Gifting Starbucks coffee, lipstick or a free week of online access to The Wall Street Journal could become the new currency for Facebook Fans. The Sweden start-up Wrapp has brought social gifting to the United States, along with specials from Gap, H&M, Sephora, Björn Borg, Gant, and SpaFinder Wellness, among others. Consumers can initiate the free card with a minimal balance through an app. Other friends add money to the gift. In the first month, 1.4 million gift cards were sent by about 165,000 people in a country with 4.8 million Facebook users, according to Wrapp's CEO Hjalmar Winbladh. "The average age -- between 25 and 35 -- of Wrapp users correlates well with the retailer's target audience," he said. Wrapp supports about 40 active retailers in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The free portion of gift cards to consumers range between $5 and $80, depending on the company's targeting strategy. Winbladh said some brands offered Facebook Fans in Sweden holiday gift cards. He expects more companies to join the service by November, where minimums will start at about $1 or $2 -- which makes sense for coffee shops, such as Starbucks. The performance-based marketing app can also drive sales from the Web into physical stores without discounts. Caribbean cruise line, for example, might offer $80 gift cards to Facebook Fans to use on vacations. Aside from agreeing to cover the initial dollar amount -- such as $5 -- to initiate the gift card, merchants also pay a "small transaction fee" when consumers redeem gift cards. Some retailers also tie gifting to search engine marketing campaigns by providing free cards to Facebook Fans. Winbladh said it pushes consumers to share the gift with others. Typically, those friends will search on engines for more information about the company before passing the gift on. Wrapp received funding in January from Greylock Partners, and Atomico, an international venture capital firm formed by Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder.
Two months ago, Buddy Media acquired London-based Brighter Option to add the company's paid advertising solution to its suite of social media marketing tools. The move preceded Facebook’s rollout of expanded paid adoptions in February, including the extension of ads directly into users’ desktop and mobile news feeds and the site's logout page. On Tuesday, Buddy Media formally announced the rebrand of the Brighter Options social ad software as BuyBuddy, a self-service offering advertisers can use to create, track and optimize campaigns on Facebook. Built into the company’s existing platform enabling social content publishing, app creation and e-commerce, the aim is to help companies better combine owned, earned and paid media efforts on Facebook and other social sites. “Our whole play is that having a unified technology suite makes much more sense than piecing together 12 different point solutions,” said Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow. The idea is to use the system to create page content, track which material resonates with users, and then promote that content via paid advertising placements on Facebook to drive further engagement. With marketers increasingly looking for tangible results, Lazerow emphasized the system would also show advertisers which ads and social media initiatives generated the most Web traffic and sales. Among the large agencies using Brighter Option’s ad tools at the time of the acquisition were GroupM, Omnicom, Aegis and 24/7 Media. During the first quarter, BuyBuddy tracked more than 128 billion impressions, generated more than 90 million clicks on Facebook, with more than 1.6 million ads were created by users. The 128 billion total, is up from 3 billion impressions in the year-earlier period, underscoring Facebook’s audience and ad growth in the last year. Facebook had 901 million monthly active users at the end of March, up 33% from 680 milllion a year ago. The social network last week reported first-quarter revenue of $1.06 billion, up 45% from a year ago but down 6% from the fourth quarter. Separate data from social media marketing firm TBG Digital showed CPMs on Facebook rose 15% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter even as click-through rates dropped 8%. CPM rates were up 41% from a year earlier. Lazerow said he wasn’t surprised by the dip in Facebook revenue from the prior quarter because it reflected a seasonal decline from peak ad spending in the year-end quarter. He also suggested Facebook’s launch of new ad offerings and the opening of Timeline to brands in late February would propel higher ad spend in the coming months. “We see, at least from our really big clients, a lot of interest in the Facebook ad platform, from an ads standpoint,” said Lazerow. While BuyBuddy is currently focused on Facebook advertising, Lazerow said the service would be extended to other social properties, such as Twitter, YouTube and Google+ when they also make an ads API (application programming interface) available for automatically posting ads at scale. “We’ll definitely be everywhere,” said Lazerow.
