HP Targets Youth with ‘Listen 2U’ Social Media Campaign

Print News: HP Targets Youth with ‘Listen 2U’ Social Media Campaign

Hewlett Packard has announced a major extension of their social media strategy, with a campaign aimed at getting in touch with creative youth. ‘Listen 2U’ is a dedicated website where young people can develop their talent, posting and directing their own movies for the chance to win HP products. With news posts ‘broadcast’ from university student unions, and subjects including the NME and Mighty Boosh, the site has a credible chance of resonating with creative young people. Moreover, HP has integrated a page dedicated to its products into the website, enabling the printing brand to combine marketing with social media interaction.


This ‘savvy’ campaign is but the latest from a printing brand that takes social media very seriously. The ‘Innovation’ area of the HP site includes a webpage extolling the worth of social media – for no more reason than a belief in its potential. As of August 2008, there were sixty ‘Employee Business Blogs’ at HP’s website which, moreover, included links to the personal web pages of their employees. Hewlett Packard evidently puts aside legal risks and trusts its employees ‘not to act like idiots,’ as Karen Snyder of ‘The Social Media front’ argues.

In January 2009, Toprankblog.com posted an interview with HP’s Web 2.0 Head Strategist, Tac Anderson, asking after the printing brand’s attitude to the internet. Mr Anderson is more than conversant in the web: he has ‘implemented internal wiki’s, train[ed] product teams on using Google Alerts, RSS feeds and other tools… as well [lent his] expertise wherever’ possible. Mr Anderson is convinced his strategy points the way for interaction betweens firms and their customers, and on top of everything runs a blog for firms getting into new communications. Visit NewCommBiz.com for what Mr Anderson calls ‘The Future of Social Media.’

Of course, the flipside for companies with a significant web presence is the difficulty of controlling the conversation. On 19 November 2009, David Spark reported on his negative experience with HP’s customer service helpline, broadcasting to countless people from SocialMedia.biz. The post even garnered comments from an ‘HP Insider,’ reporting what he feels is the profit-driven mentality of the company. Though this individual remains anonymous – quite understandably given the collusion of work and personal life latent in social media – the existence of such comments damages a brand whose image is largely sunny.

The new campaign from Hewlett Packard will seek to banish such comments while expanding on their community base. The ‘direct a video’ competition currently running asks people to post their entries on YouTube, encouraging entrants to interact. With an HP notebook up for grabs among other prizes, there is little doubt ‘Listen 2U’ will do much for creativity amongst youth. Depending on the success of the campaign, other print companies may decide to follow in HP’s footsteps.