We’re over the moon and smiling from ear to ear and have our friends at Hello World Agency to thank for submitting the entry and for helping us generate an incredible amount of exposure during the campaign. Congrats to Woolworths and Gloo for winning a Bronze Loerie for the original Lovebirds site and thanks for giving us the opportunity to do what we did.

For those of you who don’t know, The Loeries are South Africa’s top advertising and communication design awards and have been running for 32 years. They are all about ‘recognizing, rewarding and fostering creative excellence’ and encompass every area of brand communication.

Our Lovebirds campaign (read the original story here) showed how a simple idea, quickly acted upon can pack an enormous punch thanks to the advent of social media and traditional media channels working hand in hand.

One ransom note, a single blog post and a URL registration fee of R70 hi-jacked a social media campaign planned months in advance by two of SA’s leading agencies. In 14 days the ransom generated more than R3,5 million in media coverage while raising more than R100,000 for the charity Soil for Life and the blog post received more visits than the nationally advertised Woolies competition website.

What made it fly? People were captured by the idea of a small, nimble online company taking advantage of a morsel of opportunity, while fleecing Woolies for a good cause as they took their first bungling steps into the world of social media. Cheeky, we know, but we got away with it.

Many manufactured viral campaigns are driven by rewarding people for spreading the word in re-tweet-and-win or share-to-win fashions. It is interesting to note that in this case the motivation for people to spread the word was to help a charity, support the underdogs and play a part in what the Mail & Guardian called a ‘David & Goliath story’. “The power of a great social idea has been proven through this campaign,” says Dani Vos, from Hello World Agency, “and we look forward to embracing this kind of smart thinking every day with brands like Yuppiechef.”

For some, the big question was whether we saw a spike in sales. The short answer is no, however, the obvious and immediate benefits were great awareness, positive word of mouth and the strong sense of community created among our fans who played an integral role in the campaign.

Being an online store, our world is the internet. We live, breath and communicate with our fans each day through social media. Everyone out there is taking their best guess at what social media means for their business, as are we. Over time we are seeing the growing impact that social media is having on our business, but truth be told, there are no formulas we can follow or ‘experts’ to consult with. It’s a new frontier that we are exploring daily and we’re enjoying the ride.

For further comment on this campaign or interviews contact Paul Galatis at paul@yuppiechef.com or call (021) 702 4969.