Snack Factory’s Pretzel Crisps is making its first foray into branded video content with two different approaches from two different agencies. One -- “One Snack” from GeniusRocket -- is 90 seconds in its full format on YouTube, and shows three women enjoying the flat pretzels in a variety of ways (plain, with healthy dips and veggies, etc.) as they go through their daily activities. In the vignettes, the women dance and sing to a hip-hop-inspired song (“There’s only one snack … Pretzel Crisps”) throughout. The other video – “Meet Carl, the Pretzel Crisp,” from Tongal -- introduces a new brand mascot, a talking flat pretzel who does card tricks and impressions of his friend Roger (among his other riffs) … working in along the way that Pretzel Crisps are the healthy snack food that can be enjoyed either alone or with accoutrements. Both videos target Pretzel Crisps’ core consumer base -- women 25 to 49 -- and both, in addition to being offered in long versions on the brand’s YouTube channel, have been cut into shorter versions for pre-rolls on various targeted sites (particularly video-driven sites), Pretzel Crisp VP of marketing Perry Abbenante tells Marketing Daily. Both videos were launched around National Pretzel Day, April 26 (although “Carl” had a soft release on YouTube two weeks prior to its official release). The “One Snack” video on YouTube, posted on April 24, has thus far drawn nearly 2,400 views. The full “Meet Carl” video, posted April 11, has drawn more than 700 views, while the various shorter versions posted a week ago are starting to gain traction. (“Carl Trying to Lose His Accent” currently has about 400 views.) In addition to being used in site display ads/pre-rolls, the videos are being promoted on the brand’s Facebook page (which currently has nearly 250,000 “likes”) and its Twitter account (more than 5,200 followers). “We wanted entertaining branded video content that would help us build on our social and online communities, and also lend itself to conveying our brand message in both earned and purchased media, for cost efficiency purposes,” says Abbenante. “The two video crowdsourcing agencies each produced a very different, but very compelling, concept. So we’re employing both. The beauty of this content is that we can continually track how each video and each purchased ad unit is performing, and make changes very quickly as necessary.” Pretzel Crisps also ran a “Got an App for That? Pretzel Crisps Appetizer Contest” prior to National Pretzel Day, when the winners were announced. Starting March 19, entrants submitted recipes and photos to the Pretzel Crisps Facebook page in six categories (sweet, spicy, meat, veggie, cheese and bacon). An internal panel of judges chose 10 finalists per category to move onto the final voting stage. From April 12 to 23, the brand’s Facebook fans voted online for their favorite pairings. The six vote-determined winners received a year’s supply of Pretzel Crisps, a “Got An App For That?” recipe book featuring their creations, and $1,000. The winning recipes are being featured on the brand’s site and Facebook page. In addition, both channels featured a limited number of free, downloadable coupons around National Pretzel Day. Pretzel Crisps’ leveraging of digital marketing has been among the drivers of its continuing, strong sales growth. The brand’s dollar sales for the 52-week period ending March 18 were up by a whopping 95.7%, on top of a 66% gain during the 52-week period ended April 17.
Today, Wild Turkey Bourbon launched the first television ad campaign in its 157-year history. The inaugural spot takes a humorous approach. Faced with serving a surly-looking, intimidating patron, a new bartender is loathe to take his boss’s advice: “Give ’em the bird.” But the novice quickly learns that the phrase is bar slang for serving a Wild Turkey Bourbon. (Once served, the patron displays a hint of sociability, by lifting his glass in salute.) The spot will run through the spring in 30- and 15-second versions on nationwide outlets including ESPN, Comedy Central, Spike, TNT and TBS. The TV media flight is expected to garner an estimated 150 million impressions. The brand’s ongoing marketing campaign also includes print, out-of-home, digital, social media and public relations. The campaign was developed by New-York based FLY Communications. The spot was directed by Bob Giraldi, whose credits include Michael Jackson’s award-winning “Beat It” music video and Jackson’s 1984 Pepsi commercial, one of the most-watched ads of all time. “It’s never easy to take a more than 150-year-old brand and put it on television for the first time,” noted Umberto Luchini, head of marketing for Wild Turkey parent Campari America. “I think our ‘Give ’em the Bird’ campaign stays true to the Wild Turkey brand [and] to our loyal fans, who will absolutely understand the wink and nod humor in the spot, and see this commercial as being Wild Turkey, through and through.” Since acquiring the Wild Turkey brand in 2009, Campari America has launched portfolio extensions (Wild Turkey 81 Bourbon and Wild Turkey 81 Rye); updated the portfolio’s packaging; opened a new, $44 million packaging facility; and doubled output through a $50 million expansion of the brand’s distillery.
