In China, few understand the consumer’s online experience better than Kaixin001 – with 20 million active users after launching barely a year ago in April 2008 – roughly a 90% month-on-month growth rate – they are a force in social media.
But what confused marketers was particularly how they’d launched so successfully: Kaixin001 wouldn’t allow many banner ads, online traffic was driven through innovative viral games and apps – and a gamble based on Seth Godin’s “Exclusion Principle”: you couldn’t register unless invited by a friend. For Kaixin001, the user experience comes first.
So what do you do when research tells you that 76.6% of this Kaixin001’s audience fits your Magnum brief from Unilever China?
“We wanted to make Magnum part of the social experience, instead of interrupting it,” said Kelly Xing at Mindshare Invention Shanghai. Working closely with the Magnum BB Team, Kelly and her team designed the first brand-owned online app on Kaixin001 – around the campaign idea of ‘Special Treatment’. A brand experience that adds to users’ online experience.
A week after launch, the Magnum app has became one of the most popular games on Kaixin001.
It’s also a Media First in China, but Kelly is quick to point out “the game can also drive sales: within it, a unique code on the Magnum stick is part of every online interaction which drives users to stores to buy product.”
Interestingly, when the new global Unilever CEO Paul Polman arrived in China last week, a person at the airport asked him where he worked.
“Unilever? I play your Magnum game on Kaixin001!”
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