The Real Beauty Blogger Contest: A Campaign Report

Objective, idea, elements and promotion.

CAMPAIGN OVERVIEW

The Campaign Objectives

Dove was keen to build buzz and positive word-of-mouth for Dove through its philosophy Real Beauty. Dove wanted to generate content and conversation around Real Beauty.

Yahoo! wanted to build on the success of the Blogs section in Yahoo! Real Beauty, and generate fresh blogger content that could be featured on Yahoo! Real Beauty.

The Idea
We felt that both objectives could be met with with an influencer marketing strategy that targeted Indian bloggers. We decided to run a contest for bloggers on Indiblogger.in, Indias largest blogger network. We asked bloggers to write blog posts around the theme, What does Real Beauty mean to you? We offered the largest-ever reward for a blogger contest a total prize value of Rs. 350,000, for 16 winners. And we offered to feature the winning posts on Yahoo! Real Beauty a great motivator for any blogger.

Prizes & Timelines

Position First Second Third Fourth Fifth Consolation Prizes Peoples Choice Winner Prize Money 100,000 + Featured blogger on Yahoo! Real Beauty 75,000 + post published on Yahoo! Real Beauty 50,000 + post published on Yahoo! Real Beauty 25,000 + post published on Yahoo! Real Beauty 10,000 + post published on Yahoo! Real Beauty 5,000 each for 5 bloggers, 3,000 each for 5 bloggers 50,000 + post published on Yahoo! Real Beauty

Contest started: 18th May 2011 | Contest closed: 6th June 2011 | Winners announced: 15th June 2011

An Introduction to Indiblogger
Indias largest and most-trusted blogger social network, with over 24,000 active bloggers. Bloggers post across various categories Computers & IT, Business, Nation & Politics, Personal Care, Sports, etc. ~70:30 male-female blogger ratio. Indiblogger engages bloggers through contests and meet-ups. Previous clients include Cleartrip, Close-up, brandmile, HP, etc.

IndiRank

IndiRank is a proprietary scoring system for blogs used by Indiblogger based on reach, frequency of updates and quality of content. The higher the IndiRank, the better the blog. The break-up of blogs by IndiRank. This is overall average comprising of all blogs registered with Indiblogger.

Average Visits by IndiRank

The average unique visits/month to a blog based on IndiRank. This is overall average comprising of all blogs registered with IndiBlogger.

Contest Elements

The contest page: hosts all posts under this topic.

The Contest Badge: for bloggers to place on their site.

Contest Promotion

Banner on Indiblogger Homepage

Periodic Emailers To Bloggers

NT1 on Yahoo! Real Beauty

Social Media

PR

Time for some number-crunching.

THE RESULTS

Number of Entries
Entries
35 30 25 20 15 Entries 10 5 0

Entries Received: 360 Indiblogger previous best: 223

Number of Votes
1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Total Votes on Indiblogger: 9,112

Total Reach
Medium Unique Blog Readers (Universal) Contest Impressions on Indiblogger Contest Page Contest Impressions on Twitter Contest Impressions on Facebook Total Reach Users Reached 2,437,452 151,663 36,000 1,145,300 3,770,415 Remarks Based on individual IndiRank and estimated reach for date range 18th May 15th June 2011 Google Analytics for 18th May 15th June 2011 100 followers per person with all participants tweeting at least once during the contest 100 impressions per Like of the IndiVine post. Includes Contest Page itself.

IndiRank is a proprietary scoring system for blogs used by Indiblogger based on reach, frequency of updates and quality of content. The higher the IndiRank, the better the blog. Blog Readers indicates Unique Reach.

List of Winners
Position 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Winner Jhoomur Bose HemaVenkat IsmitaTandonDhanker Dipika Singh Anita Jeyan Link to Post http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=60579 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=60550 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=60634 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59443 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59058

Consolation Prize Rs. 5,000 for 5 bloggers Deboshree Anupama AnupamaKalgudi LalithaRamakrishnan Restless Soldier http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59162 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59166 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=61164 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59139 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=58832

List of Winners (contd.)