Ram Truck brand is going to Churchill Downs as part of its sponsorship of the 2012 Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. This is the third consecutive year the brand is the exclusive automotive partner and the “Official Truck” of Churchill Downs and the premiere race. The Chrysler Group pickup truck division, which will have a range of its 1500, 2500, and 3500 trucks on display at the event, will have lots of branding at the track as well. A spokesperson for the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker says five Ram Truck pickups will serve as work vehicles maintaining the track during the race events. Gate crews will have Ram Truck branding on their jackets. The posters and signs on the Ram Country Churchill Downs backside have messages like “Hard-earned, Not Hard-won,” “Courage not Chance,” “Champions are Made, Not Born,” and “It’s Not Two Minutes. It’s a Lifetime.” Stables and other buildings on The Downs’ backside will have “Ram Country” signage as well, and Ram is also and sponsoring an on-site venue for jockeys and owners called “Horsemen’s Lounge.” The truck brand's involvement with the equestrian event extends to TV advertising during NBC Sports’ May 5 coverage of the race. Ram Truck will air two 60-second TV spots, part of the second phase of Chrysler Group's "Halftime in America" campaign that launched during the Super Bowl. NBC sports is also producing a vignette, "Ram at the Derby," about how Ram is being used at Churchill Downs. The promotional video, which will air during the network’s coverage of the race, showcases the Ram 1500 and 3500 Ram Laramie Longhorn trucks. Ram also has a full-page ad in USA Today’s May 4 race preview edition, and a three-page spread will run in the Sports Illustrated post-event derby issue. The automaker says print ads also will run in select sports and equestrian publications, including Athlon Sports and Blood Horse magazines. The automaker says digital advertising will run on sites like NBCSports.com, SI.com, BleacherReport.com, SportingNews.com and the Churchill Downs and Kentucky Derby sites (www.churchilldowns.com, www.kentuckyderby.com, and www.kentuckyoaks.com). Ram Truck will also have activation on its Facebook page and Twitter feed, where the company will post exclusive content, photos and interviews throughout race day. And, for the third year, a representative from the Ram Truck brand will present the winning trophy to the owner and jockey of the American Turf Stakes on Kentucky Oaks day. The Ram Truck brand again will be a part of the Super Hi-5-wager. Should an eligible individual win this promotion, he or she will be awarded with a new 2012 Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn truck.
Gifting Starbucks coffee, lipstick or a free week of online access to The Wall Street Journal could become the new currency for Facebook Fans. The Sweden start-up Wrapp has brought social gifting to the United States, along with specials from Gap, H&M, Sephora, Björn Borg, Gant, and SpaFinder Wellness, among others. Consumers can initiate the free card with a minimal balance through an app. Other friends add money to the gift. In the first month, 1.4 million gift cards were sent by about 165,000 people in a country with 4.8 million Facebook users, according to Wrapp's CEO Hjalmar Winbladh. "The average age -- between 25 and 35 -- of Wrapp users correlates well with the retailer's target audience," he said. Wrapp supports about 40 active retailers in Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The free portion of gift cards to consumers range between $5 and $80, depending on the company's targeting strategy. Winbladh said some brands offered Facebook Fans in Sweden holiday gift cards. He expects more companies to join the service by November, where minimums will start at about $1 or $2 -- which makes sense for coffee shops, such as Starbucks. The performance-based marketing app can also drive sales from the Web into physical stores without discounts. Caribbean cruise line, for example, might offer $80 gift cards to Facebook Fans to use on vacations. Aside from agreeing to cover the initial dollar amount -- such as $5 -- to initiate the gift card, merchants also pay a "small transaction fee" when consumers redeem gift cards. Some retailers also tie gifting to search engine marketing campaigns by providing free cards to Facebook Fans. Winbladh said it pushes consumers to share the gift with others. Typically, those friends will search on engines for more information about the company before passing the gift on. Wrapp received funding in January from Greylock Partners, and Atomico, an international venture capital firm formed by Niklas Zennström, Skype co-founder.
Two months ago, Buddy Media acquired London-based Brighter Option to add the company's paid advertising solution to its suite of social media marketing tools. The move preceded Facebook’s rollout of expanded paid adoptions in February, including the extension of ads directly into users’ desktop and mobile news feeds and the site's logout page. On Tuesday, Buddy Media formally announced the rebrand of the Brighter Options social ad software as BuyBuddy, a self-service offering advertisers can use to create, track and optimize campaigns on Facebook. Built into the company’s existing platform enabling social content publishing, app creation and e-commerce, the aim is to help companies better combine owned, earned and paid media efforts on Facebook and other social sites. “Our whole play is that having a unified technology suite makes much more sense than piecing together 12 different point solutions,” said Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow. The idea is to use the system to create page content, track which material resonates with users, and then promote that content via paid advertising placements on Facebook to drive further engagement. With marketers increasingly looking for tangible results, Lazerow emphasized the system would also show advertisers which ads and social media initiatives generated the most Web traffic and sales. Among the large agencies using Brighter Option’s ad tools at the time of the acquisition were GroupM, Omnicom, Aegis and 24/7 Media. During the first quarter, BuyBuddy tracked more than 128 billion impressions, generated more than 90 million clicks on Facebook, with more than 1.6 million ads were created by users. The 128 billion total, is up from 3 billion impressions in the year-earlier period, underscoring Facebook’s audience and ad growth in the last year. Facebook had 901 million monthly active users at the end of March, up 33% from 680 milllion a year ago. The social network last week reported first-quarter revenue of $1.06 billion, up 45% from a year ago but down 6% from the fourth quarter. Separate data from social media marketing firm TBG Digital showed CPMs on Facebook rose 15% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter even as click-through rates dropped 8%. CPM rates were up 41% from a year earlier. Lazerow said he wasn’t surprised by the dip in Facebook revenue from the prior quarter because it reflected a seasonal decline from peak ad spending in the year-end quarter. He also suggested Facebook’s launch of new ad offerings and the opening of Timeline to brands in late February would propel higher ad spend in the coming months. “We see, at least from our really big clients, a lot of interest in the Facebook ad platform, from an ads standpoint,” said Lazerow. While BuyBuddy is currently focused on Facebook advertising, Lazerow said the service would be extended to other social properties, such as Twitter, YouTube and Google+ when they also make an ads API (application programming interface) available for automatically posting ads at scale. “We’ll definitely be everywhere,” said Lazerow.
