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Six Questions to Start the New Year

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Drew Neisser

1. Does your target Digg your ads?

If zapping tv spots wasn’t bad enough, now Digg is allowing their readers to essentially vote ads “off the island” while promoting the ones they like to star status. For the undug, Digg is the highly popular tech-focused news site where the stories are chosen by the users—the more Diggs a story gets, the higher it ranks on the site. And now that ads can be Digged or Buried, marketers will get real time feedback on the relative appeal of their ads to this highly influential target. If you’re targeting techies, this could be the cheapest copy test you ever tried, as well as the most eye opening.

2. Is your marketing worth retweeting?

While the joys of tweeting may still escape you personally, the phenomenal reach of Twitter is undeniable. In addition to the 20 million or so global users, tweets now appear as status updates on Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and other social networks, extending Twitter’s influence to just about everyone marketers might want to reach. This isn’t kid stuff either. Professionals between 35–49 are the biggest tweeters of them all. So, if you create marketing worth tweeting about, the world will find out about it faster than you can say, “Wow that’s tweet.”

3. Do interns handle your social media?

This is not a trick question. We’ve been asked this a lot in the last month and it is a reflection of a naive belief that it is okay to put a brand’s social media campaign in the hands of novices. One senior marketer even told us that his company uses interns for all of their social media and then shrugs off the lost intellectual capital when the interns move on. As social media advances from the experimental phase to the front lines of customer relationship management, building and maintaining expertise is essential to optimizing results and avoiding PR nightmares. After all, would you ever put an intern on the phone with the press or your top customers?

4. How many customer “love letters” do you get a week?

It is a simple fact—beloved brands do better. Becoming beloved requires achieving customer satisfaction on the basics (product quality) and somehow exceeding expectations via service. Zappos calls this delivering “wow” and does this wherever they can. The Apple Store does this with its amazingly knowledgeable squad of orange-shirted concierges. Others use Marketing as Service to foster brand love, as HSBC does with the BankCab, whose riders send at least one love letter every week. So ask yourself, what could your marketing be doing (versus saying) to generate this kind of passion?

5. Do you have an app yet?

2009 was the year of the app rush for marketers. Everyone from Blockbuster to ZipCar, Betty Crocker to Starbucks, and Fandango to The Food Network cooked up mobile apps for their prospects and customers. In fact, well over a hundred brands joined the fun, some with pragmatic extensions of their service offering (like FedEx mobile) and others with engaging entertainment to enhance their brand perceptions (like Scion’s AV Radio). Given the low development costs of mobile apps and the millions of smart phone users, there is still time to get app happy. And while you’re at it, check out the newly launched CALL THE SHOTS iPhone app that Renegade developed for HARLEM, the new ice cold shot drink imported from Holland. It’s fun, it’s free and it’ll answer the question—how lucky are you really?

6. Did you know Renegade moved?

Back in September we said goodbye to Chelsea Market, our home for 10 years and moved to our new digs in the heart of Greenwich Village, just south of Bowlmor Lanes and north of Patsy’s Pizza. It seems that a few of you might not have our new address so here it is: 41 E 11th Street, 3F, NY, NY 10003-4602. Our phone numbers haven’t changed and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Happy New Year!

Drinking in Social Media

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Drew Neisser

This article first appeared in Chief Marketer on January 12, 2009:

The word “liaise” is about as common in the U.S. as are reports of successful marketing efforts on Facebook and MySpace. To succeed in social media, brands would be wise to LIAISE, a word first coined by our genteel and cultivated cousins across the pond in the 1920’s. By definition, liaise means “to communicate and maintain contact with,” the fundamental goal of marketing on social networks. Modern synonyms like “link up” and “hook up” bring the word even closer to home. To tighten the connection, LIAISE becomes an acronym for a six-step process to connect with consumers via social media: Listen, Identify, Activate, Integrate, Socialize, Evaluate.

1. Listen

Listening to your customers is a marketing “no brainer” that seems to fall on deaf ears when it comes to social networks. Heavy-handed product messages are simply ignored on Facebook to the point that IDC labeled social advertising “stillborn” and Seth Goldstein of SocialMedia Networks wrote that banner ads are “universally disregarded.”

Bacardi found success on Facebook after customer research revealed its Mojito campaign had become wildly popular. Extending this campaign effectively meant engaging Facebookers via the Bacardi Mojito Party widget. This useful and entertaining application included a Mojito Cocktail Calculator and a game that allowed users to become bartenders. According to its creators, Buddy Media, over 100,000 adult Facebook members installed the “app-vertisment” in the first week.

2. Identify
Most of us come to realize at an early age that not everyone wants to be our friend. Painful as this may sound for mass brands, the same is true for marketers on social networks. Rather than fight this reality, savvy marketers will look at social networks as a unique opportunity to connect with well-defined micro-targets.

