Oxygen Network

Oxygen Turns to Sparta Social Networks to Increase Television Viewership

The Business Challenge

Available in more than 74 million homes, Oxygen Media (Oh!), the cable-television network co-founded by Oprah Winfrey, was looking for innovative ways to introduce a new weekly television program and drive viewership. The strategy: Launch an $8 million marketing campaign that included an online community where viewers would invite and encourage friends to watch the show. Because the premiere dates of television shows are fixed, the network had to get its online community up and running quickly.

Due to the resounding success of its initial strategy, Oxygen launched Oomph.net, a dedicated online community. Oomph.net's goal was to build sustainable relationships between the network and its audience and among its community members, and to serve as launchpad for future marketing initiatives.

It was critical that Oxygen selected a social networking solution provider that could deliver the right combination of software, services, and support to help Oomph.net meet its objectives. Specifically, Oxygen required:

•  A solution that could grow with their community needs

•  Robust functionality to support contests, sweepstakes, promotions, featured experts, and a myriad of other topics in a highly dynamic and active environment

•  A remote hosted solution to alleviate the burden of managing and maintaining information technology, focusing instead on their core competency of media and entertainment

•  A proven platform and company with specific experience in social networking

The Sparta Solution

Sparta delivered a complete social networking solution to Oxygen that enabled the cable television network to launch Oomph.net on time, directly impacting television viewership. From its initial inception, Oomph.net has evolved to a thriving online community of more than 70,000 viewers. Sparta 's solution included SmartScale TM , a proven, Java-based architecture that meets ever-evolving demands of Oomph.net's online communities now and in the future, addressing Oxygen's enterprise scaling, integration, and customization requirements. Another essential part of the solution was Sparta 's process-driven services, which enabled Oxygen to quickly launch Oomph.net and ensure the network was supported from the beginning of the project through community launch and beyond. Through a combination of social networking expertise and comprehensive services, Sparta ensured that Oomph.net met Oxygen's business objectives.

With Sparta Social Networks, Oxygen now has a sustainable mechanism to gain a continuous pulse on attitudes and affect change. “Since launching in January of 2006, Oomph has become a place that thousands of women from every walk of life - of every race, profession and income level - have adopted as their online home and where they chat with each other as peers. Oomph.Net provides women a safe space to meet online, to blog and chat about the issues that concern them, and to form communities around their interests. 1 ”

1. “about us,” oomph.net