2012 Bronze Best use of social media for customer acquisition

Client Marks and Spencer

How did the campaign make a difference? Relationships with friends and family are what keep consumers inspired during Christmas stress: M&S helped out with a Facebook app based on a traditional childhood game that people wanted to play, share and replay. It used the existing M&S Facebook community of 400,000 fans to spread the Christmas love, acquiring 115,000 new fans – a 23% increase.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? This cut through the Christmas clutter with engaging digital experiences that added joy rather than anxiety to this hectic period. Objectives were primarily to grow the M&S Facebook fan base, then to drive traffic to the ecommerce site. Every family has someone who takes on the role of getting everyone together, and feels responsible for making their loved ones' Christmas. While they love the idea of Christmas, the reality fills them with anxiety: it's stressful and exhausting and their hopes can get swept under the carpet. At Christmas she splits her time between shopping – and recuperating by connecting with friends online. This presented a clear opportunity for M&S to support and inspire this Christmas Customer, and give her back the magic of Christmas. A playful childhood game amplified this thought with a simple mechanic that captured the Christmas spirit. It also provided opportunities to win desirable M&S items.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? Pass the Parcel was designed to match the M&S 2011 Christmas campaign, Make all Your Christmas Dreams come true. This traditional childhood game became an interactive app that was easy and addictive to play, in a location customers were already using for downtime and socialisation. The mechanics were simple: fans could unwrap a parcel layer every day for the chance to instantly win a prize. To get an extra play, users could either share their parcels with friends (for each parcel received back they earned an extra play) or wait until the next day for their next free unwrap. A like-gate ensured that people became M&S fans before unwrapping a layer. Throughout the game people had multiple opportunities to visit the M&S website, to explore the prizes on offer, discover more of what M&S had to offer that Christmas and, most importantly, purchase.

Results Using the existing M&S Facebook community, the game reached six million people and acquired 115,000 new Facebook fans. Over 1.1 million parcels were opened and fans spent over four million minutes engaging with the app and generating sales on the ecommerce site.