Progressive Insurance is using Flo, the proprietress of the fictive insurance store, to go social about "The Best Day Ever." The campaign involves a series of posts on the character's Facebook and Twitter accounts that examine -- kind of tongue-in-cheek -- ways to have the best possible day, or at least not the worst. The effort, for which Progressive Insurance partnered with New York-based social-media content publisher and aggregator BuzzFeed, extends an advertisement that Progressive first rolled out last year. The ad has a Progressive store customer -- one Jimmy -- fantasizing about his best day ever: one spent with Flo on an outdoor expedition involving fishing, cooking out, riding ATVs and the like. Jon Steinberg, president of BuzzFeed, explains that the effort involves several posts by Flo, the leading one being an animated version of the ad. That is followed by nostalgic posts showing characters from the ‘80s with the implication that going back, if only in your mind, will bring ... well, perhaps not Nirvana, but at least enough equanimity to produce a "Best Day Ever." Steinberg says that the look-back makes sense because nostalgia is also inherently buzzworthy. The "Iconic '80s Characters That'll Bring You Back" post has characters like My Little Pony, the ALF alien, Smurfs, and of course, big-hair rock bands and big hair in general. Another post offers 20 songs that will give you a best day, and the third has 10 ways to have best day ever, a post that also includes spending a day with someone you like (which also features the animated version of the Jimmy/Flo ad) as well as suggestions like swimming in a pool full of puppies, living in a zombie-proof house, and not reading or looking at anything that has anything to do with Snooki. (Which means if you've read this, your day is ruined, as is mine.) "We created three posts featuring the video to test and optimize the content for sharing," says Steinberg. "The posts are promoted in real-time on the basis of which post is seeing the most social traffic in a given hour." He says the "viral optimization" technology was developed in-house. Steinberg tells Marketing Daily that the campaign is not to drive retail sales, but awareness and brand equity. "Insurance is not something people purchase on impulse, and so this campaign is designed to engage users on the social Web in conversation and engagement around Flo, the video, and the Progressive brand," he says. Says Susan Rouser, social media manager at Progressive Insurance: "We’re hoping the [animated Flo and Jimmy] video gives people the same feeling they had on a great day in their life. It might be an afternoon at the park with their kids, or the day they got their first job." She tells Marketing Daily that the nostalgic references are likely to resonate well with Progressive's target audience. And she says the series of posts on Flo's social sites is part of the company's social media strategy: "To represent the personality of the company while staying true to what we do -- sell insurance. With that said, we understand that not everybody is in the market for insurance right now, so when it comes time for people to shop, we want to be top of mind as the last brand that made them smile." Rouser says Flo has 3.6 million Facebook fans and almost 8,000 followers on Twitter. "She’s been active in the social space for a few years, and her presence is separate from Progressive’s corporate Facebook and Twitter," she says. "For Best Day Ever, we developed a fully integrated paid and organic campaign to support the video, and our partnership with BuzzFeed was a piece of that."
In a dual interview with Group M’s North American CEO Rob Norman at the 4A’s “Transformation” conference in Los Angeles Tuesday morning, WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell and Microsoft partner architect Jaron Lanier both paid tribute to the sweeping transformative power of new media technology -- but also warned against a number of potential drawbacks, ranging across society, culture and business. Both noted that social media and new media technology have brought huge benefits in important areas, including politics and social change, alluding to their role in the Arab Spring last year. Sorrell praised “the change in the balance of power to the consumers, to the people,” including its “catalytic” function in politics. However, both bemoaned what they portrayed as an increasingly superficial public discourse, resulting from the immediacy and ubiquity of new media technology. Sorrell asserted: “I do think we’re in danger of [losing] any depth at all in what we’re doing. There’s a tendency to analyze things almost before they’re analyzable.” Sorrell also lamented the demise of investigative journalism as another casualty of new media. For his part, Lanier has, on previous occasions, asked audience members not to tweet or post about what he’s saying until he’s finished. On the economic front, Lanier took a far more pessimistic view than Sorrell, claiming the Internet and related technologies have destroyed more value than they’ve created. Here Lanier recalled: “What we discovered in Silicon Valley about 12 years ago is that if we apply information systems to an industry, you can shrink the industry but grow yourself.” One unfortunate side effect is unemployment, Lanier noted, adding “it’s a trend that just can’t continue.” At the business level, Lanier criticized what he characterized as an obsessive, myopic focus on data at the expense of creativity. “We’ve entered into a weird phase in the last decade or so where everyone is looking for data that will give them a leg up competitively,” including increasingly detailed information about consumers gleaned from social media and other sources. “But that’s a dangerous game,” Lanier, warned, as ultimately “whoever games can also get gamed.” As soon as advertisers and other industries begin valuing data, “the scammers start ruining the data. The links start to be questionable, the reviews start to be questionable, the friends start to be phony, the ‘likes’ start to be phony," he added. Nor are advertisers necessarily equipped to navigate this treacherous field: “When you’re entering this world of analytics you’re becoming a scientist -- and being a scientist is hard. Being a bad scientist is easy. There’s an ocean of scamminess… an incredible epidemic of pitches that you’ll get easy magic out of data. And that’s not how the game works, that’s not real," he says. Lanier was far from hopeless. Having begun his career writing jingles, he implored the audience to return to the creative art that has always underlain great advertising: “You guys have to rediscover the romance of advertising [because] it’s only a game of analytics, we’re giving up that role. There’s this enormous, unexplored creative area that’s easily as big a deal as the dawn of television.”