Snack Factory’s Pretzel Crisps is making its first foray into branded video content with two different approaches from two different agencies. One -- “One Snack” from GeniusRocket -- is 90 seconds in its full format on YouTube, and shows three women enjoying the flat pretzels in a variety of ways (plain, with healthy dips and veggies, etc.) as they go through their daily activities. In the vignettes, the women dance and sing to a hip-hop-inspired song (“There’s only one snack … Pretzel Crisps”) throughout. The other video – “Meet Carl, the Pretzel Crisp,” from Tongal -- introduces a new brand mascot, a talking flat pretzel who does card tricks and impressions of his friend Roger (among his other riffs) … working in along the way that Pretzel Crisps are the healthy snack food that can be enjoyed either alone or with accoutrements. Both videos target Pretzel Crisps’ core consumer base -- women 25 to 49 -- and both, in addition to being offered in long versions on the brand’s YouTube channel, have been cut into shorter versions for pre-rolls on various targeted sites (particularly video-driven sites), Pretzel Crisp VP of marketing Perry Abbenante tells Marketing Daily. Both videos were launched around National Pretzel Day, April 26 (although “Carl” had a soft release on YouTube two weeks prior to its official release). The “One Snack” video on YouTube, posted on April 24, has thus far drawn nearly 2,400 views. The full “Meet Carl” video, posted April 11, has drawn more than 700 views, while the various shorter versions posted a week ago are starting to gain traction. (“Carl Trying to Lose His Accent” currently has about 400 views.) In addition to being used in site display ads/pre-rolls, the videos are being promoted on the brand’s Facebook page (which currently has nearly 250,000 “likes”) and its Twitter account (more than 5,200 followers). “We wanted entertaining branded video content that would help us build on our social and online communities, and also lend itself to conveying our brand message in both earned and purchased media, for cost efficiency purposes,” says Abbenante. “The two video crowdsourcing agencies each produced a very different, but very compelling, concept. So we’re employing both. The beauty of this content is that we can continually track how each video and each purchased ad unit is performing, and make changes very quickly as necessary.” Pretzel Crisps also ran a “Got an App for That? Pretzel Crisps Appetizer Contest” prior to National Pretzel Day, when the winners were announced. Starting March 19, entrants submitted recipes and photos to the Pretzel Crisps Facebook page in six categories (sweet, spicy, meat, veggie, cheese and bacon). An internal panel of judges chose 10 finalists per category to move onto the final voting stage. From April 12 to 23, the brand’s Facebook fans voted online for their favorite pairings. The six vote-determined winners received a year’s supply of Pretzel Crisps, a “Got An App For That?” recipe book featuring their creations, and $1,000. The winning recipes are being featured on the brand’s site and Facebook page. In addition, both channels featured a limited number of free, downloadable coupons around National Pretzel Day. Pretzel Crisps’ leveraging of digital marketing has been among the drivers of its continuing, strong sales growth. The brand’s dollar sales for the 52-week period ending March 18 were up by a whopping 95.7%, on top of a 66% gain during the 52-week period ended April 17.
Today, Wild Turkey Bourbon launched the first television ad campaign in its 157-year history. The inaugural spot takes a humorous approach. Faced with serving a surly-looking, intimidating patron, a new bartender is loathe to take his boss’s advice: “Give ’em the bird.” But the novice quickly learns that the phrase is bar slang for serving a Wild Turkey Bourbon. (Once served, the patron displays a hint of sociability, by lifting his glass in salute.) The spot will run through the spring in 30- and 15-second versions on nationwide outlets including ESPN, Comedy Central, Spike, TNT and TBS. The TV media flight is expected to garner an estimated 150 million impressions. The brand’s ongoing marketing campaign also includes print, out-of-home, digital, social media and public relations. The campaign was developed by New-York based FLY Communications. The spot was directed by Bob Giraldi, whose credits include Michael Jackson’s award-winning “Beat It” music video and Jackson’s 1984 Pepsi commercial, one of the most-watched ads of all time. “It’s never easy to take a more than 150-year-old brand and put it on television for the first time,” noted Umberto Luchini, head of marketing for Wild Turkey parent Campari America. “I think our ‘Give ’em the Bird’ campaign stays true to the Wild Turkey brand [and] to our loyal fans, who will absolutely understand the wink and nod humor in the spot, and see this commercial as being Wild Turkey, through and through.” Since acquiring the Wild Turkey brand in 2009, Campari America has launched portfolio extensions (Wild Turkey 81 Bourbon and Wild Turkey 81 Rye); updated the portfolio’s packaging; opened a new, $44 million packaging facility; and doubled output through a $50 million expansion of the brand’s distillery.
