Social Media Cons

Ah social media, the thing everyone wants to do and thinks they can do, but few can actually do. It’s a great way for a brand to engage and interact with their consumers but it’s also a new way for consumers to voice their opinions (good or bad) of brands to a whole new venue of people. Either not responding or deleting these things can result in even more backlash against the brand.  Of course there is the other end of the spectrum where brands post too much and can start to get ignored by the consumers. A good example of that is the Forever 21 Facebook page. They post about 4 times a day (about nothing specific or about the brand) and they receive a .05% interaction between their brand, receiving only a few likes and comments per post, despite the fact they have several million fans.

Twitter seems to be the largest outlet for brands messing up their PR. Chrysler & Kenneth Cole both tweeted things that didn’t go over well with their followers. Chrysler tweeted “considering they call detroit the #motorcity it’s amazing no one can f@#$ing drive!”. And Kenneth Cole tweeted about the Egypt riots and their new fall collection. The only way to save face on something like that is to just apologize and maybe show some support to the riots in some way. Another way is to just not tweet stuff that could be interpreted negatively in any way.

The worst is when brand’s tried to not only censor their social media but also other social media outlets. Dell tried to get the Consumerist blog to delete a post showing Dell in a negative light. Even if they managed to get the post removed red flags would have been thrown up around the community and it would have started to look suspicious. These old school brands though need to learn that trying to censor these independent sites is near impossible, and will cause more backlash then if they were to just let them post it, and let their few hundred site visitors see it, and forget about it in a few months.

And of course brands have to worry about other “rogue” accounts that aren’t run by the company and are just being posted on by random people. Some people are just fans of the page and can due it to show support for the brand and others can create them and pose negative messages about the company. The most notable was the fake British Petroleum twitter account that sprung about posting things during the Deep Water Horizon oil spill. It was the last thing that BP needed during this disaster and only added to their deteriorating image. And of course there was really nothing they could do, as Twitter refused to give BP the poster’s information and to shut down the account. 

Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing has to be a fan favorite in the ad world, and for consumers. It’s a great way for brands to create unique and interactive advertisements with their consumers without having that intrusive and inconveniencing feel that more conventional media advertisements come with. Guerilla marketing is geared towards smaller businesses, but can (and has) started to be used by larger brands such as Volkswagen and Coca-Cola. Of course no marketing strategy is perfect, so there are downsides to using guerilla marketing. It requires more energy and dedication in order to pull off and also requires a company willing to take a risk on something. The whole point of guerilla marketing is to be experimental and unique and do something specifically that other companies haven’t done before. So in that sense a company needs to be committed to going into the unknown in order for guerilla marketing to really work. And it’s not always a guarantee that it will work. Advertising isn’t an exact science so there will always be risk in doing something different. With all that said guerilla marketing has seen an uprising in usage over the last few decades, which most mean it’s working for the most part.

I unfortunately have never gotten to experience any true guerilla marketing, but I guess that comes with living in Ottawa. I could see it happening down in the market some time, and with a quick google search nothing leaps off the page as having ever happened. So I think there’s a lot of potential there since no one has ever done it, if you were the first to do it, and it was good it’d probably get picked up by the local news.

The very first guerrilla marketing campaign that I ever saw was by Mini when they were just coming in to the North American markets. The agency was Crispin Porter & Bogusky. There were so many different aspects and approaches with this campaign and it really was a true “small company using a small budget with a small agency” type approach. They created large versions of everyday things and placed them in air ports. Created coin operated toy Mini’s and placed them in malls, and put a mini on top of a large SUV and toured it around the city for the day. They embraced the cars smallness and it worked. Mini Cooper saw a huge growth in sales in the next year or two and the agency behind it became one of the hottest agencies in the country (pictures of the campaign down below).

I think that no matter what happens with online and mobile advertising Guerilla Marketing will always be here, because consumers will never stop liking this unique and fun approach to advertising towards them. I think that guerilla marketing might try and incorporate social media into it and possibly mobile advertising, but the more you start to integrate other things into GM you start to lose the ambiance of it and it starts to become intrusive like old medias. So future GM’s will have to test the water and take some risk if they want to figure out what works and what doesn’t, but that’s guerilla marketing for you.

Branded Utilities

While writing this blog post I came to the realization that I don’t use mobile branded utilities…at all. And then I came to the realization that I just barely use web-based utilities (if at all as well). I’m an avid smartphone user, I own a tablet, I’m on the internet every day, and I love my brands. Theoretically I should be the ideal target demographic for brand utilities, and yet, I use none. It makes sense to me why I don’t have any; I find them gimmicky and pointless. The apps clutter up my phone or they make me signup for something that I’ll login to once and forget about a week later. For any retail store questions, whether its location to store hours to whatever, I have Google to solve those questions for me. I don’t go to a single spot consistently enough to have an app that would be useful, and if I did go consistently enough to it, why would I need an app in the first place? I just find any ones relevant to me and my interests, pointless, but there are many examples out there of well created branded utilities, they just aren’t relevant to me, unfortunately.

The whole approach and idea of branded utilities makes sense; brands asking the question “what can we do for you?” and then fulfilling that insight with something functional and innovative. Amazon had the insight of informing consumers that items are cheaper on Amazon, then in the store. So they built an app around that idea. Virgin Atlantic makes it simpler to share a cab. With Olay you can get personal advice on the skin products that best suit you. All useful innovations and utilities, but still nothing relevant to myself, and nothing I will use.   