As the Web gets more social, agencies are tailoring their services to help clients accommodate the shift. The most recent example is brand communications firm Imre, which is building out -- as well as rebranding -- its social marketing practice. Now known as 5Loom, the social practice will take what the company is calling a “centralized approach” to their social marketing initiatives. Per the changes, existing and prospective clients “will benefit from the experience of being part of a more global network of socialized brands,” said Mark Eber, president and partner at Imre. Clients include Target, Black & Decker, Pfizer and Travelers. Key sectors for Imre include healthcare, home & building, financial services, and sports industries. Born as Imre’s social marketing practice in 2009, 5Loom now employs 19 social marketing experts. The practice offers services in strategic planning, launching social media programs and managing those campaigns, social CRM and other “specialty services,” and measurement and analysis. Big and small, agencies are responding to brands' increased interest in social media. Just this week, WPP said it is looking to increase its spending on Facebook advertising from around $200 million in 2011 to around $400 million in 2012. Ogilvy & Mather recently realigned its social assets into a single practice dubbed Social@Ogilvy, which aims to connect more than 550 dedicated social media experts around the world, as well as strengthen ties with another 4,000 digital experts. On the small side of the agency spectrum, BlogFrog -- which earned a name for itself in 2009 by hatching a healthy network of female bloggers -- recently debuted a social activation platform, which helps brands from Lego to Random House engage “social influencers” among niche audiences. Also of note, social marketing platform Wildfire, which helps brands market through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, now has 13,000 paying customers. Since the start of 2010, the startup has grown from seven to 300 employees, TechCrunch reports. Still a private company, TechCrunch estimates the company did between $35 million and $45 million in revenue in 2011. As part of 5Loom’s global market platform, it will employ cultural and language experts from emerging markets like China, Russia and Brazil.
Which brands lead in social engagement -- and most important, what do they share in common? A new study from analytics-driven advertising research firm PhaseOne Communications, presented at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:think 2012 event on March 27, sheds light on both of those questions. The study, conducted between July 2011 and January 2012, found Starbucks to be #1 in social engagement across the 22 top brands in six vertical markets that were analyzed, based on three distinct engagement metrics: Klout (online influence/”stickiness”), NetBase (online sentiment), and Facebook “likes.” Also in the top five: Audi, McDonald’s, Red Bull and American Express. What sets these brands apart in the social space? The key factor is that their messaging across all contact points consistently reflects and conveys an “idealized self” or “Me Statement” embodied by the brand -- the reason that users want to be associated with it. The reality is that most social media users choose to keep many aspects of their private selves private –- the aspects that don’t necessarily jibe with the idealized version of themselves they want others to perceive and pass along (in essence, their own private “brands”). What draws people to affiliate publicly with a product or service brand is the desire to send a message to those in their social networks about how they want to be perceived -– their “Me Statements,” PhaseOne’s analysis shows. For brands, this means that messaging that taps into users’ private selves or private motivations may well drive sales, but won’t necessarily drive social media engagement. Indeed in the study, “none of the brands that tapped into users’ private selves scored in the top category of social engagement,” reports Lisa Allard, VP of special projects for PhaseOne. “Rather, we found that users engage with a brand in social media based on how they want to be perceived.” Allard supplies a personal example. While she loves to cook, and reads sophisticated cooking magazines and blogs, the reality is that juggling her professional life and family responsibilities means that she uses easy-to-prepare, microwaveable packaged foods on most weekday nights. “But I am not leading the charge to ‘like’ those [packaged foods] sites on Facebook,” she says. “My public self ‘likes’ sites like Epicurean.” And while sales are obviously the ultimate goal, social media support that goal by reinforcing existing customers’ idealized public perceptions and motivating others to realize the same benefits by becoming part of the brand’s community/customer base. Assuming that the “Me Statement” is “simply an aspirational or positive idea about the consumer” is an oversimplification, says Allard. “It’s more complicated than that. In a successful ‘Me Statement,’ the brand is so wholly integrated into the message that the brand itself becomes the reflection of the idealized self,” she explains. It’s rare, Allard stresses, “that a brand can just happen upon the ‘Me Statement’ that captures its target’s idealized self as embodied by the brand. Identifying the right ‘Me Statement’ requires deep understanding of your target audience, as well as of your brand’s equity, in order to identify the right idea that can bridge the two. And the ‘Me Statement’ has to go well beyond establishing a social media team that adheres to a platform-specific message. It’s a strategic decision that must be echoed across all contact points.” Engagement Leaders’ ‘Me Statements’ PhaseOne analyzed more than 250 variables across the 22 studied brands’ Web sites, Facebook pages and TV ads. The factor that most differentiated between brands with high and low social media engagement was the consistent presence/reinforcement of an idealized “Me Statement” benefit. Starbucks’ messaging across all of its consumer touchpoints, for example, conveys a “Me Statement” that PhaseOne summarizes as: “I pursue experiences that are uniquely me.” Starbucks engages Facebook and site users by tapping into that desire/idealized self image with interactive messaging/devices that appeal to their unique preferences. Its messaging asks questions such as “What’s Your Everylove Story?” and “Do you prefer Starbucks Blonde Roast, Medium or Dark?,” PhaseOne points out. Similarly, a typical recent Starbucks TV ad, “Handcrafted for You,” appealed to that desire for a customized experience by showing a coffee plant being planted for an individual person, “Sue.” The ad goes on to show the coffee’s life cycle, from seedling to picking to production into coffee to shipping to its destination, with the name “Sue” shown at each stage -- culminating with “Sue” receiving a cup of coffee, with her name written on it, in her local Starbucks restaurant. Audi’s “Me Statement,” in PhaseOne’s summary phraseology, is “I live a modern, cutting-edge and high-end lifestyle.” Example: Its “Goodnight” TV ad that uses a classic children’s story to convey that the Audi A8 says “goodnight” to outdated perceptions of what luxury cars are all about (“gluttony,” the “expected,” the “outdated,” the “stuffy”) and says “good morning” to all that epitomizes the new luxury, including “innovation” and “unequaled inspiration.” McDonald’s’ “Me Statement,” sums up PhaseOne, is: “I am savvy; I know how to handle myself and get a good deal.” Example: Its recent TV ad showing a young adult male cannily sidestepping a potential argument with his female partner about how big a priority watching sports should be, while internally congratulating himself on his smarts for getting a great deal through McDonald’s’ Dollar Menu. PhaseOne’s summary of the “Me Statements” of the other two brands found to be among the top five in terms of high social engagement:
