Showing posts with label Marketing-social. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing-social. Show all posts

Monday, November 2, 2009

Toyota Yaris Social Media Campaigns


Sunday, November 1, 2009

Trivial Pursuit Experiment


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TRIVIAL PURSUIT, the ultimate authority on trivia, is throwing down the gauntlet and asking women and men to represent their team and take part in the experiment to find out if the age-old question of who's smarter than who can be answered once and for all through trivia. Played out on www.trivialpursuitexperiment.com, simply log on to join in and earn points for your brotherhood or sisterhood by answering as many questions as you want. Each question you answer correctly will earn a point for your team.


Trivial Pursuit Experiment - Who’s Smarter than Who?
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Trivial Pursuit Experiment: Points go to the Men
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Trivial Pursuit Experiment: Points go to the Women
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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Social Media Marketing in Arabia

It seems that Saudi companies are not yet sure about the importance of social media marketing and whether it should play a role in their marketing and branding strategies or not. Internationally, using social media tools (e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Youtube channels, etc …) is becoming THE trend among other marketing tools and initiatives.

When the buzz about the potential use of social media in creating an added value to their brands, companies were just waiting to see how things will turn around. Justifying the costs of resources they will dedicate to build such a social media presence was the main concern occupying the minds of these companies’ managements. In other words, managers were thinking; what is the return on such investment?

The global marketing scene has moved from this basic step to discuss the specifics of having a successful presence online. The question of ‘should we have social media accounts?’ has been changed to ‘how to relate and engage with our customers using social media accounts?’. So it is not about the presence anymore, it is about the engagement. According to a study by Wetpaint and Altimeter Group, there is a correlation between a company’s social media engagement and its profit (more on this point is here). That means these social media accounts can be used as a channel of communication with customers. To be successful, this channel has to be dealt with as a long term investment and a major activity for marketing and branding teams. The presence should be alive, active, and emotionally engaging to the customers. Small gestures like saying ‘thank you’ to a Twitter customer, or saying ‘we will make sure to fix that’ on a Facebook page could make a difference with customers and boost their loyalty to the company.

Now, I have been looking around Twitter to check out Saudi companies’ presence over there. And it seems that most of them are in the trap of ‘cold social media presence’. The giant, Saudi Aramco has 351 followers only, can you believe that? Check out now the telecom rivals STC and Mobily, !

======================

Cisco Saudi is the best company in practicing social media marketing in Saudi, they have a blog http://iam.cisco.com.sa and an active twitter account http://twitter.com/ciscosaudi beside a very good Facebook fan page with more than 1000 fans, also they are engaging with other Saudi technology blogs (sponsoring contests in tech-wd.com).

here is an interesting study http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007335

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

B2B Social Communications| DuPont's Social Media

In 2007, DuPont launched five videos on eight web blogs in a marketing program designed to increase share of voice for DuPont on the Internet and to introduce DuPont science to a younger, wired and online generation. The videos were made specifically for online audiences looking for stories told through video which are different and interesting.

Tapping into over 40 years of video archival footage, each video showcases how science from DuPont helps to protect people and how innovations developed by DuPont enhance people’s lives. The blogs offered a mix of general and targeted interest audiences.

Blogs were selected for this project because they reach a devoted, targeted audience and their audiences tend to talk to others about their interests, encouraging word of mouth.

Completing DuPont’s marketing pilot to the blogosphere, videoblogger Amanda Congdon was the on-screen host for the five videos. Amanda is best known for her work on Rocketboom, a popular news and entertainment videoblog. BlogAds and FM Networks assisted the project in distributing the videos.

The campaign delivered on three key objectives:

(1) increasing awareness for DuPont science,

(2) increasing positive sentiment for DuPont and

(3) creating stories sufficiently compelling to generate word of mouth.



The DuPont Science Stories campaign was one of three national finalists for the Online Media Marketing and Advertising (OMMA) Best Campaign in Social Media Award 2007.

Here is one of the five videos in the series. You can view all the videos in this series at stories.dupont.com, however, I cannot find any link to this anywhere on the DuPont website. I would like to think that if they hold up a two-year old social media program as a success, they would want to continue to tout that success by providing access to the video. Additionally some of the links no longer work, which is another indication that this campaign has been relegated to the backwater of the DuPont website. If you are presenting a case study of an old program, make sure you check all the links on an old page.




