I was checking out AdAge's viral chart and first off I must say I find it rather surprising that Vodafone's recent viral has done so well. I don't find them that compelling, and frankly their "voices" are very irritating...I just want to switch them off!
...really, is there anything that special about this series of virals? What it does have going for it is it's length - just long enough to tell a story without loosing interest.
Frito Lay's viral held my attention til the end - & this is obviously helped by my femininity as I am the target market for these clips.
One last observation is that being genuine works and we're wise to special effects making them - NOT funny, and when you're setting out to be entertaining via humour...you need to think again about treatment.
TMobile gets this.
Cadbury didn't
BUT (and this is a very big but) as regards creating buzz on the internet...in the form of various spoofs and takes, and viral "notoriety"...Cadbury's strategy is doing very well as you can see by the likes of this...
So when it comes to making virals, ideas that are bigger than the brands own execution and that inspire or provoke viral responses are a more effective way of generating buzz.
And by the way...Cadbury rocks with this piece of PR on the Saturday Night Project...(embedding was disabled but follow this link).
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Inside the brain of a shopper
Marting Lindstrom is a very smart marketeer who has been investigating the brain's neuro-reactions to marketing. I've recently bought his fantastic book Buyology which I hope to soon read.
Just came across an interesting piece of live shopper neuro research he did to examine shopper response to promotions - watch it on his website here.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Getting to the root of things
Been listening to another great Jaffe Juice podcast from Joseph Jaffe. He interviews the authors of the book Answering the ultimate question
The book proposes a simplification of our brand evaluation methodologies by asking one "ultimate" question - "Would you recommend this company to your friend" and pursuing "real life" responses - i.e. not artificially staged, focus groups or sterile interviews. Rather using a "Net Promotor" methodology that exposes and leverages true customer experiences and attitudes.
The authors group 3 types of consumers - promoters (who score a 9/10 on the ultimate question), detractors (who score 0-6), neutrals (who score 7/8). The authors studied consumer behaviours in relation to responses given on this question across a range of product categories and an interesting finding was indeed this scale - which they mention is influenced by "positive bias' - essentially in asking a question, people try to give a positive response - and rating a 6 isn't really positive rather it is "damming by faint praise".
So really in asking this "ultimate question" and then digging deep to understand the drivers and personal experiences that have led to this response, we get a really rich territory to understand how our brands are performing in the real world of consumer experience.
With this methodology of brand evaluation, it's clear that the marketing focus should indeed start with customer experience rather than relying on advertising to drive brand performance.
But in order for organizations to be able to leverage the power of "Net promotors" they need to tackle their own organizational issues. With so much old school "wisdom" entrenched in their business, it's difficult for large companies to adapt to a new way of approaching their marketing. A business' internal branding, it's people, and the collective culture and philosophies and communications networks, need to be addressed before putting innovative strategic communications in place.
As Jaffe succinctly puts it COST = Culture, Organization, Strategy and Tactics.
The way I look at it is this - how do employees relate and communicate with each other? and from there - how do departments? Is there a communications network in place which enables the organization to interact naturally and behave as a community? Is there a flow of communication and ideas? Are we developing and enhancing a rich internal culture and philosophy?
Addressing these important internal issues will enable organizations to benefit from their frequent & rich yet under utilised customer interactions. Customer experience employees have a relationship with the end customer and the knowledge they acquire on a daily basis must not be squandered. Rather these employees could be connected to executive level employees via an internal community. In joining these organizational dots - we empower not only employees, who will feel more passionate about the brand and become far better brand representatives, but also empower customers as they should no longer be frustratedly talking to a bored and disconnected customer service rep.
I could go on, but my blogs are long enough already - listen to this great podcast to get more detail on both the authors thoughts on evolving organizations to leverage "Net Promotor" and focus on the "Ultimate question".
The book proposes a simplification of our brand evaluation methodologies by asking one "ultimate" question - "Would you recommend this company to your friend" and pursuing "real life" responses - i.e. not artificially staged, focus groups or sterile interviews. Rather using a "Net Promotor" methodology that exposes and leverages true customer experiences and attitudes.
The authors group 3 types of consumers - promoters (who score a 9/10 on the ultimate question), detractors (who score 0-6), neutrals (who score 7/8). The authors studied consumer behaviours in relation to responses given on this question across a range of product categories and an interesting finding was indeed this scale - which they mention is influenced by "positive bias' - essentially in asking a question, people try to give a positive response - and rating a 6 isn't really positive rather it is "damming by faint praise".
So really in asking this "ultimate question" and then digging deep to understand the drivers and personal experiences that have led to this response, we get a really rich territory to understand how our brands are performing in the real world of consumer experience.
With this methodology of brand evaluation, it's clear that the marketing focus should indeed start with customer experience rather than relying on advertising to drive brand performance.