Progressive Insurance is using Flo, the proprietress of the fictive insurance store, to go social about "The Best Day Ever." The campaign involves a series of posts on the character's Facebook and Twitter accounts that examine -- kind of tongue-in-cheek -- ways to have the best possible day, or at least not the worst. The effort, for which Progressive Insurance partnered with New York-based social-media content publisher and aggregator BuzzFeed, extends an advertisement that Progressive first rolled out last year. The ad has a Progressive store customer -- one Jimmy -- fantasizing about his best day ever: one spent with Flo on an outdoor expedition involving fishing, cooking out, riding ATVs and the like. Jon Steinberg, president of BuzzFeed, explains that the effort involves several posts by Flo, the leading one being an animated version of the ad. That is followed by nostalgic posts showing characters from the ‘80s with the implication that going back, if only in your mind, will bring ... well, perhaps not Nirvana, but at least enough equanimity to produce a "Best Day Ever." Steinberg says that the look-back makes sense because nostalgia is also inherently buzzworthy. The "Iconic '80s Characters That'll Bring You Back" post has characters like My Little Pony, the ALF alien, Smurfs, and of course, big-hair rock bands and big hair in general. Another post offers 20 songs that will give you a best day, and the third has 10 ways to have best day ever, a post that also includes spending a day with someone you like (which also features the animated version of the Jimmy/Flo ad) as well as suggestions like swimming in a pool full of puppies, living in a zombie-proof house, and not reading or looking at anything that has anything to do with Snooki. (Which means if you've read this, your day is ruined, as is mine.) "We created three posts featuring the video to test and optimize the content for sharing," says Steinberg. "The posts are promoted in real-time on the basis of which post is seeing the most social traffic in a given hour." He says the "viral optimization" technology was developed in-house. Steinberg tells Marketing Daily that the campaign is not to drive retail sales, but awareness and brand equity. "Insurance is not something people purchase on impulse, and so this campaign is designed to engage users on the social Web in conversation and engagement around Flo, the video, and the Progressive brand," he says. Says Susan Rouser, social media manager at Progressive Insurance: "We’re hoping the [animated Flo and Jimmy] video gives people the same feeling they had on a great day in their life. It might be an afternoon at the park with their kids, or the day they got their first job." She tells Marketing Daily that the nostalgic references are likely to resonate well with Progressive's target audience. And she says the series of posts on Flo's social sites is part of the company's social media strategy: "To represent the personality of the company while staying true to what we do -- sell insurance. With that said, we understand that not everybody is in the market for insurance right now, so when it comes time for people to shop, we want to be top of mind as the last brand that made them smile." Rouser says Flo has 3.6 million Facebook fans and almost 8,000 followers on Twitter. "She’s been active in the social space for a few years, and her presence is separate from Progressive’s corporate Facebook and Twitter," she says. "For Best Day Ever, we developed a fully integrated paid and organic campaign to support the video, and our partnership with BuzzFeed was a piece of that."
In a dual interview with Group M’s North American CEO Rob Norman at the 4A’s “Transformation” conference in Los Angeles Tuesday morning, WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell and Microsoft partner architect Jaron Lanier both paid tribute to the sweeping transformative power of new media technology -- but also warned against a number of potential drawbacks, ranging across society, culture and business. Both noted that social media and new media technology have brought huge benefits in important areas, including politics and social change, alluding to their role in the Arab Spring last year. Sorrell praised “the change in the balance of power to the consumers, to the people,” including its “catalytic” function in politics. However, both bemoaned what they portrayed as an increasingly superficial public discourse, resulting from the immediacy and ubiquity of new media technology. Sorrell asserted: “I do think we’re in danger of [losing] any depth at all in what we’re doing. There’s a tendency to analyze things almost before they’re analyzable.” Sorrell also lamented the demise of investigative journalism as another casualty of new media. For his part, Lanier has, on previous occasions, asked audience members not to tweet or post about what he’s saying until he’s finished. On the economic front, Lanier took a far more pessimistic view than Sorrell, claiming the Internet and related technologies have destroyed more value than they’ve created. Here Lanier recalled: “What we discovered in Silicon Valley about 12 years ago is that if we apply information systems to an industry, you can shrink the industry but grow yourself.” One unfortunate side effect is unemployment, Lanier noted, adding “it’s a trend that just can’t continue.” At the business level, Lanier criticized what he characterized as an obsessive, myopic focus on data at the expense of creativity. “We’ve entered into a weird phase in the last decade or so where everyone is looking for data that will give them a leg up competitively,” including increasingly detailed information about consumers gleaned from social media and other sources. “But that’s a dangerous game,” Lanier, warned, as ultimately “whoever games can also get gamed.” As soon as advertisers and other industries begin valuing data, “the scammers start ruining the data. The links start to be questionable, the reviews start to be questionable, the friends start to be phony, the ‘likes’ start to be phony," he added. Nor are advertisers necessarily equipped to navigate this treacherous field: “When you’re entering this world of analytics you’re becoming a scientist -- and being a scientist is hard. Being a bad scientist is easy. There’s an ocean of scamminess… an incredible epidemic of pitches that you’ll get easy magic out of data. And that’s not how the game works, that’s not real," he says. Lanier was far from hopeless. Having begun his career writing jingles, he implored the audience to return to the creative art that has always underlain great advertising: “You guys have to rediscover the romance of advertising [because] it’s only a game of analytics, we’re giving up that role. There’s this enormous, unexplored creative area that’s easily as big a deal as the dawn of television.”