Blogger notes:

Too many industries still consider members of the retail distribution chain to be their customers. The businesses (especially manufacturers) in these industries put most of their marketing budget and effort selling to those who will sell their products. The end-user is almost an afterthought, even though the end-user is the one who creates the demand that retailers fill through ordering the brand the end-user wants.

It does no good if retailers buy your products, but they gather dust on the shelf because there’s no consumer demand – because you didn’t create any.

It does no good to compete on price point alone, because someone will always undercut you. Rock-bottom pricing isn’t always the basis of a consumer’s buying decision. Even Wal-Mart is positioning its brand as allowing consumers to “live better.” The mega-retailer is promoting the benefit of its low prices, not the feature of the prices themselves.

The end-user is your customer. So build brand equity by creating awareness and a sense of community among consumers. Talk to them on blogs and social media outlets, but don’t “sell.” Get them to talk to each other about your brand. Meet them at shows and events, and – if you can – sponsor shows and events. Make your Web site an engaging destination for consumers to learn more and communicate.

Worry less about competitors stealing your ideas and beating you to market and more about competitors stealing your market share because they’re better at talking to consumers than you are. It doesn’t matter if that’s the way things have always been done. Things are now being done differently.

CASE STUDY PRESENTATIONS

Friday, October 23, 2009

Case Study: My Year Without Sex Social Media Campaign



Problemo: My Year Without Sex was a new Australian film, which was hard to market as it didn’t fit into one specific category. The trailer was not going to be enough to get people to watch it. Working on a small budget we needed to get people to talk about the film.


Strategy: Use word of mouth to help fuel discussion around the movie

Implementation: 

Identifying Key Environments 
We identified the target market as mothers. Using Google Ad Planner and a number of other tools we looked for the environments where mothers were most vocal online and three environments stood out; Facebook, Mothers Forums and Mother Blogs.

Part 1: Mothers Forums
We went out to a number of the major mothers forums and offered the Moderators of the sites free double passes to see the film. Forums host some of the liveliest discussions online.

Part 2: Blogs
We identified a number of influential female blogs that we thought would enjoy the film. These bloggers were found using the 
Top 100 Australian Women Bloggers list. From this list we got a number of high profile bloggers to go and see the movie. We also used the NuffNang to outreach to a further 20 bloggers.

Part 3: Facebook
There was an opportunity to get a number of people along to a pre screening for the film in each major cities. We used Facebook Advertising and a Facebook Event to set up an exclusive 
Facebook Pre Screening for 500 people. We also ran a Facebook Page which had further information about the movie.

Part 4: Youtube - Creating a piece of passable content 
We decided to create a piece of content around the film which we believed could have mass appeal online. We created the ‘5 Things that get in the way of Sex’ video. We were able to get this video to the front page of Digg and then Youtube Honour Board with 25,000 views in one week. This ended up being the feature of a blog post in
Sydney Morning Herald Ask Sam Blog.


Result: 
In its opening week MYWS took $177,522 and has currently grossed $1,127,838 in box office sales.

Learnings: 
Facebook Page
It is really hard for someone to become a fan of a product that they have no knowledge about. We did not see growth in the Page until after the release date which usually does not work with the timings/budgeting of films.

Facebook Advertising
This campaign ran from early April to May this year, this was before the upgrade to the Facebook advertising model. We were only able to manage to get 900 people into the Page for the movie, when we promoted Cedar Boys another Australian film we were able to get 2,000 easily into the Page. So this new upgrade has definitely made a difference.


Friday, October 16, 2009

Social media, brand route to connect with and built trust ... best practice


How organizations have embraced social media to connect with and built trust and affection among customers?
Some great examples of simple, effective social media strategies that have humanized organizations and allowed them to build better relationships with customers. 