Absolut focused on aspiring bartenders with an application that connected Facebookers to a reality TV show called “On The Rocks: The Search for America’s Top Bartender.” To support the search, Absolute created a “Top Bartender” application that first served as a casting /bartender registration tool, and then enabled users to become an absolute bartender ‘fan,’ vote for their favorite bartender featured in the series, share photos, videos and post on the bartender wall.

3. Activate
A whole lot of marketers have fallen down and not gotten up again when they dropped into social networks ads first. Disappointed, they walk away not knowing in this case “A” is for Activate and not Advertise. To effectively leverage social platforms, marketers need to activate community by creating something of value that is either highly entertaining or extremely useful.

Bud Light found success by going the entertainment route. Their “Decode Your Dudeness” application on Facebook was a hilarious progression of silly photos requiring one to make a choice each time. At the end of the quiz, Bud Light fans scored a customized ”Dudeness” rating that was equally humorous and highly viral. Bud Light found a way to activate that was true to their brand and worthy of sharing with a friend (hmm, just like a nice cold beer.)

4. Integrate
One of the quickest ways to be anti-social is to think of your social media effort as a stand-alone program. This is the equivalent of planning a big party down to the last detail and then neglecting to send out invitations. Having an integrated effort that extends the engagement both within and beyond your social media partners is a sure fire way to get the party started.

Beck’s relatively fresh “Different By Choice” campaign includes a strong social media component that is surrounded by traditional advertising. “The Daily Different” blog features comedian Darius Davies as the content curator, and so far, the content is indeed different and entertaining. And the Beck’s wiki invites consumers to add and develop the brand’s story in a unique fashion. It remains to be seen whether the promised arrival of Darius on Facebook and YouTube will attract a crowd, but the consistently integrated approach of the overall campaign certainly gives it a fighting chance.

5. Socialize
Social media campaigns should not be confused with “pop-up stores” that come and go in a New York minute. Like good friendships they need to be cultivated over time. And like a great hostess, marketers need to truly socialize, working the room, offering a range of entertainment options to ensure that all of their “friends” continue to have a great time.

For Absolut, the InAnAbsolutWorld.com website, acted as a platform for social interaction, inviting consumers to share, request, vote for, and blog about their vision for a ‘perfect world.’ Tools for engagement were provided for users to create and upload images, films, words and sounds that depict their visions of an ABSOLUT world – you can even download desktop wallpaper for your favorite vision. The website also housed videos of celebs and artists’ visions [Kanye West] of an Absolut world.

6. Evaluate
It is generally ill advised to request a conjugal relationship from someone you’ve never even talked to. Nonetheless, marketer’s eager to close the sale are consistently disappointed that they couldn’t do so via social media. When evaluating the effects of your social media campaign, it is important to have realistic expectations and measure everything from “friends” gained to application downloads to time with brand to website traffic and yes, even sales if the romance period was sufficient.

Bud Light’s “Decode Your Dude” quiz was the most downloaded application on Facebook during the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. The original ‘Dude’ spot has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube alone, and the four ads have been viewed more than 13.5 million times from sites like YouTube, MSN.com, break.com and MySpace.

To sum up, while many brands are keen to make “friends” via social networks, few are willing to take the time to learn this new channel and treat it with the requisite finesse. These brands are like drunken sailors who charge into a bar shouting, “who wants to dance?” When no one responds they get testy and proclaim, “This place is useless.” By adding LIAISE to their repertoire, marketers can drink in the potential of social media.

Chatting with Chips

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Drew Neisser

Its been a slow time for Marketing as Service. Frankly, I haven’t seen one example really worth writing about in several weeks. Desperate to find something of interest to you all, I decided to munch on a social media effort by Terra Chips. Here’s a taste of this effort as served up by MediaPost:

On Tuesday, the brand will launch a “Chip in for Change” campaign on Facebook. The concept: Tap into the patriotic zeitgeist and give Facebook users a channel to share their opinions not only with each other, but the new president–while also conveying that consumers by no means need to wait until next July 4th to enjoy Terra’s S&B chips.

The campaign centers on a Facebook product page where users will be able to register their ideas and priorities regarding changes that they would like the new president to address, via a virtual “Chip in for Change” suggestion box. The input will be gathered into a virtual gallery where users can read one another’s perspectives.

In addition, users will be invited to become “fans” of the Chips for Change “movement” by downloading the branded application and adding it to their personal Facebook profiles and/or sending it to Facebook friends.

It will be interesting to see if Facebookers find this to their liking or simply salt it away with the rest of the contrived attempts by marketers to invade their social network. When MoveOn.org or another politically savvy organization asks me to chip in, I’m prepared to engage. When a spruced up junk food says “lets talk,” the conversation on could go something like this:

Terra: “Hey Drew, chip in for a change and tell the next president what you think.”