As the Web gets more social, agencies are tailoring their services to help clients accommodate the shift. The most recent example is brand communications firm Imre, which is building out -- as well as rebranding -- its social marketing practice. Now known as 5Loom, the social practice will take what the company is calling a “centralized approach” to their social marketing initiatives. Per the changes, existing and prospective clients “will benefit from the experience of being part of a more global network of socialized brands,” said Mark Eber, president and partner at Imre. Clients include Target, Black & Decker, Pfizer and Travelers. Key sectors for Imre include healthcare, home & building, financial services, and sports industries. Born as Imre’s social marketing practice in 2009, 5Loom now employs 19 social marketing experts. The practice offers services in strategic planning, launching social media programs and managing those campaigns, social CRM and other “specialty services,” and measurement and analysis. Big and small, agencies are responding to brands' increased interest in social media. Just this week, WPP said it is looking to increase its spending on Facebook advertising from around $200 million in 2011 to around $400 million in 2012. Ogilvy & Mather recently realigned its social assets into a single practice dubbed Social@Ogilvy, which aims to connect more than 550 dedicated social media experts around the world, as well as strengthen ties with another 4,000 digital experts. On the small side of the agency spectrum, BlogFrog -- which earned a name for itself in 2009 by hatching a healthy network of female bloggers -- recently debuted a social activation platform, which helps brands from Lego to Random House engage “social influencers” among niche audiences. Also of note, social marketing platform Wildfire, which helps brands market through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, now has 13,000 paying customers. Since the start of 2010, the startup has grown from seven to 300 employees, TechCrunch reports. Still a private company, TechCrunch estimates the company did between $35 million and $45 million in revenue in 2011. As part of 5Loom’s global market platform, it will employ cultural and language experts from emerging markets like China, Russia and Brazil.
Which brands lead in social engagement -- and most important, what do they share in common? A new study from analytics-driven advertising research firm PhaseOne Communications, presented at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:think 2012 event on March 27, sheds light on both of those questions. The study, conducted between July 2011 and January 2012, found Starbucks to be #1 in social engagement across the 22 top brands in six vertical markets that were analyzed, based on three distinct engagement metrics: Klout (online influence/”stickiness”), NetBase (online sentiment), and Facebook “likes.” Also in the top five: Audi, McDonald’s, Red Bull and American Express. What sets these brands apart in the social space? The key factor is that their messaging across all contact points consistently reflects and conveys an “idealized self” or “Me Statement” embodied by the brand -- the reason that users want to be associated with it. The reality is that most social media users choose to keep many aspects of their private selves private –- the aspects that don’t necessarily jibe with the idealized version of themselves they want others to perceive and pass along (in essence, their own private “brands”). What draws people to affiliate publicly with a product or service brand is the desire to send a message to those in their social networks about how they want to be perceived -– their “Me Statements,” PhaseOne’s analysis shows. For brands, this means that messaging that taps into users’ private selves or private motivations may well drive sales, but won’t necessarily drive social media engagement. Indeed in the study, “none of the brands that tapped into users’ private selves scored in the top category of social engagement,” reports Lisa Allard, VP of special projects for PhaseOne. “Rather, we found that users engage with a brand in social media based on how they want to be perceived.” Allard supplies a personal example. While she loves to cook, and reads sophisticated cooking magazines and blogs, the reality is that juggling her professional life and family responsibilities means that she uses easy-to-prepare, microwaveable packaged foods on most weekday nights. “But I am not leading the charge to ‘like’ those [packaged foods] sites on Facebook,” she says. “My public self ‘likes’ sites like Epicurean.” And while sales are obviously the ultimate goal, social media support that goal by reinforcing existing customers’ idealized public perceptions and motivating others to realize the same benefits by becoming part of the brand’s community/customer base. Assuming that the “Me Statement” is “simply an aspirational or positive idea about the consumer” is an oversimplification, says Allard. “It’s more complicated than that. In a successful ‘Me Statement,’ the brand is so wholly integrated into the message that the brand itself becomes the reflection of the idealized self,” she explains. It’s rare, Allard stresses, “that a brand can just happen upon the ‘Me Statement’ that captures its target’s idealized self as embodied by the brand. Identifying the right ‘Me Statement’ requires deep understanding of your target audience, as well as of your brand’s equity, in order to identify the right idea that can bridge the two. And the ‘Me Statement’ has to go well beyond establishing a social media team that adheres to a platform-specific message. It’s a strategic decision that must be echoed across all contact points.” Engagement Leaders’ ‘Me Statements’ PhaseOne analyzed more than 250 variables across the 22 studied brands’ Web sites, Facebook pages and TV