Posts Tagged ‘social media’

“Haul Videos” Turn Another Private Moment into Marketing

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Although the term “Social Media” seems due for its trip down the hype curve into the dustbin of once-powerful historic buzz words such as ”Information Superhighway” and “Web 2.0,” the concept continues to gain traction because it really does represent a change in how people live their lives. When people can take private or small-group moments and share them with the world with a push of a mouse button or swipe of an iPhone, things can get more and more interesting. Small things that happen every day suddenly can turn into legitimate media movements. Such is the case of “haul videos,” which are turning shopping and sharing among girlfriends into the latest must-have for beauty and fashion marketers.

Haul videos have become the new trend for sharing among trendsetters and watchers. They represent the act of shopping at a store, then videotaping yourself showing off your purchases on camera, and then uploading it to YouTube for sharing. As seen in the ABC News video above, there are more than 100,000 individual haul videos on YouTube already, which have received millions of views. Some individual videos have been viewed as many as 700,000 times, while others are starting out with just two viewers (great quote: “…my mom begged me to do one!”).

The act of sharing your fashion purchases with other people is not new. Girls have been doing this for years—inviting friends over to their homes and showing off their latest buys from the mall. The difference now is that technology is allowing people to share with the world. Just as blogging turned diaries from private to public and Flickr allowed people to share their photos with the world, now cheap video cameras and YouTube are turning this once private activity into public, “social media.” Let’s also skip the concern that Gen Y is over-sharing or becoming too materialistic. These kids grew up regulating their privacy (with parents’ help) and are just doing what they’ve always done.

Once this private act goes public, some pretty interesting changes can happen. Some girls are able gather a large audience and can quickly impact product sales. Viewers see them as honest and “real,” and thus trust what they are sharing and saying much more than any advertisement. Advertisers become interested whenever they see a large, trusted audience and will continually look to earn a positive review. In fashion specifically, word of mouth has a very large impact on product popularity and sales, and these videos are a major catalyst for word of mouth. And not only do thousands of girls closely follow specific video producers, but search engines such as Google and Bing send additional traffic when the videos are posted.

This is an important point that signals a deeper change in how social media is impacting the marketing world. Instead of buying ad placements that are trusted less and less, advertisers are increasingly providing free samples to top bloggers and video creators. Advertisers must trust that their products will be liked by the reviewers, who in turn will talk about these products in their own words. If reviewers accept money or are perceived to be biased, then they risk losing the trust of their audience. This is much more meaningful than the typical model of buying glossy print ads or paying celebrities millions of dollars to promote your products.

This is also part of a larger trend toward social-media shopping. People are increasingly using technology such as Facebook and mobile phones to virtually take their friends along with them when shopping—both for assistance and fun. For example, they are using a location-based app called foursquare to tell their friends where they are browsing, and they are scanning UPCs to find product reviews on their mobile phones. At Bridge Worldwide, we created a tool for Pearle Vision that allows people to upload photos of themselves in various pairs of glasses so that they can get quick feedback from their friends before making a purchase.

So the question for you is: What can you do to make shopping for your products or services a more social experience? Social shopping isn’t going away anytime soon.

Promoted Tweets Might Unlock Marketer Engagement

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

So the biggest non-surprise of the social-media business occurred last week when Twitter finally introduced its advertising model, Promoted Tweets. We all knew that the company had to show some significant revenue model in 2010, and we all knew that it would work to “monetize its traffic” by, we guessed it, placing advertising in front of people’s searches and tweet stream. Now it’s time to address the unanswered question that our clients are already asking us: “Should I jump into Promoted Tweets?” My simple answer, “Yes, and…”

Promoted Tweets basically applies the Google AdWords model to Twitter. Brands buy keywords based on what Twitter users are saying and searching for in hopes of getting a positive brand impression, click to website, or retweet of the ad to friends and followers. A very basic example is the one above: Search for “Red Bull” (full disclosure: a Bridge Worldwide client) and the first result is a Promoted Tweet that the brand created. Twitter is slowly and cautiously rolling out the service—starting with a handful of A-list brands such as Starbucks and Best Buy, and only using it on search pages. But the company promises to add this to the regular stream of tweets users receive, both on Twitter.com and the many third-party applications that use the Twitter API.