1. They can’t talk about anything broader than their own products

Chris Brogan shared how Citrix Online created the Workshifting community to address the rise of telecommuting and remote work. Sure, it ties in with Citrix’s GoToMeeting/Webinar/PC product line, but the blog isn’t a commercial for its products. The same holds true for Kodak’s photography blog that Chief Blogger Jenny Cisney talked about. It’s about photography and creativity in general, not about Kodak cameras. Greg Matthews shared how Humana developed the Freewheelin bicycle sharing communities with plenty of online and “real life” components to the program. Bicycles don’t have much to do with health insurance specifically, but they are about being healthy. If a company is only talking online about its specific products and not looking for ways to connect to the bigger picture, it’s pretty difficult for people to be engaged.

2. They listen to customers but don’t take any action

If you’re going to listen to your customers, you’d better be ready to do something about what you hear. Valeria Maltoni noted that if a company creates an online presence that’s open and allows customer feedback, it creates the expectation that the company is going to do something with that feedback. Worse than not being heard is being heard and then ignored. Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines shared how a simple blog post stating the airline was considering assigned seating amassed tons of customer comments showing a lack of support for the idea. This feedback changed the direction of their internal debate and led to a new boarding procedure that maintained the open seating arrangement.

3. They aren’t calibrated internally with the technology

Jason Falls chastised corporate Web sites for being little more than online brochures. Customers expect interaction. Content creation is key to social media success, and every company should have a Web site with a content management system that allows for quick, easy content creation without the IT department needing to recode a Web site. Anyone in the organization should be able to publish via a CMS. And companies can’t expect to have a strong social media presence when social sites are blocked internally to employees.

4. They’re not framing risk accurately

Dharmesh Shah reminded us all that a corporate blog has never been fatal to an organization. NBC cameraman Jim Long said the often a company’s entry into social media is a clumsy, shotgun blast and that there’s an equal chance of looking foolish by having a ham-fisted marketing department launch a social media presence as there is if a rogue employee “goes off” on Twitter. The risk of social media is not abated by not participating. And really, while there have certainly been some hiccups and miscues along the way, social media has yet to be the undoing of any company.

5. Their internal culture isn’t aligned for social media success

The customer should be at the core of the brand. When policies, procedures, products and processes become more important than the customer, there’s no way social media efforts can be effective. When your employees are more concerned with what’s in or out of their job description than doing the right thing to help the customer, that’s not a culture that’s likely to build trust and advocacy for your brand. Yes, Zappos was cited time and again as a case study, but largely because it has a culture that makes social media work. All of its employees are focused on customer service at the core. The same holds true for Southwest Airlines.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Success on Facebook


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Success on Facebook comes from a blend of sheer size of fan base, record of publishing useful content and the extent of consumer interaction that is offered.

We looked at eight major product categories to find the brands that gained the most traction on the site, comparing their Facebook pages to those of competitors to determine which were best and worst at taking full advantage of the platform.

Some big-name players -- Coca-Cola, Best Buy, Starbucks and Microsoft among them -- are performing especially well on the social-media site. Others, however, including Burger King, Walmart, Dell and Geico, might be missing some prime opportunities to interact with their current and potential customers.

Contents:



  • Consumer Packaged Goods ... Retail
  • Restaurant/Food ... Technology
  • Apparel ... Insurance
  • Automotive ... Airline

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS: COCA-COLA

The granddaddy of Facebook brand pages wasn't even started by the soft drink giant. Two fans created the page in August 2008 and it went on to become the top product page on the site. Perhaps Coke learned its lesson from the Diet Coke-Mentos phenomenon, when it objected to the use of its product in a viral Web video hit. This time out, instead of playing the corporate heavy, Coke brought the two consumers to company headquarters and invited them to continue to run the page with backing from Coke.

Stats: 3.7 million fans; regular promotions include one that solicits videos for a shot at appearing in a Coke commercial.

Missed Opportunity... Pepsi. The company makes a disappointing showing on Facebook, given that it's a digitally and socially savvy brand. The Refresh Everything page has 250,000 fans, a fraction of rival Coke's. The company mostly uses it as a channel for pumping out updates of marketing activities.



RETAIL: BEST BUY

At a tough time for electronics outlets -- witness the demise of Circuit City -- Best Buy is pushing the envelope with social shopping. Its Facebook page doesn't just tout products, it lets visitors browse from the site and get feedback on items from Facebook friends. It's also using the site to get general feedback from its customers, sometimes to a fault.

