Pierson Grant Wins Awards For Viral Marketing Campaign

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (October 12, 2009) There are more than 51 million instances of the word “coffee” in the blogosphere, according to a Google blog search, and many top bloggers are known to write from coffee shops or brew a cup of java at home to fuel their inspiration for new posts. Bloggers also are the most frequent participators in literally thousands of beta tests around the Web.

That’s where Pierson Grant Public Relations of Fort Lauderdale and Raleigh saw an opportunity for Tampa-based Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Company. The result was a successful viral campaign that has received a national Clarion Award from the Association of Women in Communications in the category of Online Marketing Campaign.

“Our goal was to grow traffic to Joffreys.com using social media while generating positive reviews, links and endorsements of Joffrey’s Coffee,” said Maria Pierson, CEO of Pierson Grant which recently launched a High Impact Digital division. “We stay on top of trends and have a deep understanding of Web memes.”

Pierson Grant added a new twist to the fact that programmers, Web developers, bloggers and Web 2.0 gurus are constantly beta testing new software. The agency developed and launched a beta test Web application where anyone with a blog could sign up to “beta test” java – the coffee variety. Once bloggers signed up, they were shipped a sample of Joffrey’s coffee for them to “beta test” and received a trackback link on the site recognizing they were a part of the test. The Web application was designed to look exactly like a typical “Web 2.0” beta page and was a humorous and fun play on a popular Web meme.

“The pairing of a beta test with java was a natural,” Pierson said. “The results were amazing including a sales increase of 50 percent for Joffrey’s in the three months after the test began and a 256 percent increase in traffic to Joffreys.com during the time surrounding the test.”
In addition, more than 1,500 bloggers participated and more than 7,000 mentions for the campaign were posted throughout the Internet. There was coverage on Mashable, CNET, KillerStartups , Marketing.FM, MattsCuppa, MoBuzz TV, Marketing Over Coffee and 150 more creating millions of impressions across platforms.

The campaign also won the Edward Bernays Award from the Gold Coast PR Council in South Florida.

Pierson Grant, with an office in Fort Lauderdale and Raleigh, is one of the top independent PR firms in the country. The full service public relations agency recently launched High Impact Digital which provides a full menu of creative online media applications including social networking and search engine optimization.

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