According to an email I received today from Mixi (they didn’t post the information on their website for some reason), the NIKEiD social banner ad campaign they started earlier this month on their site worked. Does this pave the way to another channel of monetization for Japan’s biggest social network?
During the campaign, which ended June 20, Mixi members could customize various Nike items with “NIKEiD. FRIEND STUDIO”, a Flash tool, and share the designs with others (and make use of Mixi’s tight social graph).
Now Mixi says they were able to engage a total of 2.13 million users with the social banners – a more than respectable number, considering Mixi has 15 million active users (25 million registered). What’s more, Mixi has seen CTRs that are up to 11 times higher on PCs and even up to 16 times higher on cell phones.
I personally think the NikeiD campaign was pretty clever – obviously seeing banner ads pop up with designs made by my friends is much cooler than getting bombarded with random messages. This sure won’t be the last social ad campaign of its kind on Mixi.
Update: more on the campaign over on Penn Olson (in English).
