Media Palette Hong Kong builds brand with iButterfly

"When we first launched in May 2010, clients would say ‘Media Palette – who?’. The market is really dominated by the likes of OMD and Starcom,” said Ken Matsumura, president of Media Palette Hong Kong in an interview with Campaign.

While the new agency had a portfolio of clients from Dentsu Hong Kong to draw from, it was also tasked with proactively pitching for new accounts and eventually becoming the regional hub for Media Palette’s offices in Asia-Pacific. When the Hong Kong office was established, the agency network already had offices in 11 markets including Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.

“I was looking for something that we could implement in this market to build perception. Something newsworthy that would set us apart from the competition,” said Matsumura.

Dentsu Tokyo has a department focused on taking advantage of the latest technology and turning out products that help the agency maintain its status as one known for cutting-edge creativity. From the portfolio of products it had launched, Matsumura chose iButterfly.

“The mobile app had actually been launched over a year ago in Tokyo but was positioned differently. It was more of a public relations tool featuring celebrities and was soon retired,” explained Matsumura. “From living in Hong Kong, I felt the popularity of smartphones and the love for a good deal would make iButterfly perfect for this market.”

iButterfly was a mobile app that combined augmented reality, location-based marketing, social gaming and coupon marketing. Users use their smartphones to scan the area around them for virtual butterflies which they can “catch” with a flick of the phone. The butterflies can be collected and often redeemed for prizes.

Matsumura was determined to position iButterfly as its own media platform, rather than as a supplement to an ongoing client campaign. Instead of buying the programme wholesale from Japan, he instead licensed it and set about developing a more robust platform. Teaming up with local digital agency Cherrypicks, the agencies worked for six months to perfect the app and its delivery service.

The app launched in May this year with three main campaigns from Page One bookstores, Pacific Coffee Company (PCC) and Adidas Climacool.

“It was important to have all the campaigns feature attractive prizes. For example, Adidas Climacool’s grand prize was a coupon for HK$800 (US$95) and PCC’s grand prize was 100 cups of coffee,” said Matsumura. “The campaigns attracted a lot of PR and gave us quite a boost.”

iButterfly also developed its own following on Facebook, a page Media Palette monitors closely. “We’ve learnt a lot from our Facebook fanbase — how to modify the app for different Android phone models and problem solving,” said Paula Yang, Media Palette’s associate director of digital communications. “We gather all their feedback and address them if we can.”

One issue they learnt about via Facebook was the function that allowed users to give iButterflies to each other. A glitch only allowed users to receive duplicate butterflies, but this was soon solved once it was reported on Facebook.

“We’re not just learning how to manage a mobile media platform, we’re also learning about customer service and running an active Facebook fan page,” said Yang.

Customer feedback also prompted a change of plan in the Samsung Galaxy S2 campaign on iButterfly.  “If users caught the butterflies ‘G’ , ‘A’ , ‘L’,  ‘A’,  ‘X’, ‘Y', and ‘S2’, they would win themselves a new smartphone. All the other butterflies had been launched and were fairly easy to catch, but the S2 was the truly elusive one. We were planning on just releasing them quietly but users on Facebook kept asking when and where. Finally we released the time and location the butterflies would be released and thousands showed up at Causeway Bay, hoping to win themselves a tablet,” said Matsumura.

The crowd that showed up, while primarily young, covered a wide demographic, observed Matsumura. “There both guys and girls, older and younger smartphone users,” he said.

Four months on and the mobile app is still going strong with over 6,600 fans on Facebook. Its current campaign is for the Airport Express. Collecting all three butterflies ‘Airport’, ‘Express’, and ‘Sure Thing’ gets users 50 per cent off on their next journey ticket.

“The Airport Express is promoting this campaign heavily in Hong Kong MTR stations and even on the announcement boards where ad space can’t even be bought,” said Matsumura.

Key to the mobile app’s success, he said, is its continuous maintenance as a media platform. “We create content for users to find, catch and collect even if there are no client promotions on. Creating a fun and attractive user experience is really important to us,” he said.

iButterfly has also made an appearance in Singapore recently in a campaign with The Body Shop. “It’s not quite the same iButterfly as we have here in Hong Kong – that is more of a one-off promotion. However we’re in talks with the Singapore office about bringing iButterfly to Singapore,” said Matsmura. “Technically, we can fly the butters anywhere in the world.”

Overall, Matsumura is quite satisfied with the success of iButterfly. “It’s become an icon in the mobile marketing landscape and has achieved everything I hoped for,” he said. “I have my eye on bringing in a few other apps but we’re still considering.”