It’s hard for me to say what brands are missing an opportunity by not having a utility of their own, when I’m not using the ones that already exist. There are already so many ones out there, for banks and retail store chains that the room for possible innovation of these utilities is getting smaller. I feel like the areas that could really benefit from these types of utilities are the one sector that will take the longest to come out with one, the government. An app that lists all relevant information to your local neighborhood, whether its trash pickup days to whatever, this is a utility that could be useful. I could also say that OC Transpo could use an app that shows bus schedules and times and could have a map that uses your GPS to give you a real time update of where you are while riding the bus, but then I would have just described Google Maps.

I also believe that a lot of these brand utilities are straying from being utilities and are just becoming advertisements. A utility should help consumers and be innovative, without simply being an ad. It should also not just be providing the basic service that a consumer would expect from the brand, like providing store locations and hours. 

Google+ Puts Out a Negative Ad

Okay so we all have heard of Google’s umpteenth attempt at social media with their new, not so totally failing Google+. Well they’ve been advertising it a lot since it came out of beta and their newest spot for it is…interesting. It’s highlighting a very real, very negative aspect of social media and turning it into a positive thing. I guess? Watch the link below and see what you think for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sVf3UaZePC8

So, I’m guessing they are targeting men, since most women wouldn’t find having a man stalk them and finding out their interests a good thing. From what I’ve seen and read, the user base of Google+ appears to be a majority of men users, so I guess this is saying with Google+ your stalker-ish behaviors can lead to a relationship, because you can find out about her likes, interests and hobbies, and eventually move up this shallow woman’s (she only begins to like him after she finds out he has a car and ski-house) list of suitors.

If it is targeting men, it certainly seems to be alienating women. It’s one thing for an ad to not appeal to a certain demographic, but this ad would make me want to never join Google+ if I was a women, so I’m not sure many would be too enthusiastic about joining after seeing this ad, but that’s just one 20 year old male’s opinion. Although, maybe women have accepted that creepy guys are a part of social media and this ad is showing them that they can pick them out and alienate them from the rest of their circles.

It probably seems like I’m hating on Google with my last two posts, when in reality they are one of my favorite companies. It’s probably because I hold them to such a high standard that I pick on them. Oh well hopefully we can start seeing some high quality Google ads once they start to lighten up on this Google+ venture. Until then, maybe I shouldn't say too many bad things though, since I am using their blogging service. 

Poking Fun at Apple

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNxDd3l0lEU&hd=1

So that spot up there is one from one of the largest phone manufacturers in the world, Samsung. During the spot, Samsung pokes fun at iPhone users and how blindly they will purchase Apple products. It's a very nicely shot ad, but is the message really that good?

If you watch this ad, your basically watching it because you are already a fan of Android. There is nothing said in the ad that really makes you think, "wow, the Samsung Galaxy SII is an amazing fun, with cool features". They mention the big screen, and... that's it. Some could argue that having a much larger screen isn't actually that big of an advantage, as some people prefer a smaller, more portable phone. Personally, I do believe that the Samsung GSII is a better phone, but I've been using the Android OS for over a year now, and have never been a fan of the iPhone, but I digress.

So what was Samsung trying to accomplish with this video? They don't show off the software, the hardware and really just poke fun at a possible target audience and demographic. The first time I watched it, I loved it because that's what the commercial was doing, making fun of iPhone users, but when I took a more critical look at it, you do see some holes in the premise.

On Friday, December 2nd, I was looking forward to going to Google in Toronto and talking about the marketing of the Android operating system in the Canadian market, but unfortunately that part of the trip was canceled. From now on, only time will tell what becomes of the Android operating system (and it's dominating North American market share).

The "Huh?" Heard Around the World

After being a hardcore internet user for the last, oh too long really, I still get a kick out of seeing its power, and its ability to make anything it wants popular. This is a story about a struggling actor, an AT&T commercial and a social media site. It all started on Monday, November 7th when a Reddit user named "Naterden" posted a link with the title "Hi Reddit. After three years of auditioning, I booked my first commercial. I say "Huh?" in this AT&T spot. Just wanted to share." And that was that, or so an outside observer would think. But Reddit isn't very conventional, and, it has a spontaneity about itself that no one can really judge. Some things go unnoticed, other things can become huge, this happened to be the latter. Within a few hours the AT&T spot was flooded with comments about how much they loved the "Huh?" guy. By the end of the day the video that had previously had less then 1,000 views, spiked to over 750,000.

I really like this story for 2 reasons. The first is because it shows off the power of social media and because I was in on this from the beginning and was one of the first users to help spread the video. And it really is a testament of today's society about how anyone can become a star for 15 minutes. Websites have been reporting on the story, and I'm sure advertisers are scratching their heads wondering why this one? And even though I was part of it in its early stages I can't even say for certain why it happened, but it's always nice to see a struggling actor get some recognition.

I can only imagine that advertisers will try and cash in on this, by posting similar stories in the coming months, but the thing that marketers never seem to understand is that you can't force viral, and in all their attempts in all the years they have never been able to fool the websites that aggregate the viral content of the web. So although they may try, I doubt it will ever be as successful (if at all) as the original "Huh?" guy.

Here's Adweek's  take on the story, followed by the commercial itself.

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/single-grunt-random-actor-makes-att-spot-explode-136465

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh2IXbi2ZCE&feature=youtu.be

Let's try this thing out...

This is an animation I got off of YouTube, it's entitled Obvious To You. It's a private video that not many have seen, so enjoy.

I love this video, mainly because I think everyone in a creative field has experienced this. It especially applies to people in advertising because there are always those moments when you have inspiration for an ad and you really don't feel like sharing it because you think it's too obvious but, in reality, it may be a point of view, or compelling truth that no one in the group has thought of. Anyways, this video really inspired me to be more vocal about my thoughts and ideas about certain advertising projects that take place in a group setting.