Tag: SMIS

Being In the Moment

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Unless you’re new to TheDrewBlog, you’ve probably figured out by now that I’m moderating a panel this week on real-time marketing down in warmish Florida. Marshall Wright, Director of Social Media at T3, is another illustrious member of our panel and brings lots of insights and experience to the conversation.  I particularly enjoyed learning about how the team at T3 has worked the Windows Phone into numerous real-time conversations.

Drew: Define real time marketing in the fewest number of words possible.  

Real-time is being in-the-moment without looking like you’re trying to be in-the-moment.

Drew: What does it take organizationally to run a successful real-time program?

It takes knowing who you are as a brand, what your voice is, what your business objectives are and what your customers want from you. It takes buy-in from the C-suite down to the day-to-day client level, and having all the right people ready to take action. It takes technology and creativity. And it takes a shit ton of planning.

Drew: Tell me about T3’s real-time efforts on behalf of Windows Phones?

Over the course of over 50 brand and competitor device launches, we’ve learned that most device conversation happens within 48 hours of a launch so we wanted to take advantage of that while still staying true to who the brand is. So for the launch of a competitor device, we prepped by doing a ton of social listening and research to find what people were saying about key features likely to be announced – tone, sentiment, etc. and developed a messaging strategy and content to insert our brand at the right moments in the lead up, during, and after the announce. This allowed us to find the key brand–relevant moments for us to join the conversation, resulting in one of the most retweeted posts of the (launch) day.

Drew: What’s your favorite real-time program that T3 had a hand in and why?

Honestly, one of the most simple moments came a few years ago when the turtles escaped on the JetBlue runway at JFK resulting in a ton of delayed flights. This was shortly after the Bronx Zoo Cobra Twitter stunt, so someone created a JFKTurtles Twitter and started tweeting the journey of the turtles. It was great and caught on immediately. We were managing Windows Phone social and caught on to what was happening and started following along. Angry Birds had just launched that day on the phone and the turtles tweeted they were going to play a game of Mario Bros. It was a perfect moment for the brand to participate in the conversation without looking like they were just trying to be part of a “thing” and we had a great 4-5 tweet conversation with them in real-time that wound up on a list of the best brand responses to the turtles.

Drew: Why do real-time programs seem to fall flat so often?

Because there’s a perception that newsjacking – inserting your brand into every pop culture, trending moment — is real-time. And it’s not. Yes, it can be a part of that, but it really takes knowing who you are as a brand and where you fit. If your not authentic or relevant to the moment it shows immediately. As a brand, you need to pick and choose your moments.

Drew: Should we be talking about real-time as a separate thing or is just part of a smart social strategy today?

It’s smart strategy. At T3, we actually refer to it as “always-on” rather than real-time because it IS smart strategy. As a brand, if you’re going to be in social media, if you’re going to put yourself out there you should be ready to engage whenever your customers are ready to engage. Not just during key cultural moments but all the time. Have a social listening program set up and know what you’re listening for. Then engage when it makes sense all the time. Doing that sets up the foundation for you to be able to take advantage of those cultural moments in ways that makes sense for you and that give your customers a way to celebrate for you and with you, like in the JFKTurtles example.

Drew: Will we still be talking about real-time next year and if so why?

I guess it depends on what happens during the Super Bowl this year.

Real-Time Marketing Unmasked

Posted on by Drew Neisser

With the Superbowl just a week away, leading edge marketers are, in the fabled words of Tim Curry, “breathless with anticipation” of the potential Real-Time Marketing opportunities awaiting them. These folks have been scenario planning for weeks if not months with the hope that they can steal the show away from the ads, football players AND reigning RTM champ, Oreo. So its little wonder that RTM will be a hot topic this coming Thursday at the Social Media Insider Summit AND lucky for you, I’ll be moderating a panel on that very subject. Among my savvy panelists will be Teresa Caro, SVP of Social and Content Marketing at Engauge, who was kind enough to once again share her insights on this here blog.  Thanks Teresa.

