Building Colin’s Book Club

Colin the chameleon caused quite a stir last month, by going missing in the jungle. Thankfully, we had lots of help to locate him, and he’s now safely back home where we’ll keep a closer eye on him in future. This blog explores how we created this fun campaign aimed at increasing client engagement levels.

 

 

Our aim was to develop a competition that would engage with our clients in a way that would showcase our skill and encapsulate our quirky style. Chameleons are famous for their ability to cameouflage themselves, and so we hit upon the idea of using Colin as the focal point for setting a visual challenge.

 

We developed a jungle scene that was crammed full of a wide range of characters, some of whom were references to projects we’d delivered in the past, but many more were incidental passers-by in a rich tapestry of tropical tomfoolery.

 

The purpose of the illustration was to create as much ‘jungle noise’ as possible, to thereby distract from and conceal the whereabouts of Colin, to give the competition just the right level of difficulty. The objective was to spot Colin, and for our clients to then tell us where he was hiding. You can view the final illustration here.

 

Every competition needs a prize, so next we needed to source a suitable chameleon-related reward. The children’s book The Colourblind Chameleon was the perfect accompaniment. We sourced the book online, enjoyed reading it, and purchased 50 copies. As an added bonus, the author agreed to sign each book as well.

 

We then promoted the competition to our clients by producing several animated emails. We ran the competition during the annual I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! TV event, and we used this as a theme for one of the emails:

 

 

 

The response to the campaign was overwhelming – we soon decided to extend the competition by re-ordering 50 more books. One book was awarded to every correct answer, and it didn’t take long before we’d given out all 100 books.

 

In the months preceding our campaign, our site averaged 300 unique visitors per month, with a total of 350 individual sessions per month. For the month in which the campaign ran, our site received over 750 unique visits, with just under 1,000 individual sessions, an increase in traffic of nearly 300%.

But it wasn’t ever going to be just about the numbers, it was also about the impact it would have on our clients. And here’s a selection of some of the comments we received as a result of this activity:

“I loved the book, as did my three year old daughter. Brilliant stuff!'”

 

“I just wanted to email you to let you know that I have received the book, which my kids love! So a big thank you from me and my boys.”

 

“I didn’t know quite how much I would enjoy a little ad-hoc reptile hunting!”

 

“I was always rubbish at Where’s Wally, so feel I’ve redeemed myself now! Such a clever idea.”

 

“My little boy will love the book (and not so secretly I will too!)”

 

“I was in contract hell so needed a minor diversion. Colin popped into by inbox, and he was a welcome relief!’

 

In the final email to our competition winners, we asked them to send in photos of themselves with the book. Here are some of the responses we received: