I will resist the urge. Already there are too many write-ups about the inspirational campaign from a social media perspective. I’m going to keep telling myself, “Please don’t write about Old Spice.”
I am not going to share how the social campaign is a brilliant extension of a series of creative and funny TV commercials. I’m not going to point out that the campaign had awareness and life long before the social media play, or how the real-time authoring of content and demonstrated effects could change the game of how advertisers think – not to mention drive the consumption of their earlier commercials. No one wants to know there are already rumors of a sitcom for Isaiah Mustafa, or that the wave of parodies (like this one and this one) is going to give the whole concept legs for quite some time.
I can’t imagine anyone wants to hear about integration of paid and earned media again, or how ending the video effort quickly adds to the mystique and likelihood of a successful follow-up. I’m also not going to call out the people who are asking, “But is it making Old Spice fall off the shelves? Is anyone buying more?” since I’m sure people never ask that about TV commercials the day they first air. No way I’m going to share how brilliant sharing behind the scenes is, nor how I really think it’s brilliant to mix who they reply to between influencers and “normal people” who barely have any followers.
I also won’t tell anyone how their High Endurance deodorant was the fascination of my fraternity in college as the best working product out there, and how word of mouth made it successful. This was long before “social media” back in the days when we had to use modems to connect to AOL 2.0. If I share that I’ll surely date myself. Now it’s possible to get 61 million views on Youtube.
I sincerely hope that people just sit back and enjoy the brilliant piece of work, and stop giving P&G the link love. Who’s with me? (By the way, I’m glad to hear he stopped the oil spill).
I continue to be surprised at how many companies keep the Market Research department in some back hall closet collecting dust and reams of paper reports. It happens in all industries, but lately I’ve seen retail companies keep their “Consumer Insight” group focused on traditional insight like mall traffic patterns and planograms. Consumer segmentation models are typically owned in these groups, and often they are leveraged for behavioral patterns that help with the proverbial 4 Ps – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. That stuff is important to the business, no doubt. But those same companies need to leverage, not ignore, that insight available when fusing social media into the marketing mix they already have.
Brian Solis has a terrific series starting this week on the changing the auto pilot status of the marketing, advertising and communications arenas, where he adds a 5th P: People. People are the fuel behind social media, which is really just tools and tactics. Here is a quick list of reasons to get Market Research engaged early in order to give social media (People fueled) initiatives the best chances of long term success.
10. Knowing Customer Behaviors
What internal group knows more about your customer’s behaviors and acts? The web analytics team knows about what customers do with your own web assets, not about what customers do – in the real world and in online social channels where you don’t own the assets. Do they share opinions? Do they care what kind of car they drive? Are they fickle with the brand of toothpaste they buy? Do they use social platforms and if so, how often and why? While we’re at it, how do our customers use social media vs. the mainstream population?
9. Understanding the Effectiveness of Current and Historical Marketing
This applies to branding initiatives too. They (should) know how effective every ad, campaign, point-of-sale item, direct mail, email, tagline, product and other marketing investment has performed. Wouldn’t you want to leverage that insight to avoid a misdirection in using social media?
8. Tried and True Methods to Solicit Customer Feedback
Industries are changing rapidly, and the need to conduct focus groups, surveys and gather feedback is too. The more traditional/offline methods still apply, though – and chances are market research departments are already exploring alternatives to get those things accomplished more quickly, more effectively and cheaply. Either way, the market research team should be established pros at getting feedback from existing and target customers.
7. Understanding the Current and Future Market Conditions
Market research is a core part of any business strategy – in this case meaning researching markets. Will there be future demand for products? How is our market share today vs. a year ago, and how will a new program help influence that? It’s this team that businesses leans on to get hard data on what will happen. Talking to customers in these markets in social channels increases the need to understand the market overall and correlate initiatives to marketing directives.
6. They Have the Ear of the CMO
There are many arguments on who should own social media, but the research arm of the company usually rolls up to the CMO. The CMO is the one managing brand perception, and if you believe social media initiatives impact branding, marketing or communications, the CMO will want to hear about it. The CMO will also want to know the data.
