Archive
15 social media case studies
Ever encountered a situation where you need a you need a social media case study to perfectly suit the context and you are stumped? Below are a compilation of 15 examples of companies that successfully used social media to achieve distinct objectives:
1. Narrow your focus to responding to customer complaints, as Comcast does on Twitter.
2. Build brand loyalty, as Bisnow does with e-newsletters, as Skittles does on Facebook, and as the Wine Library does with its podcasts.
3. Issue blog posts and tweets instead of news releases, as Google does with its blog, and as its now-former CEO did with Twitter.
4. Re-purpose your existing content, and thus enlarge your audience, as The New York Times does with Twitter, as the FBI does with Scribd, and as Dell does with SlideShare.
5. Manage your reputation, as countless companies do — or try to do — with Wikipedia.
6. Conduct crisis communications, as Johnson & Johnson does with its blog.
7. Hold contests to improve your technology, as Netflix did with the Netflix Prize.
8. Crowdsource your challenges, as the U.S. Army did with its field manuals.
9. Demonstrate thought leadership, as recruiter Lindsay Olson does with her blog.
10. Research free advertising opportunities, as Allstate does on YouTube.
11. Showcase your wares, as Zappos does with its blog, and boost your sales, as Dell does on Twitter.
12. Recruit employees, as Booz Allen does on LinkedIn.
For full article by Jonathan Rick, click here.
Conversation with the customer: A stand-out in the music industry.
Coldplay may be the king of digital downloads – more than a million digital albums sold in the US alone!
However, there is one band that truly understands the power of social media. They proactively connect the big dots of the social media scene – blogs, social networking, online videos/responses, user generated content.
Below is a deft write up by Jonah Bloom (http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=139138) about Will.i.am, and how his understanding of social media has helped the band to stay at the No.1 spot on the Billboards chart for an amazing 26 weeks straight!
————–
Will.i.am is my marketer of the year.
Sure, marketing begins with product, and we could certainly question the quality of the Black Eyed Peas’ music. But here’s what we know: Will.i.am, Fergie and MCs, Apl.de.ap and Taboo, deliver something people want. The Peas have been at the top of Billboard Hot 100 for 24 weeks as this goes to press — by far the longest No. 1 run in the chart’s 51-year history. What they do is hard to describe, so I’ll borrow from Jody Rosen in Rolling Stone: “They have made a kind of spiritual practice of recording dumb songs — a total aesthetic commitment that extends from their garish wardrobes to their United Colors of Benetton worldview.”
But beyond the product — and simultaneously inseparable from it — is Will.i.am’s understanding of today’s social-marketing world. Most brands are still grappling like first-time makeout artists with the most fundamental shift of the last decade — from marketer as message-pushing machine to marketer as creators of stuff consumers will actually pull toward them. But the Black Eyed Peas, having mastered that shift, are already showing an understanding of perhaps the second-most important change: from campaign to continuous conversation.
Consumers don’t switch on and off, and products don’t sell for two weeks and then disappear from retail channels, but most marketers still do the vast majority of their work in sporadic bursts, often going whole quarters, even years between one one-way push and the next. However, our lovely-lady-lump creators are doing it differently. Their 2009 album, “The END,” was not only a nice sales gimmick — playing off speculation about Fergie going entirely solo and thus essentially squishing the Peas — but also a big idea. “The END” is supposed to stand for The Energy Never Dies and the idea is that it’s a live, evolving, co-created piece of work.
“It’s a diary … of music that at any given time, depending on the inspiration, you can add to it,” Wil.i.am told Billboard.com. “When it comes out, there’ll be 12 songs on it, but the next day there could be 100 songs, 50 sketches, 1,000 blogs all (online) around ‘The End,’ so the energy really, truly never dies. I’m trying to break away from the concept of an album. What is an album when you put 12 songs on iTunes and people can pick at it like scabs? That’s not an album. There is no album anymore.”
Exactly. Then there’s Will.i.am’s understanding of collaboration. I recently read Seth Stevenson in Slate calling the Peas’ “I Got A Feeling” ad for Target an abomination. The (rather nifty) headline: “Will.i.shill.” Well, yes, he definitely shills. In fact if there’s a living, breathing example of the fact that the alleged walls between most content and commerce are not just crumbling but gone, the Black Eyed Peas would be it.