ads. The factor that most differentiated between brands with high and low social media engagement was the consistent presence/reinforcement of an idealized “Me Statement” benefit. Starbucks’ messaging across all of its consumer touchpoints, for example, conveys a “Me Statement” that PhaseOne summarizes as: “I pursue experiences that are uniquely me.” Starbucks engages Facebook and site users by tapping into that desire/idealized self image with interactive messaging/devices that appeal to their unique preferences. Its messaging asks questions such as “What’s Your Everylove Story?” and “Do you prefer Starbucks Blonde Roast, Medium or Dark?,” PhaseOne points out. Similarly, a typical recent Starbucks TV ad, “Handcrafted for You,” appealed to that desire for a customized experience by showing a coffee plant being planted for an individual person, “Sue.” The ad goes on to show the coffee’s life cycle, from seedling to picking to production into coffee to shipping to its destination, with the name “Sue” shown at each stage -- culminating with “Sue” receiving a cup of coffee, with her name written on it, in her local Starbucks restaurant. Audi’s “Me Statement,” in PhaseOne’s summary phraseology, is “I live a modern, cutting-edge and high-end lifestyle.” Example: Its “Goodnight” TV ad that uses a classic children’s story to convey that the Audi A8 says “goodnight” to outdated perceptions of what luxury cars are all about (“gluttony,” the “expected,” the “outdated,” the “stuffy”) and says “good morning” to all that epitomizes the new luxury, including “innovation” and “unequaled inspiration.” McDonald’s’ “Me Statement,” sums up PhaseOne, is: “I am savvy; I know how to handle myself and get a good deal.” Example: Its recent TV ad showing a young adult male cannily sidestepping a potential argument with his female partner about how big a priority watching sports should be, while internally congratulating himself on his smarts for getting a great deal through McDonald’s’ Dollar Menu. PhaseOne’s summary of the “Me Statements” of the other two brands found to be among the top five in terms of high social engagement:
It seems everywhere we turn we hear more about social video. Not just branded video that marketers release on YouTube and promote the heck out of. But social video powered by social games — you know, those things we’re all really doing when we’re on social networks — Car Town, Deal or No Deal, Happy Pets and the like. Online video platform TubeMogul is eager for a bit of the social video action. The company has introduced a real-time buying system for social video that lets marketers serve up ads in games being played on Facebook. This is a smart move for TubeMogul because it ties in the company’s existing expertise in real-time buying with social video, which is super popular right now. TubeMogul said advertisers can use demographic or behavioral data to target the spots, drawing from their own data, third party data such as that from a BlueKai, or retargeting tools from a brand’s site or a Facebook page. As with most things social video related, there’s an incentive for consumers. Game players will see a "watch video" or other icon that invites them to earn Facebook credits in exchange for watching an ad, TubeMogul’s spokesman David Burch explained. “The ads can be traditional 15 or 30 seconds, or (more common) longer-form ads that are intended to be shared.” TubeMogul is working with tech firm TrialPay, which handles the transactional component. In testing for ads longer than 90 seconds, about 2.2% of viewers shared the ads with their Facebook friends, a higher rate than the 0.6% of sharing resulting from a 30-second ad, suggesting longer-form might be the best creative type for this medium, TubeMogul said. TubeMogul also said these type of ads can drive sign-ups for brands, as well as lift metrics such as “message association,” citing data from its pre-launch research. “While it is not traditional video advertising -- pre-roll is increasingly selling out at higher and higher prices -- initial data from 4,000 random viewers sees in-message association rise by 7.6% and 2.1% in purchase intent,” Burch said.
The reasons a consumer might click on a Facebook "Like” button and subscribe to an email list are similar, according to a study released Tuesday. The study, released Tuesday from Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, finds that consumers are more likely to opt in to receive communications from local businesses than national businesses in email and on Facebook. The study analyzed the behavior of 1,481 consumers ages 18 and older in the United States. It reveals that producing not-relevant content or over-communicating messages drives consumers to unlike and unsubscribe. The top reason that consumers subscribe to a business’s email list is to receive discounts and special offers. Consumers primarily "Like" Facebook pages for discounts and promotions. Consumers decide to opt in to email and Facebook for similar reasons. One-quarter of consumers prefer to opt in to local businesses compared with national businesses via email and Facebook. Despite the widespread use of mobile devices, 84% of consumers primarily access email from their computers. About 30% of consumers access Facebook from a mobile device, and 82% prefer their computers. Lack of interest and over-sending content are the top two reasons that consumers do not open emails from a business or nonprofit. And the organization's name and subject line topic are two of the most important reasons that consumers open emails from a business or non-profit company. Some 64% said they would open an email from a business or non-profit if it had the organization's name attached, whereas 47% referred to the subject line. As marketers know, when it comes to influencing organic search rankings, however, the click of a Like or an open button will contribute different signals.