A recent post asking users what they thought of the company offering a BestBuy.com in Spanish ignited a firestorm of hostile and offensive comments. The company acted quickly by taking the post down.

Stats: 842,000 fans; one of the richest retail pages on Facebook, featuring "shop and share" and "gift ideas" applications.

Missed Opportunity... Walmart. The retailer might be the biggest on the face of the Earth, but you wouldn't know it on Facebook. The company clearly has its work cut out for it in the give and take of social media, but hiding is a dubious strategy. Its page has less than 17,000 fans and no content.


RESTAURANT/FOODS: STARBUCKS

The chain has flexed its brand muscles on Facebook, running several ad campaigns to plumb its fan base, even to the point of offering free ice cream this past summer. Some say luring fans in with freebies means fleeting success, but Starbucks' fan page is growing over 3 percent per week, according to AllFacebook, putting it on track to overtake Will Smith in popularity on the site.


Stats:
4.5 million fans; ice cream and pastry giveaways clearly resonate with consumers; the company's social strategy was enough for Altimeter Group to rank it the No.1 most-connected brand.

Missed Opportunity... Burger King. Not many ad icons nowadays have the appeal of Burger King's mascot, but the brand is curiously absent from the social networking platform. That's too bad because it clearly has cachet among users as evidenced by the avalanche of responses to the short-lived "Whopper sacrifice" campaign last January.



TECHNOLOGY: MICROSOFT

Unlike its nettlesome rival Apple, which is so beloved it doesn't need a Facebook fan page, Microsoft typically has to go the extra distance. The company has a sophisticated Facebook strategy with fan pages for several different product lines. This helps build focused fan bases for Internet Explorer, Windows, Surface and its MVP Award Program of product evangelists. The approach lets the behemoth act smaller.

Stats: Over 300,000 fans; used the Bing page to solicit feedback on features the new search engine needs.

Missed Opportunity... Dell. Despite a concerted effort at social media, Dell hasn't cracked the Facebook code. It has about 40,000 fans who get a regular stream of product releases. What's missing is the feedback loop Dell started with its Ideastorm site in 2007.


APPAREL: ADIDAS

For a brand used to playing second fiddle to big-spending rival Nike, turnabout is fair play. Adidas Originals is a Facebook powerhouse thanks to its trove of quality content and event information. The brand has a "your area" tab that populates with localized content.

Stats: 2.1 million fans; posts photos and videos; updates a few times per week.

Missed Opportunity... Nike. As the ultimate passion brand, Nike would figure to be quite popular on Facebook. And it has amassed 382,000 followers. But talk about anti-social. Nike hasn't updated the page since July. Just do it, Nike.



INSURANCE: AFLAC

For some brands, fan bases are best built around characters. That's been the case for Aflac, which has attracted fans for its trademark duck's quirky updates. The brand gets the character's voice right, mixing charity pleas with offbeat takes on news from the duck's perspective.

The company, seeing how far it can go, has taken the duck to Twitter where he's attracted over 3,000 followers.

Stats: 161,000 fans; mixes updates with charity pitches and contests; posts daily.

Missed Opportunity... Geico gecko. If a duck can do it, a lizard can, too. Yet the Geico gecko has never found his footing on Facebook. The page has just 6,800 fans. The lizard's droll tone doesn't carry over to the site. Instead, his updates sound a lot like the voice of a PR pro.


AUTOMOTIVE: FORD

The automaker has lately fared better across the board than its domestic peers. It's also beating its competitors in social media, including on Facebook. Ford Mustang has built up a loyal following, and Ford is an active updater on the company's official corporate page.

Stats: Over 370,000 fans on the Ford, Mustang and Fusion pages; mix of product and event information with photos and videos.

Missed Opportunity... Toyota has nearly 50,000 fans, yet it hasn't updated its page since June.



AIRLINE: SOUTHWEST

It's hard to find anyone who's a fan of air travel nowadays -- but there are plenty of them on Southwest's Facebook page, which succeeds with a personal approach. Rather than craft a brand voice, for instance, Southwest introduces "hosts" Lindsey and Christi. Frequent polling keeps interaction high. Southwest has more Facebook cachet than hotter brands like JetBlue and  Virgin America.

