Social Media Lines Up for Super Bowl 2011

For those of us who live our lives in the world of social media, this Super Bowl stat is astonishing: E-Trade was the only advertiser among the 2009 and 2010 Super Bowl rosters to even add a tease to its Facebook or Twitter presence at the close of the ad, according to a study by Professors Chuck Tomkovick and Rama Yelkur quoted in Ad Age. Not so this year; in that article on Monday Ad Age headlines, “From Hashtags to Newsfeeds to Online Spots, Big Game Advertisers Tap Web 2.0 to Extend Buy.” (See also the Super Bowl coverage on their sidebar.)

We all know what the marketing game is. A 30-second Super Bowl ad has hovered around $3m for the past several years. That’s a lot for even the usual suspects like Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, and Intel. The companies go all out to “create buzz,” with increasing intensity during this, the week before the big game. They prolong it as much as possible with post-game critiques that rival that of the sports programming itself. Getting the most mileage out of those expensive TV ads by leveraging other media made sense in years past. It still does; it’s just that social media has been added to the mix.

See the video here

According to Ad Age and this good video on CNBC, there will be more ties to social media this year. Pepsi is running its usual Doritos “Crash the SuperBowl” contest. Pepsi Max has purchased a spot, after a year off for cause-related marketing and joined in the “Crash” contest. They are joined by Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and even the Anheuser Busch Clydesdales and the ETrade baby. In reporting on this year’s advertising (with a good link to past ads), MSNBC says, “It’s a risky proposition for companies. A social media campaign has the potential to make your loyal customers even bigger fans, or draw in new customers. But companies also have to be prepared for the fact that they can’t control what people will write or tweet about them, positive or negative.” With due respect to MSNBC— big DUH!!! Any brand marketer who doesn’t already know that—and know how to deal with it—isn’t ready for the big leagues!

Coors Light is using mobile to hype its advertising using a Snap Tag on its in-store packaging. They’ve been testing this technology since spring and find it ready for the big game. It’s all about a mobile phone, a special icon, text messaging—and, of course, the ability to enter a contest and win a big prize. This article gives a good overview of how it works.

On the other hand, some brands are using the event to their advantage without actually buying an ad.

Papa John’s, who advertised last year, is taking a different approach this year. It’s giving away pizzas on game day. Of course, you have to register on their Facebook page to be eligible! But if what they told CNBC holds true and they spend about half a million dollars to put pizzas into 100,000 homes, is that a better expenditure than $3m for a TV ad? You call that one! And very important, how many fans will they add to the 1,501,026 they have now?

Bing is running a National Tailgating Championship that will culminate in Dallas this week. The first prize is “the coveted Golden Grill.” Oh, yeh? Actually, the whole thing is great fun with lots of snarky commentary like a set of contest guidelines (linked to the main contest site) full of legalese that essentially says that the judges will decide on the winner. Good for Microsoft and the Bing marketers for not taking themselves too seriously!

And most of all that master of Internet buzz The Old Spice Guy. He’s back and he’s watching the buzz about it on the web. One Super Fan will receive an early copy of the ad to be debuted the day after the Super Bowl. Oh, wow! That’s so delightfully arrogant that I’m watching for it. Stay tuned!

And I’m sure I’ve missed some other interesting or creative—or not—approaches. What else should we look for on Sunday?

Marketers Must Do "Content Marketing"

It’s hard to work around the Internet without recognizing its endless appetite for content of all kinds. I’ve long told marketers that they have to “repurpose” content. Grammatical correctness aside, marketers cannot create entirely new content for each occasion, each channel. They need to repurpose the good content they have in one channel for use in other channels. Some of that is very simple—posting a TV ad on YouTube, for example. Others require more effort—creating a B2B webinar, for example. Both have one thing in common. There is already a great deal of content in almost all companies—on or off the web. The requirement is to identify it and repurpose it for other significant channels.

