Skype Rerouted

The Windows guys wanted to do something. They promised stacks of Surface tablets and Lumia phones. We were like, “Erm, ok....” (sliding our iPhones out frame). Our social team wanted us to be more social (still not sure if they meant the campaigns or the designers).

We found a great travel blogger, Mike Corey, who used Skype all the time when crossing the globe. He told us he’d be up for anything (which of course, was his first mistake.) We dropped Mike off in Istanbul and might’ve accidentally lost his bags. (Cough.) We handed Mike a Surface tablet and Lumia phone. With Skype loaded up, Mike started getting clues, taking him on a two-week, five-country, almost 10,000-mile journey. It was a real-time social travel game that hooked users by making them part of Mike’s adventures.

“Great example of how the online arena and social media tools can create a real-time and immediate interaction between users and the brand.” - Branding Magazine

We filmed and edited on the fly, posting six 2 minute recap videos in two weeks. If I wasn’t out in the field while we were shooting, I was back in the hotel room, I mean, “editing suite,” helping with the previous day’s footage. It was a wild ride. Even Game of Thrones didn’t end their first episode with a pair of oiled leather pants. I mean... we win, right?

Award

Campaign highlights

• sfBIG Award: Best Use of Social, 2014

• 845k campaign engagements

• over 700k views (3x more than planned)

• 20 million impressions

• Top 10 videos shared by 18-34 demo on YouTube

• 8% Twitter engagement (10x industry average)