Stats: 80,000 fans; high customer engagement thanks to fun promos.

Missed Opportunity... United Airlines. Not exactly a passion brand, United Airlines could stand to have something more than an empty page with 11,000 intrepid fans. 


Friday, September 18, 2009

New Balance:::The 574 Clips Campaign



New Balance, based in Boston, MA, continues its tradition of premium footwear. Designed for both men and women, New Balance footwear features the finest construction and quality. Ranging from all-time classic favorites to reinvented modern silhouettes, each Lifestyle shoe features innovative materials and technologies that keep the New Balance brand as relevant and sought after today as it was 100 years ago. Celebrating heritage, craftsmanship, innovation and imagination, New Balance Lifestyle fuses classic designs from the past with bold ideas from the future.
The New Balance 574 Clips offers up a rather unique buying experience which has each shoe in the 480 pair run correspond with a series of videos on www.574clips.com where buyers of the 574 can find their specific video and will then have your name at the end of the clip when claimed. The “Clips” name also comes from the shoe’s usage of salvaged materials from the company’s Lawrence, Massachusetts factory

480 Shoes, 480 Experiences

BOSTON (September 15, 2009) -- From the heritage of the 574, New Balance introduces the 574 Clips Collection. This staple New Balance silhouette is crafted into a new innovative style, which continues to inspire the blend of design with function. While the 574 silhouette's heritage will remain, New Balance will debut an innovative campaign to support the launch of the 574 Clips Collection which will mark the first campaign from New Balance Lifestyle's agency of record, Mother New York.

The 574 Clips Collection

574 Clips is a collection constructed from leftover materials salvaged from New Balance's Lawrence, MA factory. Made in the US, the upper of each shoe is first constructed and then assembled in Massachusetts. To show pride in New Balance's continued dedication to domestic manufacturing, "USA"will be stitched on the heel and tongue of every shoe within this collection.

574 Clips stays true to the 574's premium design and comfort technologies, but acquires its name from being constructed of leftover clips of materials from other New Balance "Made in the USA"silhouettes, specifically the 993 and 996. Typically constructed of cow suede, the evolved 574 will feature supple grey pig suede, which comes from the leftover materials of the 993 stitched together with one of four different colored surplus meshes from the construction of the 996.

"Of all the shoes produced by New Balance, we're especially proud of the 574. It's a perfect demonstration of our core values of heritage, craftsmanship, innovation and imagination, as well as our deeply held belief that ‘grey is beautiful,'"says product manager Luis Navarro. This collection will follow the standards that all past 574 collections have embodied: the synergy of beautiful design and function. All content created for the 574 Clips campaign will also be inspired by heritage, craftsmanship, innovation and imagination, New Balance Lifestyle's core values.

The 574 Clips Campaign
The collection name, "574 Clips"has a dual meaning: The first stems from the leftover material clippings used to construct each shoe; the second from the video clips used in the marketing campaign supporting this collection's launch, designed by New Balance Lifestyle's agency of record, Mother New York.

The 574 Clips marketing campaign will target sneaker connoisseurs - one of a growing number of enthusiasts who collect, critique, discuss, analyze, obsess about, display, sell, and sometimes even wear the sneakers they buy. New Balance will be able to provide these tastemakers with a shoe that no one else has with a unique experiential story specific to that shoe.

The 574 Clips Campaign was designed to highlight the individualistic nature of each shoe. The campaign will be centered around a website that will feature 480 short videos, www.574Clips.com. 480 video clips were recorded of each of the shoes' unique experience before reaching the consumer. These videos were shot at locations throughout the US including Los Angeles, New York City and Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the shoes are manufactured.

To compliment the 480 short films, a Polaroid photo has been taken of the shoe's experience and placed in the corresponding shoe box, conveying a trading card collector feel. The back of each Polaroid will indicate the shoe's limited edition number (example: 017/480), size and color. A find tab will list the ten retail locations where the collection can be purchased.