Joe Chernov’s Content Grid gives an indication of the complex possibilities of content channels today. It suggests several strategic issues. There are some types of content that are best used in the early (awareness) stages of the buying decision process and some better used later when the subject is moving closer to making a decision (consideration). There is also some content which is going to have single author/small group authorship (centralization). Some content is inherently multi-authored (decentralized). Some content should be under the careful control of corporate staff; some is open for comment or co-creation by external readers.

That still begs the question of what content marketing is. Here’s a definition from Joe Pulizzi, founder of Junta42:

Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action. . . content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling.

In another blog post, he describes content marketing as editorial-based, marketing-backed, behavior-driven, multi-platform and targeted.

It’s not about fluffy advertising messages; it is about content that adds value to the use of your product and therefore to your customer’s life.

There’s a final important issue related to content marketing—it’s not “one size fits all.” As Chernov’s grid indicates, potential customers at different stages in the buying process need different information. Early in the process a potential customer who is unfamiliar with your company and your products needs content that builds trust. When the prospect is getting close to making a decision she needs more specific information, perhaps a video demo of how the product can be used. Making a strategic assessment of how much content, to whom and when is the purpose of a content map. This map is stated in B2B terms, but it can easily be adapted to B2C.

A interesting example is Best Buy’s On network that went live in selected retail stores last week. The Best Buy On website has been up for awhile. It has a lot of product content that looks as if it might come from manufacturers, but it also produces its own exclusive content and takes advertising. The content, complete with ads, is now appearing in Best Buy stores. According to a Best Buy spokesperson speaking to BrandWeek :

The objective isn’t promotional, it’s around engagement with the product category or entertainment,” Bryan said. “Our quid pro quo with advertisers isn’t about [point-of-sale] lift. It’s a media placement.” Taking that approach, Best Buy On has managed to draw advertisers who don’t sell any products in stores, such as Procter & Gamble’s Swiffer mop and Tide’s energy-efficient detergents. Other advertisers, however, are the type you’d expect, including Panasonic, LG and Bose.

That’s interesting, but I think Stephen Shepard, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York summed it up best in a recent Ad Age article (subscription required). He said, "If they do a good job of it, it's welcome. I don't mind reading something from Best Buy, if it's fair and informative and honest."

That sums up the promise of content marketing; it will attract people who are looking for products you offer—or who will be someday! The degree to which it is persuasive will be determined by how informative and balanced it is and by the marketer’s ability to produce an ongoing stream of relevant content.

Happy Holidays to All!

I haven't taken time to do a JibJab card this year. Too bad for those of you who were looking for a laugh at my expense!

I was noticing this morning how many holiday cards I had received from non-profit organizations and marketing service firms with whom I've done business. That's nice, but I especially noted that one non-profit sent 2 cards USPS. I'd rather have had one and save the postage on the other for good works.

Then this card from Overdrive Interactive came along. They don't miss a beat, and they didn't with this one. Not only did they not spend $$$ on postage, if you play the card you'll notice that it's posted on YouTube--with an opportunity to subscribe to their YouTube channel prominently displayed!

Happy Holidays and a productive year in social media to all of you!!!

Want To Go To Mardi Gras?

Earlier in the week I saw Tom Martin’s column in Ad Age. He invited everyone to join his Tweet stream from New Orleans over the last great Mardi Gras weekend leading up to Fat Tuesday. Too good to ignore, right?
I read through the comments where people were asking him if he was up to something besides a boozy weekend. The answer is obviously that he is, but he won’t say what until it’s over. According to the profile on his blog Tom is currently the president of Zender Communications in New Orleans, so I think we can safely assume it’s something advertising related.
He started Twittering early this morning and he’s busy already. You can follow along if you like.

And therein is the point, for now at least. I’ve resisted setting up a Twitter account, thinking “do I really need this?” Well, if I wanted to follow Tom and see what he’s up to I had to 1) establish a Twitter account and 2) find Tom and follow him. Right now he has about 1,400 followers, over 700 of whom are following at the moment. I didn’t start soon enough to see how many followers he’s added since his Ad Age article on Tuesday, but I’ll bet it’s substantial and that he’ll add more over the weekend. I did find out that my daughter was online while I was doing this; nice to know what she’s up to!

