Taco Bell on Thursday kicked off ambitious integrated campaigns for a pair of new products -- its new “Loaded Griller” and a 12-taco variety pack -- featuring custom executions across online and mobile platforms such as BuzzFeed, Pandora and PayPal. Driving both ad efforts running simultaneously today through Feb. 3 is the aim of connecting with quick-serve restaurant chain’s “digital-centric” customers through popular social media, video and mobile properties where they are likely to be found. The campaigns -- developed by Digitas, Taco Bell’s digital agency of record -- also bring an irreverent sensibility intended to appeal to the young-skewing audience it’s after. The larger of the two is the push behind the 99-cent Loaded Griller, a savory snack of nachos, chicken, or fried potatoes, wrapped in a grilled tortilla. A centerpiece of that effort is a custom integration on BuzzFeed in which scrolling over the row of buttons for sharing articles causes them to scatter, replaced by a Griller message reading: “Not everything needs to be shared.” Users then have the option of sharing the sponsored article. The feature appears with eight Taco Bell sponsored articles on BuzzFeed centered on the theme of “appetizers just for one.” On Web radio service Pandora, the QSR chain is sponsoring the “Thumbs Up” button across both the desktop and mobile, with ads dayparted around mealtimes. When someone gives a song the Thumbs Up on Pandora, they’ll see a Griller message. Since roughly 80% of Pandora’s traffic comes from the mobile side, the ad will likely capture most attention on devices. On the video front, Taco Bell is focusing on Machinima -- the video network geared to 18- to-34-year-old gamers -- with four sponsored videos featuring game enthusiasts talking about tips and tricks they wouldn’t normally share. Each video is preceded with a pre-roll spot playfully informing viewers that the content is only for them and not to be shared. In addition, Taco Bell is running ads on Yelp around appetizer- and happy hour-related searches, Page Post ads on Facebook and Promoted Tweets on Twitter, among other executions promoting Loaded Grillers. For the new Variety Taco 12 Pack, the company is targeting football fans in connection with the raft of College Bowl games airing over the holiday season. That means a heavy presence on ESPN.com, including takeovers of the desktop and mobile home pages on specific days, sponsorship of the college football scoreboard, and sponsoring of related ESPN properties like the ScoreCenter app. Taco Bell is also using the mobile channel to help drive customers directly into stores. One way is through advertising in mapping and turn-by-turn directions app Waze. As the app’s first national advertiser, Taco Bell’s placements include branded pins on the map signifying restaurant locations and a full-screen takeover when a driver stops in the vicinity of a Taco Bell search. The company is running location-based ads through the PayPal Media Network, reaching 70 million mobile users. Banner ads feature live scores of BCS games, and when no game is on, standard banners that will appear when a user is within three miles from a Taco Bell. All of the ads direct people to a landing page showing the chain’s three closest outlets, which a user can click for directions. A Digitas spokesperson declined to comment on the size of the campaigns in terms of spending.