5. Understanding Customer Needs and Wants
Customer needs are different than behaviors. Do your customers have a need for community, convenience, or collaboration? A customer who is ill needs and wants a safe, effective means to get relief – understanding that need will lead to understanding that customer’s motivation. Social media tools provides customers new ways to hear about, research and talk about their needs. There is so much information running facebook promotions can provide, on top of generating actual sales and brand awareness. Market research teams can share that insight and inform the folks “doing the talking” on what content makes sense to share and discuss.
4. They Have the Best Contextual Insight
Bruce Temkin, former Forrester Research analyst on customer experience, wrote a post a few months ago about how market research needs less statistical analysis and more contextual analysis. He shared this formula:
“Actionable insight” is one of my all-time favorite terms, and if market research can provide that, they need to be in the mix and weighing in an any new initiative.
3. “We’ve got data!”
New businesses are being formed and becoming competitors such as Power BI vs Tableau to help fuse social media into more traditional business intelligence disciplines. Market research has a P&L that includes funds to buy that data, and the skills to sift through it to make meaningful hypotheses about it.
2. Understanding the Competitive Landscape
When deciding to build a strategy for social media, it’s clearly important to know what your competitors are doing. The market research team is typically the best equipped, since they a) know who your competitors really are, and b) likely keeps tabs on them already for other campaigns, pricing, promotions and events.
1. Insight is Critical Before Starting Anything New
Simply put, many types of social media (as emerging technology) are rapidly moving past the Trough of Disillusionment and into the Slope of Enlightenment. More and more case studies of successes in social channels are popping up. Social media may still be new – and perhaps some approaches will be new to even the biggest organizations. When Pepsi put big budget dollars to social media, I think many people in the industry finally woke up. I guarantee that Pepsi didn’t make this decision without their market research team in the mix.
Social media tactics touch many other parts of the organization too, but having Market research up front in the design and decision process will help make initiatives more effective. What did I miss?
I always like to capture ideas and campaigns here that really catch my eye and provide inspiration. Here are two banner ads that challenge the notion that this industry has nothing left in it. They show that the right mix of creativity, humor and humility for the knowledge an end-user has about the space can create a vibrant ad. Most importantly: they engage better than, well any other banner ad I’ve seen. I’d imagine, like me, anyone in the interactive marketing industry would look at both these and say, “I wish I’d thought of that.”
Pringles
First up is an ad from Pringles. I couldn’t click just once. (OK, I know that’s a headnod to the Lay’s campaign, but it’s for potato chips too). I heard about it via AdFreak – key quote:
I appreciate that it isn’t flashing horrible circus colors and promising me a free Xbox or a spyware-laden “virus scan.”
It’s actually quite funny, and no surprise it recently won awards. The one here is embedded – you can click right here and no I don’t get any referrals for your clicks.
Volkswagen
The second ad was covered in Adweek’s TweetFreak a couple weeks ago. This ad for Volkswagen integrates Twitter directly in the ad, scanning recent tweets for terms used and then recommending a car that is right for you. This one is not embedded – click through to a page where you can put in a Twitter ID to see the results.
Of course I like the idea of integrating Twitter in a creative way – it’s trailblazing with new platforms and technologies – but I would be curious to see some of the metrics around both of these campaigns. Any others that strike you as compelling or inspirational?
Bonus: An Offline Ad Can Inspire Too
Proving that technology, location and creativity can create a compelling mix, here’s another Cannes Lion award winner that could inspire loads of guerilla marketing ideas – imagine what Times Square could be like in New York City if all of the ads responded to what happened in front of them. Hat tip to copyranter and @dschutzsmith for sharing.
UPDATE: For a lot more insight on the Pringles ad (not to mention some very useful resources on Pharma and social media) directly from the source agency that created the ad, see the post “What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles” from Jonathan Richman.
Thanks to Dave Knox, a brand manager at P&G, for spotting this video. This is a simple and clear example of how marketing of old is no longer effective, and how “atomized and parallel media consumption” have impacted how brands market today. Dave mentions this is a good way for a brand manager to illustrate the need for change to management. I’d add that it’s a way to also explain why the personalized connections through social media are so important. Worth the three minutes.
In late October, I got a first hand glimpse into how the web is taking on traditional newspapers. While in Dallas for Forrester’s Consumer Forum, I was grateful to be invited to drop in at the offices of the Dallas Morning News to talk about how retailers are using Facebook.