But in order for organizations to be able to leverage the power of "Net promotors" they need to tackle their own organizational issues. With so much old school "wisdom" entrenched in their business, it's difficult for large companies to adapt to a new way of approaching their marketing. A business' internal branding, it's people, and the collective culture and philosophies and communications networks, need to be addressed before putting innovative strategic communications in place.
As Jaffe succinctly puts it COST = Culture, Organization, Strategy and Tactics.
The way I look at it is this - how do employees relate and communicate with each other? and from there - how do departments? Is there a communications network in place which enables the organization to interact naturally and behave as a community? Is there a flow of communication and ideas? Are we developing and enhancing a rich internal culture and philosophy?
Addressing these important internal issues will enable organizations to benefit from their frequent & rich yet under utilised customer interactions. Customer experience employees have a relationship with the end customer and the knowledge they acquire on a daily basis must not be squandered. Rather these employees could be connected to executive level employees via an internal community. In joining these organizational dots - we empower not only employees, who will feel more passionate about the brand and become far better brand representatives, but also empower customers as they should no longer be frustratedly talking to a bored and disconnected customer service rep.
I could go on, but my blogs are long enough already - listen to this great podcast to get more detail on both the authors thoughts on evolving organizations to leverage "Net Promotor" and focus on the "Ultimate question".
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Brands that connect have a human story
I was simultaneously listening to this podcast about Obama's marketing strategy while perusing Sid Lee's blog. Both talk about Obama but from different perspectives. Jaffe talks about the communications strategy but Sid Lee hit the nail on the head when, in reference to his half hour "commercial" (below) they call Obama a "storyteller".
Indeed this is really what great communications are about - human stories. Tales that people can relate to.
Things are meaningless without a human context.
Brands are born from people, and draw from human relevance to be successful, politicians are brands and Obama exploited the power of the people on the ground and their stories in his campaign.
What also struck me is how this thought links to the phenomenon of "celeb". Britney Spears is hugely successful brand - and is this because we have such access to her story...and in fact, for her brand relaunch - a warts and all documentary was released and aired recently on MTV
Stars indeed have catapulted to fame after reality TV shows - after they displayed their humanity, their personality, their mistakes & their emotions on screen.
So successful brands have a sense of grounded-ness, of reality, of identity, maybe even making some mistakes along the way.
The main thing is that you have a human story that people can relate to.
Indeed this is really what great communications are about - human stories. Tales that people can relate to.
Things are meaningless without a human context.
Brands are born from people, and draw from human relevance to be successful, politicians are brands and Obama exploited the power of the people on the ground and their stories in his campaign.
What also struck me is how this thought links to the phenomenon of "celeb". Britney Spears is hugely successful brand - and is this because we have such access to her story...and in fact, for her brand relaunch - a warts and all documentary was released and aired recently on MTV
Stars indeed have catapulted to fame after reality TV shows - after they displayed their humanity, their personality, their mistakes & their emotions on screen.
So successful brands have a sense of grounded-ness, of reality, of identity, maybe even making some mistakes along the way.
The main thing is that you have a human story that people can relate to.
The Power of Rituals to drive your brand
I'm currently listening to a very interesting article on Brand Fast Trackers podcast where they're talking to Martin Lindsrom author of the new book Buyology which by all accounts seems to be a very worthwhile read.
He starts off by talking about the smash-able brand, a familiar story and concept illustrated by the fact that the Coke bottle was designed to be recognisable even when smashed into many pieces.
Martin also set up an experiment with fake billboards in the LA. 1 billboard with a Marlboro cowboy on one billboard and a Marlboro logo on another. When they looked at the craving in the brain, there was much more craving when they looked at the logo free poster they craved a lot more. Consumers were turned off by the logo as they felt that they were being marketed to. Tobacco brands are the ultimate smashable brands given the stringent restrictions on the use of logos etc. They are successful because they have been smashed.
But the really interesting part of the discussion was about mirror neurons and rituals. If you've read HERD you'll be familiar with mirror neurons. Essentially it was discovered in 1989 that there are "empathy" neurons which fire when you observe someone doing something. For example if you watch a football match and your brain is scanned, your brain scan will be the same as that of the footballer.
But how do all these points link up? Well we all know how successful the iPod was in it's rapid conquest of the market and we all have noticed that the white headphones are and obvious brand statement. Apple's stroke of genius was to break the category rules by creating white headphones - they are a smashable brand. In this wa the brand is more of an experience, a tribal identity badge than a product.
Moving more towards explicit rituals Martin Lindsrom gives us an example of Corona's success with it's lime ritual. He mentions how the product also exists in a lime version but consumers still prefer the original version when they put the lime in themselves and find the product 62% tastier once they've carried out this ritual.
Essentially it's monkey see monkey do...but for us thinking, consuming monkeys it's monkey see, monkey do, monkey tells himself he's done it for himself, because it's better.