And, regardless of how you feel about that from a cultural standpoint, what that ad — and many of Black Eyed Peas videos and lyrics — demonstrated in business terms, was a clear understanding of the potential of collaboration between content creators and brands. While most brands still treat branded entertainment as a chance to insert their name in a show in a way that’ll challenge our TiVo skills, Will.i.am sees platforms, distribution, mutual benefit.
He also knows how to integrate the band into popular culture, and, again, simultaneously create culture. His Obama-boosting music video “Yes We Can,” was not only lauded by some critics as the best commercial of the year, but it epitomized the way an individual — especially one with lots of famous friends — can make a mark. As he told the L.A. Times at the time: “It’s not part of a campaign. There’s no corporation behind it — the record company couldn’t get involved. I did it on my own.” Most remarkably, he shot it, cut it and distributed it in 48 hours. (Exactly the kind of nimble, reactive, fast-turnaround approach so many brands need, but don’t have.)
So, let’s get this started: If Will.i.am is my Marketer of the Year, who is yours? Comment online, or e-mail me, and Ad Age will consider all suggestions as we come up with this year’s shortlist — and we’ll let you choose the winner.
Notable Marketing Campaign: Dos Equis’s "Most Interesting Man in the World"
The Dos Equis – Most Interesting Man in the World – campaign is noteworty.
The campaign was created by Euro RSCG/New York with Jeff Kling as Creative Director.
What Dos Equis have done is to simply take an existing and successful type of candid humor, and package it to create an advertising icon that will be associated with the product.
There are quite a few things to be noted about this campaign:
1. Strategy
The campaign makers were right to identify that the customer’s process of selecting a beer is not a serious, long drawn-out decision making process. For most beer drinkers it is an instant decision – they either stick to one beer or select one randomly from a list of names they enjoy.
The idea of the campaign was to ensure that Dos Equis entered that list.
With usual campaigns that aim to relate to a guy’s strive to look cool, Dos Equis knew that putting another, even hotter guy on TV, wouldn’t really give much headway.
They chose to create an icon that would hit a chord with every guy. They chose to be different. They chose to reach out and touch that little 9 yr old adventurer, who lives in us all.
2. Casting
The creators has their casting spot-on! A lesser known actor, with no popular past roles for the viewers to relate to, the grizzled look, the rugged charm and the don-mess-with-me-my-friend body language – the casting team deserves a pat on their back for selecting Jonathan Goldsmith.
3. Lines and Narration
Knowing that they were following along the Chuck-Norris-is-God genre of humor, the writers could very easily have gone overboard or turned just downright classless with the lines. However, they didn’t.
The lines are innovative, fun, quasi-serious and string together very well. The narrative of the first ad introducing the-most-interesting-person in the world were a little bland. The later ads, spoken by the man himself, had a narrative much better suited to the scene.
“He lives vicariously through himself.” – is just a masterpiece! It will crack you up, everytime! 🙂
The campaign even has a consistent and catchy product related line – Stay thirsty my friends.
4. Quality of execution
Each of the 15 second TV spots were exquisitely executed. Each shot was full of elements – lighting, location, people, tables, drinks, cards, people in conversation – yet, never once would you look at anything other than the man and the bottle of Dos Equis infront of him.
Without being boring, the 15-sec TV spots convey its message while leaving a healthy 5 to 6 seconds in the end to showcase the product.
5. Spread of the campaign
The campaign has a very healthy spread – TV, online, events, radio and print. The marketing team gave importance to each and every medium available. High quality TV spots, well-timed radio spots, marketing events, a website at http://www.staythirstymyfriends.com and online marketing with banners and adverts.
The website was more than an extension of the campaign. It reflected the world of the-most-interesting-man-in-the-world and invited you to be a part of it.
Though the novelty of the website does wear pretty quickly, the message is consistent, the features are innovative (arm wrestling with dictators!! 😛 ) and it doesn’t take long for the normal beer drinking online user to be sold.
Overall, the campaign does its intended job of capturing attention, retaining the attention, creating brand awareness and recognition.
Web Logic!! 