"Let's advertise to people who already own the car."
That, in a nutshell, sums up John Butler's unconventional approach to marketing MINI, which I explore in my book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (available everywhere books are sold).
In part two of this source interview, Butler talks about how this mindset, combined with in-house digital expertise at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners led to such innovations like billboards that use RFID technology to call out to MINI drivers, with messages like "Nice day to have the top down, Ed!"
The effort was part of the MINI "Covert" campaign that has helped MINI make a major splash in the world of automotive marketing.
Here's more from a great interview that offers some outstanding insights on success in the digital age.
Responding to social media comments and even other TV commercials in real time is so last year.
For this upcoming Super Bowl, it's all about gamifying the Big Game, as Coca-Cola launches a new campaign in which viewers can help three "teams" vie for a giant bottle of coke.
In a new spot called "Mirage," which launched on Facebook today (video, above), the beverage brand sets the stage with three factions - cowboys, showgirls and badlanders - racing for that Coke. As Ad Age reports, the ad, from Wieden & Kennedy, ends with a cliffhanger. And that's where the socializing begins. Now, viewers can share the video and vote on one of a handful of endings. The more you share, the more content you unlock - including 50,000 coupons for a free 20-ounce Coke.
What's nice is that you can also sabotage the other teams by voting for distractions that slow them down. A spot with the winning team will be shown at the conclusion of the Super Bowl.
Will the effort beat the bears? Hard to tell - that was such a cool, real-time event, where this has the familiar "vote for the ending" feel to it, sabotages notwithstanding.
But what's your take? Will this effort's success be a mirage - or deliver a Coke and a smile?
It's 2013: Do you know what your digital marketing's up to?
Here are five quick resolutions for the new year. Like lots of behaviors, these are practices we know we should keep - like eat less, move more - but rarely do. All of us are guilty of bypassing these common sense rules from time to time.
So if we do just five things this year, let's resolve to:
5. Not Ask How - Ask Why
I said this in a recent post on social media trends for 2013. But it's really true of anything we do. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times at agencies and client-side brands throughout the land: Let's do "X" - insert your digital buzz word du jour here - not because "X" is central to a brand's objectives, but because it's considered cool. But saying "we need a mobile/social/viral strategy is akin to saying "we need a brochure strategy," or a radio strategy, or a signage strategy. These are channels & platforms, not strategies. First figure out what you have to accomplish, then decide which approaches and channels will get you there. It's so simple, yet we all get caught up in coolness from time to time.
4. Know thy customer - and thy channels
On that note, as I write in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, insight comes before inspiration. Today's most successful digital marekting initiatives typically don't come from a great idea for some hip new experience, or a me-too approach to major trends. Instead, they start with consumer insights culled from painstaking research into who your customers are, what they're all about, how they interact with consumer technologies, and what they want from the brands they know and trust. Just look at the work Unilever's done over the last few years with the Dove brand's "Campaign for Real Beauty" and all its crazy ass work for Axe - including everything from QR code peep holes in bathroom bars to faux "Shower Together" PSAs. These marketers have a firm read on their customers and the channels with which to reach them. In 2013, look for social + mobile + local to be a key to accomplishing this.
3. Always commit multi-plat-fornication
Innovate through as many channels and platforms that make sense for your strategies and audience. It's what MTV calls "multi-plat-fornication." As I show in the book, MINI USA has made an art form of this, using insights on its "fun-tech" loving audience and how they congregate online to use numerous approaches - branded games, especially, but also things like RFID-based key fobs that enable roadside billboards to call out to passing drivers by name - to actually enlist customers to market the cars for them. And Coca-Cola has raised the bar over the last year, with everything from branded iPhone apps to the Polar Bears' social stunt at the Super Bowl to its Kinect-Powered Vending Machine, to a magazine-ad-turned-mobile-stereo-speakers and much, much more. Small wonder the brand has been named "Creative Marketer of the Year" for the 2013 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
2. Honor traditional as the sizzle to digital's steak
It's heresy these days to point out the obvious. In a fragmented media universe, the channels that still attract any semblance of "mass" are more powerful than ever - with TV being exhibit A. For all our gadgets, we're watching more TV, not less. And whether it's "Walking Dead" or "Dancing with The Stars," TV has communal power like nothing else. As a result, many of today's most innovative integrated campaigns use traditional advertising - old school TV, print, radio, etc - to build awareness and then point consumers to deeper, richer, more meaningful experiences online, or via mobile and other digital platforms. Again, Coca-Cola's Polar Bear stunt at the Super Bowl immediately comes to mind, attracting over 9 million consumers who spent an average of 28 minutes with the brand. And Doritos has effectively done all this in reverse every year, with its Crash The Super Bowl user-generated ad contest - with the chance to work with director Michael Bay at this year's bowl.
1. Never put "buzz" before "business"
Obviously digital marketing is about endless and innovative experimentation. If it were as easy as creating any old viral video, branded game, or mobile app to generate enough buzz to bring in business for our brands, we'd all be rich. For many lifestyle brands, this kind of experimentation is enough - especially in categories where an aura of hipness is a prerequisite for sales success. But while there is obviously a lot of fun and games in all this fun and games, it's important - critical - that we approach digital initiatives with specific objectives in mind (see resolution #5).
