I remember I saw this title a few days ago about how companies should stop with the digital advertising and I thought “well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon” and then I remembered a campaign KLM did which I like to call “from social media to personalization”. They would check foursquare or Twitter for people who have checked in at Schiphol and are using KLM and look at their accounts on social media platforms to find information about them, like if someone is a person who likes sports. They would find the person and give him/her a small present, like a bracelet that measures distance, an app voucher and so on.
Here is the video to the campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHWAE8GDEk
This campaign for me raises a few points:
- Speaking of stalking on Social Media, does this seem acceptable to the public? I mean, if I were a friend of the person it should be “ok” for me to look him/her up or if we met at a bar and they have me their name I could do it but that’s about it. They had access to personal details such as passport numbers, flights and so on.
- They made it very obvious. Most companies hide the fact they “stalk” people, but here KLM goes “hey, we looked you up, found out you are that old, have as many friends, you like sports, you flight number is *** and your passport says that ***. Does it look like they didn’t interfere with people’s privacy just because they put it out in the open that they did it? Or no one cares because they did something good with it?
- They used Social Media to do something personal. It wasn’t one of those “check-in and get a prize” or “take a pic and win a prize” campaigns, the person felt like they “stole” your money but.. they give it back… it was sweet and the people will definitely tell the story for a long time. but it’s the fact that they got in contact with the people, they made an effort and they made it personal, they made the people feel special.
What are your thoughts on those three points/any of the three points on the campaign in general? Do you think more big companies should try and make more personal gestures like that one?
