Our Work: Internet/Viral Marketing
iCORN.com
When iCORN.com, the first internet seed-corn company, needed a way to stand out and generate buzz about what they were up to, they turned to 5MetaCom. Together we set out to get people talking about the company…and generate some goodwill in the process.
iCORN.com had a strong history of word-of-mouth referrals throughout farming communities, so we knew we could get farmers talking; it was just a matter of finding the right trigger. Our research revealed that farmers were more likely to talk about iCORN.com if there was a good cause involved.
Our solution was to launch a viral marketing campaign: the Seeds of Knowledge, $30,000 for College video contest. Farmers nominated a student for a scholarship and then that student made a video. The videos were then subject to online voting by viewers.
The student submitting the winning video received a share of $30,000 for college (in the form of a scholarship) and the sponsoring farmer received a share of $30,000 in iCORN.com seed.
The contest was supported by print, radio and online advertisements, public relations and print collateral. The contest website received more than 1.2 million votes and did more than just spread the word about iCORN.com as an internet seed-corn company—it spread the word through agricultural communities that iCORN.com was a company that cared.
