Foundertech; Xiaonei Social Media Campaign.

Recently, on missniuniu’s Xiaonei homepage, 2 banner ads for 2 doodle contests caught my attention. Frankly, I am not a fan for doodling, but what got my interests is – both contests are held by computer brands, Foundertech and Dell. In this web2.0 plus social media marketing age, it seems that holding or sponsoring a contest will help a lot on getting your targets’ (especially younger crowd) attention, like the Pepsi’s battle of the bands” themed event Rand introduced in previous post.

Let’s look at Foundertech’s doodle contest marketing campaign first, I will introduce the Dell one in the next entry.

Foundertech’s Xiaonei Page

Foundertech’s doodle contest banner led me to a dedicated Foundertech page on Xiaonei. Yes, Foundertech actually created its own Xiaonei page. On the top of this page, a very obvious “Join the doodle contest” banner leads to the actual doodle contest section. But, before doing that, let’s just take some time here and find out why Foundertech wants to create a “barrier” before showing the contest section.

Generally, there are 3 different elements on this page -

a. Product information; push for (direct) sales

The “Products” button (the 2nd arrow-shape button) leads to a detail product page, and the 3rd one “Online Shop” leads to Foundertech’s online shop which you can purchase directly from there.

“Product” page

b. PR event; branding and sales

The 1st arrow-shape button – “campus tour” -  leads to a page introduces Foundertech’s 2009 campus tour. This PR event covers 100 campus and lasts for 5 months. During the tour, Foundertech staff will visit those campus city by city, provide college students computer information, products at preferential price, free laptop cleaning service, as well as free marketing trainings, etc.

The fourth “Campus Elite Recruitment” button leads to a page you can sign up for Foundertech’s campus elites recruitment program. Those “qualified candidates” will “get proper training, then help to promote Foundertech in their school or work as interns in Foundertech shop”. Hmmm, so basically a method to get low-paid interns to sell computers in school! But to be an intern in a well-known company still sounds good for many Chinese college students.

c. Some other basic SNS functions

There are some very basic SNS functions on this page as well, such as video sharing, picture sharing, and write board. But seems that all the videos are Foundertech’s TVC and all the pictures are taken from the campus tour, my feeling is Foundertech did it themselves, which makes sense – each Xiaonei user already has an account page where he/she can share pictures and videos, why bother come here to do it?

Foundertech’s Doodle Contest

Ok, now it is the time to take a look at the doodle contest.

Foundertech’s doodle contest lasts one month, from June 22 to July 22. To join the contest, you have to be a Xiaonei users. The general idea of this contest is – participant doodle on a virtual Foundertech laptop cover on the website, then the other Xiaonei users vote for submitted artworks. The participants get top votes will get digital product prizes from Foundertech, such as portable hard disks, watches and mp3 players.

Drag brush or shape tools from navigation bar then doodle whatever you want.

View all artworks and vote for the ones you like.

Foundertech doesn’t show the total participants # and votes on the website, but by roughly calculating, there are around 460 Xiaonei users joined the contest and a total of  300,000 votes so far. The top artwork got 4568 votes (see below), the easy to use interface and clear contest system has engaged many participants.

Other Marketing Channels for the Contest

Other than Xiaonei homepage banner, Foundertech’s Xiaonei page and it’s 2009 Campus Tour, I also looked for if there is any other media Foundertech is using to get people know as well as join this contest. Almost all I found were news release articles – same advertorial writing style, sometimes even same article – obviously submitted by brand itself.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, I will introduce Dell’s doodle contest in next entry. Some brief information here: Dell created a similar online doodle contest, but different from Foundertech which is only using one social media (Xiaonei) and all traditional media (online banner, PR event, news release) to promote it, Dell uses a variety of social media channel to market it. Result? Let’s wait and see!

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