To demonstrate how it feels to get flu and miss out, efferflu C immune booster locked comedy duo and YouTube celebrities, Derick Watts & The Sunday Blues, in a hotel room, depriving them of a dream holiday valued at R60 000. Over the 5 days they created a series of online videos to share their experience of being trapped in a hotel room.

Radio and TV ads, online and mobile display, a search campaign and a social media drive combined to lead people to the Project Trapped microsite that housed this content. Live daily skype interviews with the TV show Espresso, showed us how the guys were holding up and gave the project national exposure.

A competition element was also introduced where the public suggested things for them to do to kill time, via Twitter and Derick Watts and the Sunday Blues posted videos of themselves following these suggestions on the Project Trapped website. Ultimately the suggestion that led to the most popular video won the holiday that the guys missed out on.

In just two weeks we reached an audience of nearly seven million people, generated just shy of a quarter of a million YouTube views, recorded a staggering 93% positive brand sentiment on social media and increased our Twitter following by 88%.

The campaign flighted in South Africa from the 8th of May 2014. First we revealed a trailer online. We used radio, TV, online and mobile display, a search campaign and a social media drive to lead people to the website. The following week the YouTube celebrities posted videos on the website and on YouTube, and did a live Skype interview every morning on TV, from the hotel room. We held a competition via Twitter and posted the celebrities’ video responses to Twitter suggestions on the site. The next week we encouraged people to vote for their favourite video. The winning suggestion won the holiday that they guys missed out on.

The campaign took a new approach to dramatizing the product benefit by creating a live story that people could participate in. The efferflu C brand has always had a fun, lighthearted personality and the comedians that we used helped to appeal to our target market.

Over a 5 day period we created 24 pieces of original video content (from over 3000 suggestions) inspired by our users. A social media team constantly engaged with users to give them tips and advice, and continue the conversation 24/7. The Project Trapped website generated 25 361 mentions and #projecttrapped got over 3000 mentions.

In just two weeks we reached an audience of nearly seven million people, generated just shy of a quarter of a million YouTube views, recorded a staggering 93% positive brand sentiment on social media and increased our Twitter following by 88%.