Unilever Debuts Rexona Widget on Friendster.com

KUALA LUMPUR - Unilever Malaysia has become the first company in Malaysia to successfully launch and capitalize on the growing popularity of social network widgets on Friendster.com, Malaysia’s favorite online social network with over 3.6 million active users in Malaysia and the second most popular website destination by Malaysians.

Unilever’s Agency of Record, Mindshare Malaysia developed the creative, strategy, media planning of the campaign while Pixel Media, the exclusive sales partner for Friendster working closely with the Friendster team was responsible for the deployment and promotion of the campaign on the social networking site.

Unilever launched an official profile is a user page sponsored by an advertiser and endorsed by Friendster. The Rexona Official Profile on Friendster.com, where Rexy, a fun loving 16-year old female from Kuala Lumpur representing the Rexona, the deodorant brand’s range of products for teens complete with attributes and interests in travel, music, shopping and lists the Harry Potter series as her favorite books.

The Rexteen Rexy official profile allows users to become fans of the character and product and receive product information, interact with brand, give testimonials about the product and participate in contents to win prizes. Accompanying the Rexteen Rexy Offical Profile is the Rexona Teens Room Widget, where a small add on application can be installed to the user’s profile on Friendster and allows the users to do more.

This simple execution of a branded content idea over the internet has helped prove that the digital space is not to be feared but to be embraced as a traditional medium that appeals to a discerning generation.

The Rexteen Official Profile allows users to interact with Rexy in a number of ways. They can add her as a friend, be her fan & receive product information in return. They can leave behind testimonials about the product and participate in an exclusive contest to win prizes Sitting atop the Rexteen Offical Profile is the Rexona Teens Room Widget, a small add-on application that can be installed to the user’s profile on Friendster and allows the users to express their individuality and creativity. MindShare Malaysia’s insights on teens affirmed teenagers’ pride in doing up their bedroom hence the widget allows teenaged girls to build & decorate their very own ‘virtual bedroom’.

The widget integrates a unique sales response mechanism which allows users to earn points off each purchase of a Rexona Teens product. Each unit of the brand has a unique code stickered onto it which can be redeemed online for points needed to ‘buy stuff’ for ones room –say a wardrobe, a carpet, a stuffed toy or even a new paint job! Accessories are made available within the widget for a ‘price’ and users can redeem these accessories and personalize their rooms. Other Friendster users can then vote for their favorite rooms and the room with the most votes will walk off with a slew of prizes.

Unilever supported the digital campaign with an aggressive traditional media campaign to ensure its success where it launched an integrated campaign involving TV, print & radio commercials, on-ground events to drive users to the official profile and it even redirected traffic from the brand’s own website towards Friendster thus making the Rexteen profile on Friendster the official Rexona website for the campaign. Preliminary results speak of the collaborative effort’s success. Since its launch, the Rexteen Rexy official profile has won over 6,700 Fans who’ve provided over 469 brand testimonials. Over 80,000 members have installed the widget within their profile since and the resultant sales uplift is significant.

Mr. Quah Seng Khie, Brand Manager for Rexona at Unilever said, “ We are very pleased with the results of the campaign so far and this further demonstrates the power of social network for brands like ours. We have known of Friendster as the online destination of choice for our target audience in Malaysia for sometime and our investment into this innovative and exciting campaign has proven to us that the Friendster platform can not only help us achieve brand and product awareness but also helps us interact with our customers and most importantly measure sales against our investment”.

“With an active fan base of over 6,700 and growing, we will continue to engage with and interact with this loyal and energetic community we have now built”, he adds.

Joanne Chen, Director of GroupM Interaction Malaysia says, “ We are honored to have played an active role in the development and deployment of a first in Malaysia for Unilever and the success of the campaign to date instills further confidence in the us of the Friendster platform and we look forward to continuing our work with Unilever and helping develop successful communities and campaigns of similar nature”.

Shelly Ng, Country Manager of Pixel Media Malaysia says, “ Advertisers are increasingly looking at the internet as a way to extend their advertising reach and no other online platform in Malaysia other than Friendster can offer such diverse metrics from brand awareness to customer communications to product engagement to return on investment all in a single ad platform campaign.”

“We are happy to have helped deployed this first for a well respected and highly regarded brand such as Unilever and the level of integration and sophistication deployed in this campaign is unrivalled. We look forward to working with other Unilever brands to launch similar campaignswith success”, she adds.