So what is a marketer to do? Especially one that is still not sure what to do on Twitter to begin with? This is the question that kept me up all Friday night as I pondered this blog post and a Digital Alert that we will send to our clients next week. There is a simple answer and a complex answer.

The simple answer is that marketers should definitely experiment with Promoted Tweets. Once it opens up to more than the first handful of brands, Promoted Tweets will likely be very easy to set up by anyone on the brand team. Like Google or Facebook, a very small amount of money can be used to start testing results. (I’m talking about even a few hundred dollars.) For brands that are already buying Google or Facebook ads this is an opportunity to divert a tiny amount of that existing budget to send traffic to the same places and gauge click-through rates and cost-per-click among these three options. Easy enough, right?

But the complexity comes when a brand manager opens a Promoted Tweets account—as this simple step can open up a can worms. First, you have to start thinking about people who like your ads and want to follow your Twitter feed. Uh, oh—you don’t have a Twitter feed. And if you start one, who is going to monitor it? After all, people expect brands on Twitter to be there for them and truly interact. This is what makes Twitter a “social media” after all. So when they complain about your service or rave about your new product, what do you do? Suddenly your work got a lot harder, legal wants to review your tweets, and your customer service and PR people are coming to your desk. Maybe it’s not worth the effort after all…

Don’t panic.

The lesson here is that it is time for your brand to start playing with Twitter and engaging with consumers through this new but high-growth service. The real first step is to create a Twitter account on your own and spend a few minutes per day playing with the service. Then read Advertising Age or Brandweek and see how a handful of marketers are using the service in new ways. By personally diving into the space you will quickly have the smarts to deal with the right approach to engaging with consumers as well as your organizational hurdles.

You will discover as a new Twitter user and already-smart marketer that the interruptive advertising model represented by Promoted Tweets is interesting, but by far the least meaningful to your consumers. Promoted Tweets will work best if you are already “out there” with added value. Red Bull, for example, bought its brand name on Twitter so that it can highlight its killer content and existing high-quality Twitter account.

But there are many more meaningful ways to use Twitter to create marketing that people choose to engage with, and advertising that adds value to people’s lives. For example, here at Bridge Worldwide, we recently gave Healthy Choice coupon downloaders the chance to share a product review on Twitter. Subway is giving people a chance to win gift cards by tweeting about their favorite celebrity. Dell sold more than $6.5 million in product through its Dell Outlet Twitter feed. And Southwest Airlines uses its Twitter account to live and breathe the fun that its equity represents. The possibilities can vary widely based on your business goals, customer insight, and the creativity of your team. And although you will have to put in some work to understand this new medium and get your organization comfortable with it, Twitter is an incredibly cheap and potentially powerful tool.

Just as Twitter is evolving as a company by experimenting with an ad model, your company should be evolving its marketing by experimenting with Twitter.

Estee Lauder Makes Social Media More Meaningful

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

estee lauder social

If Twitter had a dollar for every brand marketer who said “I need a social-media strategy” in the last year, then it might just have a business model worthy of its multi-billion-dollar valuation by now. But seriously, every time there is a new media option with promise for advertisers, our industry jumps to turning tactics into strategies. The reality is that very few brands have figured out social media, and I believe one of the big reasons is that they fail to think about how they can add value to customers’ existing activities. But I’m a big fan of how Estee Lauder is testing a new service aimed at bringing life to the beauty counter in a focused way.

Last week Advertising Age broke the story of how Estee Lauder is preparing to launch a promotion at cities in Southern California plus New York, Miami, and Chicago in which it will offer visitors to its cosmetics counters the chance for a free makeover, 10-day foundation supply, AND a professionally shot and retouched photo for use in online social-media profiles. The promotion will kick off on October 16 and run in select Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and Saks stores. Estee Lauder spokeswoman Tara Eisenberg says that it might move to more cities for a longer term if the effort is successful.

I love that the brand is testing something new to breathe new life into an age-old cosmetic-counter marketing strategy that has been in need of a face-lift for some time. Free makeovers and product samples have been a staple at these sections of the department store, but they have thus far failed to adapt to new times. By offering up these social-media profile photographs, Estee Lauder is differentiating itself from a crowded field and giving women a new reason to stop by and try something new. This also helps the brand connect with the rising younger generation of women who tend to shy away from the traditional makeup-counter experience.

