Please read the case and answer the questions:
1. How was the concept of age subculture used in this case?
2. How is mobile harassment different from the physical one? Is the situation different in different countries?
3. How is this social campaign helping LG brand? If other smartphone producers would use this idea as a marketing tool, would they get higher / lower / the same response? Why?
4. Taking into account the objectives, are there any difference in reaching them in different countries? What would be the main cultural values that would help / obstruct reaching the objectives?
LG Mobile/LG Electronics MobileComm USA
"Before you text, give it a ponder"
Primary Agency: young & rubicam/VmL Contributing Agencies: Tru, mindShare, Smith & Jones
Strategic challenge
Mobile textual harassment is no joke
For teens, texting is like talking; it's intertwined with the way they communicate and socialize. LG's research revealed that what adults and the media think of as "mobile bullying" is a behavior so in- grained in everyday teenage life that it is seen as a normal and expected part of communicating. But mobile textual harassment is in truth an enormous problem affecting millions of tweens and teens. Forty-one% admit they have sent, received or forwarded a text with rumors about someone that were untrue.
Four million say they've received a threatening text, while more than 10 million teens also report having sent a "SEXT" message. Five million confess they have been pressured by a boyfriend or girlfriend to send a text with a naked photo. And an alarming 60% of kids who say they have been bullied electronically have never told their parents about the incident.
An opportunity to deliver the lG brand promise by shifting teens' attitudes
Cell phone misuse is expected to escalate as more kids get phones with web access and data plans become more affordable. While today the issue has garnered a lot of media attention, at the time of this effort no cell phone carrier, manufacturer or other commercial voice in the U.S. had become an advocate against the behavior.
At the heart of the LG brand essence "Life's Good" is an overt commitment to make a positive impact on the world. Encouraging teens to text responsibly was an ideal opportunity to continue delivering this promise, and most important, the right thing for LG to do as a technology leader.
Although LG had a noble goal to help reduce mobile bullying, the advertising agency realized that it could never expect to stop the behavior, given its prevalence among youth. But, an effective campaign could change kids' attitudes about the seriousness and importance of the issue. The campaign's ob- jective became to raise consciousness about a behavior that was unconscious.
The Adverising Agency-team agreed that if the campaign successfully changed attitudes, at- titudes, it would have a positive impact on LG's business.
Strategic challenge: How could LG Mobile help change teens' attitudes about mean texting?
Objectives
The goal was to create a campaign whose positive impact on teens' attitudes about mobile bully- ing would also drive LG Mobile's brand perceptions, relevance and consideration among the target audience.
Taking into account that LG had never developed this type of campaign before, it was difficult to set benchmarks, benchmarks, but LG agreed that success would be changing attitudes by 15% and brand relevance and consideration by 10%. LG also aimed to increase brand equity and engagement and generate earned media.
The campaign had two types of objectives:
I. Benchmark-Based
• Attitudinal Shift-Change teens' attitudes and perceptions about mean texting. Grow
115% based on pre-campaign in-market survey benchmark.
• Brand Relevance and consideration-Increase by 10% based on pre-campaign in-market survey benchmark.
II.
Other performance indicators
• Brand Value (equity)-Increase equity of LG Mobile among teens as a socially responsible
company.
• Brand Engagement-Motivate teens to interact with the LG brand.
• Earned Media (and press coverage)-Given that the effort would have minimal media investment ($1.7MM), LG wanted to generate unpaid media to achieve greater awareness of the issue and momentum around LG Mobile.
The Big Idea
Motivate teens to think about the personal consequences of sending a mean text.
teens won't stop texting
LG's research (July 2009) revealed teens felt it was "ok" to share gossip because when they took a photo of a popular kid in a compromised position they were simply reporting on a truth, just like journalists. They were not able to consider the victim's feelings but all could describe a situation where they had sent a text they wished they hadn't.
A time when sharing a text had personal consequences for them. Maybe it backfired. A girl wants to please her boyfriend and sends him a topless picture of herself but the guy then decides to pass it around to his friends when they break up. This they understood and wanted to avoid.
For the campaign to be successful, successful, it had to raise awareness about the personal consequences of mobile misuse. misuse. The big idea was to motivate teens to think of the personal consequences of sending a mean text, which text, which the advertising agency articulated strategically as "think before you text."