The Financial Times launched an interactive marketing campaign using video and 3D projections to engage its US and global audiences. Gemma Huckle reports
International business news and information organisation, the Financial Times, has experienced strong digital growth in the US market, with subscriptions to FT.com growing 30 per cent in 2011. Keen to create more ways to engage and connect with its US and global audiences, the FT selected advertising agency DDB to launch its interactive ‘Graphic world’ campaign.
Housed at Vanderbilt Hall in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, the ‘FT graphic world’ exhibit projected a series of 3D interactive films and infographics onto a 70 foot-tall wall to help raise awareness of its award-winning content.
Story time
The films, created in collaboration with David McCandless author of Information is Beautiful, focused on three topics pertinent to the FT’s target audience of global leaders and business decision makers in business, finance and politics. These topics were: the US and global economy; the mobile technology revolution and the global recovery. Each topic related to the FT’s news and analysis expertise.
Thanks to a touch-sensitive floor mat, the display enabled visitors to interact with the films and explore the content in greater detail.
Social media activity
The campaign was officially launched on 27 March with an exclusive reception hosted by the FT’s US managing editor, Gillian Tett.
The marketing channels used to roll out the campaign were mostly digitally focused. This included a campaign microsite, ftgraphicworld.com, which featured information about the campaign, as well as a weeklong trial subscription to FT.com. In addition, social media activity was conducted on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube and Instagram. Inhouse ads were included in the organisation’s main newspaper and on the website, as were banner adverts. Outdoor advertising played its part too, appearing in Times Square and on taxi screens throughout New York City to further heighten brand awareness.
Hi-tech challenges
Although the campaign was very sophisticated and hi-tech, the FT had to overcome the fact that it was unable to test the projections at the venue prior to the launch – instead it had to visualise how the final exhibit would look.
Despite this minor barrier, ‘FT graphic world’ had a positive impact on growing brand awareness in and beyond the New York market. The campaign had a total reach of nearly seven million people on Twitter, with over 1.5 million impressions of the campaign hashtag, #FTGW. The campaign’s peak rate of tweets reached 826 per hour. Online and geo-targeted campaign advertising initiatives reached an audience of over 1.5 million. In addition, over 30 pieces of global news coverage was generated.
The FT says it will be exploring the idea of taking the installation beyond New York to other US cities, although there is no definitive plan to do this yet.
Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com, commented, “FT Graphic World embodies how the FT, as a pre-eminent source of business news and analysis, supplies its readers with a snapshot of actionable information from around the globe each day. The infographics bring this data to life in the same way that our journalism is presented – with great clarity, across multiple platforms, and from a global perspective. The campaign also represents a substantial investment in the US market, where our digital subscriptions grew by over 30 per cent in 2011.”