I also appreciate how the brand is using this promotion to help women solve a new problem: that of the crappy profile picture. Whether they are engaged in online dating or meeting new friends through Facebook, the personal photo is now frequently the first impression you make. It’s just too important to leave to a household digital camera and a friend with a shaky hand. With this idea, Estee Lauder is helping its customers reach their higher-level goal of looking good no matter what the location or medium. It’s brilliant meaningful marketing.

One thing that I do not like is the fact that the resulting photograph comes with an Estee Lauder brand logo in the corner. This little grab for social-media advertising real estate could cost the brand any chance to make an impact. After all, who wants to show the world that their great picture is the result of an Estee Lauder marketing event? The brand’s makeup doesn’t force an Estee Lauder logo to appear on women’s faces today, so why go there in the digital realm? I am very sure that use of the photos and customer satisfaction will be much higher when women are free to use the photos logo-free. And by making women as happy as possible, the brand will end up earning strong loyalty and word of mouth.

Another thing I like about this promotion is that it is tied to existing social-media activity, rather than an attempt to create its own Facebook page or force people into an Estee Lauder Twitter feed. A few months ago I wrote about another brand that is using customers’ existing social-media tools to add value. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City created a smart planning tool that uses keywords from visitors’ Facebook profiles to make recommendations about which exhibits and events they might like best. Like the Estee Lauder example, MoMA is not trying to “butt into” a social network, just add value and move along.

This promotion by Estee Lauder is not a “mass” or “scale” social-media marketing strategy, but rather a way to plug smart social-media marketing into an existing, proven approach.

Bonus: The first reader who gets one of these free photographs at an Estee Lauder counter and sends it to me with permission to post it here will receive a free copy of my book!

Crispin’s New Site Shows Smart Branding

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

crispin beta site

My buddy and our agency’s President, Jay Woffington, is a master of comparing diverse data and figuring out how they add up to a common issue or opportunity. One of his favorite sayings is, “Two points make a line,” meaning that there can be a direct link between seemingly unrelated data or events. Well, it seems that we have another genuine trend on our hands, as now there are three prominent examples of companies that have turned over their websites to open social-media input by featuring unedited Twitter comments, Wikipedia entries, Facebook friends, and blog posts. First was Modernista!, an advertising agency, and next came the Skittles brand. Both experienced a mainly positive burst of buzz. The third example comes from another ad agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which has a live beta site that is attracting attention. Although the trend seems real, the questions linger: Is it meaningful… and it is worth the risk?

On the first question, I increasingly believe that adopting social media into your home page can be a powerful positive for customers. I say “increasingly” because the social-media space is evolving with the new digital social norms that are still self-organizing before our eyes. It is clear that already people are using social networks to judge any brand that they come across, whether it is posting a question to friends on Facebook, reading a review on an e-commerce site, or using Google, which often draws from personal reviews on blogs and discussion boards. So at the same time that people are visiting your brand’s website, they have a few other open browser tabs with this information. For forward thinkers such as Modernista!, Skittles, and Crispin, the logic is that they might as well go ahead and showcase this social media on the home page. So in this basis alone the approach is meaningful marketing.

The biggest marketing benefit can come when the brand website visitor first arrives and sees several positive stories, tweets, and blog posts. People judge a website and brand within microseconds, and some trusted, impartial comments on the home page can make a big impact. Instead of cluttering this moment of truth with ad copy, why not defer to the more-trusted comments of other customers? That’s what a billion-dollar brand that I used to work on, Tide, figured when it recently launched a home page redesign featuring actual user reviews front and center. And Juicy Juice is testing a banner ad that presents live tweets from moms.

But what about the risk and bad stories and comments that might appear at this moment of truth? Well, Crispin saw just what that looks like last week. First, it lost the Volkswagen account, which led to a rash of negative tweets and stories. It’s never fun to lose a big client, and worse to see the news everywhere. Second, the company took a lot of heat for running a contest in which it invited designers to create a new logo for the electric motorcycle start-up Brammo for a $1,000 top prize. Many in the design industry felt that this was undermining and cheapening their craft. Again, another round of negatives has filled its beta home page. In fact, the very public space and open ability to add a negative comment likely invites a much more negative response than one would otherwise see. It’s the chance to hold a virtual picket sign on the company’s front lawn.