A Somber Scene
At first glance, the floor where most of the reporters sit is very much like the stereotypical movie sets. I expected Perry White (Jackie Cooper, in my head, anyways) to come screaming out of his office at any moment. The major differences: PCs everywhere instead of typewriters, and most of the desks were empty. I visited them on a Monday – the prior Friday they had been through a series of layoffs, and the mood was somber. As the paper takes on challenges brought on by Web 2.0 and the shift of advertising online, ironically a blog solely for former employeers of the paper cropped up and has some very passionate people engaged.
Challenges for Traditional Newspapers
Three major challenges for the paper are apparent. First, the cost of advertising. Simply put, ads cost a lot less and are far more measurable online. This directly competes with ad revenue for the paper, and was a deciding factor in the recent Chapter 11 filing at the holding company that owns the Chicago Tribune and LA Times.
The second challenge is the proliferation of other media sources. I heard the phrases “reading blogs” and “did you see the blog post” several times. The lines between traditional media and new media are blurring and anyone who can publish a story could conceivably trump a reporter at a paper. Clearly reporters are paying attention. The lines are blurring between official reporters and passionate folks who like to write.
A third challenge for newspapers is really understanding the digital channel. I’ve seen recent discussion on Twitter with Bryan Person and Aaron Strout around how newspapers don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO). Both have pointed out examples of articles in Boston papers where the authors failed to include links in the online version of the story to either personal blogs or corporate web sites. “Sharing the link love” is a key piece of making the digital channel successful and accessible through search.
Understanding a Slice of New Media
The main purpose of my visit was to discuss my agency’s recent study on retailers using Facebook. Several big name retailers, including J.C. Penney, are in the Dallas area, and the retail reporter for DMN was trying to get a better understanding of Facebook and other tools. I spent a couple of hours with her explaining how Facebook works and gave her a demo of Twitter (thanks to many connections there for helping out). It was clearly an eye opening experience for her, and we reviewed what several local-based retailers were doing with Facebook fan pages. The net result, including much of her hard work looking at viral marketing, interviewing a variety of sources and adding insight to what the companies are doing, is this well-written piece published Tuesday called, “Retailers find Facebook friends in hopes of finding sales.” No doubt the folks who are reporters are talented in their research and writing – she did an excellent job tying in the recent viral successes of J.C. Penney and Victoria Secret’s Pink brand to our discussion on retailers using Facebook pages.
Clearly the Dallas Morning News is getting the digital channel – the page where my article lives had (as of my last view) advertisements for Ford, Cars.com and Netflix. The article also had the ability to share via social bookmarking sites and allowed comments. Unfortunately the article had no link here or to our agency’s site, Rosetta.com. But 2 out of 3 ain’t bad right?
In the end this was a real world microcosm example of how the old media industry needs to adapt in order to thrive. Thanks again DMN for including me in the article and I hope we both continue to learn from the experience.
I came across this presentation in feeds this morning and thought it was worth sharing. Among the many salient points:
Some great statistics on the fundamental boost to mobile that the iPhone has initiated. For example, nearly 50% of all iPhone users visited social networking sites, compared to 4% of all mobile users.
If you have a buisness and looking for more marketing strategies then check out SMS reseller white label software where you can send messages to new and old clients.
The convergence of better networks, differentiated equipment with full keyboards and photo capabilities, location-aware technologies, the popularity of social networks and a desire to “stay connected” are all driving forces.
Challenges include privacy, ability to test and finding the right partners.
Recommendations include taking the plunge to make mistakes now – taking risks is easier to absorb in an immature marketplace.
I will resist the urge. Already there are too many write-ups about the inspirational campaign from a social media perspective. I’m going to keep telling myself, “Please don’t write about Old Spice.”
I continue to be surprised at how many companies keep the Market Research department in some back hall closet collecting dust and reams of paper reports. It happens in all industries, but lately I’ve seen retail companies keep their “Consumer Insight” group focused on traditional insight like mall traffic patterns and planograms. Consumer segmentation models are typically owned in these groups, and often they are leveraged for behavioral patterns that help with the proverbial 4 Ps – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. That stuff is important to the business, no doubt. But those same companies need to leverage, not ignore, that insight available when fusing social media into the marketing mix they already have.
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In late October, I got a first hand glimpse into how the web is taking on traditional newspapers. While in Dallas for Forrester’s Consumer Forum, I was grateful to be invited to drop in at the offices of the 