How Kaplow created crazy buzz for the Skype Wifi product and helped busy travelers throughout the holiday season.

2. PROJECT BRIEF
Category
Free Skype WiFi Keeps Holiday Travelers Connected with Loved Ones
Best Use of Digital/Social
for a Consumer
Technology Campaign
Situation Analysis:
Consumers think of Skype as a way to make free video calls, but Campaign
Skype needed to raise awareness and increase usage of Skype WiFi, Kaplow and Skype Bring
one of the company’s paid products. Kaplow used the holiday You Closer to Home
season, when so many people are traveling, to launch a campaign
Budget
featuring Skype WiFi as a great way for travelers to keep in touch
We cannot disclose the
with loved ones. With “Skype Brings You Closer to Home” we budget for this campaign.
positioned the brand as a hero to frustrated travelers who wanted
to stay in touch with their families. To get people to try Skype WiFi, Description
Skype offered one free hour of Internet access via third-party wireless Kaplow helped busy
hotspots in more than 50 airports across the U.S. from December 21st travelers connect with
thru December 27th. In addition, Skype also extended its free WiFi loved ones during the
offer to many neighborhoods in Manhattan so that revelers from near holiday season by
and far could ring in the New Year with friends and family who were offering free Skype WiFi in
50 U.S.airports, generating
unable to make it to the Big Apple to celebrate the New Year.
warmth for the brand and
a change of behavior
The objectives of this program was to: among
consumers.
• Increase awareness and usage of Skype WiFi, a paid feature.
Key Contact
[ [
Nora Allen
nallen@kaplowpr.com
“Skype Brings You 212.221.1713
Closer to Home”
drove 400,000 minutes
of product usage and
exceeded the brand’s
goals by 30%. This
interactive map showed
travelers at whichairports
where they could find
free Skype WiFi
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3. Strategy
Kaplow studied the traffic flow of the busiest airports in the U.S. as part of the selection criteria for the
promotion. Since moms are the head of the household and much of the travel during the holidays is
family travel, we knew that they would be important to reach with a message about our campaign.
As a result, we studied moms’ behavior and learned that they are heavy consumers of social
networking and social games. Leveraging this data, we distributed an original video touting Skype
WiFi through social games to reach this target audience. We also researched Web sites that had a
heavy focus on travel, moms and families to include in our mix for online video distribution online.
Implementation
Kaplow and Skype used a combination of traditional media relations (earned), branded digital
content (owned) and digital distribution across parenting, family and travel sites (paid) to create
awareness and drive usage of Skype WiFi by holiday travelers.
Interactive Skype WiFi Map: To make it easy for consumers to try Skype WiFi, we developed an
interactive map that travelers could visit to learn which airports were participating in the
promotion.
Consumer Media Relations: In addition to pitching tech, travel and consumer media, wConsumer
media relations” copy after heading with: In addition to pitching tech, travel and consumer
media, we also issue an Audio News Release (ANR) and broadcast on local television news
stations letting harried travelers know about the free Skype WiFi offer at their local airports.
Branded Video Creation & Distribution: To bring Skype WiFi to life, we shot original content at
Westchester County Airport illustrating how travelers could use Skype WiFi. In addition to being
shared with broadcast media, this video was also seeded across online media sites and social
games through Kaplow’s paid distribution network.
[ The Skype WiFi how-to video showed
travelers how to use Skype WiFi and
was viewed over 500,000 times. [
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4. Social Media Content: To increase engagement, we drafted multiple blog posts about the free
Skype WiFi promotion and also disseminated related content on Twitter using the #freeSkypeWiFi
hashtag.
Foursquare Tips Campaign: We left creative localized tips on the main airport check-in venues on
Foursquare so travelers could learn about the free WiFi offer when they were in a participating
airport.
[ Localized Foursquare tips helped to spread the word
to travelers who checked in a participating airports.
[
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5. Summary Results:
Kaplow helped busy travelers connect with loved ones
during the holiday season using free Skype WiFi in airports,
generating warmth for the brand and a change of
behavior among consumers. The “Skype Brings You Closer
to Home” campaign drove nearly 400,000 minutes of
usage of the product in the participating airports during
the promotional period, exceeding the brand’s goal by
30%. During the campaign, we received over 250 media
placements, the vast majority of which were online
(more than 200MM earned impressions), while tweets
about Skype WiFi increased fourteen-fold. In addition, the
company went from zero to 2,000 Foursquare followers
and gained over 83,000 new Facebook ‘Likes’ and almost
3,000 new Twitter followers.
[ [
“It drives me crazy when I have time to kill at
an airport that doesn’t offer free Wi-Fi. With so
many business and leisure travelers toting
laptops, it seems this should be a no-brainer.”
[ “The folks at Skype are now doing what they
can to help make the long journey before the
reunion a little easier for travelers.” [
[ “Travelers stuck at the airport during the holidays
will find at least one free gift, courtesy of Skype.
[
[ “If you pick an iDevice, then it’s the Skype WiFi
app you’ll be wanting updated in the lead up
to midnight.” [
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