Ram Truck brand is going to Churchill Downs as part of its sponsorship of the 2012 Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. This is the third consecutive year the brand is the exclusive automotive partner and the “Official Truck” of Churchill Downs and the premiere race. The Chrysler Group pickup truck division, which will have a range of its 1500, 2500, and 3500 trucks on display at the event, will have lots of branding at the track as well. A spokesperson for the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based automaker says five Ram Truck pickups will serve as work vehicles maintaining the track during the race events. Gate crews will have Ram Truck branding on their jackets. The posters and signs on the Ram Country Churchill Downs backside have messages like “Hard-earned, Not Hard-won,” “Courage not Chance,” “Champions are Made, Not Born,” and “It’s Not Two Minutes. It’s a Lifetime.” Stables and other buildings on The Downs’ backside will have “Ram Country” signage as well, and Ram is also and sponsoring an on-site venue for jockeys and owners called “Horsemen’s Lounge.” The truck brand's involvement with the equestrian event extends to TV advertising during NBC Sports’ May 5 coverage of the race. Ram Truck will air two 60-second TV spots, part of the second phase of Chrysler Group's "Halftime in America" campaign that launched during the Super Bowl. NBC sports is also producing a vignette, "Ram at the Derby," about how Ram is being used at Churchill Downs. The promotional video, which will air during the network’s coverage of the race, showcases the Ram 1500 and 3500 Ram Laramie Longhorn trucks. Ram also has a full-page ad in USA Today’s May 4 race preview edition, and a three-page spread will run in the Sports Illustrated post-event derby issue. The automaker says print ads also will run in select sports and equestrian publications, including Athlon Sports and Blood Horse magazines. The automaker says digital advertising will run on sites like NBCSports.com, SI.com, BleacherReport.com, SportingNews.com and the Churchill Downs and Kentucky Derby sites (www.churchilldowns.com, www.kentuckyderby.com, and www.kentuckyoaks.com). Ram Truck will also have activation on its Facebook page and Twitter feed, where the company will post exclusive content, photos and interviews throughout race day. And, for the third year, a representative from the Ram Truck brand will present the winning trophy to the owner and jockey of the American Turf Stakes on Kentucky Oaks day. The Ram Truck brand again will be a part of the Super Hi-5-wager. Should an eligible individual win this promotion, he or she will be awarded with a new 2012 Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn truck.
What’s that on your jeans? Do I see a hashtag? To promote its new line of eco-friendly laser-blasted denim, Replay created an in-store and social media campaign that projected tweets onto denim in real time. Replay’s latest collection of jeans uses a Laserblast treatment that’s chemical-free and more eco-friendly than sandblasting. A display in Replay’s flagship Milan store encouraged visitors to tweet a comment using the hashtag #replaylaserblast. This, in turn, would project the tweets onto wall-mounted jeans in-store. The installation, created by Perfect Fools, was active from April 17-22; Replay is considering similar displays to be used in other stores throughout Europe. Last week’s column also combined Twitter with an outdoor component, asking passerby in Holland to tweet the phrase “Get the war out of children #Warchild” on behalf of War Child Holland. The end-result was 7,000 balloons, in the shape of a tank, were released into the sky.
Social video viewership jumped 40% in the first quarter of 2012 over last year, driven in large part by the popularity of the “Kony 2012” video and also by Super Bowl ads online. Videos created by brands generated 1.3 billion views for the quarter, which is also a more than three times gain over the first quarter of 2010, said Visible Measures in its latest social video quarterly report. The first quarter is typically a strong one for branded video viewership because of the influx of new Super Bowl spots online, but viewership was also strong across the board, and in particular for “Kony 2012,” which launched in March and garnered more than 170 million views, the most of any branded video campaign. Visible Measures said even without the Kony video, the quarter would still have set a record and topped 1 billion views for the first time. For comparison, in the fourth quarter of 2011, Web users viewed online video ads for brands more than 745 million times. In the most-viewed video category for the first quarter of 2012, Super Bowl spots largely followed “Kony 2012.” M&M’s “Just My Shell” racked up the most online views of any Super Bowl ad online with more than 41 million views. Visible Measures said M&M’s viral success with that spot came from imitation — more than 80% of the social video views were for copies or derivatives, which underscores the high level of interest from a range of sources. Volkswagen’s “The Dog Strikes Back” landed third with 37 million views, followed by the non-Super Bowl spot Rovio’s “Angry Birds Space” with more than 30 million views, then “Matthew’s Day Off,” with more than 25 million views. When measuring by brand, the most successful social brand for the quarter was Invisible Children, because of “Kony 2012,” followed by Volkswagen. Interestingly, Volkswagen not only enjoyed success from its Super Bowl spot this year, but also continues to amass viewers from last year’s hit “The Force.” Google slid in as the third most watched brand, with nearly 60 active campaigns collectively driving nearly 45 million views. In Google’s case, the company is going for a consistent availability of videos, rather than a big bet on just one. Its 45 million view count is also 10 million higher than last quarter, Visible Measures said. Old Spice and M&Ms rounded out the brand list.