So Crispin would call this a failure, right? I don’t think so. They are smart enough to have anticipated the negatives that can happen and I believe they fully embrace the haters. Even negatives can end up being positive in this case. First, it shows that the company is in the center of the action and they matter. This falls under the age-old line that even bad publicity is better than no publicity. The second benefit is that this open acceptance of hate media actually helps them attract the right clients, those who want to take risks and want to build a brand with a little controversy. Jason Bender, one of our top Creative Directors and leader of the team that recently won a Gold Cyber Lion at Cannes for a Pringles banner ad (that was somewhat controversial), said it best in our conversation about the issue:

“This shows people that Crispin is not for everyone, and that they don’t mind alienating the tight-asses they don’t want as clients. This helps them weed out the bad prospects.”

With this open site, negatives and all, Crispin as a brand is living and breathing the kind of marketing that it does for its clients. Brands such as Burger King, MINI, and Microsoft hired the agency in order to stir up attention, and they’ve all gotten what they wanted. In fact, Volkswagen chose to look for a new agency because it felt it needed to broaden its marketing to a wider audience. This will likely mean more watered down creative and Crispin wouldn’t want to do it anyway.

Interestingly, this Crispin story comes just as we at Bridge Worldwide have started to dabble social media on our Web presence. You might have noticed that we just launched our new Marketing with Meaning site, and on the home page we decided to feature a live feed of Twitter posts that include anyone who uses my handle, @mktgwithmeaning. We actually got to this idea in a roundabout way. We asked Ryan, our Web developer, to try to increase interest in our Twitter account on the home page, and he wrote an Ajax widget that brought in live tweets. We loved the idea, but I hated seeing my picture 15 times running down the screen. Someone mentioned that we could bring in retweets and other @replies. I immediately loved the idea because it would show the new visitor at this moment of truth that this is a popular topic that others are talking about. Second, I knew that the people who followed the Marketing with Meaning cause would appreciate that we were giving them at least a few minutes of public attention on our home page. And this in turn would lead to more tweets.

But what about the negatives of our modest effort? Jay and I actually had a long conversation about what could go wrong. Our agency recently got dinged a bit on something we shared publicly, so we felt the need to be cautious. We thought about the worst that could happen: Someone could, say, protest our work for a client and flood the site with negative tweets. If a client CEO with no social-media understanding (rare, I know) visited the site and saw this on our own home page it could be a huge negative. However unlikely, it is possible, so we made some plans to deal with it, but launched the tool regardless.

Bridge Worldwide is no Crispin Porter + Bogusky. We don’t believe that we need to embrace controversy to build brands. However we do have a very defined point of view on the kind of work we want to do for clients: Marketing with Meaning. This blog, the Twitter feed, the upcoming book, and more all are tools that we use to put ourselves out there for client consideration. When I speak with clients and prospects about this concept I say that sometimes our work will be interruptive and less meaningful if that is what is called for; after all, we exist first and foremost to serve our clients’ needs. But I quickly follow that this is our starting point for all recommendations, and that we’re going to challenge them continuously to move in this direction.

Just as Crispin has successfully attracted clients that follow its brand belief, I hope that our focus on Marketing with Meaning will attract more of the clients we want: brands that buy into our concept and are ready to buy meaningful ideas. The more public we are with this statement, the more likely we are to succeed.

Shopping: The Next Killer Social Media App

Friday, May 1st, 2009

If your brand or your client sells anything using the Internet, you need to put down the BlackBerry and start working on a recommendation to build social media tools into the purchase process. I can’t overwhelm you with case studies and ROI models yet, but the forces of e-commerce and human habits are combining to make digital/social shopping a killer app. Act now before your competitor steals the spotlight and market shares.

