Typically, using hashtags on Facebook is redundant. But for Nike Hong Kong, you can show off how sporty you are by posting on the social network sporting activities you’ve completed, earn points, and get rewarded.
Instead of a viral video traveling around the world inspiring fans, Nike Hong Kong knows the way to get youths in the city to participate and engage with its Make It Count campaign is by taking the gamification approach leveraging Facebook’s social graph.
Targeting youngsters aged 15 to 25, they first need to visit Nike Hong Kong’s campaign site to register via their Facebook logins.
The system will analyze the user’s account to determine how sporty they are and award basic points.
To earn more points, participants have to complete a number of “missions,” ranging from sporting activities such as running, skateboarding, football to basketball as well as other outdoor activities like walking a pet, taking a picture of their sports gear, or attending a Latin dance class.
After completing the missions, participants would need to share on Facebook either through a status update, photo upload, or location check-in using the #makeitcount hashtag to accumulate points.
The accumulated points will be used to redeem “rewards” for Nike products or join sporting events. For instance, with 7,000 points, a user can exchange for a gym sack but will need 22,000 points to attend Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco in October.
“It is the first loyalty program that leveraged on the organic function of social media,” said Jade Lau, brand communications manager for Nike Hong Kong.
She explained after users joined the campaign, they could tell their friends about the completed activities via the social platform and the system would automatically reward them with points that could be exchanged for rewards and special sporting events.
The campaign, supported by its digital agency Razorfish in Hong Kong, aims to educate users on the concept of “make it count” and get them to add the campaign hashtag on social media. The campaign will begin on Facebook initially, with plans to extend to China’s Weibo and photo sharing social network Instagram in the coming weeks.
Make It Count rolled out in March and has been gaining momentum since, with more than 20,000 users signed up and over 70,000 missions completed.
According to Nike, no traditional media was used in this campaign. Instead it is run mainly from its campaign site and Facebook, supported by major local media portals such as Yahoo, Sina, Apple Daily, On.cc, and vertical sites.
However, a recent mission under the football category is aligned with an outdoor event that featured a digital installation in Langham Place shopping mall. The mission merged with another campaign called My Time Is Now, which ran concurrently. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNIky-Mb3m4
Because Make It Count Hong Kong relies heavily on Facebook’s API, one of the key challenges was to integrate with the social platform seamlessly as many unexpected issues occurred such as errors during deployment that were outside of the agency’s control.
Razorfish’s advice if you plan to do a similar campaign of this scale leveraging Facebook or other social media platforms: sufficient testing time is critical.
Make It Count in Hong Kong will run till the end of this year.
