SPUR DIGITAL’s “FROGS!” INTERACTIVE WEB SITE GRABS COVER OF PR WEEK
HOUSTON, TX (January 4, 2008) – Spur Digital, a leading interactive marketing agency recently landed national attention when its innovative marketing campaign for the Houston Natural Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) was featured on the cover of PR Week(Dec. 17), the leading national trade magazine for the PR industry.
Spur Digital CEO Steve Latham said the interactive agency was challenged to create something fun, light and out of the box to promote the HMNS traveling exhibit, Frogs: A Chorus of Colors to kids, families and young adults. “We had to entertain, educate and engage a specific audience, and, at the same time, drive ticket sales,” Latham said.
Spur’s solution was to create an interactive micro-site, FrogsAtHMNS.com, which allowed interaction with the exhibit in a variety of ways. A live “Frog Cam” let visitors watch live tadpoles develop into frogs 24/7. Even more irresistible was “Project Frogway,” which let viewers dress viral frogs in outfits and accessories ranging from “hip hop” to “fashionista.” They then named their own frog, watched it strut its stuff on the runway and got to send an e-postcard inviting their friends to view it. The e-postcard included a link to the micro-site, and it served as the viral backbone of the promotion.
“We feel the Frogs interactive micro-site is some of our best creative work yet, and its viral component not only raises the bar for regionally-targeted interactive campaigns, but also serves well for any national campaign with similar objectives. As PR Week noted, we were able to ‘avoid using more traditional (and more expensive) advertising methods and media and keep costs within the range of a local marketing budget,’” Latham said.
PR Week further cited Spur’s “progressive thinking and success with the campaign as not only helping brand the museum as innovative, creative leaders for using interactive media, but helping further shift the museum’s marketing focus toward the internet.” “It’s great to work with clients like HMNS that appreciate the importance of customer interaction and brand engagement, and how they ultimately lead to higher attendance, revenue and ROI,” Latham said.
The Frogs campaign had tremendous success, with 12.5 million impressions and 85,000 site visits, many of which translated into the 10,000 online ticket translations, not to mention tickets sold at the Museum.
FrogsAtHMNS.com is just one of a series of exhibit micro-sites designed, marketed and managed by Spur Digital. Other interactive campaigns receiving national attention include www.my76video.com, which features a video sharing, viewing and voting campaign and www.yourBTSlook.com, patterned after a MySpace profile page to attract and engage back-to-school shoppers for Stage Stores. The Stage Stores site was featured in the October 2007 issue of Stores, a national retail magazine.
About Spur Digital
Spur Digital is a full-service Houston-based Interactive Agency. Spur Digital helps clients leverage the Web to grow their business by developing, implementing and managing online marketing solutions that include web strategies, media planning, campaign management, ROI measurement, optimization, web analytics, search engine marketing and email marketing. Spur’s clients include Southwest Airlines, FedEx Kinko’s, Amegy Bank of Texas, Texas Industries, Camden Realty, Pro-Mark Drum Sticks, and the Houston Museum of Natural Science, to name a few. Additional information can be found at www.spurdigital.com.