Tavis Smiley Viral Marketing Campaign

The Buzz to Market Approach

Challenge

One of America's most celebrated and respected media personalities, Tavis Smiley is the award winning host, "Tavis Smiley" on PBS and "The Tavis Smiley Show" from PRI. Smiley and his company, the Smiley Group approached Spotlight Communications to create a viral marketing campaign to promote his 4-CD compilation, "On Air: the Best of Tavis Smiley on The Tom Joyner Morning Show 2004 - 2008." Tavis made a regular radio appearance on the Tom Joyner Morning Show twice a week for twelve years. Our challenge was to develop new ways to connect his pre-existing radio audience, as well as develop a new younger online fan base to the Internet, to help virally spread news about the product.

Response

1. Brand conceptualization executed in an over the top, playful, guerilla style campaign, promoting Tavis' own values and a unique brand of American optimism.
2. Development of an interactive "On Air" microsite with sharing widgets, banner downloads, audio commentary, photo galleries, product purchase links, and a schedule of Tavis' Wal-Mart sponsored "On Air" tour dates.
3. Regular Internet postings and blasts to Tavis' social networks on MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and Going, as well as electronic invites for fans to meet Tavis at a Wal-Mart in their city.

Result

Through our extensive outreach we were able to grow more than five times Tavis' initial Facebook fans. We contacted Facebook friends and fans with updates about Tavis' tour dates and links to www.Tavistalks.com and the micro site www.Tavisonair.com. Spotlight was able to more than quadruple Tavis' HBCU (historically black colleges and universities) fan page. These fans were regularly sent updates, messages, and notes with information on tour dates, online purchase options, the animated banners, YouTube video footage, and links to www.Tavistalks.com. Coupling the viral marketing campaign with the traditional sales and public relations campaign resulted in a record number of CD sales, during a time when CD sales have plunged to an all-time low.