User Generated Content 7 | SunMatrix Ramble

SAS: Up for Grabs on Facebook

To promote a million-seat fare sale, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and Crispin Porter + Bogusky Stockholm ran a Facebook competition where fans could “grab” a free trip. The ask was visual and dead simple, and it turned participation into the media.

Fans changed their profile picture into a custom “Up For Grabs” image, then posted a matching photo on the SAS Facebook wall where they physically “grabbed” the trip. Every entry looked like an ad, and every ad looked like a friend.

The mechanic that turns fans into distribution

The campaign’s mechanism was a two-step loop. First, replace your profile image with a branded frame that signals you are “in”. Second, publish a playful photo on the brand wall that demonstrates the concept, grabbing the prize. That wall then becomes a live gallery of social proof, with each new post re-selling the fare sale in a more human way than a banner ever could.

In airline marketing, promotions that convert participation into shareable images can outperform price-only fare announcements.

Why it lands

It turns an abstract offer into a physical gesture. “Grab a trip” becomes something you can perform, photograph, and show. The profile-picture switch is a light commitment that broadcasts intent, and the wall post is a public performance that invites imitation. The momentum comes from visibility, because the more entries you see, the more “normal” it feels to join.

Extractable takeaway: When you need scale fast, design one participation artifact that doubles as an ad unit, and make the action easy enough that people will copy it without instructions.

What the shutdown reveals about the strategy

The campaign was reportedly against Facebook promotion terms, and it was shut down. That ending is part of the story, because it highlights the tightrope of social-first promotions. The creative is built on a behavior Facebook historically restricts for contest entry, asking people to publish specific content as a condition of participation, even if the idea is clever and the buzz is real.

The real question is whether the participation mechanic can spread the offer without depending on a platform behavior that can be switched off overnight.

The stronger strategic read is that the creative idea is right, but the distribution mechanic is too dependent on borrowed platform rules.

What to steal for your own launch

Make the entry format the message. If the entry itself demonstrates the offer, you get free repetition of the proposition.
Use a low-friction first step. Profile-picture frames and templates work because they are fast and socially legible.
Design a single visual trope. “Grabbing” is a trope anyone can reproduce, and that consistency creates a recognizable feed.
Build compliance in from day one. If the mechanic depends on prohibited platform behaviors, plan a compliant alternative before launch.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the core idea of Up for Grabs?

A Facebook contest where fans change their profile picture to a branded frame and post a “grabbing the trip” photo on the SAS wall to compete for a free flight.

Why does the profile-picture step matter?

It turns participation into persistent visibility. The frame signals “I am in”, and it spreads through everyday browsing without requiring an additional media buy.

What made the campaign travel beyond the SAS page?

Each entry was both participation and promotion. When fans changed their profile picture and posted a matching photo, the fare sale moved into personal networks instead of staying inside brand media.

Why was it shut down?

It was reportedly closed for violating Facebook promotion rules by conditioning entry on specific platform actions, such as posting photos on the wall.

How do you keep the upside without the platform risk?

Keep the visual template and the “grab” trope, but move the submission mechanic to a compliant entry flow, then allow optional sharing that is not required to participate.

Chery M11: Road M11

Hundreds of people design their own “dream roads” online. Then one of those roads gets built in the real world, and the person who created it ends up navigating a rally run alongside a professional driver.

That is the core idea behind Chery M11’s “Road M11” project by Voskhod, built to tackle a real market perception problem. In Russia, Chinese cars were widely seen as unreliable and unpleasant to drive, so the campaign had to create proof, not promises.

Instead of leading with specs, the brand launches an internet game where anyone can create roads and drive them using a computer model of the Chery M11. People race against the clock and vote on the best road. After a month and more than 800 submitted roads, a winner is selected. The winning road is then constructed in reality for a rally-style event, journalists are invited, a Russian rally champion is chosen as driver, and the road’s creator becomes the navigator.

Turning “prove it” into a participation loop

The mechanic is not just gamification. It is co-creation with consequences. The audience builds roads, competes, and votes. The brand takes the best idea and commits to building it at full scale, then lets independent observers experience the car on a course the public designed rather than a track the brand curated.

In automotive categories where trust is the main barrier, converting digital participation into a real-world test creates credibility that advertising claims cannot buy.

Why it lands

The campaign reframes skepticism as a challenge the audience can test. That matters because the negative belief is about performance and reliability, and those beliefs tend to change only through experience or trusted proxy experience. The road-building game gives people viewer control over what the car is “asked to do”, and the real rally event creates a clean narrative of proof. If the car cannot handle it, the idea collapses publicly. That risk is what makes the demonstration persuasive.

