When a Bloggers Meet Up Isn't Just a Bloggers Meet Up

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Client: HP Pakistan

Industry: Technology

Country: Pakistan

Client Profile

HP Pakistan is Pakistan’s largest computer hardware and peripheral companies. With an outstanding global operational structure, HP Pakistan has been able to control large segments of the corporate and laptop user market with its hardware and become the trusted name for computer peripherals.

Business Need

HP Pakistan wanted to organize Pakistan’s technology bloggers in cross country events to launch the new HP MINI 110 netbooks directly to the leading technology opinion makers and trusted voices. Their objective was to leverage the trusted voices in Pakistan’s technology world to provide coverage, reviews and comparisons of the new netbook against other similar netbooks already available in the domestic market. Additionally, HP Pakistan wanted to understand how to better interact with the blogger community as a corporation without looking like the traditional sales/product launch event.

Our Proposal

the emagine group proposed a multi-prong strategy that would leverage technology bloggers to provide pre-event promotion, during and post event coverage. Additionally, we proposed to engage with the top technology bloggers to provide them with demo machines for hands-on reviews of the netbook and its various features and functionalities.

Our Solution

At emagine, we believe that new medias are more effective tools for marketing and product promotion to target customers than traditional advertising. This belief is due to a clear and measurable understanding that known voices are trusted more than impersonal advertising. While traditional media is best for mass market product introductions and announcement, online medias are better able to leverage groups of people with similar interests to deliver more targeted and measurable results.

Since HP Pakistan does not have a domestic website for its corporate operations, we need to focus on using and integrating multiple and independent platforms to achieve the result that we expected for the campaign. By using Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube, emagine developed an electronic infrastructure to promote the event, oversee and distribute information, and gauge overall feedback from the event.

emagine organized the HP Technology Bloggers Meet Ups for the 10th − 13th of December in the major cities of Pakistan. We implemented a Facebook event page to promote the registration of participants for the event, who were directed to a form hosted on the Google Docs platform. The Facebook event page was the central point of information distribution while we engaged with the top technology bloggers to arrange for pre-event coverage. Additionally, independent bloggers contacted emagine directly to get more information and event graphics to further promote the HP Technology Bloggers Meet Up from their blogs and social networks. We were extremely surprised by the number of bloggers that provided pre-event coverage and drove traffic to both the Facebook event page and the Google Docs form. The graphics designed for the event are available in our portfolio.

On HP Pakistan’s request, we had planned for 50 participants in each city, but the total number of registrations from each city exceeded 200, while online media coverage spanned hundreds of blogs ranging from technology and media focused to general bloggers interested in the overall event.

The HP Technology Bloggers Meet Ups were extremely successful in generating a new level of discussion about technology service provision and what today’s technology customer wanted/needed for their lifestyle. This was the first time that an international hardware/peripherals supplier had engaged with its customer base to better understand their requirements, needs and how to serve them better. Each event had internet connectivity available to all the participants so that they could tweet, update Facebook and even live blog the whole event while it was going on.

Outside of the event discussions, the participants demonstrated a great deal of interest in the HP MINI 110 product based on the functionalities, size and price. Commercially, there was a significant interest in sales of the HP MINI immediately after the event.

During the event, a special promotion was also announced to get participants to go back and document the overall event and product from their individual platforms. Bloggers were asked to write blog posts that reviewed the event and the HP MINI 110, giving their honest opinions about the brand, event, product and recommendations on whether it was a good buy or not. The overall post event coverage was outstanding and provided greater insights into what the technology buyer was looking for from international hardware/peripheral companies operating in Pakistan. One blogger in each city was selected based on the quality of their coverage, honesty of their writing and information shared to receive an HP MINI 110 netbook.

Result

The HP Technology Bloggers Meet Ups were very successful in generating a new level of conversation about technology products and service provision in Pakistan. A number of customer issues and concerns were raised and discussed with HP representatives and an honest discussion was enjoyed by all participants. Many bloggers came away from the event understanding that HP Pakistan wanted to build a new relationship with the technology opinion makers of Pakistan that was more interactive and reciprocal. Since our overall goal was to develop this relationship between the technology users and HP Pakistan, all parties were extremely satisfied with the result from the events and coverage received in the online media.

While the event proved to be commercially successful from a sales point of view, the increase in brand value that HP Pakistan received from the event was much more significant. From pre to post-event coverage of the event, HP Pakistan was able to demonstrate itself as the first technology brand in Pakistan to listen to their hardest critics, the technology opinion makers, and provide clear answers, understanding and a way forward for making technology products and service provision better in Pakistan.

Online Event Coverage