Downy: MIKE IN THE WINDOW

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Special Events and Stunt/Live Advertising

Advertiser: PROCTER & GAMBLE

Product/Service: DOWNY FABRIC SOFTENER

Agency: DIGITAS

Date of First Appearance: Jan 21 2011

Entrant Company: DIGITAS, Boston, USA

Entry URL: http://www.nycworkshowcase.com/boston_submissions/cannes-2011/MIKE_WINDOW/

Chief Creative Officer: Mark Beeching (Digitas)

Executive Creative Director: Rob Rizzo (Digitas)

Group Creative Director: Mitch Levy (Digitas)

Vice President/Director of Creative: Peter Tschudy (Digitas)

Vice President/Director of Account Planning: Laura Rollins (Digitas)

Senior Copywriter: Kait Strovink (Digitas)

Senior Art Director: Matt McGowan (Digitas)

Producer: Gerry Izzo (Digitas)

Interaction Design: Scott Salsbury (Digitas)

Sr. Designer: SuYoung Kim (Digitas)

Vice President/Director of Marketing: Amy Snelling (Digitas)

Marketing Manager: Emily Midgley (Digitas)

Marketing Associate: Francesca Sorrentino (Digitas)

Technology Manager: Chris Robert (Digitas)

External Relations: Sarah Pasquinucci (Proctor & Gamble)

Vice President: Jillian Kwolek (DeVries Public Relations)

Assistant Brand Manager: Tatiana Quaife (Proctor & Gamble)

Brand Manager: Marty Vanderstelt (Proctor & Gamble)

Connections Manager: Andres Mongrue (SMG)

Video Editor: Matt Macomber (Gigunda)

Media placement: Facebook Paid Ads - Facebook.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: Facebook – Downy Brand Posts - Facebook.com - 21 January 2011

Media placement: YouTube Text Ad - YouTube.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: Sponsored Youtube Video - YouTube.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: YouTube Call To Action Overlay - YouTube.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: Promoted Account (@Downy) - Twitter.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: Promoted Trend (#mikeinwindow) - Twitter.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: Downy.com Homepage Ad Unit - Downy.com - 21 January 2011

Media placement: Tide.com Special Offers - Tide.com - 26 January 2011

Media placement: HTML Promotional Email - P&G Fabric Care Newlsetter Database - 27 January 2011



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

When DOWNY came out with a new 7-day freshness formula, they were looking to spread awareness and provide a proof point. The goal? Convert sceptics and draw the attention of “millennial” disengaged with the category.



The idea began with an insight: Freshness matters more for some fabrics than others. Like sheets. Everyone loves climbing into fresh, clean sheets. With DOWNY, clean sheet day becomes Clean Sheet Week. The brand quickly realized the value of an emotional platform for their 7-day claim. And in the social media space, people were already spending a good deal of time sharing their clean-sheet-day love, from dedicated Facebook groups to blogs to online poetry forums. It was time for DOWNY to join the conversation—and prove their claim.



Creative Execution

To prove clean sheet day could last all week, we built an event installation so bizarrely transparent, it became buzz-worthy. We asked comedian, and famously bad sleeper, Mike Birbiglia to live (and sleep) inside a Macy’s display window in New York—to put the freshness of ULTRA DOWNY APRIL FRESH to the test. For a week. Live.



Suddenly, fabric softener became interesting. Crowds of people stood by at all hours of the day. Millions tuned in to watch on Facebook. Everywhere, we encouraged people to keep Mike company over social media channels—tweet from the window, or post on Facebook—to ask Mike questions and suggest what to do next. We drew traffic to the experience through Facebook and YouTube media, Macy’s social presence, and online giveaways. Mike became a living billboard, at the nexus of a large-scale social media conversation everyone could be a part of.



Results and Effectiveness

Mike in the Window turned fabric softener into a hot topic, with 500 million media impressions worldwide. The first live-stream program to come from P&G was also acknowledged as “first of its kind” by Facebook. It upped DOWNY’s social media presence, welcoming 1.5 million to Mike in the Window's tab and adding 16,800 Twitter followers.



The program found a young audience while keeping moms entertained. We hit 8 million views on our YouTube channel. Organic search for DOWNY’s site is up 53%. Mike in the Window was a daily escape, and a reason to give DOWNY’s a second look.