As Harley-Davidson's global CMO Mark-Hans Richer puts it to Ad Age, "This is a new gold age for marketers. The shackles are off, and the possibilities are nearly endless. If we aren't conducting radical experiments, trying new ways to engage our targets and adding value to them, then we're not doing our jobs."
But, he adds, "It's not about chasing the buzz; it's about chasing the biz." Marketers who get this formula right - by fueling innovation through substantive consumer insights - weill thrive in the on-demand era.
Those who don't will have to settle for some fun - but ultimately fruitless - experiments.
This Saturday, October 6, Mercedes UK will launch 'You Drive," an interactive TV campaign that invites viewers to direct the action via Twitter (see the YouTube video trailer above).
The basic premise - music-star-cum-professional driver is trying to get a super secret concert - and must evade authorities and others who want to stop him from getting there. His car of choice: The new Mercedes A-Class sedan.
The three-part story, crafted by AMV BBDO and director Yann Demange, will be shown during commercial breaks in Saturday's ''X Factor,' and will culminate in a single, 90-second spot comprised of all three parts during Sunday's broadcast. And a special YouTube channel will enable users to view the ads and create their own story.
Think branded entertainment like BMW's 'The Hire" and movies like "The Transporter" movies, with a social twist - where viewers tweet their votes on possible outcomes.
In all, the campaign seems to follow what I describe in my book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND as "Accentuating the POS-itive," ie, making the campaign Personalizable, Ownable & Sharable.
In this case, it could very well drive quite a few viewers to distraction.
But what's your view: Is this great way to put the A-Class in the fast lane? Or a short cut to the off-ramp?
Jim is lively, spirited and really knows his audience. While most of my own work is with agencies and large brands, Jim frequently invites me onto his show to help translate what all this digital marketing stuff - social media, mobile marketing, branded games etc. - mean to small business marketers.
Topic A on this visit: The Facebook fallout - and the future of social media.
You might just be surprised where things are headed next.
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
Jeff Hasen is one of my favorite people in mobile marketing today - and as you're about to hear, it's easy to understand why.
Hasen serves as CMO for mobile marketing powerhouse Hipcricket, and is the author of the new book MOBILIZED MARKETING: Driving Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices.
I'm amped about the book, and not just because I'm featured in it.
As you'll hear here, Hasen is a fount of interesting stats and insights on the mobile revolution, and is always at the ready with information on compelling ways marketers are using the mobile channel.
Listen to what he has to say here, and then check out the book here.
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
Will consumers and brands really tune into social TV over the long term?
The whole field is getting a lot of buzz these days, from startups like Miso and GetGlue, to high-profile initiatives at this year's Super Bowl that included a branded app from Chevy and Coca-Cola's interactive Polar Bear experience on Facebook.
I have not seen solid figures on viewer engagement with the Chevy app, but the fact that GM announced this week it will sit out Super Bowl 2013, it stands to reason the initiative wasn't a touchdown.
Coca-Cola's experience, however, was another thing entirely. At last week's Social TV conference, Coca-Cola revealed some astonishing engagement figures for its Polar Bowl. Turns out that while Coke thought they'd engage a couple million people for an average of 2.5 minutes, the Bears - which reacted in real time to the game and even Super Bowl spots from other advertisers - attracted 9 million viewers who spent an average of 28 minutes with the brand.
In the conclusion of our May 2012 GEN WOW Mobile Roundtable, Dorrian Porter, CEO of longtime GEN WOW sponsor Mozes; Julie Fajgenbaum, vice president of brand and social media for American Express; and Rachel Pasqua, executive director of mobile marketing for Organic weigh in on the efficacy of various forms of branded social TV experiences, and prospects for the future.
MOBILE ROUNDTABLE (CONCL): BRAND MARKETING & THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL TV
(7:56)
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
In part two of the May 2012 GEN WOW Mobile Marketing Roundtable, I ask Rachel Pasqua, executive director of mobile marketing at New York City-based Organic about her upcoming book Mobile Marketing in An Hour A Day, and her insights into Kimberly Clark's plans to merge its social media and mobile marketing initiatives.
Along the way, we'll hear about the future of mobile apps and wearable computing at brands like Specialized Bicycles, and much, much more.
MOBILE MARKETING ROUNDTABLE (PT 2): ORGANIC'S RACHEL PASQUA - KIMBERLY CLARK, SPECIALIZED BICYCLES RAMP UP MOBILE MARKETING
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
In part three of my conversation with Organic’s new executive director of mobile marketing, Rachel Pasqua, talk turns from QR codes to other forms of 2D barcodes and even NFC.
As the prototypical consumer – a working mom with two kids – Pasqua definitely has some insights on how mobile marketers could make her own life a whole lot easier.
Q&A: RACHEL PASQUA, EXEC DIR, MOBILE MARKETING, ORGANIC (PT 3)
“Through persuasive arguments and Q&A's with the major players in advertising, Mathieson makes an excellent case for greater creativity and outside-the-box thinking backed up with solid ideas."
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