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Ozometer by Play
The campaign was created to celebrate Foster's famous ‘No Worries’ attitude. In creating the campaign, Play searched for some of Britain’s most, and least, ‘No worries’ people, celebrities and places. More on Play's award winning campaign.The difference between ‘getting it’ and ‘doing it right’
by Marcus Siddons, Media and Mobile Director, Graphico
Social media can look like an easy bandwagon to jump on. Most of us use social media whether it’s shopping comparison sites, YouTube or some form of messenger, but understanding how these might be used from a brand’s perspective can involve a different mindset. While most marketers have a solid understanding of how to research, plan and implement campaign-based media activity, social media can require a different approach.
Anyone with access to the internet can ‘do’ it – that’s the essence of social media but for a brand to ‘do it right’ involves a real understanding of the
medium. As a first important step therefore, living and breathing social media is vital. If you want to get more involved with photo-sharing, for example, then make sure you’ve got an account with each of the key sites.
The second key differentiator for those who are doing it right is an understanding that social media is not, on the whole, campaign based activity (although it can of course play an important role in this). Consumers are talking about, and interacting with your brand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Social media is therefore like oxygen to the current generation of connected youth in particular – your social media strategy needs to reflect this raising important considerations in terms of how you resource it both internally and via third party agencies. This may seem like common sense but is essential in gaining consumer understanding.
At Dell’s business notebook launch, Andy Lark shared his views on social media. Click here to view it.
“The Social Media Team is the core of Dell’s business’s marketing strategy. The dedicated team focus on listening to the customers by engaging with blogs, wikis, forums etc. The other elements of marketing are less important as they have become more transactional and tactical in nature, whereas social media is much more strategic,” says Lark. It’s about how you use listening and coalescing with conversations that are going on to back up and inform everything you do. He suggests the notion of traditional media ‘was killed a while ago’.
Social media is also often best viewed as a research and insight activity. It gives brands an unprecedented chance to listen to and respond to consumers. While understanding target audiences clearly remains important, social media is better viewed as a way of exposing the trends around wider topics and understanding how your brand should (or shouldn’t) respond. This is not therefore about a small ‘representative’ group of people in the form of a focus group but the chance to access a World Wide Web-sized focus group. This requires a real shift in thinking.
1. Understand Social Media activity runs 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.
2. Resource it correctly (i.e. have the right internal and external teams
in place).
3. Value all engagement – even if it doesn’t create an obvious and immediate
benefit (research and associated insights can be hugely valuable).
4.. Expect the unexpected – results are sometimes far better or worse than
anticipated. If the message has been correctly constructed, it will have
an effect on the recipient, even if they don’t get back to you.
5.. Exploit your own website – consumers have high levels of trust in brand
websites.
Slicethepie is an innovative business model described as “an online financing engine for the music industry that turns every music fan into a record label”. Launched in June 2007, it was recently named by Wired Magazine as one of the “Top 10 Hottest Music Sites” in the world.
It harnesses the power of the internet to enable music fans to:
A word of mouth campaign was planned and implemented pre-launch in order to:
WOMM was the natural choice for the pre-launch phase for a number of reasons:
The key objective was to drive registrations pre-launch. Those who registered were able to enter the first Arena. It was also important to create a credible buzz prior to the launch and so get key influencers talking about the concept and the site.
A team of buzz marketers worked through a number of channels to open conversations. This was carried out in an open and transparent manner.
MySpace and Bebo proved excellent sources of contacts and the team used an informal and personal approach - posting comments and messaging. Personalising messages was vital.
A sophisticated influence tracking system identified key individuals in the broader blogosphere and also on niche music sites. A direct conversation was then opened with them to introduce the Slicethepie concept and get their feedback.
Initially, the contact didn’t reveal the brand name, but rather created interest and asked if the recipient would like to be involved. For those who responded positively, a second communication was sent which included the name and also linked to a YouTube area which featured a couple of user testing videos (one longer ‘taster’ video and one shorter ‘funny’ clip). The final message gave bands exclusive password access to the prelaunch site.
After the launch, a Facebook application was created which targeted people within a social networking environment. The Facebook apps focussed on the most chattable’ aspects of the site and featured Slicethepie’s ‘Watch List’ and ‘Scout Profile’ areas.
June 2008 was the first anniversary of the launch of www.slicethepie.com and here’s an extract from their RSS feed:
“It’s been exactly one year to the day since the Slicethepie website launched! One year has seen a vast number of achievements and with 16 financed Artists, 4 awards, over £1/4 million pounds raised in total, 10,000 Artists signed up so far, an army of 60,000 music fans and Investors and over 1 million reviews submitted to date.”
The WOMM campaign was fundamental to the success of the concept. It exceeded target registrations pre-launch but most importantly, targeted the right people, delivering valuable feedback and enabling the concept to build credibility pre-launch, from which the site has grown.
O2 – Fill the Indigo campaign AIS London
O2 asked archibald ingall stretton to raise awareness of their music credentials and deliver a real experience for the brand thought - We’re better, connected. So, they took the Indigo2 venue - the live music venue next to the arena in The O2 which has witnessed show-stopping sets from the likes of Prince, Crowded House and the Manic Street Preachers - and matched it with the simple premise - if you can fill it, you can win it. By firstly setting up a guest list on thinkyouarepopular.com entrants were then encouraged to use their social networking skills to recruit friends. This was the ultimate test of popularity and social networking skills.
Social media can look like an easy bandwagon to jump on. Most of us use social media whether it’s shopping comparison sites, YouTube or some form of messenger, but understanding how these might be used from a brand’s perspective can involve a different mindset. While most marketers have a solid understanding of how to research, plan and implement campaign-based media activity, social media can require a different approach.
