72 The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World
Action
The Super Status campaign was the first ever user-generated content (UGC)
campaign where players were invited to solve challenges by posting their
answers to their Facebook, Myspace or Twitter status updates in 140 charac-
ters or less. By participating, entrants could win high-value prizes simply by
writing a clever string of concise text and simultaneously broadcast the Tur-
boTax brand to everyone in their network who viewed their status updates.The campaign centred around a ‘grabbable’/embeddable widget that was
produced in multiple sizes, making it easy for users to display the Super Status
contest prominently across their online social networking profiles, blogs and
other websites, and to view and rise to the latest challenge directly within the
widget interface. The campaign involved more than 20 unique challenges
which were scheduled to run across the designated US ‘tax season’.At the end of the campaign there was a final contest for the Grand Prize, and
a series of ‘speed rounds’ during the final weeks leading up to the 15 April tax
deadline.Mirroring the TurboTax brand message of ease of completion, the contest
provided a low-barrier way to win everything from trips to New York and Los
Angeles, to set visits to NBC shows, cash prizes and more.This was an integrated campaign supported by TV spots, sponsorships,
YouTube homepage placements, display ads and search marketing efforts, as
well as co-branding and promotional features via the broadcaster NBC.Results
The Super Status contest was considered a successful experiment in social
media. The distribution engine for the widget tracked it as delivering more
than 6 million unique impressions. TurboTax judged more than 5,000 entries
that were estimated to have garnered around 1 million direct views within