In spite of the factors that make holiday travel unappealing, Americans are increasingly optimistic about traveling, according to an IBM analysis of social media sentiment. In particular, the "Desire Ratio" -- the proportion of positive versus negative comments -- indicates that people are "looking forward" to holiday travel by a factor of 26 to one. This represents a spike in positive sentiment nearly 12 times greater in 2012 versus 2011. Measuring public sentiment can help travel industry chief marketing officers customize incentives and services to be more in tune with what customers are asking for, using data to tailor their offerings to address trends and customer needs. The analysis shows an increase in the volume of positive conversations about flying, driving and spending time with family and friends, among others. For example, the IBM "Desire Ratio" for flying indicated that comments are roughly 2.5 times more positive about travel in the 2012 holiday season. This increase could be attributed to the Cyber Monday deals that airlines ran this year. Positive sentiment associated with driving also increased 13%. Negative sentiment related to gas prices is on a downward trend, which will likely contribute to the number of people traveling. "Measuring social sentiment has the potential to enable the travel industry to literally design travel offers and services tailored to what travelers are telling us," said Raul Arce, IBM vice president, travel & transportation, in a release. "Big data has the power to transform the travel industry for the airlines, hotels and other travel providers that can translate customer desires into irresistible offers that they will welcome." The IBM Social Sentiment Index combines analytics and natural language processing technologies to gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media. In this instance, the Index was used to measure and understand consumer views around the holiday travel season in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and Dec. 10 in 2012 and 2011. The volume of conversation about flying as the holidays approach is up 10 percent in comparison to last year (38% in 2012 vs. 28% in 2011). This enthusiasm is not limited to those who have confirmed travel plans. A possible window of opportunity exists for businesses to influence last-minute customer travel-related decisions. Anecdotally, around one-quarter of online holiday travel conversations suggested that an itinerary had not been finalized. The analysis also surfaced insight into trends and topics related to flying this holiday season. Top of mind for travelers are airline loyalty programs and best ways to convert miles, possible fuel surcharges likely related to the price of fuel, and what to do with pets while on vacation. While it might seem like "noise" that there is a cluster of social conversation around potential travelers and their animals, it could signal an emerging trend -- or niche demographic -- that pet-friendly hotels or airlines could capitalize on through additional promotional activities or special offers directly tied to the holiday season for pet owners. "Airport Luggage Belt photo from Shutterstock"
Taco Bell on Thursday kicked off ambitious integrated campaigns for a pair of new products -- its new “Loaded Griller” and a 12-taco variety pack -- featuring custom executions across online and mobile platforms such as BuzzFeed, Pandora and PayPal. Driving both ad efforts running simultaneously today through Feb. 3 is the aim of connecting with quick-serve restaurant chain’s “digital-centric” customers through popular social media, video and mobile properties where they are likely to be found. The campaigns -- developed by Digitas, Taco Bell’s digital agency of record -- also bring an irreverent sensibility intended to appeal to the young-skewing audience it’s after. The larger of the two is the push behind the 99-cent Loaded Griller, a savory snack of nachos, chicken, or fried potatoes, wrapped in a grilled tortilla. A centerpiece of that effort is a custom integration on BuzzFeed in which scrolling over the row of buttons for sharing articles causes them to scatter, replaced by a Griller message reading: “Not everything needs to be shared.” Users then have the option of sharing the sponsored article. The feature appears with eight Taco Bell sponsored articles on BuzzFeed centered on the theme of “appetizers just for one.” On Web radio service Pandora, the QSR chain is sponsoring the “Thumbs Up” button across both the desktop and mobile, with ads dayparted around mealtimes. When someone gives a song the Thumbs Up on Pandora, they’ll see a Griller message. Since roughly 80% of Pandora’s traffic comes from the mobile side, the ad will likely capture most attention on devices. On the video front, Taco Bell is focusing on Machinima -- the video network geared to 18- to-34-year-old gamers -- with four sponsored videos featuring game enthusiasts talking about tips and tricks they wouldn’t normally share. Each video is preceded with a pre-roll spot playfully informing viewers that the content is only for them and not to be shared. In addition, Taco Bell is running ads on Yelp around appetizer- and happy hour-related searches, Page Post ads on Facebook and Promoted Tweets on Twitter, among other executions promoting Loaded Grillers. For the new Variety Taco 12 Pack, the company is targeting football fans in connection with the raft of College Bowl games airing over the holiday season. That means a heavy presence on ESPN.com, including takeovers of the desktop and mobile home pages on specific days, sponsorship of the college football scoreboard, and sponsoring of related ESPN properties like the ScoreCenter app. Taco Bell is also using the mobile channel to help drive customers directly into stores. One way is through advertising in mapping and turn-by-turn directions app Waze. As the app’s first national advertiser, Taco Bell’s placements include branded pins on the map signifying restaurant locations and a full-screen takeover when a driver stops in the vicinity of a Taco Bell search. The company is running location-based ads through the PayPal Media Network, reaching 70 million mobile users. Banner ads feature live scores of BCS games, and when no game is on, standard banners that will appear when a user is within three miles from a Taco Bell. All of the ads direct people to a landing page showing the chain’s three closest outlets, which a user can click for directions. A Digitas spokesperson declined to comment on the size of the campaigns in terms of spending.
