DMC developed the strategy for the ground-breaking Weird Flatmate connected marketing campaign …

We developed the strategy for the ground-breaking ‘Weird Flatmate’ connected marketing campaign, for Australia’s leading property web site realestate.com.au, propertyfinder.com in the UK and allrealestate.co.nz.

The campaign aims to generate a buzz and kickstart viral word of mouth among consumers in order to increase awareness of the three property brands. The campaign starting points were a planned survey about shared accommodation, and a fun video clip called ‘Weirdo’ created by realestate.com.au’s ad agency cummins&partners, which reveals some of the unsavoury hidden realities of flatsharing.

Our first remit was to tie everything together - to come up with a buzz idea that would not only get consumers talking about the campaign and the brands, but also encourage them to interact with the brands on an ongoing basis.

The basic concept is that everyone has at some time lived with people they don’t get on with, or someone they think they know and then find out they don’t after all. The idea of getting everyone to share their weird flatmate experiences via a fun, brand-sponsored online blog - which would also contain some survey results and the video clip - was born.

The blog was created by DMC and realestate.com.au’s interactive agency Webqem, and is run by an independent blog editor. Its initial user-submitted content came from the online surveys run in the UK and Australia. The blog enables people to submit images, videos, jokes and stories; comment on other people’s content; vote in weekly polls about key flatmate issues such as ‘Loo seat up or down?’; and send the Weird Flatmate URL to their mates to share the fun.

In addition, the blog contains copies of the campaign video clip, which has also been seeded via targeted features to UK, Australian and New Zealand users on the massively consumer-driven network Myspace.com - a first for this kind of marketing campaign.

After download, the clip is passed from peer to peer, enabling people to interact further with the campaign’s sponsor brands via a hotlink that takes viewers through the video clip to the blog. The clip is being tracked by our proprietary viral technology to measure the impact on brand awareness.

A PR campaign about the survey results and the campaign has also been launched as part of the connected marketing activity, with coverage containing buzzlinks to the blog.

You can visit the blog and download the Weirdo video clip here