Text Ed with Jane Lynch
Best Use of Public Relations in a Promotion Campaign
Best Campaign Targeting a Specific Demographic
Best Creative
Agency: Alcone Marketing Group
Campaign: Text Ed with Jane Lynch
Client: LG Electronics
Mobile phone manufacturer LG wanted to do something about all the misuse of cell phones today, including sexting, mobile bullying, driving while texting and more. The company’s focus groups and surveys uncovered that, to create a conversation between teens and parents, they needed to not come across as preachy.
They decided to take a light-hearted approach and resorted to comedy to engage and educate parents about the issues without alienating them. They needed to identify a credible spokesperson who had both parent and teen appeal and could drive the story, while positioning LG as a leader in educating parents about Mobile Phone Misuse as the same time.
They hired Jane Lynch as the celebrity spokesperson for an original online video series that mimicked school sex ed class, calling it LG Text Ed, and harnessed Jane’s in-your face humor, combined with her appeal among both parents and teens.
To set a disruptive, viral tone for the program, LG created an elaborate back-story, complete with police mug shot, of Jane being arrested for text-raging and texting while driving. After a stint in LG Text Rehab, Jane’s story went from text offender to text educator, as her community service was to teach a room full of clueless parents about teen mobile phone misuse.
The program, which ran from August-December, included five text ed classes, starring Jane, appearing on LGTextEd.com, Facebook and YouTube. Each class educated parents about different forms of mobile phone misuse. Each class ended with a link to more information from the LG Text Ed Advisory Council.
Jane’s role as LG’s Text Educator and the “leaked” mug shot was featured on Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood. Jane also appeared on The Insider, The View, Access Hollywood Live and Fox & Friends, while the story was picked up by national news outlets, including USA Today, The Los Angeles Times and People.com.
The Facebook site offered several ways to engage with Jane, including widgets, apps, videos, downloadable diplomas and more. Jane’s arrest video was leaked on the Facebook page, while six funny video rants from Jane challenged parents to write on her Facebook wall.
PR value generated at the time of the application was just under $12 million, exceeding goal by 47%. The text ed page garnered more than 18,000 Facebook Likes.
