Orange Ballonacy

My first post will be about Orange's Balloonacy campaign. It ran from the 8th of November till the 17th and was a game involving people signing up and selecting a balloon and naming it. The players then raced accross the internet to come first and win prizes.

"Balloonacy is set to push social media to its limits.  Not only can players ‘wave’ to each other, they can also boost each others’ balloons, use tools built specifically for Facebook and Twitter so players can find friends and follow each other, chat, share their success, boast about their progress towards the end of the internet and even announce performance badges achieved.

And there are of course amazing prizes to be won.  The fastest overall balloon will win a super deluxe, eleven-night, five star trip to Kenya, including an unforgettable hot air balloon ride over the Masai Mara.  Other prizes include a weeks holiday for two in Egypt and free cinema tickets for a year." 

I really liked this campaign as it spanned the whole internet and involved people using the game and expanding it themselves with the creators being able to sit back and watch it snowball. It took into account social media as a major platform to expand the game and allowed users to invite their friends and let the game grow.

What I have taken from this is the social media aspect. It is a great way to spread awareness of a certain thing and in the newspapers case we will be able to expand the online readership which is the ultimate goal.