Badoo Unveils Its First U.S. Advertising Campaign
Brings Social Discovery To The Masses With Innovative, Integrated “I Want” Campaign.
Badoo, the world’s largest site for meeting new people and the fourth largest social network, is launching its first U.S. advertising campaign on April 26 as part of its official American launch. Entitled “I Want”, and with a bold mix of offline, experiential treatments and digital elements, Badoo is focusing on bringing its message to a mainstream consumer audience.
Starting on April 26, Badoo will launch an outdoor advertising campaign within the New York area, which will run until the end of May, as well as a digital program that starts April 30. The campaign is the culmination of Badoo’s launch into New York City, dubbed The Badoo Project, which saw more than 1,000 New Yorkers receive the ultimate online profile picture, and which was the largest public fashion shoot the city has ever seen.
The campaign stars 26 finalists from The Badoo Project, who will have their profile picture transformed into various outdoor treatments, along with a cheeky and personalized “I Want” tagline, that reflects their individual personalities and signals what they are looking for when meeting new people. The “I want” taglines used in the new ads - ranging from “I want to wake up in a strange city” to “I want a reason to hit snooze” - were chosen by the finalists themselves.
The 26 finalists, who hail from all corners of New York, will appear on a mix of taxi-tops, subway cars, bus-shelters, painted wallscapes and phone kiosks around the city, as they star in the ultimate profile picture.
The digital campaign reflects and complements Badoo’s outdoor launch in a fresh and humorous way. Three digital shorts have been created which explore the diversity of people and personalities on Badoo. They will appear on Zoom, panel and taxi TV, as well as YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo and other assorted consumer digital media, from April 30 through June 10.
The integrated mix of online and offline ad treatments used in the campaign aligns closely with Badoo’s mission for its users – giving people online and mobile tools that help them make new friends, and encourage them to meet up offline, for fun and new experiences. Badoo was a pioneer in helping people transform their social lives in this way – a trend now called “social discovery” - and wanted to communicate its core benefits through the campaign and in its bridging of the offline and online elements.
“Badoo is a very social, fun experience, and we wanted to bring that to life through the outdoor and digital campaigns,” said Jessica Powell, CMO at Badoo. “Even though we might be considered a “tech” brand by some, we’re really about bringing people together in a very human way, and we felt the best way to do that was to use real people, who are genuinely interested in making new connections. The 26 people we used in the outdoor treatments all have a ton of personality and individuality, yet they all reflect a universal human need, which is to bond with other people. That’s what Badoo is all about.”
The creative agency responsible for the new campaign is Exposure America; the outdoor media agency is Macdonald and the digital media agency is KSL.