Carlsberg’s premium cider brand, Somersby set out on a mission to create an engaging, share-worthy, branded social gaming experience that invites consumers to interact and play with the brand and share with their friends. The "Lord Somersby" brand property is a fictional character, who defies time and geography, made popular through traditional advertising. Being the open-minded "challenger of traditional thinking" we wanted him to challenge people's habits on Facebook. To make the campaign unique and genuinely on-brand for Somersby, we based it around an important key insight: People are getting more and more friends on Facebook and are starting to lose touch! So, in true Lord Somersby style, we created a Facebook gaming experience to challenge them on just that!With an average of eight minutes spent per player, "Lord Somersby's Friendly Challenge" was a truly engaging Facebook brand experience. Check out the case video for more: "Lord Somersby's Friendly Challenge" was a social gaming experience that challenged Somersby fans to see if they could actually recognize their friends - just from looking at Facebook profile pictures. It taps into the basic insight that a Facebook profile pic is not just a picture - it's an expression of personality, lifestyle and interests. It often features children, car, house, partner, best friend or a favourite place. That's why recognising a Facebook friend just from looking at the profile picture requires people to actually KNOW the person. So the game asked a question that's on everyone's mind: "Are your Facebook friends REALLY your friends or are you just mindlessly collecting to impress!?" …but we did it in a fun and friendly way that was truly engaging and in line with the brand idea. In Friendly Challenge, fans got to "play with their own friends" whilst we opened their minds and encouraged them to re-connect with long-lost or forgotten friends. Somersby fans got a Social Score every time they completed a game - based on how well they knew their friends. They could then compare their Social Score results against other friends on a social leader board, creating a fun, social challenge based on the core brand idea. Even with very limited media support for 2012, the campaign was played and shared vigorously. It gained a solid following of users who returned to play the game over and over again to improve their Social Scores and beat their friends. The gamification and social mechanics helped make this Facebook brand experience genuinely shareworthy and helped spark true virality - to drive more players and boost the Somersby fan base. Based on the success of the campaign it is now being re-launched globally with new features and paid media support for 2013.
The Lord Somersby Friendly Challenge social game is not currently live on the Somersby brand Facebook page, but here's the Facebook page link for reference: www.facebook.com/somersby.
