eBay, the UK’s largest online marketplace, reached one million fans on its UK Facebook page
on 6th December 2012. To celebrate, eBay, with the help of our Social and Video crew, created
a unique pop up surprise winter party for one lucky winner as part of its ‘1 in a Million’ competition.
Making the achievement even more impressive is the fact that at the end of 2011, eBay
had just 70,000 fans on its UK page. To reach a million fans within a year shows a great
milestone of the success of eBay’s digital strategy, which provides a personalised experience
for its users across social channels. This is supported by relevant merchandising based on
customer’s feedback and engagememt, great content, social media plans, innovation and
experimentation.
The ‘1 in a Million’ competition selected a random winner and brought a winter wonderland
flash party to their local village last Saturday, 15th December 2012
The winning fan was Helen, a mother of two from Winchester who is an eBay buyer and seller.
She saw a surprise party hosted in her town with family and friends as well as neighbours
invited to share in the entertainment. The party included a horse drawn carriage and a pop
up winter wonderland with dancers and circus performers.
Kate Burton, Social Account Director for eBay at Essence added: “We wanted to create
a campaign that not only captured the imagination of eBay’s fans, but also gave something
back to one lucky winner. Our strategy has been to focus on reaching the right community
with great content, keeping engagement levels high on Facebook whilst also increasing
fan numbers. Celebrating with a festive party in the run up to Christmas felt like a really
different thing to do and it kept to the vision and ethos we have for eBay. We’ve found the
campaign has really resonated with consumers helping to engage them in the eBay brand in
a new and different way. It has been a fantastic success and hopefully we were able to bring
some early festive cheer to the town of Winchester.”
The winner, Helen, commented: “The whole experience was really fun and totally
unexpected. My children had a brilliant time. I never thought I’d be the winner and just
entered in hope. When a giant elf knocked on my front door it was all a little bit surreal and
the kids loved the horse drawn carriage. We all had a great time and we’ll not forget this
day.”
Check out what happened when eBay turned up at Helen's doorstep last weekend: