Filed under: online video, social media, social media promotion, video search, you tube, youtube | Tags: cadbury gorilla, social marketing, viral marketing, you tube
As part of its record breaking 2008 marketing budget Cadbury are planning a follow up to their much loved drumming gorilla advert. According to the latest edition of Marketing the new ad will also feature an animal playing an instrument. The original advert was a major viral success achieving numerous blog postings, massive word of mouth and many a parody on Youtube (you can see some of them here). So the follow up has a hard task following in its footsteps, as do he agency charged with creating the ad. The original one worked well due to the human like actions of a gorilla but I cant see many other animals having the same impact without looking too comical. Answers on a postcard what you think the new animal and instrument will be and heres the original again just for fun!
Filed under: internet marketing, new products, social media, social media promotion, social networking | Tags: free media, online marketing agencies, social marketing, social media
I read in article recently in marketing week entitled “Looking for new ways to make money in the age of free media” which discussed the rise of social media and its increasing strength and importance in shaping a brand and a products success. The article began intelligently enough discussing the rise of user generated channels and their importance in online PR and reputation management. This is all well and good and I completely agree with the importance of monitoring and managing a company or brands online profile to aid in its success. But the closing question posed by the article was “how do they (agencies) get paid?” which I thought was pretty damn obvious.
There are two precious commodities involved in any successful online campaign which are rarely held by a client, expertise and time. The majority of client side marketers (on or offline) would not know where to begin when looking at their online profile and certainly would not now the best way to leverage the channel to their advantage. This is where a good agency steps in with the knowledge and the contacts to deal with things in the appropriate manner. Then there is the time element which is one of the major reasons for any company taking on an agency for any activity. Only the largest companies have a marketing team which can take on board all work in house and produce work of the desired standard, the majority are best served acting as project manager and the owner of the final decision and leaving their roster to get on with the real work, especially when it comes to something as time consuming as online reputation management. When you combine these two factors you have a highly valuable, highly marketable product, and with consultants in many channels charging u to £5,000 per day I am surprised the writer asks such a naive question. After all SEO is technically “free” yet there are countless companies out there charging for their expertise and time in this area, social media and online PR fall under the same category.
Filed under: bebo, facebook, myspace, social media, social media promotion, social networking | Tags: bebo, facebook, myspace, social marketing, social media
Social media and networking is the new buzz word in online marketing and everyone wants a slice of the action. It could be through blogging, customer discussion or other means businesses are sitting up and taking note of the power of the social internet community. But does it work for everybody?
This is a question I asked myself in the face of a company who were very keen to enter this sector and asking for guidance. The problem is that people take this buzz word, hear the hype around it and decide, “we need to be doing social”, without thinking about what that means to them as a company. I imagine what they think it means relates to myspace, facebook and bebo, but how do you engage these audiences when you are selling something which doesn’t fit, pensions maybe, of life insurance. That’s not to say that some of the audience would not be interested but the vast majority aren’t going to be.
The first question a company should ask itself is, “does my product fit with social media? What am I going to achieve by getting involved?” If the answer to the first question is no, then stop, look for other ways to achieve your goals.
This example relates directly to the common perception of what social media involves, i.e. social networking sites. When looking at the broader scope of social it may be you can find a small element which will work for you, customer discussion boards, integrated blogging, community engagement, they are all forms of social media and all have a use. Social media has a much broader reach than the websites people automatically quote when the phrase is uttered. So look further afield, engage an social media expert and take their advice on board. And at the end of the day, if social media isn’t for you, walk away. Just because something is the flavour of the moment, doesn’t mean its going to taste sweet to everybody.