Let me break down why this gets me excited enough to push a recommendation at you: First, people love to shop together. Many female friends, couples, and even a few bromances get together regularly to hit the stores to find deals and get second opinions together in the physical world. Second, more and more shopping is done online, but people lose the chance to have fun and get help from friends in this way. But digital social media tools are bringing friends together virtually, and people are using them to keep in touch with more people more often. Digital + Social Shopping (needing a better buzz word, btw) puts it all together. And when marketers get into the act of encouraging these meaningful connections, they have a high chance of closing the sale.

I’ve heard this trend called “social commerce,” a blend of social media and e-commerce, but so far this phrase has been used mainly by companies such as Bazaarvoice that enable product reviews. What I’m talking about is deeper than just getting help from people; it’s specifically around enrolling your trusted friends in the live-ish shopping process itself.

Case studies: Of course, you need case studies to buy into this new world of buying. Check out these three:

Sears Prom Dresses + Facebook

I would argue that a very modest Facebook application for Sears last March was the best marketing use of this social networking service yet. The idea was pretty simple: Allow girls on Sears.com to share pictures of their favorite prom dresses out of 70 available on the site, and ask for feedback from their friends on Facebook. The beauty of this application is that it put the social network to work for the customer, creating a fun conversation and getting real help to a girl in need of a second, third, or 10th opinion. For Sears, this tool provided a meaningful way to attract customers to its stores, and it benefitted from the viral aspect of a girl virtually bringing several friends into the shopping process.

Vans Sneakers

Three Minds on Digital at Organic alerted me to a great example at Vans.com. The site is a custom shoe creation tool that includes a very simple option to email or SMS a photo of your proposed shoe with a short message to friends. For something “artsy” such as self-designed Vans shoes, a quick peek from a buddy can really help make sure your fashion statement doesn’t produce laughter.

Bob Gilbreath’s New Shoes

Yep, that’s me, your friendly blog writer, with a case study that’s actually an example how people will use these tools whether marketers are involved or not. Two weeks ago I was looking for some shoes to go with some new agency-wear summer shirts from Lucky Jeans that I bought online. In the office I was walking by three female friends in our Client Service organization who I know have good eyes for fashion. I was wearing one of my new shirts and stopped to ask for shoe advice. Within an hour Amanda emailed me four choices from Piperlime.com, with some comments. She cc’ed Andi and Tiffany, who added some comments on their preferences. That evening I took a look and clicked to buy a nice pair of brown Steve Madden shoes. Of course I had to upload a photo to my Facebook account (above) and share with my fashion outfitters, as well as the rest of my friend network. I’m now looking a little sharper, and everyone who was involved in the process had fun.

If fashion victims like me are going to use digital/social tools for shopping anyway, why isn’t your brand part of the solution? There is absolutely no reason for any e-commerce provider to ignore this opportunity to build social shopping and sharing into their existing e-stores. Tools such as ShareThis already make it easy, and if a customer is wavering, this could be an easy way to prevent shopping carts from being left idle. Meanwhile, the chance to essentially place a free ad in front of trusted friends is simply wonderful.

What’s next is that these digital social networks will come into the store, thanks to better smart phones and mobile access. Take a quick picture of yourself in the dressing-room mirror and upload it to a handful of trusted consultants or even millions of strangers. Smart stores will find ways to make this more fun and useful.

So, e-marketers, please embrace social media to aid the shopping process. We customers need the help, and you surely could use the extra sales.

Social Media for Auto Sales

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Last week I drove the 90 miles from Cincinnati to Lexington, Kentucky, to present Marketing with Meaning to the local Ad Club. The lunch-and-learn session drew about 60 people in all.

During the Q&A session after my speech, one of the people in the audience asked me how her company, a local BMW dealer, might better use social media. I answered her on the fly but wanted to explore the question here as a way to show how to start strategically, rather than jumping on the bandwagon of what’s hot today.

For the exercise I’ll use a simplified version of the step-by-step model that comprises Part Two of my upcoming book. Let’s assume that the BMW dealer has a gut instinct and interest in social media but is looking to test the rationale and do it the right way. Also let me make it clear that I have never had a car dealership as a client and did not conduct extensive research solely for this blog post. So please take this as a guts-and-opinions strategy.