Every day in nature, avalanches both big and small occur, in areas so unreachable and remote that humans never see them. In the world of real-time publishing, avalanches of traffic, shares, links, and social signals also occur every day, both large and small in scope, but they have a highly beneficial impact on publishing efforts. These opportunities for massive attention are largely being missed by content marketers, at least in the participatory publishing sense, and marketers need only open their eyes to see them. Avalanches of traffic and link sharing start as a blip, and increase with great velocity until they take over an entire conversation, and become a focal point of discussion in conversations big and small. As a conversation becomes bigger, your ability to extend your voice is directly proportional to your ability to act and publish with agility. Content velocity reaches a crescendo with spiking keyword searches, shares, and conversation -- and the spiking desire for this new audience to consume more content on the topic at hand. A search and social avalanche can be beneficial to your overall publishing scheme by driving eyeballs, engagements, traffic, long-term links, and social signals toward search, but only astute marketers can capture this type of attention. Marketers must monitor real-time keyword trends, have large networks in key social spaces, and be highly fluid in publishing to achieve this kind of velocity. Even capturing a series of smaller rolling drifts can help your search and social presence, especially when the process is repeated consistently over long periods of time. The good news is that a blog, combined with close trend monitoring in real-time keyword tools and social spaces, is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal. In effect, each blog post created in real time and based on a trending topic is like throwing a snowball to start an avalanche of traffic and links. I have spoken about this phenomenon at a number of conferences and client strategy sessions over the last four years, and have even used this technique in this column over this time. In one case, a timely post on a spiking news story about Google’s rising dominance in its share of overall search market went from this column, to becoming shared in volume all over Twitter. It then hit the front page of Digg, and I watched and analyzed in real time as the traffic, comments, and velocity of shares went through the roof. In short, popularity lists and streams in certain networks trigger the cascading dissemination effect of networks to networks, or many-to-many. In this scenario, content takes on an active and passive distribution life of its own (passive pushing through triggers and syndication; active by social sharing and viral resonance). The long-term effects of that avalanche provided thousands of backlinks to MediaPost.com and a nice traffic surge. The good news is that this is something that business blogs big and small can also replicate. Planned Real-Time Publishing While my MediaPost example involves an example of a topic for spiking interest within a 12-hour timeframe, the real opportunities exist for developing content in real time, or preparing for predictable seasonal real-time queries. During the 2012 Super Bowl, one company prepared content to coincide with spiking search and social interest around half-time performers, compiled best and worst lists, and published them on its blog. The result was worldwide attention in Twitter as a “Top Retweet,” which resulted in high content visibility for one of the most popular searches of the year. Unplanned Real-Time Publishing While the previous example allowed for content ramp-up based on seasonal and anticipated real-time queries, it’s the unpredictable real-time query avalanche that presents some of the greatest opportunities. Bloggers who are best able to take advantage of this concept are ready to publish in an agile manner, are monitoring conversation and trends in their respective keyword space in real-time, and have a sizeable network to turn that snowball into an avalanche of shares, links, and traffic back to their blog assets. You Have To Throw a Lot of Snowballs to Start an Avalanche I spoke with someone at a marketing conference who got caught up in a major positive news story related to one of his company’s services. For some unknown reason, something that happened every year in his business had become a major news story, and his blog was an indirect, but authoritative, source of the news. He had already created content around this trending topic, and he tweeted a link out to his followers, waiting for the rush of traffic. But he missed the avalanche of traffic, links, and social signals that should have come his way due to a few mistakes. He missed using the natural keyword language that social audiences had assigned to the topic in real time. People were searching Google and Twitter for this story by a completely different name, and his content simply did not match the query according to those two engines. He also did not have a big enough network to get the snowball rolling. A wider distribution network with the right keyword would have helped him own the story. This marketer’s biggest issue was that he had not thrown enough snowballs. One time won’t cut it. In short, you have to throw a lot of snowballs over a long period of time to capture this kind of traffic, links, and social signals. Consistently publishing to a real-time audience shows people that you are present and participating in the conversation. It shows search engines that you provide fresh content, that social promotion is creating fresh signals that search engines like to see, and that you are an authoritative source for your theme -- a source that can be trusted to provide quality content in the search results, without them worrying that you’re trying to push spam into the index. It’s fair to say that a lot of the high velocity content-sharing going on is in news and entertainment categories. But remember the statistic that Google provided in 2007: between 20-25% of queries searched every day are new, and have never been seen before. Granted, many of these queries may include typos and variations of existing themes and terms. But the bottom line is that the natural language of your audience is constantly evolving in real time. Knowing your audience means knowing how they think, how they converse, and what language they use to find new information. Getting traffic doesn’t have to be a mass-media exercise every time. To the contrary, a balanced, present, persistent, and steady approach will get your blog where it needs to be -- if you catch my drift.
