When the Aflac duck made its Facebook debut in April of 2009, little did the insurance company know how much of a social media splash the duck would make. In the first month the page drew 85,000 fans, way past the original estimate of 13,000, says Jon Sullivan, external communications manager at Aflac.
Five months later, an integrated campaign was launched that would further intensify Aflac’s Facebook presence—as well as the duck’s—while raising a cool $1 million for a good cause.
The campaign blended three elements:
• A contest for child cancer patients at the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta, in which the kids could redesign the colors of NASCAR driver Carl Edwards’ Aflac-sponsored race car;
• A traditional PR campaign around the contest; and,
• A fundraising effort for the Cancer Center driven by a dedicated causes page on Facebook. Aflac contributed one dollar any time someone joined the ACC causes page and matched donations up to $1 million.
Executed by Aflac’s social media arm and the Zimmerman Agency, the campaign results were stellar: “On Sept. 8, two days after the Color Carl’s Car PR event, 26,039 fans were joining Facebook each day, or 16 per minute,” says Sullivan. Most importantly, the donation pool totaled nearly $1.2 million.