Step 1: Setting Business Objectives

A local BMW dealership could choose from many key business drivers across the purchase funnel, from Awareness to Consideration to Purchase to Repeat business. Let’s leave Awareness and Consideration out of the picture, as I believe most people who arrive at the dealership already have narrowed down their choices based on national marketing from BMW and word of mouth from friends. I also believe it’s difficult to focus on the point of purchase at the dealer level, as people increasingly come armed with facts and look at the dealer conversation as if they are entering a battle. I believe improving Repeat is probably the single biggest business opportunity for a BMW car dealership. People are increasingly drawn to lease deals, which means they are shopping for a new car in less than three years after purchase. For buyers, there is also a large opportunity to benefit from revenue through maintenance and aftermarket add-ons. Let’s classify all of this as Repeat revenue and focus our efforts here.

Step 2: Uncovering the Insight

Here we work to understand the question of why people do or do not return to their previous dealership when it is time to buy a new car. In theory, people should almost always go back to their last salesperson; after all, each car brand increasingly has a wide variety of models and prices, and many dealerships sell multiple car brands. I believe one of the reasons this is more rare than expected is that car buyers often suffer from buyer’s remorse. In such a large purchase, which is intense and stressful, they tend to feel like they didn’t get the best deal after the sale was done. High-pressure tactics by sales and finance people don’t help, of course.

Based on my personal experience, this could be solved if salespeople could develop personal relationships with their customers. Salespeople of big-ticket items such as luxury cars should treat each completed sale like the start of the next sale, and work to cultivate a personal connection that will last for years. There is nothing as powerful as relationships in life. They create trust, loyalty, and mutual benefit. In the agency business, we have a saying: “Clients don’t fire their friends.” What that means is that if you have a good relationship with your client, they will feel more comfortable giving you the feedback you need to improve when they are unhappy, rather than picking up the phone and ending the relationship. The same goes for cars, thus our key insight: Personal relationships with the salesperson are the key to Repeat.

Step 3: Developing Meaningful Ideas

It is certainly not a new approach for salespeople to try to build personal relationships with their customers. I remember a salesperson at Macy’s who used to call me when there was a sale on suits at her store, for example. But developing relationships can be difficult. They are long-term investments at a time when short-term sales pressure is always high. Writing letters and making phone calls to each individual contact also can be extremely time-consuming, and when done tend to be focused on making the next sale. Personal relationships need some space to talk weather, sports, and family.

But new technology is allowing people to build stronger relationships with more people. This is where Facebook can play a huge role. The tool helps people create, maintain, and strengthen personal relationships. We can log in at any time and see what our broad network of connections is doing, and with a few clicks and words we can “touch” them and strengthen the bonds. And in the business world, Facebook is helping people share a little bit about who they are and how they tick. By understanding who we are as people, versus just clients or sales guys, we become closer.

So my suggestion is for car dealerships to encourage their salespeople to become active on Facebook and use it to build personal relationships with their customers. At the close of each sale, the salesperson should ask the customer to connect on Facebook. The pitch should be that it is a great way to keep in contact and allow for follow-up service questions. Once connected, the salesperson should use the service to “touch” the customer every few weeks. This doesn’t mean continually pitching the weekly oil-change special, but rather even adding things such as a quick comment on an uploaded photo, or a line that reads, “Did you get to drive your 5 Series in the great weather this weekend?” Not every customer will be on the service yet, which is actually a good thing to allow for some time to become comfortable and efficient.

Step 4: Measuring Meaning and Business Results

I believe that marketing should be measured both for its impact on customers’ lives as well as the bottom line. In terms of measuring meaning, this idea would be successful if customers are accepting salespeople as Facebook friends and responding positively to the “touches” that are made. Any outreach from customer to salesperson is a big win, as are referrals from customers’ friends. These are all numbers that can be clearly observed, tracked, and compared across individuals.

Business impact is simple to measure because we focused on a single core score, Repeat revenue, and because individual customer names are known and tracked. The dealership owner can track the specific number of maintenance appointments, follow-up sale rates, number of cars per household, and the overall price of each car.

Conclusion

I believe social media is an incredible tool that marketers are just now barely understanding and applying. One of the biggest barriers is the pressure to “go do something on Facebook or Twitter.” My hope for this post and the upcoming book is that you see how a strong business objective and insight can help your brand understand the opportunities for social media, and the right way to execute ideas and measure results.