Singha Great Bars of the World
2011
User Interface Design, Experience Design
A competition aimed at increasing brand awareness and consumer engagement, without losing our souls or hurting users.
- Singha Great Bars of the World 2010
- In 2010, Singha Beer approached Lonely Planet for help gaining exposure to audiences outside of Asia.We proposed a competition to find and rank the great bars of the world. Patrons were in the running to win a $10,000 world trip if they could pen the best review.I developed a simple social mechanic to suit, based on an exchange of influence between Singha's leaderboard, bars and their patrons (our users). Bar reviewers would compete to write the best review (as judged by LP's editorial staff). Bars competed for exposure in a custom print guide and on LonelyPlanet.com, but would have to do so via the opinions of their patrons.To win, bars would need to garner votes. Because we allowed only one vote per IP, votes could only be secured (easily) en mass by attracting and winning the hearts of patrons. We didn't raise the security bar to the level of infallibility, but rather made it inconvenient to cheat compared to doing what bars do best.Many bars ran special promotions to sway patrons' votes (thereby promoting the competition – and we saw a small viral effect on organic traffic early on), but no 'Vote for us!' promotion can force the hand of a patron if the service is poor. The best weapon a bar could have in the quest for a higher ranking was simply to be a better bar. The winning bar would have to be beloved by many, justifying the exposure it stood win from Lonely Planet's trusted position in the traveller community.Passive users (those not voting or recommending) came to the site to search the leaderboard for bar recommendations, which could be filtered by theme, vibe and location.
- Delivered from concept to kickoff in just under three weeks, Great Bars of the World delivered 4.75 minutes average time-on-site, thousands of uploaded bars and tens of thousands of votes for minimal investment.This is an easily understood example of value creation for all parties. Usually brands will trade credibility for cash, or charge users' attention in the form of advertising in exchange for something worthy of their attention. In this model, Lonely Planet was able to make money from a B2B deal without loss of integrity. Singha gained exposure as an domain expert by playing host to the conversation. Passive users found bar recommendations. Great fans of bars found a stage to promote their most loved watering holes and one talented reviewer scored a trip around the world. Bars gained exposure, but only if they acted well towards their patrons, which ensured their worth to travellers, and protected the reputation of Lonely Planet's implied endorsement.
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