Social Media B2B

This post is a recap of a case study presented at the recent B2B Social Communications event held in New York City. Gary Spangler, E-Marketing Leader, DuPont Electronic & Communication Technologies discussed the video series created in 2007 to highlight the science behind popular DuPont products.

The following summary of the presentation is from the event website.

In 2007, DuPont launched five videos on eight web blogs in a marketing program designed to increase share of voice for DuPont on the Internet and to introduce DuPont science to a younger, wired and online generation. The videos were made specifically for online audiences looking for stories told through video which are different and interesting. Tapping into over 40 years of video archival footage, each video showcases how science from DuPont helps to protect people and how innovations developed by DuPont enhance people’s lives. The blogs offered a mix of general and targeted interest audiences. Blogs were selected for this project because they reach a devoted, targeted audience and their audiences tend to talk to others about their interests, encouraging word of mouth. Completing DuPont’s marketing pilot to the blogosphere, videoblogger Amanda Congdon was the on-screen host for the five videos. Amanda is best known for her work on Rocketboom, a popular news and entertainment videoblog. BlogAds and FM Networks assisted the project in distributing the videos. The campaign delivered on three key objectives: (1) increasing awareness for DuPont science, (2) increasing positive sentiment for DuPont and (3) creating stories sufficiently compelling to generate word of mouth. The DuPont Science Stories campaign was one of three national finalists for the Online Media Marketing and Advertising (OMMA) Best Campaign in Social Media Award 2007.

Here is one of the five videos in the series. You can view all the videos in this series at stories.dupont.com, however, I cannot find any link to this anywhere on the DuPont website. I would like to think that if they hold up a two-year old social media program as a success, they would want to continue to tout that success by providing access to the video. Additionally some of the links no longer work, which is another indication that this campaign has been relegated to the backwater of the DuPont website. If you are presenting a case study of an old program, make sure you check all the links on an old page.

In a post launch survey of video viewers, 93% indicated that they learned something viewing the videos. This was huge win for the program, as 85% of the content in the videos was unique to DuPont.

The program was launched on a series of blogs and resulted in 6,000 visits to the DuPont site where the videos are hosted. The average visitor remained for 8 minutes, which is a long time on a site. This means the average viewer watched at least three of the videos. That is a great response, which is also measured by 50,000 video streams.

In the end, the videos helped DuPont generate some word of mouth about its brand message of contribution through science. It probably generated more awareness with the PR surrounding the campaign and its nomination for Online Marketing award.

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen.