Happy Holiplay

CLIENT

Hostway is the 5th largest web hosting company in the world. Hostway is an international company that is Chicago-based with additional offices located throughout the United States, Canada, England, Germany, Korea and Australia.

BACKGROUND

For the holiday season, Hostway wanted to create an online, interactive experience that not only promoted the fact that they were giving away $50,000 to two worthy charities, but also enhanced brand awareness.

THE SOLUTION

We used a combination of nostalgic design, charming 3D animation, engaging game play and a touch of humor to create a microsite called Happy Holiplay. In its entirety, the site consisted of three interactive games and an e-card functionality that put a light-hearted twist on the spirit of the season - from barf-o-rama and body-bowling to a self-eating gingerbread man and gas-inducing fruitcakes.

To encourage repeat visits, we rolled out the project in three stages. In the first two stages, game-players and e-card senders were asked to vote for which of the two charities they wanted to receive Hostway's donation. In the final stage, the interactive game was tied to revealing the results of how the donation was divided among the two charities based on the percentage of votes each received.

To create awareness of and promote traffic to the site, we also created emails that were sent to people who opted-in to receive information about Hostway games after visiting the Holiplay site, as well as banner ads that featured characters from the games and e-cards.

SUCCESS METRICS

Happy Holiplay was created as a brand awareness initiative and opportunity to engage with consumers both new and old. The site was live for two months and attracted over 2 million unique visitors and over 380,000 repeat visitors.