Drew: Define Real-Time Marketing in the fewest number of words possible.  

Done right: Timely, on-brand content that is relevant to an event or trend, created to elicit an emotional response and/or drive action.

Done wrong: A shiny marketing object, fueled by a knee-jerk reaction, that once posted, makes you the subject of ridicule by your peers.

Drew: What does it take to launch a successful real-time program?

  1. Be realistic about your organization. Every company is different — has different types of legal regulations, different approval processes, different levels of trust in their agencies and employees, etc. The amount of preplanning required is ultimately determined by what it takes to ensure a brand feels comfortable navigating the real-time space.
  2. Recognize real-time marketing is more than a well-timed Tweet. You need to think of it more broadly as timely, on-brand content that is relevant to an event or trend, created to elicit an emotional response and/or drive action. Real-time can be how you handle a physical event in the social space. How you handle a crisis. It’s how you address consumer needs or consumer love or express of frustration. Take it into the offline world and it is the use of data and mobility to share messages with people performing certain actions or in a certain location.
  3. Have a strategy. What are your goals and objectives? What are you looking to achieve? What is your brand voice and tone? You need to have this first so when an event or meme presents itself than you have a filter to determine if the opportunity even makes sense.
  4. Have a plan. The extent of this plan depends on #1, #2 and #3.
  5. Promote it. I don’t need to remind you that the “build it and they will come” does not work here. It needs to be promoted somehow, someway to the right audience through the right platform.
  6. Practice, practice, practice. Don’t expect to hit it out of the park the first time around – and if you do, You Go Girl. This is something that requires practice, a theme, relationship building with your fans so they are ready to receive it and promote it, etc.

Drew: Tell me about your RTM work with Chick-fil-a?  

7.3 million fans on Facebook, 333k followers on Twitter and 36.8k followers on Instagram doesn’t happen overnight. It requires daily care and feeding to grow and ensure there are engaged audiences to receive the content and have an emotional response… Without the ongoing piece, there would never be anyone to create a big bang. As a result, we take an integrated approach of great planned content, real-time fan engagement and opportunistic content. Examples of real-time include:

  • Unplanned and reactive –
  • Planned and reactive –
    • We spend a lot of time working on our monthly content calendars, getting them approved and getting them scheduled, yet sometimes you need to pivot when you have an opportunity such as acknowledging how cold it is through out the U.S.
  • Planned and proactive
    • And sometimes you just need to be prepared for what’s coming and be timely, relevant and unique. How many did something relevant to New Years vs. heading back to work?

Drew: Why is real-time so hard to get right? 

  1. No objectives
  2. No brand definition
  3. No talent
  4. No process
  5. Too much process

Drew: What’s your favorite real-time program that your agency didn’t have a hand in?

Mini (see link.) This isn’t the first time BMW Mini did a campaign like this. They did a campaign several years ago and coupled it with social listening. They found the share of voice they received for the campaign back then, generated sales three months later.

Drew: Should we be talking about real-time as a separate thing or is just part of a smart social strategy today?

Part of a smart social strategy. Goes back to why it’s so hard to get it right… it’s currently a shiny object, fueled by a knee jerk reaction… it’s rare you’ll get this right.

Drew: Will we still be talking about real-time next year? If yes, why? 

Smart marketing and really bad marketing will always be talked about. Take a smart piece of content that was turned around in amazing time and it will always be talked about… Well, that is if it’s promoted the right way.

Drew: Okay.  Lightning round.  Let’s bang through the logistical issues…

  • DN: What does it take from a staffing standpoint?  TC: Depends on how much you want to do, what types, how frequently (special events vs. continuous)
  • DN: Client approval processes? TC: Some brands can’t manage to pull this together because there is such need for multiple approvals of one post
  • DN: What brands should avoid altogether? TC: Topics that don’t align with their brand. Emotionally charged topics.
  • DN: Other barriers to success? TC: Lack of planning. Lack of understanding their own brand. Lack of understanding what they are looking to achieve.
  • DN: What are the right metrics? TC: Depends on your objectives.