If you’re a teenager or young adult who just wants to keep up with friends, you’re probably not reading this anyway. If you are a marketing professional who, like me, is trying to figure out this stuff, why don’t you get a Twitter account and follow along? Once you set up a Twitter page and follow Tom, you’ll get his Tweets. If you want his pics of the big event, follow him here.

You won’t really learn any other way—and if you aren’t already on Twitter, like me, you can’t learn any sooner than if you start now!

Great Big Interactive Billboard

I was looking for things other than Super Bowl reviews ad nauseum when I found this video on Ad Age Digital. It’s a new twist on old themes; interactivity and media integration.

When you watch the video you’ll see this quick screen that says you can play it on Facebook. That also caught my attention, so I looked for the game itself. What I found is the Jumbli site, which appears to be a Clear Channel microsite. Ok, the point is to text as fast as possible?!? If you look at the site live, you’ll see current updates on who’s winning. I’m underwhelmed, but others are playing the game.
I also checked out the, or probably one of the, Facebook pages. This one describes AT&T as the exclusive sponsor. There are a lot of phone ads, so someone is placing ads on Facebook. More to my point, there is a listing of Jumbli Events and lots of writing on the wall and other Facebook messages. AT&T seems to be replying to its customers on the page. Good for them!

The game itself seems to me to be silly, but it would be a great time waster on the subway, for example, if you are so inclined. Silly or not, marketers need to take note of the fact that people are playing a mobile game like this. Even more, marketers need to note that this type of interactivity brings people to other media and stimulates other kinds of interactions.

Media integration, in a way that’s engaging to consumers—that’s the key message!

A Cautionary Note About Widgets

I often tell my students that we could learn a lot from marketing programs that don’t work, but marketers—understandably—don’t want to talk about them. Quite by accident I ran across one that had unintended effects.

My intent was to write a post about widget distribution networks, since we are all looking for cost-effective customer acquisition tools. In the process, I ran across the Kimberly-Clark Room-a-Day Giveaway and the widget it used in the promotion. Ok, looked like a good example because the widget was successfully distributed across a network.

Kept on looking, and what I found was that the web is littered with broken links to the widget. That is as it should be, because the 2008 contest ended. But I thought there ought to be a working archive somewhere so I could see the dancing Huggies and other Kimberly-Clark brands. Static captures like this one were all I could find. That piqued my curiosity, especially when I realized that KC is running the sweeps again. The highly successful sweeps was launched again on The View on January 14 with, according to Ad Age, lots of promotional support but not a widget in sight.

According to the Ad Age article, they are using Twitter this year, but I don’t see any evidence of it on the sweeps home page or on the Connect with our Brands page, although I didn’t register for any of the brand messages. I kept looking, and there is Twitter listed on Very Recent. The Twitter messages I found link to the sweeps home page, but I couldn’t find where they come from.
The 2009 sweeps has a new spokesperson—Thom Filicia. He was the designer on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy if that places him for you. The Ad Age article describes him as the blogger for the campaign. I searched his name and found all sorts of blog activity (try it; it is an exercise in creating visibility). I finally found his blog for the sweeps under Kimberly-Clark Brands. It’s interesting, but I still haven’t found the source of the Twitter for the campaign. Mommy blogs, perhaps.

But I digress. Why no widget this year? I found the complaint about the autoplay (wish we’d just delete that command from the programming lexicon) on several blogs. Here’s what Donna DeClemente said about the pros and cons of the widget on her promotions blog (links removed):

. . .they're really engaging audiences with an interactive promotional component that features a dynamic new website along with cutting edge digital technology that's enabled the first sweepstakes enabled widget.

(Please Note: I originally had the widget embedded right here in this post, but moved it to this new page instead. The reason being is that the widget automatically plays and the audio would come on immediately each time you visit my blog.)

Anyhow, I think this widget is amazing. Not only does it offers the user the interactive fun of being able to choose both a specific dance along with where the packages dance (I like the Abby Road location), but it also represents the very first time a widget has built-in functionality allowing viewers to directly enter a sweepstakes. This is truly innovative and a application that should help take sweepstakes to the next level (Sweeps 3.0?)