Position Winner Link to Post Consolation Prizes Rs. 3,000 to 5 bloggers Chintan Gupta Chitra Anukriti Sauvik Cutting Kahlua Peoples Choice Winner KimiShrivastava http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=58811 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59294 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59914 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59174 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=59293 http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=60593

Winners & Numbers

Name Profile IndiRank (~Unique Users per month) 72 (7,500) 57 (5,500) 69 (6,000) 61 (6,000) 69 (6,000) 74 (7,500) PVs on Blog Likes on IndiVine Post 32 1 15 2 60 4,153

Jhoomur Bose HemaVenkat IsmitaTandonDh ankher Dipika Singh Anita Jeyan KimiShrivastava

Journalist, blogger, mother, cook, living in Melbourne Designer, architect Author, poet Working woman Software programmer living in Muscat Software engineer, beauty and cosmetics blogger

15,688 3,754 22,940 -

Winners & Numbers (contd.)

Name Profile IndiRank (~Unique Users per month) 68 (6,000) 62 (6,000) 21 (500) 63 (6,000) 55 (5,500) PVs on Blog Likes on IndiVine Post 2 4 2 5 1

Deboshree Anupama

Blogs on life in Pune and Delhi Consultant, photographer

23,225 -

AnupamaKalgudi LalithaRamakris hnan Restless Souldier Great-grandmother Reader, writer, trekker, birdwatcher, scuba diver, mountaineeradventure lover

Winners & Numbers (contd.)

Name Profile IndiRank (~Unique Users per month) 73 (7,500) PVs on Blog Likes on IndiVine Post 36

Chintan Gupta

Blogger, photographer, lover of cooking, dancing, music, movies Engineer Postgraduate in English Literature Blogger, loves gardening and Lego

5,628

Chitra Anukriti Sauvik Cutting Kahlua

60 (6,000) 64 (6,000) 74 (7,500) 58 (5,500)

2,418 23,716 1,300

41 129 4 1

Snapshots

Snapshots

http://poorvishrivastav.blogspot.com/2011/05/she-is-beautiful.html

Some Blog Interactions

Brand Mentions & Logo Integrations

Search Engine Optimisation

480+ highly-ranked pages indexed on Google in 30 days

Contestant Demographics

Gender Breakup

Male/female ratio for this campaign exceeds the ratio for total Internet.

Participation by Age

Maximum participation in women was from the brand target audience, age group 25-35.

Participation by City
3 1

Participation by IndiRank

Feedback on blogs and Indiblogger support forums.

WHAT BLOGGERS SAID

KimiShrivastava, Winner Peoples Choice Award

My experience with IndiBloggers Yahoo-Dove contest on "What does real beauty mean to You", was quite a rocking and enlightening experience. I was quite amazed at the appreciation Dove has given to the blogging world and the fact that such big brands do recognize the power of blogging' the reason why the contest held such huge monetary rewards. And Kudos to Indiblogger team for keeping things up and running till the contest ended. I got reply to every query I made about entering multiple entries, about the contest's ending date etc etc, even at 10 PM night. So, that was something I really appreciate a lot. The winning entries selected by Dove and Yahoo's editorial team quite deserved the prizes. It was clearly mentioned in the contest that winners will be chosen on the originality and relevance to the topic and thats exactly what I got to see in the winning entries too. Nothing could be more original than the personal experience of someone, and those were completely mind blowing to read. Overall, I felt the contest was worth entering. I got to read such amazing and heart touching real life experiences of people and even got a chance to share my own. Thank you Indiblogger, Dove and Yahoo!

http://www.beautydiaries.com/2011/06/my-experience-with-indibloggers-yahoo.html

AnupamaKondayya, Winner Consolation Prize

We have been using Dove products for a while now and this contest reinforced their focus on the larger concept of beauty while making sure they take care of the external aspects of it. We all know that beauty goes deeper than the skin but we tend to forget that in the daily fray. The contest reminded me to always look deeper for real beauty and appreciate it all over again. It was a good repositioning of perspective.

Conversations on the Support Forum

http://www.indiblogger.in/forum/topic.php?pageNum_Posts=1&totalRows_Posts=58&id=8599

Dos and donts for the next blogger outreach.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Dos
Pick a clear, compelling theme. Specific enough to suit the brands needs; general enough to make it relatable and attract participation. Prize money is the biggest draw. Be generous. A strong Yahoo! association helped drive participation. Run a blogger contest only if the resulting posts can be featured on a Yahoo! property (preferably a Yahoo! Specials or Content Specials).

Donts
Steer clear of a Peoples Choice. Itll just kick up a lot of questions and controversies on the forum. Dont do this as a one-off. Most of the bloggers whove participated are eager for long-term association with Yahoo! and the brand. Plan for a long-term blogger strategy. Dont just read the most popular posts. Some winning posts werent highly voted for. Make sure you read all the posts!

Looking forward to our next blogger outreach programme.

THANK YOU.