It happens while you sleep. One night, you’re visiting your favorite website. Then, you wake up, visit it again, and you can’t recognize it anymore. Did you enter the URL correctly? It’s not your imagination: your favorite site has been turned into yet another Pinterest clone! Shut down your laptop, run for the hills, and stock up on Smirnoff as you wait out this Pinterestpocalypse. The success of Pinterest, amazing and deserved as it is, has inspired many sites old and new to mimic its design. That’s making all internet users victims of Pinterest’s success. This is a new era for mimicry. During Web 1.0, there was little attention to design at all, and sites tended to borrow each other’s features. Then with Web 2.0, many major sites and startups all conformed to a number of the same design elements. With Pinterest, the degree of mimicry is usually what you expect when a site like Facebook gets big in the U.S., and then nearly identical sites pop up in China and Russia. American companies are now so brazen that dozens seem to have collectively decided to copy Pinterest’s design and functionality with absolutely no concern of diluting their own properties in the process. There are many forms of Pinterest cloning. Here are six ways this is happening now: Existing properties relaunching as Pinterest clones: Sadly, this has happened to a couple of my favorite sites. While I’ve never been the target audience for StyleCaster, I have always loved their work, but their redesign is so reminiscent of Pinterest that I can’t get past the new homepage. Then there’s bo.lt, a company I’ve always found innovative and often found controversial. I tried out their new beta site, which looks even more like Pinterest than the background of the new bo.lt homepage implies. I asked the fun-loving crew there if it was a practical joke mocking Pinterest clones. It isn’t. Given my deep admiration for the teams at both companies, I can only hope that the Pinterest emulation pays off. Pinterest clones that encourage sharing inspiring images: We Heart It says that you should “create your own inspiration gallery today,” and then encourages you to “start hearting and sharing your favorite images.” Heart should never be a verb, unless you’re an Oberlin alumnus living in Brooklyn who is trying too hard to be ironic. We Heart It also says to sign in with Facebook or Twitter, or “join manually.” I think it’d be fun to join manually, like writing out a membership application on a typewriter, or with a pencil and paper, and then submitting it through the mail. How much more selective would you be with registering for sites if you had to join manually? Pinterest clones even more directly focused on shopping: Have to Have says “save time and money.” The Fancy says “unlock crazy good deals.” Both scream, “We’re too tired to be original.” Pinterest already makes it easy to buy many of the products shared through its site, so as Pinterest forges ahead with a commercial model, these sites will be even less relevant. Pinterest clones so overtly derivative that a freshman college student interning for an ambulance chaser could draft the cease-and-desist letter to shut them down: For Exhibit A, I present Pinspire. This is where you “discover, collect and share your inspirations.” They’ve cloned Pinterest’s functionality, design, and even its name. And there’s absolutely no sign of shame in doing so. I have to give them credit for coming up with even more “pin” words, though. For instance, you can earn “Pinpoints” when you “pin, and repin, like, and comment on pins and more.” Are these people insane? The only thing that offends me more is that the spelling and grammar are so good that it’s clear someone literate is behind this site. Pinterest clones that are just for men: Since Pinterest’s audience is disproportionately female, a number of people independently arrived at the same idea: men would love the site if only it was filled with condescending, testosterone-heavy stereotypes from the 1980s. At MANteresting, you “share manly things with the community.” When I visited, the homepage featured a photo of “Mad Men” dolls. Guys who think playing with dolls is too masculine to share on Pinterest are probably the same ones reading “The Help” because “The Hunger Games” is too feministic for them. Another clone is Dartitup, which men are supposed to use “to collect ideas for everything from bachelor parties to bachelor pads, sports, glutinous food and all of life's glorious wonders.” Dante probably envisioned a region of hell for copy this bad. It’s also unintentionally hilarious on multiple levels. I’m familiar with the stereotype of men being gluttonous, but I had no clue that guys enjoyed sticky, viscous food, as this copy suggests. Pornographic Pinterest clones: Pinterest is a dangerous site. During a talk last fall to 200 of my agency’s most important clients and all of our senior management, I inadvertently showed a Pinterest screen capture that included a very artistic and very nude female. I’ll never forget the dinner afterward, when a client asked, “So what was up with the naked chick?” Despite my firsthand education with the steamy side of Pinterest, the site is way too tame for some people, so there are pornographic Pinterest clones like Snatchly (the landing page at snatchly.com is mostly safe for work, if you’re curious). This is the one genre of cloning that should be condoned, if not encouraged. After all, the mass market has spent years stealing digital innovations popularized by the porn industry, including live chat, streaming video, and freemium online content models. It’s about time the broader digital media industry can return the favor to pornographers. The future for Pinterest clones is questionable. Pinterest is just getting started, but the hype around it will settle. By the time that happens, Pinterest will need to focus even more on growing its mobile audience, and its mobile app presents a far more straightforward user interface, given screen size limitations and other factors. The clones won’t disappear, though. Some will adapt and clone whatever Pinterest becomes, some will morph into whatever internet users glom on to next, and -- one hopes -- some will quietly fade away, as the horrors of the Pinterestpocalypse recede.
TechCrunch recently crowned Pinterest 2011’s “Best New Start Up,” and in February alone, Pinterest saw 16.23 million unique users. TechCrunch also reported that 80% of Pinterest’s user base is female. With that as background, we decided to go a step further and see exactly how interest in Pinterest played out specifically among moms. Feedback from 250 moms across the country not only showed that many moms were using the program, but how and why. Key findings:
Social media is getting more ad revenue. But the dollars are coming out of budgets for print, radio, outdoor and other media -- not TV. That is good news for sellers of traditional TV. For a long time, it seemed the Internet was angling to draw dollars away from television. But traditional marketers want to have their cake and eat it too. They still love to spend money on TV, but now realize that adding social media components -- perhaps sold by traditional TV -- could be a good way to go. According to many analysts, social media has helped TV maintain or improve overall usage levels. Many marketers would say it has helped increase engagement levels for their campaigns. This is not to say that TV marketers won’t also be looking to gains from digital video extensions like Hulu, syndicated video players, and their own video players. Perhaps getting that social media connection is more valuable in the near term, with the engagement, conversations and connections serving as an additive to television. There is, of course, continued debate about the good and the bad here. Social media can work in the negative with both TV shows and the brands that offer TV support. Do we care, notice, or become concerned when social media features negative discussion about those Coca-Cola cups on the desks of “American Idol” judges? Or when viewers can’t stand the music video in which the “Idol” finalists bop around in a Ford car. Those who put emotions aside have always reasoned: “Hey, at least they are ‘engaged’ with our brands.” In the coming years, all this will need to be worked out on a wholesale basis, such as: What do TV networks do with 300-plus upfront advertisers? Does everyone placing a media budget get a network-backed social media connection? No matter. Socially speaking, TV has found an ally.
