In this campaign, I worked with three of the most creative guys I have ever met. The goal of this grassroots project was to see if we could unite all Tolkien Fans to support one simple cause: Get our “hobbits” back to the Shire. (a.k.a New Zealand)
The effort lasted over 7 months. I supported the whole adventure as the main project manager, keeping the blog updates, writing press releases as well as planning and organizing all the events with the hobbit boys.
We wanted to see what the power of social media could do by creating our own self-promoted campaign. The question at hand was: If we garnered enough attention, can we band together with geeky Middle Earth fans to get our boys to New Zealand, where The Hobbit was being filmed, with nothing more than our laptops, enthusiasm and a group of big-dreamer students from the BYU Adlab?
The answer was: Why yes, yes you can.
With our limited resources, we turned an already engaged Lord of The Rings audience and tried to bring some strong social media voices into our fellowship (a.k.a. our fan-base) in order to gain sway in the media. The social media voices we chose and thought were strongest, were
Justin Bieber, Stephen Colbert, and Ellen DeGeneres.
We used Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, along with a few community events, as our main channels of promotion. We had custom bobbleheads and four-foot portraits made of Ellen Degeneres and Stephen Colbert. We delivered both to them, and, as a result, Ellen fans began to tweet about our attempts to get to New Zealand.
Our other efforts included our HOBBIT DAY CELEBRATION, where we rallied BYU campus to join us by going barefoot for the day in celebration of Bilbo and Frodo’s birthdays, an epic LARP (Live Action Role Play) battle in front of the Colbert Studio, and also an appearance on a cable TV show called DINING WITH THE DEAN.
In less than 4 months, the Road to the Shire project gained fans in 64 countries, received over 10,000 website views, and over 17,000 YouTube views. We had the privilege of writing a blog post for the official movie website, corresponded with a number of Peter Jackson’s associates and Warner Brothers Studios. and made our name on at least 6 different newspapers, including New Zealand’s main publication ‘THE WELLINGTON POST’.
Finally, thanks to donations from our fans, we raised $1,345 and secured flights and lodging to New Zealand. The three hobbits made it back home. They explored their native land, met lots of enthusiastic Kiwi’s, and chatted up some cool folks from WETA Workshops.
The whole project was an amazing adventure and taught me that there is a lot of power in social media to tell a story if you find the right audience to support your cause.