Goethe‐Institut Campaign “German Jungle – Twist your tongue”

1.
Case Study | Goethe Institut
Goethe‐Institut Campaign “German
Jungle – Twist your tongue”
9 countries | 14 Facebook pages |
11,000 participants | 29,000 new fans |
137,935 views
Goethe-Institut is the cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany with a global reach. With 136 institutes in 93 countries
and about 3,300 employees around the world Goethe-Institut has 60 years of experience in teaching German as a foreign
language. The institute also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on its culture, society and politics and
has more than 200,000 attendees for language courses worldwide.
OBJECTIVE
The main objective of the campaign was to generate sympathy for the German language as a foreign language in Middle-
Eastern Europe and in the USA (an overall of 9 countries) using the creative potential of their young audience and advertising
the language courses in designated regions. The additional objective was to adopt new digital marketing channels, in particular
using their existing Facebook page, to reach out to new Goethe-Institut fans. According to the requirements of the campaign two
target groups were specified: young adults at the age of 18- 24 in the USA and teenagers at the age of 13 -17 from MEE
countries.

2. CHALLENGES
The high diversification of multi-country target groups was a bit of a challenge at first. iCrossing had the hurdle of various
country-specific barriers and had to cooperate close with the specific countries. We had a tight timeframe for the ramp up,
development of the actual app and approaching the diverse target groups via different social spaces like a blogger outreach,
viral seeding, public relations and offline activities in local schools.
IDEA
If you want to learn the foreign language properly, the best way is to learn it in the target country itself. That’s why Goethe-
Institut decided to invite some Facebook fans to Berlin for a great weekend packed with some cultural activities. The fans were
selected via video contest on Facebook where the fans of Goethe-Institut´s local pages, in nine countries, were invited to upload
their own video, where they had to include a tongue-twister in one sentence and in a funny situation. The Facebook fans then
voted for the best video. The winners from MEE won the fun weekend in Berlin and the US winners won a multi-week language
course. Facebook fans then had a chance to vote on several tasks that the winners had to fulfill in Berlin. The winners also had
a chance to ask a question to the Facebook fans via video on which the fans could answer and then win a prize themselves.
iCrossing chose Facebook as their main campaign channel in alliance to all social and owned spaces to increase the traffic and
fans and additionally promoted them offline within the local institutes. We created a multi tier campaign to ensure high
engagement throughout a longer timeframe with a ramp-up via a paid media campaign to ensure critical mass for all Facebook
pages.
EXECUTION
iCrossing developed the rough concept in June and by the end of July realized a detailed concept for the development of a
Facebook app (multilevel and multilingual). The Facebook app contained phases which the users had to accomplish. At first the
user had to include a video where they had to say tongue-twister in German. The Facebook fans were able to vote online and
the winners with the funniest and best spoken sentences won a weekend in Berlin (MEE). During their residence in Berlin the
Facebook fans voted several tasks that they had to solve onsite. In the last part of the campaign the winners asked questions in
their native language via video. The videos were then integrated into the Facebook app. The users could answer these on the
Facebook page and now the users had the chance to win a prize by giving the correct answer. iCrossing developed all
Facebook country level fan pages in regards to design and apps and held Social Media workshops for all participating country
institutes, where content and dialog strategies were declared onsite. We had a ramp-up paid media campaign to increase the
reach of the fan base and additionally implemented paid media throughout the campaign in 9 countries. By seeding in different
social spaces and an active outreach we increased our earned media reach and supported the strategy we built. We centralized
the campaign with local execution in 9 countries on 14 Facebook pages.
RESULTS
During the contest the app was accessed more than 100,000 times by an active participant number of more than 11,000 users.
We generated 167 user videos which were viewed 137,935 times. 2,320 invitations were sent via the app. In the USA the
minimum reach via earned media was about ~75,000 views, a minimum reach including the paid media of more than 253 million
views. In MEE the minimum reach of earned media was about ~336,555 views and a minimum reach including the paid media
of more than 481 million views. In total we reached a minimum earned media of more than 410,000 views and 734 million views.
During the whole campaign Goethe Institut received an increase of 29,000 new fans which corresponds to a total of 220%.
iCrossing reached a high media coverage of online and offline media during the complete campaign.
"iCrossing was able to convince us of their long time experience and
understanding of our brand values."
‐Birgit Weckerle, Head of Marketing and Sales