In spite of the factors that make holiday travel unappealing, Americans are increasingly optimistic about traveling, according to an IBM analysis of social media sentiment. In particular, the "Desire Ratio" -- the proportion of positive versus negative comments -- indicates that people are "looking forward" to holiday travel by a factor of 26 to one. This represents a spike in positive sentiment nearly 12 times greater in 2012 versus 2011. Measuring public sentiment can help travel industry chief marketing officers customize incentives and services to be more in tune with what customers are asking for, using data to tailor their offerings to address trends and customer needs. The analysis shows an increase in the volume of positive conversations about flying, driving and spending time with family and friends, among others. For example, the IBM "Desire Ratio" for flying indicated that comments are roughly 2.5 times more positive about travel in the 2012 holiday season. This increase could be attributed to the Cyber Monday deals that airlines ran this year. Positive sentiment associated with driving also increased 13%. Negative sentiment related to gas prices is on a downward trend, which will likely contribute to the number of people traveling. "Measuring social sentiment has the potential to enable the travel industry to literally design travel offers and services tailored to what travelers are telling us," said Raul Arce, IBM vice president, travel & transportation, in a release. "Big data has the power to transform the travel industry for the airlines, hotels and other travel providers that can translate customer desires into irresistible offers that they will welcome." The IBM Social Sentiment Index combines analytics and natural language processing technologies to gauge consumer public opinions from Twitter, blogs, message boards and other social media. In this instance, the Index was used to measure and understand consumer views around the holiday travel season in the U.S. between Dec. 1 and Dec. 10 in 2012 and 2011. The volume of conversation about flying as the holidays approach is up 10 percent in comparison to last year (38% in 2012 vs. 28% in 2011). This enthusiasm is not limited to those who have confirmed travel plans. A possible window of opportunity exists for businesses to influence last-minute customer travel-related decisions. Anecdotally, around one-quarter of online holiday travel conversations suggested that an itinerary had not been finalized. The analysis also surfaced insight into trends and topics related to flying this holiday season. Top of mind for travelers are airline loyalty programs and best ways to convert miles, possible fuel surcharges likely related to the price of fuel, and what to do with pets while on vacation. While it might seem like "noise" that there is a cluster of social conversation around potential travelers and their animals, it could signal an emerging trend -- or niche demographic -- that pet-friendly hotels or airlines could capitalize on through additional promotional activities or special offers directly tied to the holiday season for pet owners. "Airport Luggage Belt photo from Shutterstock"
For more than a year, we have been conducting observational research with active digital health consumers (or e-patients) in their natural online habitat. We’ve been passively observing their Web and social media activities to understand how they actually find and consume health content on a range of subjects, including cancer, heart disease and sexually transmitted illnesses. Our primary goal is to answer the question everyone’s asking about online and social media content: Does it shape health behavior and, if so, how? To date, we’ve collected reams of observational data on the sites people visit, the content they read and view and more. What’s become clear over the course of this research is that much of the received wisdom about the shape, scope and impact of the traditional and social Web is either inaccurate or wrong. Following are four common myths about Web and social media health content we feel need to be aggressively debunked. Myth 1: If Health Content is on Facebook or Twitter, It's Just Not Credible One area we are particularly interested in is the perceived credibility of online health content. As people in our study encounter health and medical information online, they are immediately asked to measure the credibility of the content they are consuming using a five-point scale (1 = low and 5 = high). These Credibility Scores are averaged for all Web and social media content encountered over the course of our studies. During the latest wave of our research, launched in late September 2012, average Credibility Scores for health content consumed via Facebook and Twitter have hovered between 3.1 and 3.5. If people believed the health content they were encountering on these sites was completely unreliable, we would expect to see average scores between 2 and 2.8. In addition, earlier this year, we found that physicians rated the credibility of health and medical content they encountered on