Now once the user is registered it remembers their name and lets them know how much time is left till they can enter the sweepstakes again with a digital clock countdown . . .

There’s more, and her evaluation is interesting. But her problem was that of other bloggers I found—the autoplay that really annoys people who are trying to read other blog entries. I have to admit that I also wonder about dancing Huggies, etc. Was it cute, or was it silly? And does it matter? A lot of promotional material is silly but if it attracts attention and is reasonably entertaining it works.

My guess is that this widget was more annoying than entertaining and that Kimberly-Clark was smart enough to recognize that and come up with another promotional tool. They haven’t given up on social media, they are just learning from a lot of what has worked very well for them and one thing that didn’t. I just hope they don't disregard what looks like great interactivity in the widget in the annoyance factor.

Learning from what does and doesn't work is what social media in 2009 should be all about!

DIY Webcasting

Outreach to bloggers continues! Last week I received an email from the PR firm for webcasting firm BrightTalk. It just launched a Web 2.0 platform that makes webcasting a more interactive activity with continuity that is missing from the typical webcasting activity. According to their website, “brighttalk.com is our simple to use live audio webcast platform, built using web 2.0 principles, where business professionals can create and view webcasts through BrightTALK™ Channels.” This platform adds to their existing Conferences and Webcasting product lines.

In my experience, webcasts are essentially stand-alone entities. You do a webcast, publicize it in many ways, and essentially use it as lead generation, for your products, and for future webcasts. I think most B2B marketers who’ve used them regard them as a valuable lead generation and customer support tool. That said, they can get pretty expensive.

The BrightTALK platform offers a couple of interesting alternatives to the traditional webcasting platform. First is the free starter channel. There are other free offerings; for example webcasts can be hosted on YouTube. However, the BrightTALK platform offers a more comprehensive marketing solution. You can make your webcasts as simply as developing and narrating slides, which you can do on other platforms also. BrightTalk promotes your webcasts in addition to your own advertising and promotion. The webcast is hosted and archived and participants who come directly from the presenter’s own website or by direct link from presenter promotion are identified to the presenter.


There are three levels of channels, with the paid channels obviously giving more bandwidth and more detailed reporting. There is also a content management service that enterprises with multiple webcasting programs would find useful.

The webcast channel can be embedded on the firm’s website, blog or whatever. The value of having informational video promotions on one’s site seems pretty obvious. In fact, you might want to watch BrightTalk’s own how-to video.

One of the things Web 2.0 does is to bring interactive tools within the reach of smaller businesses and non-profits. Wouldn’t it be interesting if local and state governmental agencies used tools like this to make life easier for all of us and perhaps to discuss policy questions? There seem to be a lot of options, all of which would lead to better informed—and presumably happier—customers and citizens.

More leveling of the business playing field! The good news is that the platform is free, at least for small volume users. The bad news is that it takes good content and considerable effort to develop a meaningful webcast that will hold users to its conclusion. It is effort worth taking for businesses of all kinds!

Online Content Sharing - The New WOM

The company responsible for the ubiquitous ShareThis icon (see the bottom of this post) has just released a study called “The Ins and Outs of Online Sharing.” The study, conducted by Forrester, provides some fascinating insights into content sharing on the web. Let me give you some of the study highlights.


Who Shares?

A majority of Internet users do share. Interestingly, more adults share email. Not surprisingly, youth (13 to 17) do more sharing of other media types. Are you using videos, wikis (that one surprises me; are there wikis that reach young people, or is it just Wikipedia?), and walls/discussion boards to reach young people?


What Do They Share?
Just read down the list. They share a lot of things! And the only content area where there’s a large difference between adults and young people is the entertainment category. That’s not surprising; how similar adults and youth are in the sharing of other types of content is. Are you providing the kinds of content that your audience most desires?

How Do They Share? Adults mostly use email. Young people share through IM, mobile, and their social networks. That’s hardly a revelation. But marketers need to think about their audience and how they want to share information. Are you making it easy for your audience to share content?