Another great example he mentions is about a large cosmetics brand he worked on and built in a particular ritual of how to apply the cream. The ritual is only 7 years old but now 91% of it's consumers use the ritual and feel that the cream works better when they do it...and with this placebo effect, it most likely does!
He starts off by talking about the smash-able brand, a familiar story and concept illustrated by the fact that the Coke bottle was designed to be recognisable even when smashed into many pieces.
Martin also set up an experiment with fake billboards in the LA. 1 billboard with a Marlboro cowboy on one billboard and a Marlboro logo on another. When they looked at the craving in the brain, there was much more craving when they looked at the logo free poster they craved a lot more. Consumers were turned off by the logo as they felt that they were being marketed to. Tobacco brands are the ultimate smashable brands given the stringent restrictions on the use of logos etc. They are successful because they have been smashed.
But the really interesting part of the discussion was about mirror neurons and rituals. If you've read HERD you'll be familiar with mirror neurons. Essentially it was discovered in 1989 that there are "empathy" neurons which fire when you observe someone doing something. For example if you watch a football match and your brain is scanned, your brain scan will be the same as that of the footballer.
But how do all these points link up? Well we all know how successful the iPod was in it's rapid conquest of the market and we all have noticed that the white headphones are and obvious brand statement. Apple's stroke of genius was to break the category rules by creating white headphones - they are a smashable brand. In this wa the brand is more of an experience, a tribal identity badge than a product.
Moving more towards explicit rituals Martin Lindsrom gives us an example of Corona's success with it's lime ritual. He mentions how the product also exists in a lime version but consumers still prefer the original version when they put the lime in themselves and find the product 62% tastier once they've carried out this ritual.
Essentially it's monkey see monkey do...but for us thinking, consuming monkeys it's monkey see, monkey do, monkey tells himself he's done it for himself, because it's better.
Another great example he mentions is about a large cosmetics brand he worked on and built in a particular ritual of how to apply the cream. The ritual is only 7 years old but now 91% of it's consumers use the ritual and feel that the cream works better when they do it...and with this placebo effect, it most likely does!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Free ebook from Seth Godin and some comments about free content
Just came across Seth Godin's free ebook - available as PDF format on his blog looking forward to reading it.
Furthermore, it's interesting because I was listening to the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast where David Meerman Scott author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR, was discussing the very idea of free publishing.
He discusses how the best form of self marketing is publishing valuable content for free.
Two interesting points stand out for me in his discussion:
1. Ensure that you content has "conflict".
Akin to the art of story telling, your content needs to engage in a similar way. He describes how brands fall down in this way where they tell as story of "boy meets girl, falls in loves and gets married" while a more interesting story is "boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy gets girl back and then they get married."
2. Don't have a gate to you content.
Citing personal experience and free metrics from mailermaailer.com if you ask for an email address before people can download your ebook or white paper...you might get 1k downloads in a year. However if you allow people to go ahead and download without any barrier you could get 20k to 50k downloads in return.
Interesting stuff, particularly when we transfer these learnings to brands...
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Looking for interesting Twitters to follow?
This handly little tool gives you a quick rundown of the top blogs that the people you follow...follow...
And while we're on the subject of Twitter I highly recommend using iGoogle's Twitter Gadget.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Techno-inspired clothing...
Now clothing companies are being inspired by social networks...this ingenius dutch company produce clothing with a unique logo for each user...the logos serves as a launch pad for people to connect with you having snapped your unique logo with their mobile phone...
This is exactly the type of company who will foster naturally growing communities as their innovation pays off through word of mouth and the clincher - and absolute driver to the online world in their USP.
I love this one.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
And again...thanks Google
Great new tool from Google - Google trends - this FREE tool lets you analyze historical Google history data around key words and even compare key words...fantastic!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wiki wiki wow wiki wow wow
Check this out Wikicrimes was started by Professor Vasco Furtado from the University of Fortaleza in northern Brazil...great example of how our collective knowledge is becoming so much more explicit, referenced and thus more real...
Thanks to wikis we can re-clame knowledge from records in institutions and access it at will
Although my search for a wiki directory yielded poor results wiki directory...
I did find a relatively new wiki platform, released earlier this year...Wetpaint. The interesting thing about this wiki format is that is comprises a collection of individual wiki portals
The sites as yet pretty undeveloped and populated by a lot of commercial crap. Also I must admit not as easy to navigate as the ubiquitous Wikipedia but I'm interested to see how it develops...
Thanks to wikis we can re-clame knowledge from records in institutions and access it at will
Although my search for a wiki directory yielded poor results wiki directory...
I did find a relatively new wiki platform, released earlier this year...Wetpaint. The interesting thing about this wiki format is that is comprises a collection of individual wiki portals
The sites as yet pretty undeveloped and populated by a lot of commercial crap. Also I must admit not as easy to navigate as the ubiquitous Wikipedia but I'm interested to see how it develops...
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