While the 2008 Games are only four years in our rearview mirror, it seems now like a whole generation ago, especially when it comes to the social media landscape. Look no further than the infographic Mashable recently published comparing social media numbers from 2008 to 2012. In 2008 Facebook was still in its “infancy” with 100 million users; Twitter hadn’t exploded and was still driven by techies and angry music bloggers. Instagram was nonexistent, not even close to being a company for which Facebook would write a $1 billion check. Social media has gone from techy subculture to mainstream event necessity, consolidating and validating the hallowed “second-screen experience” with all ages of global consumer users. With the biggest global sporting event looming, what does this all mean for the 2012 Olympic Games in London? Imagine dropping a boulder in a baby pool: the 2012 games are set to explode in popularity due to social media. In addition to television ratings steadily climbing year by year, in April the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released its new Olympic Athlete Hub, a website where fans can go to interact directly with their favorite Summer Games athletes. Brands with investment in this year’s games are already rolling out their latest digital campaigns. One example includes Proctor & Gamble’s online video entitled “Best Job” about the moms of Olympic athletes, posted on their “thank you mom” Facebook page, but otherwise spread organically through Twitter and Facebook and which, as of this writing, already has over 2.3 million views. Additionally, longtime Olympic supporter Coca-Cola has recently begun talking about its new “Move to the Beat” Olympic campaign. The ad was pushed out through Coke’s Facebook page, Twitter and YouTube, as well as being promoted through supporting articles and blog posts. The campaign will also feature a mobile app where Coke fans can create their own remix to the song and share it to Coke’s “Global Beat” web page. Regardless of Mark Cuban’s latest rant, or the disappointment that lingers over Chicago losing the 2016 bid, the majority of sports fans are excited about the London games. But it’s worth noting that the IOC is already sweating profusely over what these “social games” mean for controlling their Olympic rights. Already infamous for its tight sponsorship enforcement, the IOC now has a pretty lengthy social media policy for not just athletes, but even for the approximately 70,000 unpaid volunteers who will help make the Games happen. The IOC policy limits participants and volunteers from uploading pictures and video, which even it admits is “unenforceable.” The policy also strictly prohibits online posting of any “first-person content and any promotion or advertising of brands.” The athletes’ rights are also being affected as many U.S. athletes have recently sued Samsung, a top sponsor, for using their names, faces and background information in their new social marketing Genome campaign, “How Olympic Are You?” The game pulls Facebook users’ information and then matches them with Olympic athletes from their hometown or athletes with similar interests. The USOC had even signed off on the program! Even if the case can be made for a policy for the volunteers, does it make sense to prevent spectators at the Games from posting photos or videos of Olympic events on social networks such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook? How might the IOC even go about trying to logistically enforce such a policy with spectators for the Games expected to top out at 500,000 a day? That’s a massive legal staff. (But, apparently Twitter has said that it will not allow non-sponsors to have “promoted tweets” about the games). The IOC’s policy is akin to trying to put a muzzle on Ozzie Guillen – hopeless. In the past what has made the IOC so successful has been its ability to control and guarantee exclusivity of its rights for stakeholders such as sponsors, broadcast partners, and licensees. In exchange for billions of dollars, this offers incredible value for everyone paying for the right to use the infamous Olympic rings because the rights cannot be guaranteed anywhere else. If there’s misuse, the IOC has the resolve and the resources to shut it down. So, one can’t blame the IOC for wanting to protect these rights. But, this now has become a daunting task. Can the IOC take a deep breath, sit back and watch their games break many social media records? (After working in Switzerland, I’m afraid that’s not going to happen from the IOC staff). Take the most recent Super Bowl and the UEFA Champions League semi-finals as recent examples. If these sporting events can crush tweets-per-second (12,233 and 13,684, respectively) records, imagine what a notable moment in Olympic basketball, track and field or gymnastics will do. Social media really shines during times when we are all gathered around a significant moment and we want to comment on it. It’s as if we were all together in the biggest living room of all time watching events unfold. The social media game is too big to control as the conversation has become a widespread global phenomenon. The NFL recognized this and instead worked to simply enhance the Super Bowl experience for fans. In Indianapolis for the 2012 Super Bowl, the NFL launched a Social Media Command Center to monitor all posts on social media sites pertaining to the game. If fans, A-list guests or event athletes had any issues about their stay in Indianapolis, the Command Center would flag the message and then work quickly to resolve the issue as fast as possible (be it a pothole in a road or an issue with the guest list for a celebrity). My advice for the IOC would be to take a similar approach, to accept its lack of total control and join in, making this summer in London the best second-screen experience yet – and build a whole new level of global value for the Olympic movement.