Insights on Real-Time Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Thanks to those clever folks at Oreo who stole last year’s Superbowl spotlight, real-time marketing  was among the hottest topics of 2013. (It even warranted its own abbreviation: RTM!)  Agencies and clients scrambled to set up “newsrooms” in the hopes of thrusting brands into “the conversation” at just the right moment.  Similarly, marketing swat teams were poised to pounce just in case opportunity knocked again during live events. Not surprisingly, few matched Oreo’s success at catching lightning in a bottle.  As the year progressed, “newsjacking” became both commonplace and an opportunity for epic fails (see top 16 from Econsultancy.)

As with all such trendy / newish / emerging  marketing approaches, once the excitement wears off, the professionals move in and help bring some discipline to the party. One such pro is Anne-Marie Kline, SVP/Account Management at DigitasLBI, whose agency has helped P&G and Buick among others ride the RTM wave.  I was delighted to catch up with Anne-Marie prior to our panel discussion next week at MediaPost’s Social Media Insider Summit.  As you will see, being a RTM practitioner is neither easy nor for the faint of heart.

Drew: Define real time marketing in the fewest number of words possible.  

RTM happens when a brand expresses humanity.

Drew: Can you provide some brief examples?

Tide: The Onion published a story about a Tide Brand Manager talking about a viral video – it was poking fun at Tide [and] the entire marketing community’s obsession with viral videos.  Tide responded in the only way possible – they made the video and posted it.  The Onion responded and the video took off in social media.  [For Tide examples see these Adweek stories–Sharkweek and Halloween]

Buick: During in Buick’s daily monitoring they noticed the trend of putting the phone down and enjoying life.  #putthephonedown  was trending off and on and Buick started making suggestions of what to do when you put the phone down in full support of Buick’s discovery platform.  Then they hooked up with Rhett and Link of Youtube and created a video all about putting the phone down and created a bigger effort to get people to enjoy #inthemoment. They supported it on their tumblr feed, asked the audience to make a pledge for being in the moment, and finally taking Christmas day off – from social media. [See Adweek story]

Drew: What does it take to pull programs like this off?  

  1. Dedicated resources on both sides on a daily basis.  This is about not only being ready to respond, but to build the muscle memory.   Listen, Create and Distribute.
  2. Present to the approver, next step legal if you have to.  Gone are the days of having multiple rounds of approval.  Relevance has a deadline and you will miss it if you are stuck in a conference room presenting ideas.  The client is much more in the creation, which helps to get ideas into market more quickly.
  3. Senior brand leadership to help clear the hurdles.
  4. Knowledge that you can’t do this for free with a skeleton staff.  It’s not free.  Budget must be earmarked for media and content creation.  Content shouldn’t be created unless a distribution strategy has been thought through.  Earned media has such power, more than is being realized just yet.

Drew: What are the three reasons why real-time programs fall flat? 

  1. When a brand forces entry into a conversation that they have no business being in.
  2. They approach real time in isolation — as a stunt– with no anchor in the broader brand messaging.
  3. Has nothing to do with what people care about.  You have to find the intersection between what is interesting to the audience and the brand purpose.

Drew: What’s your favorite real-time program that you or your agency didn’t have a hand in?

Mini Cooper does a great job on a regular basis.  One of my favorites was what they did around the horse in beef scandal in the UK.

Drew: Should we be talking about real-time as a separate thing or is just part of a smart social strategy today?

I know its called the Social Media Insider Summit, but Real-Time is a core / foundational piece to a sound marketing strategy.  What brand doesn’t want to engage with their audience on an everyday basis in a relevant manner while providing value?  This is what Real-Time can do for a brand.  It is always on and should be an integral part whether you are talking about expressing the idea in social channels or traditional.