Office Depot Stays on Cause with One Direction

Office Depot last month expanded on the success of its back-to-school campaign with pop band One Direction.Continuing an anti-bullying program launched with the group this summer (see “Office Depot Takes …” in Related Articles), the office supply retailer is serving as sponsor of “1D Day,” a live, seven-hour virtual event taking place on Nov. 23. An exclusive contest running Oct. 1-31 will award five winners a chance to team up with a band member during the event. Recognizing October's designation as “National Bullying Prevention Month,” the contest was designed to spur sales of exclusive licensed merchandise to raise $250,000 for the Office Depot Foundation’s anti-bullying efforts.Running on the website of San Francisco-based Votigo (a social media marketing firm), the contest required consumers to enter checkout codes earned by purchasing the licensed products along with a video illustrating how they planned to use the items to promote anti-bullying. The five grand-prizes entail trips to attend the 1D Day event and meet the band. Pleasant Ridge, MI-based ePrize handled.Office Depot supported the effort by staging a “buy one, get one free” deal on all licensed SKUs throughout October. Easel and stanchion signs, as well as multiple Facebook updates, plugged both the BOGO offer and contest. The licensed products were merchandised on a dedicated endcap.The "1D+OD" back-to-school campaign generated impressive online engagement for Office Depot. During July, traffic driven from Twitter to officedepot.com nearly equaled all site traffic in 2012; traffic driven by all social sites during the month was 346% greater than in July 2012; and daily use of the retailer’s mobile application doubled, according to Mashable.com. In addition, Boston-based ad technology company Nanigans reported that “One Direction school supplies” was among the top five back-to-school searches on google.com.

Office Depot Stays on Cause with One Direction

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

Related Images

Business Topic

Company

Market Segment