Why Do They Share? Read this one carefully—people share because they want to help others. (I’ve seen/heard that before, especially in discussions of travel sites where you can share experiences.) It’s an overriding motivation, and it doesn’t differ much between adults and youth. Users also share because they’ve found shared information useful, to share information about product quality, and just simply to show their enthusiasm. Wow—the top 4 reasons are positive. Dissatisfaction is number 5 and the incidence is much lower. Are you making it easy for customers to share their experiences with your product?

Is It Easy to Share? The good news is that it’s generally pretty easy. The number is well under 50% for most types of sharing. Youth experience more problems. That’s not surprising; they are sharing various types of media and that makes them more likely to run into problems. Are you removing obstacles that inhibit your audience from sharing?

The study also identified an intriguing segment—the Power Sharers. Power sharers use technology other than email to share content at least once a week. They also:

• Share with more people, regardless of the channel they are using
• Share different types of content more frequently
• Share for additional reasons. They are more likely to be motivated by community and by what the report characterizes as “self-expression.”
• Face more obstacles to sharing, especially lack of relevant contact information.

Pure and simple, these are opinion leaders. They’ve always existed and they’ve always been powerful. The Internet lets them exercise their particular expertise and passions in ways never before possible. It gives them the potential to reach more people than ever before.

Are you trying to identify opinion leaders and harness their enthusiasm in the service of your community?

Take another look at the Pickens Plan. I got an email from two individuals as soon as I joined; one was the regional coordinator. He’s being very quiet about how this now-sizeable community is being run, but I assume these people are volunteers. If I’m right, it’s an impressive harnessing of the enthusiasm and outreach of opinion leaders.

The report is lengthy and well interpreted. You can request a copy from Jeremy Bock at ShareThis.

These data remind me that Web 2.0 isn’t about technology. While Web 1.0 was about communication, Web 2.0 is coalescing around the concept of community. This study goes one step further in suggesting that we have to build those communities around (multi-media) content that is relevant to people’s lives (B2C) or work (B2B) and make it easy for people to interact around that content. People are voting with their Send, Forward, and ShareThis commands.

Are you letting them vote for your brand?

Wither Digital Marketing?

Every so often I like to stop for a moment and look at the stats for online marketing, broadly defined. I’m such a believer, that I need an occasional reality check, positive or otherwise. Today’s eMarketer newsletter asking “How Much Marketing is Digital?” suggested this was a good time. And the news in terms of continuing spending and future estimates is positive. eMarketer forecasts (newsletter, March 31, 2008) online to be 10% of all media spend in 2009. Will growth in online slow as a result of poor economic conditions? At least some analysts don’t think so. According to Karsten Weide, of IDC, “A bad economy forces advertisers to save money by eliminating the least-effective forms, thus speeding up the adoption of new media advertising.”

Nielsen data for May (the most recent I could find) shows the Internet share at just under 7%. That’s a bit different from the eMarketer data, but there are lots of data sources, lots of definitions. There doesn’t seem to be any argument about the trend; it’s upward and the best argument seems to be the effectiveness one.

Today’s eMarketer article refers to the same Sapient study reported on by Marketing Charts on September 5. They quoted survey data that showed CMOs planning to spend more on digital with some of them inching up toward 50%. The main focus in this popular article was on agency relationships and the ability of agencies to meet digital needs. The CMOs surveyed weren’t confident they have that ability. According to the article: “More than one-third of marketers surveyed said they are not confident that their current agency is well-positioned to take their brand through the unchartered waters of online digital marketing and interactive advertising.”

What are the CMOs looking for from agencies? The article has a top 10 list, all worth considering. I’ll list just the top 4:

1. Greater knowledge of the digital space
2. More use of “pull interactions”
3. Leverage virtual communities
4. Agency executives who use the technology they are recommending

All this makes perfect sense, and agencies clearly have a major role to play in helping their clients navigate the choppy waters of new media, made even more difficult by economic conditions. Agencies have been struggling to service their clients in newest media and technologies (think direct and database marketing, for example) for as long as I can remember. And that will undoubtedly continue.

