Buongiorno has revealed the results of its 500,000 (420,000) viral advertising campaign, which ran in September and October, and was designed to stimulate interest in its new mobile social networking offering, blinko.  blinko, the first Italian social network designed for mobile phones, is nearing its launch date and can currently be tried in beta mode by clicking here.
The blinko campaign developed the concept of friendship and the desire to stay in touch digitally via mobile phone. Using the strapline: Your friends are always with you, it featured a human chain made up of over 100 extras, dressed according to what they are currently doing. This includes a chef cooking, a surfer dressed in his surf gear, a girl going to sleep with her favorite pillow, a scuba diver in his wetsuit and mask, a hostess in uniform and even a karate champion. The objective of the video is to underline the main feature of the blinko service: with status updates, you can take your friends with you wherever you go – not just when you are in front of your PC.
The campaign ran on websites and blogs chosen for their ability to influence the opinions of web surfers and that cater to the target audience. Distribution was handled by GoViral, with the objective of seeding it on up to 10,000 websites and blogs and contacting more than half a million potential blinko users in Italy and Spain.
As of 14 November, Buongiorno reports that the video had 411,101 total views, with unique visits to  www.realtimerealpeople.com totalling 3,135. 12% of these, after seeing the video on the web, requested an invitation code for blinko. Of these, 27% went on to subscribe to blinko.
When facing the challenge of launching a mobile native social network, we wanted to generate a buzz about this new service and its name with the target audience of digital natives, says Buongiorno Head of Marketing Communication, Lucia Predolin. To achieve this, it made a lot of sense to think viral, and the results proved us right beyond expectations, with more than 415,000 views in key markets and  several thousands requests for the Invitation Code to use blinko and its free SMS feature. Also, and quite unexpectedly, the video spilled out its core markets of Italy and Spain achieving more than 80,000 views in English-speaking countries, confirming the global appeal of the campaign and of blinko itself.
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