Case Study of Virtual Gift Sponsorship by tike – the toddler bike Contact: Belinda Jensen Email: belinda@minti.com Skype: belinda.jensen3 Mobile: 0400 917 577 www.minti.com

About Minti Minti is a Web 2.0 style site where parents can share and gain valuable advice on parenting . The huge range of parent advice content is created by-parents-for-parents in the form of articles, blogs, photos, questions and answers. The content is then rated and commented on by the community to ensure quality, integrity and relevance. Minti has almost 30,000 members who have created nearly 7,000 parenting articles The site gets an average 679,000 monthly page impressions.

Minti is a Web 2.0 style site where parents can share and gain valuable advice on parenting .

The huge range of parent advice content is created by-parents-for-parents in the form of articles, blogs, photos, questions and answers.

The content is then rated and commented on by the community to ensure quality, integrity and relevance.

Minti has almost 30,000 members who have created nearly 7,000 parenting articles

The site gets an average 679,000 monthly page impressions.

The campaign concept tike is a Wooden Balance Bike created by LivePlayCreate. LivePlayCreate approached minti looking for a unique online advertising opportunity to promote tikes. Minti presented social media marketing concept that leveraged the existing behaviours of their online community. Minti members often ‘thank’ each other (for advice, answers, etc) by sending virtual gifts. To date these gifts have been generic (birthday cake, champagne, etc). Minti proposed the creation of a tike gift that could be sent within the community by the community. A unique online marketing opportunity that delivered amazing results.

How did it work? The seed . Minti sends the tike as a free gift to entire member base via HTML e-mail The initial engagement . Gifts are gratefully opened by members and the free tikes are stored in their personal gift cabinet page. The viral effect . Members encouraged to send tikes to other minti members. Every friend that accepts their gift provides a chance to win a real tike bike. Blog reactions . Member blogs buzz with discussion about these funky products. Everlasting love . Content created by the community (blogs, gift images and messages) gets indexed by search engines delivering everlasting search engine traffic for the advertiser.

The seed . Minti sends the tike as a free gift to entire member base via HTML e-mail

The initial engagement . Gifts are gratefully opened by members and the free tikes are stored in their personal gift cabinet page.

The viral effect . Members encouraged to send tikes to other minti members. Every friend that accepts their gift provides a chance to win a real tike bike.

Blog reactions . Member blogs buzz with discussion about these funky products.

Everlasting love . Content created by the community (blogs, gift images and messages) gets indexed by search engines delivering everlasting search engine traffic for the advertiser.

How did it work?

The results? A tike sent every 20 seconds! 27,029 tikes sent from minti to the community Additional 14,493 tikes sent member-to-member 149 blog reactions in the community for “tike” ...and still creating community buzz!

A tike sent every 20 seconds!

27,029 tikes sent from minti to the community

Additional 14,493 tikes sent member-to-member

149 blog reactions in the community for “tike”

...and still creating community buzz!

Community responses show brand engagement Community Love! Member Engagement!

A very happy advertiser

What are the benefits? This provides excellent value for money with the following measurable benefits: Minti mail sent to ~30,000 members On send of product – tike had 14,000 on-sent products by our parents to one another – reducing the average cost per product message Customer engagement through blogs/word-of-mouth and branding adds to the overall value proposition Links to tike landing page – each image of an accepted gift links to advertiser page. tike now has thousands of linked images on Minti which will remain in each member’s Gift Cabinet forever.

This provides excellent value for money with the following measurable benefits:

Minti mail sent to ~30,000 members

On send of product – tike had 14,000 on-sent products by our parents to one another – reducing the average cost per product message

Customer engagement through blogs/word-of-mouth and branding adds to the overall value proposition

Links to tike landing page – each image of an accepted gift links to advertiser page. tike now has thousands of linked images on Minti which will remain in each member’s Gift Cabinet forever.