Extractable takeaway: When a category suffers from “untrusted origin” bias, meaning buyers discount the product because they distrust where it comes from, move the claim from messaging into a public test. Let the audience help define the test, then invite credible witnesses to validate the outcome.

What the business intent really is

The obvious goal is traffic and attention. The deeper goal is to earn test drives and journalist coverage by making the car’s capabilities feel observed rather than asserted. The legacy write-up reports strong site visitation and sales impact, which fits the logic of the mechanism. Participation creates investment, investment creates trial, trial creates conversion.

The real question is whether the brand can turn skepticism into a public proof event that feels harder to dismiss than an ad.

What to borrow from Road M11

Design a proof that scales. Digital participation can scale fast, but the proof moment must be simple enough to summarize.
Let the public set the challenge. Co-creation increases trust because it reduces suspicion of “staged conditions”.
Bridge online to offline. The handoff from game to real-world event is where credibility is minted.
Invite credible witnesses. Journalists, experts, or known practitioners make the proof travel beyond your owned channels.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “Road M11” in one sentence?

An online road-building game for the Chery M11 where the winning user-created road is built in real life for a rally-style demonstration with journalists and a pro driver.

Why use a game instead of a traditional test-drive campaign?

Because the barrier is trust. A participatory mechanic creates investment, and the game-to-real-world conversion creates a visible proof story that journalists and viewers can follow.

What perception problem is this designed to solve?

That Chinese cars in the Russian market were seen as unreliable and poor to drive, so performance had to be demonstrated rather than claimed.

What results did the legacy write-up claim?

It reported more than 340,000 visitors in three months, sales exceeding plan by 76%, and annual sales growth of 186% versus market averages. Treat these as campaign-reported figures unless you have primary reporting to validate them.

What is the biggest risk in this approach?

If the real-world build and rally experience does not match the promise, the proof flips into a public counter-proof. The execution has to be operationally strong, not just creatively strong.

Flair: Fashiontag

Women are always looking for inspiration for their wardrobe and most of the time they find this inspiration by looking at other women.

This inspired agency Duval Guillaume to create a Flair Fashiontag Facebook app for Belgian women’s magazine Flair. In the app, instead of tagging people, you can tag people’s clothes or accessories and ask them where they got them.

All fashiontags are displayed in a Facebook gallery, and the best are published in the weekly edition of Flair. This way there is constant interaction between the Facebook application and the magazine itself.

Turning social curiosity into a repeatable format

The mechanism is a simple swap. Replace social tagging of people with social tagging of products. A photo becomes a shoppable question. The owner of the outfit becomes the source. The magazine becomes the curator that elevates the best finds from feed to print.

In fashion and lifestyle publishing, converting casual “where did you get that” moments into a structured loop is a practical way to keep community activity and editorial output feeding each other.

The smart move here is to treat wardrobe curiosity as a content engine, not as a side effect of social chatter. The real question is how to turn that curiosity into a repeatable loop that helps readers in the moment and gives the magazine something worth curating.

Why it lands

This works because it formalizes a behavior that already exists. People already look at outfits, notice details, and ask friends for sources. Fashiontag simply gives that behavior a native interface and a public gallery, then adds a prestige layer by featuring the best tags in the weekly magazine.

Extractable takeaway: If your audience already asks each other for product sources, build a lightweight format that captures those questions in the moment and rewards the best contributions with visible amplification.

What to steal from Fashiontag

Swap the object of attention: tag the item, not the person, when product discovery is the real intent.
Close the loop with curation: a gallery is useful. Editorial selection makes it aspirational.
Make participation low-friction: one tag, one question, one shareable output.
Bridge channels on purpose: use print, site, and social as a single system, not separate campaigns.
Protect the social contract: ensure the person in the photo is comfortable with tagging and featuring, especially when content moves into a magazine.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Flair Fashiontag?

It is a Facebook app for Flair magazine that lets users tag clothes or accessories in photos and ask where those items were purchased.

What makes it different from normal photo tagging?

Normal tagging identifies people. Fashiontag identifies items. It turns fashion curiosity into a structured question-and-answer interaction.

How does the magazine benefit from the Facebook app?

The app creates a steady flow of wardrobe inspiration and real questions from readers. The magazine then curates and publishes the best tags, which reinforces participation.

Why is this a strong community mechanic?

Because it rewards helpfulness. People contribute sources and recommendations, and the gallery plus print selection turns that help into recognition.

What is the biggest risk in this format?

Consent and comfort. Tagging items in someone’s photo can feel intrusive if the person did not opt in, especially if content can be featured publicly in print.