2012 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

Sony Ericsson were launching the Xperia Mini and Mini Pro, 2 compact smart phones with big features. To demonstrate the phone features and drive home the fact that small is more fun, we created a 'crazy' competition. Not just that, our arena was one of Dubai's busiest malls - The Dubai Mall. The competition was designed to put the product in our target audiences hands and then allow them to have loads of fun. Through this touch-feel experience, they were able to enjoy first-hand everything that the new Sony Ericsson phones had to offer.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

Our insight was that the target audience loves to be spontaneous. They live in the moment and love to share the fun stuff in their lives with their friends anytime it happens. So we devised the perfect platform for them to not only have fun but also share it, by using the smart phone features. The result was the Rodeo Bull. We actually created a rodeo arena - complete with mechanical bull at Dubai Mall. Every adventurous passer-by was enticed to ride the bull with one hand and film himself with the phone in his other hand. He who stayed the longest won a free Mini Pro phone.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

In 3 days, Rodeo Bull attracted over 750 participants at Dubai Mall. Over 700 videos were recorded with the Mini Pro and over 10,000-15,000 live spectators watched the madness. The Facebook competition garnered over 1000 new fans for Sony Ericsson, 1000 likes and over 1054 views of the competition videos in just 11 days This resulted in a 40% increase in the number of likes on the video posts during the competition period. The activation was also awarded the best International practice across Sony Ericsson EMEA offices.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

The compact Mini and Mini Pro phones are for spontaneous people who look for the fun things in life and are eager to share them with their friends. The Rodeo Bull competition appealed to these people and gave them a platform to have fun and also share it. Besides the daily winners, the 30 funniest videos filmed by the consumers at the event were posted on the Sony Ericsson Facebook page, inviting followers to vote for the best videos. The winner of this competition too won a Mini Pro phone. Thus the competition spread online, getting more people to interact with Sony Ericsson and their products.