3: Snapshots: No. 1 Tokyo
by Ewa Evans
Originally a press trip to secure long lead coverage for the launch of the INQ¹, 3 Snapshots was amplified across a multi-platform campaign. 3 Snapshots turned a traditional press trip on its head by adding a digital strategy to run alongside editorial, plus a major media partnership to include a consumer angle and CD/DVD that means content will live on post-trip whilst also being distributed via 3Stores.
3 Snapshots is a series of events, where 3 shares with you the people, places and perspectives that make the company and their products stand out from the crowd. This is done through a mix of blogs, videos, photos and music. 3 Snapshots is a long term property created to enable 3 to bring its products and services to life with compelling content.
For the first in the 3 Snapshots series, 3 headed to Tokyo between 9 - 15 March 2009. Tokyo’s a futuristic city full of bright lights and big ideas, at the heart of what’s fascinating and what’s new. And that’s the idea behind the internet-friendly and award winning INQ¹, 3’s newest phone. It does things a little differently too.
Media
3 and Amplify worked in collaboration with In©, an alliance of London’s best writers to create a bespoke press trip for 3 to showcase the INQ¹ and to generate a portfolio of credible editorial features, outside of 3’s media heartland. In© secured journalists John Arlidge (Times), Jonathan Margolis (FT/Guardian), Karen Kay (Sky), Genevieve Roberts (Independent) and Kirsty Allison (Vogue/NME/Dazed) on the trip as well as a multi-media team of photographer and camera crew.
During the 120 hours that the team were in Tokyo they went to extraordinary places and met extraordinary people, going off the beaten track to get an inside take on the world’s capital of invention and ideas. The itinerary covered everything from Japan’s design, trend and technology forward thinkers to the new generation of movie directors, novelists, musicians and artists making groundbreaking content for mobile phones.
ShortList media partnership
To make the campaign resonate with consumers, Amplify secured a media partnership with ShortList - Britain’s largest men’s magazine with a circulation of 462,731 every week. Together we launched a competition to win an incredible trip to the world’s most futuristic city. The competition was launched via a four page cover mount on ShortList magazine and two ¼ page strips in the magazine to act as a call to action to enter the competition and then to engage with the live content generated during the trip – via ShortList.com, including the homepage takeover for a week during launch, three ROS ads and a 3 Snapshots campaign section featuring 7+ blogs.
Aspiring writers could enter the competition to become the fifth official journalist on the trip reporting live from Tokyo by answering, in no more than 100 words, what they saw if they looked 20 years into the future. Jim Harris won and was commissioned by ShortList to write a feature for the magazine about the trip called The Magnificent Future of the Mobile Phone.
3Snapshots.com
During the trip ‘team Tokyo’ reported live on what they got up to using the INQ¹ for 3Snapshots.com, a specially created website for the campaign. 3Snapshots.com acted as a detailed research website during the ShortList competition period for entrants to get the full picture of the incredible opportunity being offered.
During the trip the website was ‘live’ with each journalist creating daily blogs and an instant INQ¹ feed featuring up to the minute Facebook status updates, an INQ¹ photography feed, Windows Live Messenger chats, Skype-branded voice recordings, Last.fm playlists and Tokyo related widgets. The website also featured a gallery of professional photography and videos, all providing context and content for the campaign.
Amplification
The campaign was amplified through Three.co.uk, university seeding, super influencer competitions, placement on B3ta and Holy Moly e-newsletters and Stumble Upon website, Seriously Social Facebook and INQ¹ databases to drive entries for the ShortList competition and traffic to 3Snapshots.com.
3 Snapshots: No.1 Tokyo CD/DVD
With so much great stuff being written about and caught on camera during 3 Snapshots: No.1 Tokyo, it would seem a shame to pop it away in a dusty drawer after its 120 hours of airtime online. So we’ve taken the best bits and edited them onto a limited edition DVD featuring the innovators trailblazing Tokyo, discovered during the trip, with a very special CD mix by Radio Slave, inspired and influenced by his DJ sets in Tokyo on the flip side.
To find out what we’re doing next for 3 Snapshots and to register for your FREE CD/DVD visit http://www.3snapshots.com/