Facebook and Twitter with similar Credibility Scores. It's clear that we can't assume people believe health content is completely unreliable just because it appears on Facebook and Twitter. Myth 2: Sentiment is An Accurate Measure of Content Impact We're also looking at whether sentiment can tell us anything about the impact of content on health behavior. This is an important question, as sentiment has become an important proxy for content impact -- i.e., it is assumed that positive content has a favorable effect, negative content has a unfavorable effect. We've learned one important thing about sentiment: it tells us very little about whether people will take action. Just because a particular piece of content is perceived as negative or positive does not mean that it will definitely shift health behavior one way or the other. Myth 3: In Health, People Like Me Have More Influence than Traditional Information Sources With the rise of social and peer-developed content, it's become popular to assume that e-patients or other laypeople developing content online have more influence than traditional information or authority figures. We've found this is simply untrue. Not only are old-school online players like the mainstream media major outlets more likely to publish health content that captures attention, but they also have a greater influence on perceptions and intent. Myth 4: Social and Search Are the Primary Ways People Encounter Health Content Although a good amount of health content is consumed via search and social, these are not the primary ways people encounter much health/medical information. Rather, a great deal of content is being consumed serendipitously via a range of Web properties, including news sites and health sites such as WebMD. We’re learning a lot about how people actually consume health content – as opposed to what they report via surveys or is measured via high-level click stream analysis. What’s clear is that the reality of the health social Web is much more complicated and nuanced than we’ve come to believe.
BREAKING: Instagram's No. 1 user Kim Kardashian considering dropping photo service. Following the week we’ve had, I can hardly think of a headline that’s more needlessly overblown than this one. Or is my reaction like this because I’m not one of Kim Kardashian’s 5.7 million Instagram followers? Or because my life is, as documented in this column, so dull that the best picture I shared anywhere all week was a photo of a rainbow -- arching over the big water tower in Yonkers that has “yonkersgov.com” painted on it? When your big outing of the week is to the Yonkers Cablevision office to pick up a new cable box – well, it’s not the kind of action-packed life that you want to communicate via photo documentary. Or is it that I’ve seen this movie before -- the one where the social media darling, which is changing the face of the communications business, doesn’t listen to its customers and isn’t, well, very good at communicating. While there may be elements of all of the above, I’m going to pick the latter. Why? Because when I read about Instagram’s clumsily worded new terms of service, the one that seems to say that your photos might start showing up in ads, with no compensation to you – and apparently, also, without a heads-up before it happens -- I found myself marveling at the fact that Instagram founder Kevin Systrom had so perfectly channeled his inner Zuck, a task that must have been easier now that Facebook actually owns Instagram. Call it the two-step- forward, one-giant-step-back theory of customer relations. We’ve seen it from social networks -- primarily Facebook -- so many times that I’ve lost count, but it maps out something like this: 1) Change key terms or features without consumer input. 2) Watch firestorm grow throughout the social media-o-sphere as people wrestle with cancelling their accounts. 3) Humbly back down part way so that users are (relatively) happy -- or at least not so pissed off that they’ll contemplate pulling a Kardashian. Only as of this writing, it’s hard to say exactly where Instagram is in its Kübler-Rossian “Three Steps Toward Sowing Seeds of Doubt in Your User Base.” The wording on the terms of service – even slightly rewritten -- still make the whole thing sound kind of creepy: “To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.” But the weird thing is that, as this post on The Verge points out, that’s basically what Sponsored Stories is, and we’ve been living with that for what seems like forever. And I certainly don’t see Kim Kardashian vowing to break her ties with Facebook any time soon. So what we may have here is a simple failure to communicate. And if that’s the case, what Instagram needs isn’t a bunch of good photographers, but one really good writer, who can explain what the company is doing without resorting to words like metadata, which make it sound as though an Instagram exec just might be stopping by the house this afternoon to swab your cheek and share your DNA. UPDATE: Instagram reverted to its old terms of service late yesterday. Click here to read more about this.