NABS
"Vintage Intern Online Auction"
Two years ago, NABS launched the Vintage Intern Auction – which auctions off top ad industry executives to be the highest bidder's intern for a day. Zulu Alpha Kilo needed to bring even more industry attention to the Vintage Intern Auction and achieve an aggressive goal of a 15% increase in funds raised vs the previous year.
The agency needed to reach and capture the attention of advertising professionals. Ad industry people have, at one time or another, all worked for a horrible boss. Tapping into this truth, the campaign invited Canadian communications professionals to "seek their revenge" on old bosses by giving them the opportunity to make them their intern for the day.
To reach the broadest advertising and marketing audience, and to make bidding an easier process, the agency took the Vintage Intern Auction online. It launched with an online video featuring an auctioneer auctioning off a big–headed executive creative director. The video drove to a website to bid on one of the 14 participating ad execs (this year's "interns" included such well–known bosses as Red Urban's Christina Yu, John St.'s Angus Tucker, JWT's Brent Choi and Strategy's own Mary Maddever).
The video was seeded with industry influencers, industry news sites and blogs via news releases. Online banners on targeted industry sites invited ad folks to seek revenge by clicking through to the online auction site.
To gain momentum, the agency turned to social media to amplify the campaign by tapping into the social networks of each participating ad exec. We asked each of them to record a "video apology" on their own webcams and share the content across their own social networks and through their agencies' social media channels. The campaign's online presence was rounded out with a targeted email strategy driving to the auction site.
Because advertising professionals spend so much of their day on computers and mobile phones, the decision was made to have the auction take place online rather than in person. Thus, it made sense to take most advantage of online tools to promote the fundraiser: online videos, online advertising, social media posts and a targeted email strategy were crucial to driving traffic to the auction site.
Traditional media support for this campaign included print ads in industry publications. The campaign exceeded NABS' target fundraising goal and beat previous year proceeds by 25%. All participants were successfully auctioned off with a few bidding wars sparked.