Anyone with access to the internet can ‘do’ it – that’s the essence of social media but for a brand to ‘do it right’ involves a real understanding of the
medium. As a first important step therefore, living and breathing social media is vital. If you want to get more involved with photo-sharing, for example, then make sure you’ve got an account with each of the key sites.
The second key differentiator for those who are doing it right is an understanding that social media is not, on the whole, campaign based activity (although it can of course play an important role in this). Consumers are talking about, and interacting with your brand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Social media is therefore like oxygen to the current generation of connected youth in particular – your social media strategy needs to reflect this raising important considerations in terms of how you resource it both internally and via third party agencies. This may seem like common sense but is essential in gaining consumer understanding.
At Dell’s business notebook launch, Andy Lark shared his views on social media. Click here to view it.
“The Social Media Team is the core of Dell’s business’s marketing strategy. The dedicated team focus on listening to the customers by engaging with blogs, wikis, forums etc. The other elements of marketing are less important as they have become more transactional and tactical in nature, whereas social media is much more strategic,” says Lark. It’s about how you use listening and coalescing with conversations that are going on to back up and inform everything you do. He suggests the notion of traditional media ‘was killed a while ago’.
Social media is also often best viewed as a research and insight activity. It gives brands an unprecedented chance to listen to and respond to consumers. While understanding target audiences clearly remains important, social media is better viewed as a way of exposing the trends around wider topics and understanding how your brand should (or shouldn’t) respond. This is not therefore about a small ‘representative’ group of people in the form of a focus group but the chance to access a World Wide Web-sized focus group. This requires a real shift in thinking.
Top 5 differentiators between those that ‘get it’ and ‘do it right’:
1. Understand Social Media activity runs 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.
2. Resource it correctly (i.e. have the right internal and external teams
in place).
3. Value all engagement – even if it doesn’t create an obvious and immediate
benefit (research and associated insights can be hugely valuable).
4.. Expect the unexpected – results are sometimes far better or worse than
anticipated. If the message has been correctly constructed, it will have
an effect on the recipient, even if they don’t get back to you.
5.. Exploit your own website – consumers have high levels of trust in brand
websites.
Case study for Slicethepie.com
Slicethepie is an innovative business model described as “an online financing engine for the music industry that turns every music fan into a record label”. Launched in June 2007, it was recently named by Wired Magazine as one of the “Top 10 Hottest Music Sites” in the world.
It harnesses the power of the internet to enable music fans to:
- Discover
- Invest in
- and share in the financial success of emerging artists
A word of mouth campaign was planned and implemented pre-launch in order to:
- Drive band registrations pre-launch
- Raise awareness of Slicethepie ahead of the site launch
Why was word of mouth marketing used for it?
WOMM was the natural choice for the pre-launch phase for a number of reasons:
- Firstly, it was felt that it would be the rightmedium to build credibility for Slicethepie.
- Secondly, as the concept was new and it needed a proper ‘conversation’ to introduce it. WOMM was identified as the ideal medium to open such a conversation with key individuals.
- Thirdly, the internet has played a key role in changing the music industry in the period preceding Slicethepie’s launch and so it was the naturalmedium through which to work.
- Finally, the fact that Slicethepie’s business model is internet-based and will appeal to internet savvy individuals confirmed WOMM as the correct approach.
What was the aim of the campaign?
The key objective was to drive registrations pre-launch. Those who registered were able to enter the first Arena. It was also important to create a credible buzz prior to the launch and so get key influencers talking about the concept and the site.
How was the campaign rolled out using word of mouth?
A team of buzz marketers worked through a number of channels to open conversations. This was carried out in an open and transparent manner.
MySpace and Bebo proved excellent sources of contacts and the team used an informal and personal approach - posting comments and messaging. Personalising messages was vital.
A sophisticated influence tracking system identified key individuals in the broader blogosphere and also on niche music sites. A direct conversation was then opened with them to introduce the Slicethepie concept and get their feedback.
Initially, the contact didn’t reveal the brand name, but rather created interest and asked if the recipient would like to be involved. For those who responded positively, a second communication was sent which included the name and also linked to a YouTube area which featured a couple of user testing videos (one longer ‘taster’ video and one shorter ‘funny’ clip). The final message gave bands exclusive password access to the prelaunch site.
After the launch, a Facebook application was created which targeted people within a social networking environment. The Facebook apps focussed on the most chattable’ aspects of the site and featured Slicethepie’s ‘Watch List’ and ‘Scout Profile’ areas.
What were the results?
June 2008 was the first anniversary of the launch of www.slicethepie.com and here’s an extract from their RSS feed:
“It’s been exactly one year to the day since the Slicethepie website launched! One year has seen a vast number of achievements and with 16 financed Artists, 4 awards, over £1/4 million pounds raised in total, 10,000 Artists signed up so far, an army of 60,000 music fans and Investors and over 1 million reviews submitted to date.”
The WOMM campaign was fundamental to the success of the concept. It exceeded target registrations pre-launch but most importantly, targeted the right people, delivering valuable feedback and enabling the concept to build credibility pre-launch, from which the site has grown.
Social media in action
O2 – Fill the Indigo campaign AIS London
O2 asked archibald ingall stretton to raise awareness of their music credentials and deliver a real experience for the brand thought - We’re better, connected. So, they took the Indigo2 venue - the live music venue next to the arena in The O2 which has witnessed show-stopping sets from the likes of Prince, Crowded House and the Manic Street Preachers - and matched it with the simple premise - if you can fill it, you can win it. By firstly setting up a guest list on thinkyouarepopular.com entrants were then encouraged to use their social networking skills to recruit friends. This was the ultimate test of popularity and social networking skills.
