Best Buy Launches Kevin Kringle Campaign

You saw it here on Adrants a couple days ago. Best Buy recently launched an underground viral marketing effort to target its core holiday consumers. The company partnered with SMG Reverb, a division of Starcom MediaVest Group that specializes in digital word-of-mouth marketing.

Best Buy's online ads feature a fictional character named Kevin Kringle, who, according to Best Buy, is the younger brother of Santa Claus, Kris Kringle. Unlike Kris, however, Kevin struggles to find the right gifts for his family, friends, and co-workers. These struggles are portrayed in several humorous clips that are available on KevinKringle.com.

The initial phase of the campaign is designed to establish Kevin's character and to encourage users to talk about his lack of gift-giving talent. To keep the focus on Kevin, Best Buy purposefully left off all branding from its online ads. Even Kevin's website and the site's video clips started with no company branding.

Word of Kevin Kringle was spread online through partnerships with Best Buy evangelists, blogs, forums and pop culture and gaming sites. Best Buy will eventually start to incorporate branding on KevinKringle.com and ultimately plans to lift the veil on the Kevin connection through nationwide television commercials and promotional posters inside its retail stores.