Witchery Man Campaign and Fake Stephen Conroy @ Social Media Club Sydney

Last night marked Sydney's first official Social Media Club meet-up at the Oxford Hotel in Darlinghurst. Despite having our Anzac Day public holiday stripped from us this year, the party vibe last night made me question whether all the other agency folk were still out celebrating from a long bender of a weekend.

Based on last night's huge turn out (close to 300 people turned up), I am assuming that Social Media Club Sydney will continue to run these monthly meetings. The intended forum is to use these sessions to present social media case studies and examples of what has and what has not worked.

There is one rule and one rule only (it's kind of like Fight Club :) ) - "no pitch/ no sell"! What does this mean? Those presenters who are clearly trying to flog a product or a service will have to face the consequences.

Last night's session was about two recent social media events in this country: the success of the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account and the Naked Communications Witchery Man campaign. These cases were presented by Adam Ferrier (Managing Partner of Naked Communications) and Leslie Nassar (Telstra employee and the 'fake' Stephen Conroy).

I enjoyed last night's meet-up, particularly Adam's account of the Witchery Man campaign and the seed behind developing the woman with the jacket love story.

A lot of people have been and are still carrying on about the importance of ethics and moral accountability in client service in general and when developing social media campaigns such as these. I have to agree to an extent but Adam made a fair point last night. We are all in a creative game whether it be advertising, public relations or marketing. Our job, for the large part, consists of creating myths and storytelling in a way that makes consumers want to connect with a brand. This is exactly what the Witchery Man campaign did.

Was it successful? Well, yes it was. The campaign objective was to drive talkability and that's exactly what it did. People are still talking (look at me - case and point)! If the client is happy and the agency involved isn't losing business as a result of the campaign, than I think it's fair game.

I'm sure others out there are just wishing they had done it first!