Posts from John Moore's Blog: All Things WOMMarketing is big at The World Cup, but apparently South Africa is no friend to “Ambush Marketing.” In fact, there are laws against it.
Long story short, two women were arrested for organizing 30 other women in orange minidresses to promote the Dutch beer company Bavaria. The issue was that companies are not allowed to benefit from marketing at events without paying for it.
The World Cup brings with it a lot of marketing. Few have missed the epic Nike ad, but many also participated in an online/offline WOM campaign put on by WOMMA members 1000heads.
They painted the flags of the 32 World Cup teams on 32 satellite dishes and placed them in awkward public places across the UK. Underneath was the URL of the online contest where participants had to answer “ungoogle-able” questions about the participating countries. The winner get a Sony Freesat HDTV with a freesat+ box.
This is a great example of how to use clever offline advertising to drive a WOM campaign.
Visit the campaign site here: http://www.32dishes.co.uk/
Image Credit: 1000heads
The Yankees, love them or hate them, have essentially banned iPads from their stadium. Don’t ask my why. But one teams policy is another’s opportunity.
The Hudson Valley Renegades, a minor league team, decided to host iPad Mondays. Fans get in for free when they bring their iPad. This is a great example of how to create a talkable buzz that also converts on participation. Not only do they get dozens if not hundreds of happy patrons in the stadium, but they also offer iPad training at the “ReTweet booth.”
Key Takeaway: Even a Goliath can have a chink in the armor. Take advantage of your competitor’s mistakes no matter what their size.
Many of you probably know about the recent video chat phenomena of Chatroulette. As its name suggests, you video chat with entirely random people. This leads to a lot of weirdness (use your imagination) and the occasional clever idea. One such idea emerged from Merton, a user who improvised songs about the people he chatted with. Very funny stuff, certainly worth a YouTube break. After his videos became popular, Ben Folds picked up the idea and did several concerts using the same format. The crowds and internet loved it. Though Ben Folds still has a very active career, he hasn’t been in the spotlight for a while. By using a recent trend, he quickly built his career/brand back into the minds of many people who hadn’t listened to him in years. This doesn’t just work for rockstars. Everyday brands can benefit from similar boosts if they stay privy and flexible.
Read more and see the video (NSFW-ish) at Chris Brogan’s blog
People said that movies would put plays out of business. The same happened with television and radio. These predictions arise with new communication techniques and fall with the realization that one technology rarely completely replaces another. The same has happened with online videos and television. Marketers are now utilizing online videos to promote or enhance television broadcasts. Many different brands including WOMMA governing member American Express have used online videos this way. The method can work both ways. I remember watching lead up webisodes to The Office during the summer that only made me more excited for the regular season. But a new webseries “The Next Round Served Up by Jim Beam” broadcast excerpts during commercial breaks for ESPN’s “SportCenter.” Web videos are a great way to get your most enthusiastic followers sharing your content.
Read more about how to leverage web videos at The New York Times
Five years ago, Telemundo didn’t have much digital reach beyond its website. But last year, they ventured into Twitter during the Latin Billboard Music Awards. Now they have 180,000 followers across different platforms and accounts. In this interview, Peter explains how they delicately utilize their following to draw viewers to their programming. He said, “If we’re going to insert anything into the social media experience, it has to be something that really superserves our audience; to give them something that is really going to make their experience much more exciting.” This doesn’t exclude brands being able to use Telemundo’s social audience, but they do place a priority that any sponsored content must be relevant and beneficial to the community.
The UEFA Champions League is one of the biggest soccer events around. Heineken sought to capitalize on this with a very devious trick where girlfriends, professors, and were enlisted to convince their beaus to attend a string quartet instead of watching the game. In the cited link, you can watch the men make the painful choice to appease their girlfriend over their mates. Once at the concert, the visibly discontent victims of this prank encounter a surprise presentation of the Championship game. This video had great viral qualities. It played on human behavior and interrupted schemas. The press and blogosphere loved the video created, garnering millions of impressions. Hats off to Heineken and Kreatif360!
“You’ve never seen Oscar Like this” was the go to line for the Academy to tell the public about their ascent from simply a broadcast to an all encompassing media event. We’re talking live streams, YouTube videos, Facebook updates, and an iPhone app. Following the footsteps of other major events such as the Golden Globes, Grammys and Superbowl, the Oscars invested heavily in social media to increase dwindling viewership. The app capitalized on everyone’s favorite Oscar past time: guessing the winners. So did it work? In short, yes. 2010’s Oscars received nearly 7 times the buzz of 2009’s.
Read all the details of the social Oscars in Fanscape’s POV doc here: http://bit.ly/FS_RPT01
It’s usually a little hard to compare the marketing for pop stars to that of brands, but you might learn a few tips from Lady Gaga. Her fans are some of the most loyal out there, some even going so far as to get tattoos. The real question is how can you build the same loyalty? She employs a few simple community building devices that have already proven themselves for brands. Instead of calling her supporters “fans,” she created a unique name for them, “Little Monsters” (based on her album “The Fame Monster”). This was successfully done with Fiskar’s Fiskateers and Maker’s Mark Ambassadors. Once the Little Monsters were established, she empowered them to express themselves and connect with her through social media and crowd interaction during concerts. You find the same actions done by the most talkable brands.
Read more about Lady Gaga’s methods of building a loyal base at Church of the Customer
Back in 1996, Sports Illustrated did produced a daily four-color magazine covering the Atlanta Summer Olympics. It goes to show how far we have come since then. Now we can find hundreds of articles hours after an event. Should we want our news from the source, we can follow the dozens of Olympic athletes who tweet, often right after their event. This isn’t leading to the standard “print media is dead” argument. But it does show how our media, compared to 14 years ago, are in hyperdrive. At this speed everyone, newspeople and brands, need to adjust their communications. Imagine Sports Illustrated doing a daily magazine for the 2010 Olympics. It’s just as absurd as using the same communication plan you did in 1996.