Drew: “Hey Terra, are you serious? Why would I want you, a salty snack, to be my portal to the President?

Terra: “Now Drew, relax, we’re just trying to demonstrate that we understand your Facebookian lifestyle and want to engage in the conversation.”

Drew: “What conversation and who asked you become part of it? If you want to talk to me about the health benefits of blue potatoes, I’m all ears but when it comes to politics step aside. You’re cutting this thing the wrong way. I didn’t sign up for Facebook to face off with a tiny tater.”

Terra: “Now Drew, don’t be that guy. We just want to be your friend.”

Drew: “I’ve got plenty of friends already you specious spud. You want to be my friend, bag this Chip In program and do something useful that is somehow relevant to your brand.”

Terra: “Whatever dude. We’re getting great PR and our marketing folks are now being invited to every social media conference in town. So any way you slice it, we win.”

Drew: “You got me there. Serves me right for talkin’ to a bag of chips.”

For the record, Terra Blue is my chip of choice.

Members Project Submissions Due 8/19

Posted on July 27, 2008 by Drew Neisser

Both VISA and American Express have been on the leading edge when it comes to leveraging social networks. I covered VISA’s recent programs with Facebook rather extensively in my article for iMediaConnection. So here’s a quick update on one of the more interesting efforts by American Express called the Members Project including this overview from MediaPost’s Marketing Daily:

For its second year, American Express has expanded the scope of its social responsibility, “Members Project,” making it easier for people to help shape projects that fit their interests, beefing up its online presence, and devoting more money to more projects.

“We’re putting more focus in how we leverage online,” says Belinda Lang, vice president of consumer marketing strategy at American Express. “We’re trying to make it that much easier for people to engage with us.”

To help get the word out about the Members Project and the individual ideas, American Express has developed a vast array of online tools, from Facebook and MySpace presences to widgets and online badges people can use to promote their projects. The initial phase of the Members Project–where people create and hone ideas for good works– will also be advertised heavily online, Lang tells Marketing Daily. “This is an online experience–our goal is to take advantage of what’s going on with that space,” she says.

A quick visit to the Members Project site and you can see this is a well thought through program and one that they expect to grow over time. With $2.5 million in “seed money” to support 25 projects that can “make a difference” locally, nationally or globally, AmEx is hoping to empower card holders to take charge instead of just charging (some more stuff). It is hard to imagine a more fulfilling “service” for AmEx to provide than one that helps their customers change the world for the better. And oh by the way, if saving the world is your thing, submissions are due 8/19!

Update:

One of the five finalists offered this video appeal:

VISA Faces Small Business and Scores Big

Posted on June 26, 2008 by Drew Neisser

Maybe I had too much coffee this morning BUT I’m positively bursting with enthusiasm about the concept of Marketing as Service as both a timely and powerful way to cut through.On the timeliness front, consider Gordon Gould’s commentary today on MediaPost called “A Recommendation Economy.” This well constructed piece first confronts the challenge Social Networks are having converting their ever growing user bases into revenue streams. And then goes on to point out why these networks represent such untapped potential:

According to a 2007 McKinsey study, fully 27% of all personal conversations in the U.S. involve some serious discussion of products or services.
An eMarketer report on social shopping by Jeffrey Grau recently reported that the most credible source of product information came from “people like me” with a full 60% of users saying this is the best way to learn about an item.

Which leads me to the recently launched VISA Business Network on Facebook that I believe could be massively successful AND become the new poster child for Marketing as Service. I strongly encourage you to visit this site and watch the videos that explain the program with real life examples of how small businesses can tap into the power of Facebook. VISA is bringing real utility to Small Business through this $2 million partnership with Facebook including a $100 credit that 20,000 small businesses can use to engage customers and prospects via Facebook ads.The formula here is reasonably simple: create a service that customers and prospects can use, make it easy for them to share this service with their friends and use advertising to jump start initial interest in the program. Nonetheless, the VISA Business Network on Facebook is ground breaking in my mind given the scale, quality and perspicacity. VISA is not just dipping their toes into this, they are diving head first. According to an article on B2B, “Visa also partnered with AllBusiness, Entrepreneur, Forbes.com, Google, Inc., Microsoft Corp. and The Wall Street Journal to provide small businesses with news, commentary and tool kits to help them manage their businesses.”Perspicacity? You bet. Watching the nicely produced videos, you will see like I did that the customers of many small businesses are indeed on Facebook. They are shopping every day for eyeglasses, cheese or what not at small establishments and then telling their friends about the experience. By helping these businesses connect with their customers online, VISA is providing a truly valuable service that should help the cash registers ring all the way around. We can certainly expect MasterCard and American Express to be watching this social networking experiment very carefully and serve up their own iteration any time now. Undoubtedly, they won’t be giving credit where credit is due!