But it’s not enough to place the entire burden on agencies. Marketers have to understand the issues; they have to ask the right questions; they have to demand objectives and metrics that encompass the new media environment. Look at item #4 above; they want executives of their agencies to be users of the technology.

Marketers have to follow their own advice. I keep saying there is simply no substitute for using the media, trying out the technology for yourself. But marketing managers can go a step further.

I wonder how many marketing departments have any kind of a coordinated approach to who needs to follow which disciplines, newsletters, webcasts; who needs to spend some time on Facebook or MySpace or in relevant virtual worlds. None of us are going to learn to deal with the new media environment by staying in our comfortable traditional media cocoons.

More on that tomorrow.

Social Landing Pages?

I noticed this term a few days ago in Ion Interactive’s newsletter and thought it was interesting. Landing pages are an important—and too often ignored—part of the conversion process. Improving them is a subject that should always be of interest. So, as usual, I set out to explore.

The first thing I found out is that the term doesn’t seem to be in use on sites like Grokdot.com, which specializes in conversion issues, or Omniture, which touts optimization of various aspects of emarketing. What I did find was a number of services that help marketers test their landing pages. Testing is always good, whether the pages are social or not.

So I went back to Ion to find their definition. Content from their newsletter (July 08) answered that:

Subscriber question: What is a social landing page?
Answer: Social landing pages are landing pages that include social networking features. They bring together marketer-managed marketing and social interactivity.

In the news release for their LiveBall product, Ion’s president Scott Brinker adds, “A landing page can serve as a ‘connector’, bringing together people with a specialized, shared interest.” The press release goes on to describe 7 benefits of adding social features to a landing page that include recipient interaction, brand development and lower bounce rate.

These are interesting, but I wanted some examples. Their LiveBall product demo is interesting, although it stopped working about half way through the second step. It makes it clear, though, that the Ion product is marketer-controlled, and I’m always a fan of DYI.

But I’m still looking for examples, so I did something I don’t usually do. I clicked on some PPC ads. (I’m such a considerate customer that I always use the free search listing link if it’s available.) I’ve used the Vertical Response product and like the company, so I looked to see what they had and found a good landing page. After clicking on several banners on several portal sites I found an HSBC ad on the NYT site that had a good landing page.

The search alone is instructive. A lot of companies are paying for advertising and not using landing pages associated with their ads. Some of the ads took me to product pages, which were at least relevant. Others just took me to a home page. Shameful!

Take a look at what I did find. I’m showing the landing page and the home page. Both landing pages have URLs that prove my point, but I’m showing the home page anyway to make the point that the landing pages take visitors more directly into relevant product information than do home pages.

The Vertical Response page is long, so I cut in in half and put it back together so you could see it all. It’s not particularly creative, but it gets their Create > Send > Track message across, has some promotional content, presents a compelling offer (500 free emails), and lets the viewer sign up directly on the landing page. Maybe not “creative,” but it really does the job. You could get to sign up from the home page, but you’d have to click through to the email page, where you’d find much of the same information, but an offer for only your first 25 emails (small list!). Vertical Response clearly has a landing page that’s meant to maximize the conversions from its PPC advertising.

HSBC’s term life insurance landing page (if you could see the URL, you’d see they call it the “simplestart” page) is even more interactive. It allows you to select profile characteristics and request a quote, again, right from the landing page. HSBC is a more complex enterprise and it’s home page represents that. It’s insurance main page is remarkably unattractive, but it allows you to get quotes for a variety of insurance, including term, which was featured when I wrote this post, presumably to integrate with the current banner advertising campaign.

Neither of these had “social” components in the social networking sense, although other components are possible. Ion’s blogs, for example, cover issues like use of widgets in online advertising and news feeds on landing pages.

So, while I’d call these landing pages “interactive,” instead of “social,” and there’s a large frontier to be explored either way. As you explore, don’t forget to test every step of the way. There’s so much a marketer can do; the question should always be “what should I do in order to be successful?” Test and find out!