Late in the afternoon of the most terrifying day of our lives, we noticed that the people trickling into Trafalgar Square were too expectant to be mere tourists. And the trickle became a pour. By 6pm, 13,500 people had arrived, and there was a real party atmosphere – our social media strategy had succeeded. Over 2 million people watched clips of the event on YouTube; 2,176 bloggers wrote about it after the event. During the campaign, brand consideration increased by 13%, sales went up by 58% year on year, and our return-on-investment for the campaign was 129%.

With cameras ready to roll, we needed a large crowd at the event. We used social media to drive attendance, posting an invitation to YouTube and Facebook fans of our “Dance” campaign and recruiting Twitter followers who speculated on what might happen at the event. Pink’s appearance created an online buzz amongst her fans and helped drive news coverage elevating our campaign to a cultural event. We ran a 2min film of the event during the TV programme Britain’s Got Talent, the perfect environment for 13,500 people singing together, seen by over 10m viewers. The film ran on screens at open-air concerts, where crowds sang along. We turned clips of different songs from the event into new ads and digital content, keeping our campaign fresh for months. Thousands of bloggers picked up the digital content which spread virally. We retargeted people who saw this content with hard-hitting sales messages.

T-Mobile’s brand positioning is “Life’s For Sharing”, from the insight that mobile phones help us share the unexpected things that happen to us everyday with friends and family.We launched this idea with the “Dance” campaign – an event which created memorable content, which we then encouraged people to share. We needed a follow-up which would maintain the momentum, build consideration amongst a broad audience, drive positive word-of-mouth, and win more customers.So we rewarded the people who loved “Dance” by inviting them to participate in another event. 13,500 of them arrived in London’s Trafalgar Square to find they were participating in the world’s biggest karaoke event. Camera crews captured the event for TV advertising and for our YouTube channel, so that people could share the amazing footage with their friends. Pop star P!nk joined the crowd of singers which helped the event make the news on TV and the papers.