What if you didn’t need a mobile phone to share content? What if you could share your literal point of view? What if “always on” didn’t just mean an Internet connection that was constantly active, but referred to a device you wore that was always on you, ready to share your thoughts practically as soon as they came to mind? That’s the idea behind Project Glass, Google’s latest foray into hardware. It’s a different twist for Google. Instead of competing with Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon, Google will soon be competing with LensCrafters. Its new product is a form of wearable computer, with a tiny camera and transparent screen mounted on the front rim of glasses; the lenses themselves aren't needed. As of now, it’s a curiosity. It’s not yet on the market, and it’s not clear if anyone will want it. I’m sure I’m not the only person who watched the demo video and thought, “If I wanted to wear headgear, I wouldn’t have gotten Lasik.” Then came the Charlie Rose interview with Sebastian Thrun, a Google Fellow and former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It was the first public interview with anyone at Google wearing the prototype, and I was mesmerized. It was a sneak peek into a future that’s both beautiful and horrifying. I can’t remember ever thinking simultaneously, “I want that now” and “I hope to never go anywhere near that.” I’m neither a fan nor detractor of Charlie Rose, but I give him credit for staying focused on the interview. It must have been hard taking Thrun seriously, despite his credentials. Thrun’s discussion with Rose about Project Glass was brief; most of it focused on the demo video itself. It shows someone using the hardware to check the weather, save reminders about events, get transportation updates, check into a coffee truck, and use video chat, among other activities. With so many possibilities, what will be the proverbial killer app? Thrun told Rose, “The compelling use case for us is the sharing experience. Other people can now see through my eyes.” It was a beautiful moment. Thrun downplayed a lot of the more sophisticated features like using augmented reality for image recognition. The feature that excites me the most is being able to recognize faces, even though I have a wonderful accessory to handle that already: my wife. Thrun’s take was simple and elegant. Project Glass is a hands-free way to share your actual perspective. Used well, it’s bound to trigger waves of empathy from those seeing that perspective. How much more powerful will it be to share your point of view when you’re doing so literally? And then, what happens when you can always share your point of view? Will you blink and share whatever you see? Will you be even more inclined to tweet that you’re checking into the food truck you just instagrammed on Tumblr? Will you ever see the world around you? These are concerns already, but Project Glass raises the possibility that we’ll always be looking at the world through glass and not through our eyes. Project Glass could thus further diminish our ability to be mindful, where we process the sensory information in our immediate surroundings instead of thinking about anything else. It’s vividly described in the book “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock. He writes, “When you sit on that jetty and stop to pay attention to the warmth of the sun on your skin, you soon notice the breeze, too. Activating the direct-experience network increases the richness of other incoming data, which helps you perceive more information around you. Noticing more information lets you see more options, which helps you make better choices, which makes you more effective at work.” Rock describes how to be mindful and urges the reader to try it for ten seconds. The first time I tried it, I could feel the mental strain. Then I attempted it while walking to the subway one morning, and I was amazed how I could hear the footsteps of everyone walking by me and the phone conversations of people on the street. I understood Rock’s quote from mindfulness researcher John Teasdale: “Mindfulness isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is to remember to be mindful.” With a screen constantly hovering over your face, is mindfulness even possible? Project Glass shows the liberation of a hands-free device, but such liberation is misleading. When we bought cordless phones and then cellphones and then smartphones, we were liberated from physical wires only to find ourselves more tethered to the handsets. If Project Glass is successful, we’ll free up our hands at the risk of losing our minds.
Healthcare organizations and providers are not exempt from lessons that have been learned by brands and social marketers in other industries. The main lesson is that today’s consumer is more empowered than ever before. Their ability to conduct research online from any number of sources and to compare and share with friends, family or experts makes them a very different breed from yesterday’s healthcare consumer. Let’s talk about that consumer of the past. When they wanted information or the resolution to a problem, they had to wait however long it took to get an appointment with their doctor. The answers they got were limited to the information the doctor had at that moment. The doctor’s assessment had to be taken at face value and accepted as the right answer. If the patient didn’t like or had doubts about what they were being told, their only course of action was to set up yet another appointment with a separate physician to get a second opinion. And that’s not even getting into how long it took to get an answer back from their health insurer on coverage issues. While all of these healthcare organizations may have been operating in the most efficient way possible, and with every ethical and professional standard that could be expected, the bottom line was that the consumer was largely at the mercy of the process. Flash-forward to today, and not only is the consumer no longer at the mercy of the process, they have been empowered with a global, comprehensive knowledge bank, available instantly at their fingertips. They are driving the process. The result is that healthcare organizations must communicate with these empowered consumers from an entirely new perspective. And more than ever before, the consumer wants to conduct this communication over the social channels that are comfortable and familiar to them. A recent PwC report examined consumer behavior with various kinds of health-related activities on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Overall, 27% of those surveyed commented on health experiences or social updates that they saw; 24% posted about health experiences themselves; 16% posted reviews of medications, treatments, doctors or