GE: #6SECONDSCIENCE FAIR

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Branded Entertainment
Category: Use or Integration of User-Generated Content
Advertiser: GE
Product/Service: TECHNOLOGY
Agency: GENERAL ELECTRIC New York, USA

Client: GE
Product: TECHNOLOGY
Entrant: GENERAL ELECTRIC New York, USA
Type of Entry: Branded Entertainment
Category: Use or Integration of User-Generated Content
Entrant Company : GENERAL ELECTRIC New York, USA
Contributing Company : GENERAL ELECTRIC New York, USA

Executive Director/Global Brand Marketing: Linda Boff (GE)
Global Manager/Digital Marketing: Katrina Craigwell (GE)
Global Manager/Digital Marketing: Sydney Lestrud (GE)

Describe the campaign/entry:
The #6SecondScience Fair campaign was originally disseminated on the social media platform Vine, and it was subsequently repurposed on other social media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube. The terms and conditions of these platforms governed the use and broadcast of the Vine videos used in the campaign. Further, as with all digital advertising campaigns in the United States, the general principles of copyright, right of publicity, and other intellectual property laws apply, as do relevant consumer protection laws promulgated by the applicable governmental bodies.

Results:
The challenge GE faces is making primarily B2B products and services relatable and exciting to our audience. Because we have expertise in so many fields, it’s often hard for people to understand what we actually do. However, by focusing our marketing strategy on science and innovation in general, we can change the public’s perception of GE from “makers of appliances” to “thought-leaders in advanced technology and science.” Our objective was to do just that by positioning ourselves as a first mover on emerging platforms.

The campaign was born from one simple DIY experiment featuring milk, soap, and food coloring on Vine. The post went viral, with over 418k engagements and a slew of subsequent copycat experiments. We saw a bigger opportunity here. The nature of the mobile-only platform was perfect for driving user-generated content, so we launched the world's first #6SecondScience Fair, a week-long celebration of science on Vine.

#6SecondScience Fair was brought to life through micro-content across all of GE’s major social media channels. On Facebook, we employed a complete takeover strategy and devoted all content to the campaign for the week. On Tumblr, we collected and re-blogged the best user-submitted experiments on a custom page. Twitter allowed us to share vines that would play automatically in stream and drive use of the campaign hashtag.

On Pinterest, we created long-form pins with step-by-step instructions for how to replicate the most popular Vine science experiments. YouTube was used to house a recap video featuring the best submissions from the week. Finally, we partnered with BuzzFeed and Mashable to create native, sponsored content that would draw in new and receptive audiences. To scale the campaign quickly, we also identified and partnered with Vine’s top celebrities before any other brand to seed inspirational content.


A comprehensive social strategy activated all of GE’s social properties (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, and Tumblr) to support #6SecondScience with content native to those platforms, driving our full suite of fans and followers to the campaign. Beyond social content, we partnered Buzzfeed and Mashable to produce sponsored stories that looked, felt and performed like the native content audiences have come to expect from them. Finally, a first-of-its-kind influencer program with popular, independent filmmakers on Vine introduced a whole new breed of video stars to the world, while drawing audiences in to participate through exclusive, native, and entertaining content.


For GE, success on social media isn’t measured in sales, but rather in awareness and affinity. Therefore, the objective of the #6SecondScience Fair was to emphasize our dedication to science of all shapes and sizes while further positioning the brand as a first-mover and early adopter of emerging platforms. Moreover, we sought to activate young people to demonstrate their own enthusiasm for science and technology.

By the end of the campaign, more than 600 user-generated #6SecondScience videos had been submitted, and GE's Vine account had added 40k followers, an increase of 281%. The Tumblr gallery received nearly 7k unique visitors who stayed on-site for an average of 2.5 minutes. The YouTube video recapping the campaign has garnered more than 800k views alone, and the campaign’s success led to nearly 50 unique pieces of earned media, including The Atlantic, The Telegraph, Ad Age, and CNET. Best of all, the hashtag is still being used to this day (7.4k mentions to date), proving #6SecondScience was a huge win, both for GE and its target audience.