Our Work / Skype Nomad

A 33 Day Live Product Demo on the Web

Skype asked us to help them raise awareness of their mobile solutions.

But we knew that the early adopters who were the target audience also tend to be pretty sceptical about advertising. So we had to do more than tell people that Skype is now mobile – we had to demonstrate it, and do it in a way that would capture people’s imaginations, and allow them to discover the product for themselves.

So we decided to create an honest, demanding, live product demo.

We sent Rebecca, the Skype Nomad, on a 33-day world tour in ‘perpetual motion’ – she could never stop moving, even to sleep or eat. And she shared her journey live online with Skype mobile solutions and the full range of social media – Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, MySpace, Dopplr

At first Rebecca just talked about the trials and tribulations of her trip. When she was down, or the technology didn’t work, she was brutally honest.

She captured content wherever she went, that we later edited into cool films.

She asked the community to help her make decisions about her trip.

Once she’d established a relationship with the audience, she started to do some simple product demonstrations. This video has had over 200,000 views on YouTube, and caused a spike in sales of the 3 Skypephone.

We were surprised by the results. During the month of the campaign:

• The Telegraph asked Rebecca to write a daily column.
• 800,000 unique visitors to the blog.
• 140,000 page views on Flickr.
• 300,000 YouTube video views
• Global coverage on blogs, in press and on TV: 175+ stories
• Awareness of Skype’s mobile solutions shifted significantly; uplift ranging between 9% (UK) and 18% (USA).

And later on we were chuffed when Nomad won the best technology cataegory at the IMA Awards.

Tagged as: Blogs, Community, Digital, Event, Skype, travel