insurers; and 18% traced and/or shared their health symptoms or behavior. Increasingly, consumers are willing to engage in healthcare discussions and services on social networks. The study further asked how likely these consumers would be to share their health information using social: 47% would share with a doctor; 43% would share with a hospital; 40% would share with a pharmacy; 38% would share with a health insurance company; and 33% would share information with a retail health clinic or alternative healthcare setting. As you would expect, there are variations in trust according to demographics, but consumers are exhibiting a desire to engage with health-oriented brands and services on social. On the younger end, over 80% of respondents, ages 18 to 24, are likely to share health information through social, compared with 45% of respondents ages 45 to 64. The future is clearly in social communication in healthcare. So what exactly are the new and emerging consumer expectations of healthcare organizations on social? Well, 72% would use social for scheduling doctor appointments. Not only that, 50% would expect to get a response within a few hours. If you don’t make them happy, 41% said social would influence their choice of a specific physician, hospital or medical facility. Health organizations may learn what some brands were very quick to learn: socially empowered consumers are able to gather, unify and react to negative experiences and quickly alter customer-service practices. Today, healthcare marketers have new and powerful ways to find, reach out and engage their customers and potential customers, especially on social. The most successful of these efforts revolve around one key element … trust. When the PwC survey asked how likely respondents are to trust health information on social from the following sources, 60% would trust a doctor, 56% a nurse, 55% a hospital, 54% a patient advocacy organization, 48% a retail pharmacy, and 46% patients they already know. How can a healthcare organization marketer achieve this level of trust? The first step is to make sure you’re interacting with the consumer regularly and directly. Second, use every technological tool at your disposal to establish personalization. Third, reach out to them where they are, be it their smartphones are at retail healthcare establishments. In the social world, trust comes from an ongoing dialogue and the deliberate fostering and building of real and human relationships. No patient wants to feel like a number. They’re putting their health in your hands and feel justified in asking merely that you know who they are. Social makes these personal touch points possible in ways you may have not yet imagined. Even at the very least, a simple birthday greeting from their doctor would make any patient feel wanted and valued. Your consumer is on social and waiting for you. When you make yourself the primary go-to source for their healthcare information, when you set up a system in which the consumer feels like you’re listening and they’re being heard, and when you reinforce your credibility by taking off your marketing hat and communicating in an unbiased, caring fashion, you are investing in the social relationships that will pay profitable, repeated dividends.
Can too much data make attribution more complex? Matt Ackley, director of media and platforms at Google, argues too much data can cloud the outcome and make it too complicated -- especially for execs of business units within an organization who don't understand online marketing. Analytical models and technology continue to evolve, but organizations need to gain a better understanding. Explaining to divisions within a company how media works together becomes 90% of the challenge, Ackley said. Prior to joining the Mountain View, Calif. company, he ran online marketing at eBay, and found that gaining acceptance from other divisions within a company -- such as finance -- became the biggest hurdle for cross-channel attribution. Sometimes ROI can become too measurable for folks in departments who don't understand online marketing. Ackley said eBay ROIed campaigns "to death" following a one-hour last-click attribution model for search. The purchases required a keyword in the title that marketers bought. Understanding how to integrate silos of ad data is becoming an increasing concern for marketers -- yet all but a couple of hands went down after Janel Landis Laravie, co-founder at Chacka Marketing, asked marketers at the MediaPost Search Insider Summit to raise their hand if they use the same third-party platform to manage and track paid search, display, and email. The more difficult technology challenge becomes constructing a strategy, rather than viewing data in a dashboard -- which only gives marketers insights from a rear-view mirror, explains Kevin Lee, Chairman and CEO at Didit. Lee, who majored in economics, said marketers need to construct environments of an experiment to understand the value. It's not attribution, he said, but media-mix modeling, that marketers also need to consider. The math continues to catch up with marketers. Lee said media types -- especially paid -- have different marginal elasticity, so attribution charts that only value touchpoints and do not take into consideration paid-search clicks versus ad impressions will fail. He also said clients continue to keep direct-response and brand budgets in silos, and until that changes, technology will not solve anything. Roger Barnette, president at IgnitionOne, agrees. Marketing departments within organizations have not evolved to reflect the maturity of user behavior. Brands still develop budgets per channel, and often don't see the value of how display ad views interact with paid-search queries and clicks. Marketers also often forget about call tracking. Barnette said the value of tracking a call varies widely, depending on the type of business. For example, for hotels the company can tie back a reservation to the click. The call becomes a proxy metric or revenue statistics. Providing an example of combining organic and paid-search ads, BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu said combining the two for a specific brand drove a 44% increase in return on investment on campaigns by looking at well-ranking areas and shifting the spend to those that were not performing as well. Clients leave money on the table, Barnette said. So what's keeping marketers from gaining an integrated marketing channel and capitalizing on attribution? For starters, the group agreed that it's not about measuring and gaining metrics from all paths and channels --it's important to reach agreement from c-level executives to educate other parts of the organization about attribution, and recognize that call tracking can also integrate into the mix.