Do you have blocked or runny nose? Are your eyes itchy and uncomfortable? If so, you are probably one of 40 million* people in the UK suffering from hayfever and the summer months are the most uncomfortable for sufferers.

* Figure plucked out of the air for purely illustrative purposes

If you are suffering from hayfever (like me and 50% of my colleagues), there’s a good chance that you might mention it on Twitter and Kleenex (one of the major tissue brands) is exploiting this potential buzz with a Twitter-based marketing campaign…how are they doing this and is their Twitter marketing successful?

Kleenex are currently monitoring Tweets where people talk about their hayfever and replying with the friendly messages that ask people to share their hayfever experiences to build a map of where the sufferers are across the UK.

This is a nice way of using Twitter’s real-time information and capability to create, or big up, a current buzz topic.

They’ve actually put some thought into this, so they are technically promoting their campaign rather than their products. You can all too easily imagine a clumsy campaign with crass replies like “Gesundheit…you need a tissue LINK”

The aim is that they will
a) Have a valid news story about the nature of hayfever – of great interest to medical professionals and the poor people with allergies.
b) Have a valid story about Twitter being used in an innovative way – of interest to Tweeters, marketers and geeks.

So far I like this, but while writing this post, I’m doing some experiements.

Twice today I’ve tweeted about anti-histamines then I tried #sneeze and #sniff and #tissue– still no response. Come on Kleenex (or your marketing company) – broaden your search terms!

How do you feel about being contacted in this way by Twitter marketers?

Are you running this campaign? It would be great to hear how well it goes…

Update – they are following me now!