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Integrated Marketing

July 19, 2010 | Lisa Wieting

Old Spice “Swan Dives” into a Game- Changing Social Media Campaign

The Google CFO referenced Old Spice’s viral marketing campaign in an earnings call, stating “It just gives you a glimpse of where the world is going.”

So true, Patrick Pichette, but I think it’s even more than that. The Old Spice YouTube Tweetathon altered the social media landscape in one day.

1. Corporate Libertarianism

Kudos to Procter & Gamble for trusting its team to attempt this epic experiment with little to no supervision. ReadWriteWeb wrote a great post about how the videos are being made. The company has entrusted a team of social media guys, marketers, scriptwriters, creative and tech support to create 87 short videos in 11 hours…7 minutes per video. This leaves VERY little time for an approval process. Social media is about real time, and Procter & Gamble gets it.

Side note: It’s incredible that all of these people could work together so efficiently and effectively. Walls between departments are falling fast, and lines are being blurred. To create a successful social media campaign, you need the skills of creative, PR, marketing, copywriters, tech and social media professionals to get the job done. I for one am psyched about this collaborative philosophy.

2. “What’s Next?” Has Been Answered…for Now

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, foursquare…these applications have established themselves as the giants. For the past six months, it seems that everyone has been regifting these concepts. Social media began to blend into the humdrum of everyday marketing until July 15. The Old Spice campaign took what was available and reinvented how these applications could be used together. What’s next? Looking at what’s available and pushing the limits of its capabilities. This will dictate future applications.

3. Human Nature Explored

Social media has made the idea of “15 minutes of fame” possible…except now it’s 15 seconds of fame. It has made the distance between celebrity and civilian shorter. Old Spice capitalized on both of these concepts. Social media users were invited to ask questions directed toward the “Old Spice Guy” – Isaiah Mustafa. The responses were tracked, and the most interesting or highest-profile inquiries were addressed via personalized video, doing the following:

Feeding consumers’ egos by utilizing their creativity/ideas to drive the topics of the videos
Giving consumers their 15 seconds of fame through personalized video
Bridging the gap between the brand and the customer
Closing the distance between celebrity vs. civilian by streaming videos for Alyssa Milano and Jonathan on Facebook as equals

Brands are going to need to refocus their attention from defining who “they” are to defining who the customer is and how to create a personal, engaging and lasting relationship. We are a self-centered, ego-driven, short-attention-span society, and now that we know what is possible, expectations are going to change.

Update: The Old Spice personalized videos have amassed more than 5.2 million views! That is more than some (many) television programs.

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July 1, 2010 | Lisa Wieting

An Ode to Gimmick Marketing in Honor of “Tasties” Greeting Cards

American Greeting Cards has just released its “Tasties” collection of greeting cards that include flavor strips. Simply peel and lick…the card. In honor of this recent development in greeting card marketing, I wanted to share some of my favorite (or at least most memorable) marketing gimmicks.

Pepsi goes after those looking for a clear and pure cola alternative...as well as those looking for a pop first thing in the a.m.

1. Crystal Pepsi – This came out when I was in middle school, and I admit, I completely bought into it without ever understanding the point. According to Wikipedia, Crystal Pepsi was a caffeine-free “clear alternative” to normal colas, equating clearness with purity and health. I just thought it was funny that a pop that tasted like Pepsi looked like water.

Honorable Mention: Pepsi A.M. This was marketed to those who like to drink pop in the morning. Side note: I consume at least two Diet Cokes before 9 a.m. each morning. I am the target market. I would not drink this.

2. Beer Gimmicks – Beer companies put other marketers to shame in the “Gimmick” department:

Ignore the ice running down the bottle, the blue mountains tell you this beer is cold!

A label that turns blue when cold – I don’t know what to say about this…isn’t it cold when it feels cold?

The “wide-mouth” can – I always thought this was to help you drink it faster, but after doing some research it is apparently to help ventilation…who knew?

The “light beer” race – I was someone who looked forward to Michelob Ultra launching. And then the floodgates opened. Budweiser Select 55, Miller Genuine Draft Light 64…does it matter that none of these beers has any taste anymore? Give me a Guinness.

Honorable Mention: Dos Equis’ “The Most Interesting Man in the World” campaign. Did the announcer just say, “When he punches you in the face you will have to fight the urge to thank him”? It took me four times watching this commercial to figure out what it was trying to sell. I’m pretty sure I purchased this beer after that fourth viewing.

3. Cocaine Energy Drink – Who thought this was a good idea? We can guess what went on in that brainstorm session.

Honorable Mention: Red Bull “Gives You Wings.” The commercials are a bit offbeat, but I think it works for them, as they are a quirky brand. But more importantly, I love how they have taken this “gimmick” and translated it into the world’s coolest competition – Flugtag. This “homemade, human-powered flying machine” challenge is on my bucket list.

