Digital marketing at real world events: Is it just hype?

There are a multitude of marketing opportunities out there every single day that are just waiting to be taken advantage of, but does having a clever advert or campaign that mimics real life translate into increased sales?

What real life events are there to integrate with?
There are literally events happening each and every day that are available to be pounced on by cunning and intelligent marketers. One of the more recent faux pas which presented itself was the botched singing of the South African national anthem by Just Jinger front man Ard Matthews.

The advertising agency behind the famed adverts of fast-food outlet Nando’s continued its run of social commentary by running a quick viral campaign around the event.

The question that presents itself with this kind of advertising is, “How much money did it make Nando’s?”

It definitely increased their share of voice on Twitter when they ran this campaign and looking at the #nandos search results you can see how the advert spread like wild fire on the day with many of the comments commending Nando’s for being so quick to react and for ensuring that “free speech” is not a thing of the past. When you look at the hash tag a little closer (specifically on the day the ad ran), though, there is very little mention of people reacting with an immediate need for chicken!

But surely that is the point of advertising? To get people to think of Nando’s and then to want a Nando’s treat. Well it is and it isn’t — Nando’s has arguably become the one company in South Africa and around the world that has managed to successfully tap into viral marketing again and again. The point of viral marketing is to get your brand shared in a positive way among your potential target market.

Who else is tapping the viral market success button?
At the AutoRAI 2011 motor exhibition, Renault converged the offline experience of being at the show with an online one. By using RFID chips inserted into the shows access passes, each guest coded their Facebook usernames and passwords on the card.

When they saw a Renault that they particularly liked, all they needed to do was to swipe their access card on the specially designed screens set up by each car. This automatically placed the information on the user’s Facebook page that they liked a particular car. This then also inserted a link where all the guests Facebook friends could also share in the experience and learn more about the car which their friend had liked.

Does viral marketing really work?
Viral marketing definitely has its place in any marketing arsenal but is it not just the place of big business who have money to burn (or so to speak). Small business does not readily have the available disposable cash to pursue viral marketing mechanics as a general rule. Viral marketing has a very dotted line back to ROI which is a luxury that the current economic climate does not allow many organisations.

Being the social commentators around a variety of issues is an angle that marketers can exploit to gain share of voice and brand exposure. Yes, winning advertising awards and notoriety are excellent feathers in any marketer’s cap but the real value and, ultimately what the yard stick should be from any marketing campaign, viral or not, is how many sales it has translated in to, not how many awards it has won.

Image: springwise.com

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Finance Firms are Going to Twitter and Social Media With Mixed Results

Corporate Insight, which tracks financial services firms, says 67 percent are now using Twitter and 59 percent are on Facebook.

“Facebook is more of a relationship-driven community whereas Twitter is more content-driven,” said Alan Maginn, senior analyst at Corporate Insight, a competitive intelligence firm covering finance. “Facebook is a more challenging environment for businesses because, in order to be successful, they must foster a relationship with their fans. With Twitter, they can concentrate more on the value of the content they produce.”

Right on time too.

Somini Sengupta at The New York Timesreported last week that a Pew Research Center survey showed that half of all adults in the United States said they use a social networking site. Six years ago, when Pew first conducted a similar survey, only 5 percent of all adults said they used social sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace.

As they gain experience in social media, financial firms are becoming more sophisticated in the ways they use it, Maginn added. Leaders in social media have separated customer service from marketing, for example. In some cases they have created multiple marketing channels aimed at specific client groups.

Why would someone want to follow a company like American Express on Facebook?

Maginn said one reason is that the companies provide value to the people who follow them.

“They offer deals and specials. In the early spring American Express had a deal tied to iTunes; if you signed up to link iTunes to Amex they bought your first five songs, a deal they did through Facebook.” It’s a win for the Amex cardholder, who got the free tunes, and a deal for Amex which can expect most of their customers to continue using their card with iTunes.

Large firms often have multiple channels on both Facebook and Twitter. For example, on Facebook, American Express has American Express OPEN for small business owners.

“They have a proprietary community Open Forum, for small business users, and a Twitter profile and Facebook page to support that online community,” said Maginn. “They have a segment of the population that are Amex cardholders and they are smart enough to realize the small business owners have a shared experience. If you have a small business, there are issues that will be relevant to a print shop or a flower shop. So if Amex gets them into an Internet room and share what they have learned form certain experience.” The community has grown to more than 16,000 members, he added. American Express also has a Members Project to connect volunteers and donors to worthwhile projects, and AskAmex on Twitter for customer service. On its AskAmex Twitter account,   American Express typically responds to specific issues by taking the electronic conversation private, like here:

@seattlesong ‘Social Media Inq’ for Subject ‘Twitter’ for Category addr your email to me – Beth – I will respond directly to u.

American Express appears to have devoted much more in the way of resources to Twitter than to its other channels.

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