Buji Products: A skin product company for consumers with active lifestyles
Campaign:Making Poison Ivy Funny
Product launch into a new category powered by early social network campaign.
Buji: Buji is a consumer focused company producing skin care products for people with active lifestyles.BIGfrontier was engaged to develop a campaign specifically for a new product: Buji Block, a sunscreen with a poison ivy prevention lotion and an accompanying Buji Wash. Buji’s market research indicated that the golfing community could be a potential for this new product and approached BIGfrontier Communications Group to vet the idea and develop a campaign to launch into this market, after determining its viability.
BIGfrontier conducted a national survey of golfers and found that 22% had been afflicted with poison ivy while playing, in some very interesting places, like the groin area.We determined that there was enough material to launch a traditional/non-traditional PR campaign supported with a strong social network component to introduce the product by making poison ivy funny.Our mission was to develop an irreverent new brand identity and immediately launch it into a new market.
Campaign Highlights:
April:
We softened the market through release of the research data, highlighting the funnier aspects of a golfer’s poison ivy exposure on sensitive parts of the body. This created a month of fodder for sports radio commentators, bloggers, golf writers and general golf enthusiasts.
May:
We produced a movie:Golf’s Dirty Little Secrets, a funny 60 second video garnered many views and good ratings on Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die site, You Tube, and was circulated extensively online.http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/4409
June:
We set up an online identity on myspace: Genny Golf, a female golfer with a saucy attitude who quickly developed a following for her take on the golf world.She developed many friends and was able to distribute the video and any random, interesting news on golf, poison ivy, and golf horror stories.
July-September:The Great Stroke Off contest
BIGfrontier purchased a list of golfers and developed a partnership with several other golf product manufacturing companies to conduct the Great Stroke Off contest:a mechanism to collect and publicize golf horror stories with the goal to save 10,000 strokes during the season:hence advice from other golfers to take strokes off their game. The contest was supported by an interactive blog and a survival kit, containing several hundred dollars worth of valuable golfing items was awarded biweekly for the most amusingly horrific story.
First Release headline:Great Stroke Off Contest to collect 10,000 Golfer’s Strokes this season
The campaign was marketed online through Genny Golf’s network, through the blogging community we had set up, through direct mail marketing and through traditional public relations services.We drove traditional media to the site to mine the blog entries for humorous data on golf horror stories during the season
Results:
We would prefer to let the client discuss the results, here is what she submitted for this case study:
“We learned from market research that golfers were one of our target groups for poison ivy. Because many are accustomed to using sunscreen, we thought büji’s proactive, protective message would resonate. To attract attention, we decided to employ a fresh, lighthearted approach to raise awareness of büji’s effect with protecting against poison ivy and the sun. Our primary vehicle was a multi-faceted PR and online campaign to golfers.”
“Quite frankly, the campaign and the contest succeeded with helping support our irreverent brand personality and opened up a new market opportunity in golf shops and through marketing relationships with golf/gear companies. We also secured additional PR coverage around the country with this different angle. It helped introduce us to new market. We entered this market with no name recognition whatsoever and within one season were known with a great, irreverent identity and had new customers, brand awareness and sales.”
Cadey O’Leary:Founder and CEO