4. Crayola – Quiz: How many times can a company sell you the exact same product? These are ALL markers in one shape or another.

A marker by any other name is just a marker...right? Not at Crayola.

Glitter Paper – Sparkle built into each fun-tastic page. Just use clear Color Wonder Markers to create colorful, shimmering masterpieces.

Color Wonder Light Up Markers – Simply connect the Color Wonder Marker into the light wand and click it. The barrels light up to identify each marker color.

Color Explosion 3-D – With just one clear marker, create images that leap from the page in cool 3-D effects.

Honorable Mention: 3D everything. My husband claims he can’t see 3D because of some vision dysfunction he “thinks” he has, yet he wants the 3D television. And he calls me a “marketer’s dream.”

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April 16, 2010 | Steve Chitwood

Finally, a chirp worth tweeting about.

Though Twitter, the popular microblogging service is ubiquitous in the online world, headlines for the company have been fleeting for much of the last year. Moreover, in the discussions I’ve been privy to at various industry events, the consensus seemed to be building that Twitter had reached its zenith and had begun its slow glide to obscurity. Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and location-aware social applications like Gowalla and Foursquare have been growing and seem to better answer users’ desires to stay instantly connected to the social grid. The lack of a strategy to monetize the service has kept advertisers and major brand marketers at bay along with their budgets and ability to facilitate innovation and consumer adoption.

Alas, an early spring chirp was finally heard this week signaling a possible resurgence. At the Chirp Conference Twitter execs announced a series of significant changes that address much of what the industry has been crowing about:

• The really big news is promoted tweets, a new advertising platform where advertisers can buy access into a topical Twitter stream. With some similarities to Google’s AdWords platform, this might just start building a justification for the billion-dollar valuation the revenue-neutral service has earned thus far.

• User Streams, a new data service provided by Twitter to desktop applications. This allows developers access to real-time data directly from Twitter. Look for a flock of new Twitter-enabled applications in the near future.

• A developer roadmap to calm the fears of developers and marketers about the service and where it is going. Look for increased functionality around location awareness, annotations, and other features.

• A new home page to address the high abandonment rate of new subscribers. Early tests show a 20% increase in retention.

Along with the technical discussions, Twitter management also shared data about the service that has long been speculated and rarely confirmed. It turns out that Twitter is bigger than we all expected. According to cofounder Biz Stone, Twitter has nearly 106 million registered users and 180 million unique visitors a month—far above many previous industry expectations. To date, the service has been tight-lipped about this type of information. Even more impressive, Twitter is growing at a rate of 300,000 new users a day, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Twitter still has a rough flight ahead. Archenemy Facebook is gearing up for the annual F8 Conference, which promises the unveiling of new features and direction for the 400 million user–strong social network. But for now, Twitter can enjoy the warm glow of springtime optimism.

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February 12, 2010 | Steve Chitwood

Google all a buzz over social media

Surprised? Of course not. Google has been dipping its elephant-size toes in the social media pond for some time. Remember Orkut? However, it appears the testing-the-water phase is far behind us. Today’s announcement of the acquisition of Aardvark, a social search service founded by ex-Googlers, is the latest in a series of steps that illustrate the dominance of social media in our online culture today and, more definitively, Google’s commitment to remaining at the convergence of maturing online trends.

While the Aardvark addition pales in comparison with other acquisitions in recent years, such as the $1.6 billion paid for YouTube (now the second-largest search engine, masquerading as a social video-sharing site), it continues to extend Mountain View’s reach into the social web while taking another competitive swipe at perennial runner-up Yahoo! – this time targeting the popular Yahoo! Answers service with which Aardvark competes using a decidedly social media flair. The upstart leverages your own social network connections to provide answers to a user’s questions.

Earlier this week, Google Buzz came thundering onto the social scene offering much the same functionality as Facebook. With Buzz, users can create profiles; embed media from sharing sites such as Picassa, Flicker and YouTube; share information; create groups of friends; post status updates, etc. ¬– all from the comfort of a couple hundred million existing Gmail accounts. While disrupting Facebook’s momentum seems unlikely, the heft of Google’s offering, its reputation for solid technology and its immediate availability to the vast Gmail user base make it a social networking contender worth watching. While I was writing this post, this tweet came across my screen: “Google Buzz makes Facebook look like some college kids’ computer science project.”

One could catch the buzz about Buzz by following the very popular trending topic on Twitter. You could also point your browser to Google and take advantage of Google Social Search. For the last couple months, real-time content from Facebook, MySpace.com and Twitter has been integrated into traditional search results, blending in wall posts, blog entries, tweets and video tags and bringing real-time relevance to users’ queries.

Few dispute that social media is here to stay, that the rise of social networking has truly changed online behavior and that new technologies and evolving trends promise to maintain the dizzying momentum we have seen over recent years. Even fewer should dispute that, however social media matures, Google will be an ever-strengthening force.

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