Company: Firefly Mobile
Company Division/Group: Grow Marketing
Company Description: Firefly Mobile is a privately held company with worldwide headquarters in Chicago, Il., and a regional office in California. Firefly Mobile designs, develops and sells the Firefly phone, accessories and airtime services and has won the 2006 Best of Innovations Award from CEA 2006, the CTIA 2005 Winning Wireless Widgets, 2006 Bulldog Bronze, and the Chicago Atheneaum 2005 GOOD DESIGN Award.
Nomination Category: Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Marketing Organization

Nomination Title: Firefly Mobile Brand Launch

   1. Tell the story about what this nominated organization/department achieved in the past year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

In January 2005, Firefly Mobile approached Grow Marketing to help debut the Firefly phone and introduce Firefly Mobile.  An extensive public relations campaign paved the way for a larger integrated marketing campaign that launched during the summer.  To date, Grow has secured over 1.6 billion public relations media impressions for the Firefly phone and generated over 1.1 billion in marketing impressions through experiential, media and entertainment marketing.  

The challenge was how to market a new brand in an entirely new category with dual, and at times conflicting, audiences--parents and kids, says Cassie Hughes, Grow co- founder and strategy director.  We also knew that Firefly Mobiles competition wouldnt take long to surface and it was imperative to firmly position the company as the undisputed leader in cell phones for kids. 

Grow developed a strategy that partnered Firefly with relevant best-in-class brands and popped-up with immersive Firefly brand experiences in places where parents and kids go together. 

The Firefly Mobile Experience showed up at 20 Major League Baseball games, 45 Loews theaters and collectively visited 37 malls over 111 days.  The eye-catching set featured a Glow Room highlighting the phones unique features, display phones with a cool Firefly Rap and recorded player messages, and fun games with prizes.  Brand ambassadors distributed branded premiums such as glow sticks and bracelets, as well as product literature for the parents. Firefly Mobile Experience resulted in more than 6 million customer impressions and the Holiday FME another 1 million customer impressions. Major League Baseball events resulted in over 22 million overall consumer impressions. In total, the Scholastic program delivered several million consumer impressions. And, the Hollywood event

Through integrated partnerships with Nickelodeon, Neopets.com and Scholastic, Firefly was able to leverage the popularity and reach of these properties among the core target. The Nickelodeon partnership generated 50,000 kid-designed entries, print & online impressions totaled 115+ million & reached 29+ million and culminated on 4/1/06 with the brand sponsorship of Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.   Lowes Theaters: the brand reached more than 1 million consumers; the Neopets promotion delivered 80 million consumer impressions over a 4 mo period, and advertisements delivered 250,000 impressions per issue.

Grow believes strongly in the power of influencer marketing and looked to Hollywood via a combination of product placement, placing the phones in prominent award show gift bags and a Halloween Festival that Firefly co-hosted with Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmareks non-profit, Clothes Off Our Back.  This resulted in coverage on Access Hollywood (3.5 million viewers) and E! Entertainment TV (400,000 viewers).

Beyond the sheer volume of impressions generated, Firefly Mobile doubled sales projections for the phone.  At launch, Firefly hoped to sign one major retailer in 2005.  It has exceeded all expectations and has signed with Target, Cingular, Limited Too and Wal-Mart among others.   Another objective was to sign eight wireless carriers to provide service and they have more than doubled that goal.  Carriers saw marketing activities in-market and approached Firefly about getting involved. 

Total Consumer Impressions:  2+ Billion

   2. List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, http://www.youraddress.com:

http://www.fireflymobile.com

Supporting materials for this entry were submitted offline

   3. Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of this nominated organization/department:

Grow Marketing:
Cassie Hughes, co-founder, stragegy director

Gabrey Means, co-founder, creative director

Sarah Johnson , account director

Karen Appel, project manager

Tara Murphy, marketing manager

Marilynn Olsen, project director

Deb Cummings, project manager

Danny Kraus, vice president, communications