishing.
Action:
They took to the streets, literally. The storyboarded idea was to put together a ‘lip dub’ video that showcased the beautiful downtown of Grand Rapids and its cultural multitude of enthusiastic citizens.
They solicited local businesses for financial and resource support. They ended up with over 20 sponsors of varying participation levels, covering the $40,000 production budget. The final video involved a shutdown of the downtown to Grand Rapids and roughly 5,000 people lip synching to a cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie”.
Result:
The video went viral, reaching 4.2M views on YouTube in the first 4 months. Cracking the top 10 for most viewed video in the world on 5/28/11*. Including hundreds of thousands of Facebook likes/shares to date. Also, the project received huge coverage across traditional media outlets and blogs, greatly increasing their message and reach.
A very conservative estimate would put the total media impressions at roughly 15M to date when you add in the video views, articles, social reach and blogs. Utilizing an average CPM of $20, you could easily say they received roughly $300,000 worth of media impact on their $40,000 investment (15M*$20/1000 = $300,000). And keep in mind the final video is over 9 minutes long, that is a lot of thirty second commercials.
The global reach and impact of this campaign resulted in its creators (Jeffrey Barrett, Rob Bliss and Scott Erickson) forming a new agency entitled Status Creative.
Link to final video: http://youtu.be/ZPjjZCO67WI
Making of video below, Key Learnings further below
Key Learnings:
- Reach and exposure in social media can be achieved with much less investment than traditional media or internet display ads
- Creative and entertaining executions are in demand by consumers and will be rewarded by being shared within the social sphere
- Community outreach can be powerful; there are masses of proud citizens who are willing to contribute for a town, a product, or an industry.
*http://www.facebook.com/GRLipDub?sk=info
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