According to the Doremus and the Financial Times Q4 2011 Decision Dynamics online survey, global executives have an insatiable appetite for information. At any given time of day, they are using multiple forms of media, both traditional and new, to stay informed. Readership of Traditional Media (% of Senior Executives; March 2012) Predominant ReadPublication TypeMostly printMostly computerMostly Mobile/TabletA MixDo Not Read Leisure publications 60% 8% 5% 7% 7 Industry trade journals 52 18 3 8 8 General business magzines 56 14 5 5 5 Newspapers 51 14 7 - - Source: Doremus/Financial Times, March 2012 Respondents who read traditional print publications do so, for the most part, in printed formats. Those under the age of 45 were more inclined to ‘read’ online than their older counterparts, but only a quarter of the younger age group read newspapers or magazines “mostly online.” While six out of ten global executives use social networking sites for leisure, very few respondents access virtual worlds, social bookmarking, location-based apps and personal blogs. When asked which media activities they participate in frequently, “professional networking” was used most often while at work, and “watching online videos” had the highest frequency of use during leisure time (both at 30%). A majority of those surveyed watch online videos, read blogs and access webcasts/podcasts for both leisure and for work. While there were few significant changes from 2010 in both traditional and online media habits, the use of “community sites” and “social bookmarking” declined by more than 10%, while the use of Twitter increased by 13%. Hope Picker, Doremus Director of Strategic Research, said, “... use of many digital media is higher among the under-45 group than among older respondents... (but_ the 55-plus group appears to be pretty digitally savvy... using quite a few of the newer media both for work and for leisure... expect usage to grow... as younger generation moves into higher-level positions... “ Additional information from Marketing Charts highlights other significant areas of the global executive market. Senior executives’ preference for print may be tied to a lack of trust in journalistic integrity online. Just 5% say they are not concerned that online sources do not share traditional journalistic standards and fact checking practices. 17% say they are concerned, and therefore generally rely on print media. Even so, one-third think standards vary by source rather than medium, and look for individual sources they can trust regardless of medium, while an additional 44% say they are concerned and consult multiple sources and media as a solution. These executives are also heavily involved in digital and social reading/viewing activities, for both work and personal purposes:
When it comes to travel brands that cater to affluent customers, there’s a case of the have and have-nots. According to a survey released last week by affluent customer think tank L2, despite evidence of formidable ROI, hospitality’s digital advertising spend equates to only a third of funds allocated to non-digital channels. Companies such as The Four Seasons were at the top of the digital capabilities list. But companies such as Inter Continental were still not up to speed, according to the study. As we indicated in our last affluent piece, some of the change in the travel business has been due to the short-term nature of affluent customer planning. L2 says that 70% of online bookings are for same-day reservations, likely translating to high price/margin bookings. But that also makes any kind of marketing more complicated. Brands would like to think they’re advertising to a customer that likes to plan in a business that demands planning. However, that’s not the case. We would like to point out three ways high-end brands can increase their digital capabilities. Amp up the content: More than 61% of U.S Internet users research travel online prior to booking. That means content becomes more important in your ad and on your site. Example: If a hotel chain such as Four Seasons wants to get its affluent customer base excited about new destinations, the image and copy needs to reflect that. However, if a chain is trying to catch that new trend toward impulse booking, maybe it needs to customize its copy to show readiness in that area. The website content is just as important. Brands that invest in content curation register longer average user time on site and more return visitors, according to L2. For example, its data show that brands recruiting local staff to provide tips can increase user time on site by 16% and that users on brand sites with curated itineraries spend 12% more time browsing. Remember email? It’s no surprise to us that email is still quite effective as a marketing tool. However, it was somewhat surprising that L2 found email remains the top choice for marketing communications across all age groups. Why, then, are high-end hotel brands behind the curve? Only 60% of hotel brands sent automated welcome emails, and only 56% engaged in email marketing communication. During our data collection period, hoteliers, second to last across multiple industries in email frequency rate, sent an average of 0.23 emails per week, a fraction of the number sent by brands in other sectors. We recommend that before moving on to mobile and social apps, which are admittedly far sexier these days, high-end companies get their email best practices in order. Make social media work for you. Hoteliers deploying both global and property pages on Facebook rose from 73% in 2011 to 95% in 2012, according to L2. That’s great. But here again best practices need to be considered. Is social media simply providing a popularity metric for a travel company? Make sure social media efforts provide easy access to booking sites. Affluent customers can be found on social media sites, even the newest ones. Last month, research company Modea posted an infographic that brought to light some key Pinterest demographics: 28% of Pinterest users have household incomes of more than $100K; 68% of users are women; half are parents. Interestingly, 97% of Pinterest’s Facebook fans are women, which may indicate a much higher engagement rate among women. This data explain why Pinterest, initially written off as a social media fad, is quickly proving to be a popular marketing tool. In addition to its appeal among affluent women, Pinterest is appearing on analytics reports as a top referrer. It’s that referral power that makes social media effective for travel brands. These three strategies might not place you at the top of the next survey. But without them a high-end brand simply cannot compete for customers in travel or any other vertical for that matter. It’s not about winning popularity contests. It’s about winning customers.