Consumers can then visit the 574 Clips website and search for the exclusive video created specifically for their shoe. Once the consumer has found their "clip”, they can watch the short video featuring their pair. After the video is finished playing, the Polaroid will flip over and the owner has the option to "claim"their shoe by entering a unique 5 digit code and their name. Once clips are claimed, they can still be viewed, but the owner's name will be shown at the end of the short. Enthusiasm of purchasing and finding each shoe on the website will translate into a desire for the owner to share with their friends. If a user elects to share their new pair of 574's unique experience with friends, they are presented with several social media options including: Facebook, MySpace,

Delicious and Tumblr.

"We took the iconic 574 and evolved the world around it,"said Paul Malmstrom and Linus Karlsson, Creative Directors and Partners at Mother New York. "We wanted to find a way to make each shoe extra special. We did this by creating 480 stories for 480 shoes, shooting people and places across the country. We were there for 443/480's entrance into the world. We screamed with 298/480 throughout its first roller coaster. We held 016/480's laces as it raced in an ambulance. We even had to chase a zebra to get 002/480 back."

The 574 Clips Collection shares various technologies with the 2010 re-engineered 574, such as removal of unnecessary foams in the tongue and collar to reduce heat and bulk and added rubber durometers to yield shoe flexibility and a softer feel. It also features a PU insert for ultimate, plush comfort and a microdenier lining taken from the 993 to create a luxurious feel.

The 574 Clips Collection will be available in September 2009, in four rich colorways: grey/blue, grey/green, grey/orange and grey/burgundy. There will be 120 pair per color available, limiting the total production to 480 pairs. 574 Clips will retail at $75.00 at ten top U.S. retailers including Reed Space in NYC, Undefeated in LA, Bodega in Boston and Goods in Seattle, among others.

The 574 Clips Campaign was designed to highlight the individualistic nature of each shoe. The campaign will be centered around a website that will feature 480 short videos. 480 video clips were recorded of each of the shoes’ unique experience before reaching the consumer. These videos were shot at locations throughout the US including Los Angeles, New York City and Lawrence, Massachusetts, where the shoes are manufactured.To compliment the 480 short films, a Polaroid photo has been taken of the shoe’s experience and placed in the corresponding shoe box, conveying a trading card collector feel. The back of each Polaroid will indicate the shoe’s limited edition number (example: 017/480), size, and color.

Consumers can then visit the 574 Clips website and search for the exclusive video created specifically for their shoe. Once the consumer has found their “clip”, they can watch the short video featuring their pair. After the video is finished playing, the Polaroid will flip over and the owner has the option to “claim” their shoe by entering a unique 5 digit code and their name. Once clips are claimed, they can still be viewed, but the owner’s name will be shown at the end of the short.

Enthusiasm of purchasing and finding each shoe on the website will translate into a desire for the owner to share with their friends. If a user elects to share their new pair of 574’s unique experience with friends, they are presented with several social media options including: Facebook, MySpace, Delicious and Tumblr.“We took the iconic 574 and evolved the world around it,” said Paul Malmstrom and Linus Karlsson, Creative Directors and Partners at Mother New York. “We wanted to find a way to make each shoe extra special. We did this by creating 480 stories for 480 shoes, shooting people and places across the country. We were there for 443/480’s entrance into the world. We screamed with 298/480 throughout its first roller coaster. We held 016/480’s laces as it raced in an ambulance. We even had to chase a zebra to get 002/480 back.”

Campaign credits;

Creative Director(s): Linus Karlsson & Paul Malmstrom
Art Director (s): Jed Grossman & Mark Aver
Copywriter (s): Ben Hughes & Jon Lancaric
Creative Technologist: Rey Peralta
Designer: Derrick Lee
Producer (creative): Imogen Bailey
Assistant Producer: Bryan Reisberg
Art Producer: Amita Sehgal
Production Company: Greencard Pictures
Executive Producer (s): Nick Kadner & Emily Wiedemann
Producer: Max Knies
Post Supervisor: Mike Sobo
Interactive Agency: Almighty
Studio Director: Paul Larrow
Senior Flash Developer: Marc Leuchner
Technology Manager: Jeff Wilder
Account Director (interactive): Emily Daniel