Posts Tagged ‘Twitter

Using social media to announce bankruptcy

Posted at February 16, 2011 // Public relations, Web

Social media has became a company’s best tool in disaster management. Borders advised their loyal customers via Facebook and Twitter regarding their reorganization the same day it was filed.

Wall Street Journal reported on this pending bankruptcy last week. So, it isn’t new news to the inside circle. However, to many Borders consumers, the social media postings are likely to represent breaking news. Social media is also allowing Borders to continue to communicate with their core consumers as the proceedings evolves. It also gave Borders an avenue to communicate important information such as store closing. During such a difficult time, it also gave Borders a way to continue to build good will and retain loyal consumers to the best of its abilities. A quick glance on Borders twitter stream shows numerous personal replies. Social media gave Borders the opportunity to continuously engage, and to address (or potentially discover) any consumer concerns.

Social media is now an essential tool for any public relations effort. It’s particularly helpful in incidents where events are continuously changing, and you need a way to communicate with your most loyal consumers with the latest and greatest. Traditional media cannot be compared with social media in its ability to respond quickly. News is on TV three times a day. Newspaper comes out once a day. Tweets can be posted continuously.

Click here to view a few screenshots of Borders effort.

Tags : Facebook, Social media, Twitter

Old Spice Guy – the smartest player in Super Bowl

Posted at February 4, 2011 // Advertising, Web

We have dived into the demographic, psychographic, and behavioral profile of the Super Bowl viewers. One thing we know for sure is that the viewership is changing. For example, 18% will look up ads online or on their smartphones on Super Bowl Sunday. As various advertisers already demonstrated, the internet is challenging the nature of Super Bowl advertising.

The shout out for the “smartest” brand must goes to Old Spice. It’s an old brand that has been revitalized and reborn from last year’s Super Bowl campaign. This is what nirvana looks like for an integrated marketing campaign with both traditional and new media: The Old Spice Guy from TV replies to tweets via YouTube videos!

At the end of the day, the results say it all. The campaign achieved 1.4 billion impressions. Video view was 40 million per week. And sales increased double digits. Market share grew, challenging for segment leadership.

I haven’t even got to the smartest part of this whole campaign… This Super Bowl campaign didn’t include a $3 million Super Bowl ad! The television commercial was released around the Super Bowl. Then, the marketers bought key search terms. So, when all that 18% of people looked up “Super Bowl ads” online, they would have the Old Spice Guy!

The campaign was such a success that it’s calling for a second act from the Old Spice Guy. Again, the campaign will include a TV commercial that will debut the day after Super Bowl. Though, I’ll have no doubt that if you search for “Super Bowl Ads”, you will find the Old Spice Guy.

Check out my guest post over at Brainzooming for a more in depth look at this campaign. And join me (and people way cooler than me) on Twitter during Super Bowl using hashtag #BZBowl.

Email Subscribers: Link to Old Spice Guy on YouTube announcing his return.

Who’s watching the Super Bowl? (curiousmarketeer.com)
Who’s watching the Super Bowl? Part II (curiousmarketeer.com)
Old Spice Guy Round Three: 2011 Commercials Set To Begin (huffingtonpost.com)

Tags : Super Bowl, Super Bowl advertising, Television advertisement, Twitter, YouTube

Am I too old-school for Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories”?

Posted at January 25, 2011 // Web

Dabbling into social media has always been scary for big brands. Because we lose control of it all. Because we allow the voice of a few to be heard, and we can’t just use TV advertising to drown them out. It’s like you have handed over a microphone to everyone, including your haters, and to let them broadcast to the world whatever they want. However, it is still generally advocated that big brand should participate in the social media discussion, good or bad. Why? Well, the discussion is happening anyway, so you may as well be a part of it. It’s the only way you can learn and improve. If someone at your office is circulating rumors about you, wouldn’t you like to know what exactly is being circulated?

Sue is always eating at meeting. What’s worse, she leaves all her napkins and breadcrumbs and stuffs behind in meeting rooms. I hate going into a conference room afterwards. She’s such a mess.

There’s no reason to go talk to John. Just go talk to his boss. I sent him three emails this week, and he didn’t reply to a single one.

Well, turns out John’s grandma passed, and yes, that’s making him a little less responsive. If you were John, you’d want to set the record straight.

Turns out Sue really is a mess. If you were Sue, and you didn’t bother to pay attention to these stories, you may never realize what you were doing is unappealing to people.

So, yes, it’s important to participate in the social space. It’s just part of good customer service – paying attention to your customers.

However, allowing negative comments to happen organically is one thing. I wouldn’t want to pay for negative comments to be broadcasted. Am I really that old-school?

The latest in Facebook’s ad offering is “Sponsored Stories”. This means when a Facebook user interacts with your brand via, Likes, Check-ins or page posts, it gets broadcasted to a much wider Facebook community like an ad would on the sidebar. For example, if a user check-in to your venue, you can paid to have that broadcasted. Now, that’s no so bad when the check in is positive. For example, Megan may check-in at bar X (bar X being the advertiser) and with the comment of “having a great time at happy hour with friend Jane.” Now, all (if the advertiser pays for it all) of Megan’s friends will see on the sidebar that Megan has checked in to venue x and is “having a great time…” This is very on-strategy with a recent Nielsen study that found ads to have social context to be more successful. In this case, Megan is serving to be an endorser of bar x to her friends, without her realizing it.

It wouldn’t be horrible either if the check in turned out to be Jason checking in Starbucks with a comment “still waiting for my date to show up… hope she’s not a no show”.

But what if someone check in to restaurant Z with a comment “just got served raw chicken…” That isn’t so good.

Or someone may just post a negative post on your fan page and says “your place sucks!” And that became the copy that shows up as a “Sponsored Stories”.

Now advertisers do have some control. Advertisers could limit this to just “Likes”. “Likes” are by definition positive. Generally speaking, I don’t have any problems with the existence of the negatives either. I’m believe in negative comments. Because in general, every brand stands for something, which automatically means they are not going to stand for something else. Every brand is supposed to have their pagans. These are people who doesn’t believe what your brand is selling. These are the people who never got it. These are the exactly the opposite of your core consumers. For example, these are the tree huggers and you are a fur coat maker. (I’m using this as an example and using labels to simplify the example. I am not making a political statement here.) But that’s okay. These two can co-exist. Fur coat makers are not trying to sell fur coats to tree huggers. Tree huggers are not their demographic. Fur coat buyers also know that they are not tree huggers, and they’re okay with that. They are okay with tree huggers saying fur coats are bad, and they’ve reconciled themselves with that opinion.

Negative comments are there. They exist regardless of whether social media is around. PETA existed long before Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook promotes this new tactics as being more effective to buy word of mouth.

However, as open minded I’m about negative comments, I’m not sure about this. For some brands, this may not be a concerned at all. For others that have put a hard line in the sand on what they are selling and what they’re not, this is not just embracing the existing of negative comment. This is paying to have them broadcasted. Am I too old-school to think that’s not necessarily a good advertising model?