Archive for Advertising 2.0

Live from the Red Carpet: Brandacity Reports on Red Carpet Brands

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on February 6th, 2013 in advertising, Advertising 2.0, brands

When it comes to some big events, the brands present may be as big an audience draw as the main event. That’s certainly true for those who prefer Super Bowl commercials over the Super Bowl game itself. Likewise, the “red carpet” time prior to the Academy Awards is a must-see for fashionistas and fans.

Will you be watching the live coverage on E! to be certain of seeing celebrity arrivals and interviews AND — *who* they are wearing?

This is where I get giddy – I won’t be watching on E! I will be watching live. That’s right. Brandacity is going to the Oscars.

I will be there hours prior, by the red carpet, tweeting about the brands adorning the celebrities. I will do my best to post pictures and video along with     commentary on the brands that stand out.

As a marketing professor and a movie maven, this experience ranks high on my bucket list. On Oscar Day, I bake a red velvet cake (in honor of that red carpet, of course) and dress the part  - even though it’s just me and E! This year I’ll see all the glory and glamour in person. Because fashion brands use celebrity product placements as a tool for buzz, I’ll also be playing the role of brand scientist, observing brands and tweeting my observations for you.

I hope you’ll follow my tweets live on February 23rd. Follow and participate with #redcarpetbrands.

photo credit: ebbandflowphotography via photopin cc

 

 

 

Will Regulatory Boards Change the Definition of Advertising?

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on August 22nd, 2012 in advertising, Advertising 2.0, brands, facebook, Social Media Marketing

Earlier this month, the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) in Australia ruled that fan posts to brand pages in social media are advertising and, consequently, the brand in question is liable for the content. In short, user-generated content shared on branded profiles must meet any self-regulatory advertising guidelines and consumer protection laws.

The issue arose due to a complaint against the official Smirnoff Australia Facebook page, which held that the brand page promoted forms of discrimination, irresponsible drinking and excessive consumption, and underage consumption. You can read the complaint, Smirnoff’s response to the complaint, and the ASB’s case report here. The complaint was dismissed but in the ruling, the ASB acknowledged that fan content on a branded page meets its definition for advertising. It went on to say that brands have a reasonable degree of control over postings.

The ruling applies only to Australian brands, but still, there are far reaching implications for branding using social media. Traditionally, advertising has been defined as paid media. It is under the brand’s control because the brand funds the distribution of the message. Social media has typically been categorized as earned media. Though brands may encourage brand mentions through their actions, earned media suggests that conversations about a brand are earned, not bought. Earned media can be negative, neutral, or positive. Brands can also use owned media for promotion. Owned media are media that are under the direct control of the brand – the media exposure is not purchased. The ASB suggests that user-generated content on social media profiles is paid media, but at best, it should be categorized as owned media.

In any case, this ruling matters as brands become more adept at using social media to reach customers. I’ve heard some retailers say that they use Facebook for promotions but keep comments on their wall turned off. The justification is to avoid the need to moderate comments and to prevent negative commentary from appearing on the brand’s page. In my view, barring comments goes against the value of social media. Social media are meant to be participatory. Brands engage in social media to engage customers. If customers can’t contribute content, social media might as well be one-way, mass communication. Yet, I fear that this is precisely the tactic some brands will take in an attempt to preempt legal action related to user content in social spaces.

Did the ASB miscategorize social media content as advertising content? Will brands shut down fan contributions or make a stand? I welcome your thoughts on the ruling and its implications.

How to Use Social-Network Advertising

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on January 10th, 2012 in Advertising 2.0

Please visit Amazon.com to pick up your copy of Advertising 2.0!

As brands continue to incorporate social media into their online marketing strategies, social-network advertising becomes of increasing importance. Social-network advertising allows for brands to expand their reach to niche markets as well as to specifically target segmented audiences. (Facebook’s Social Ads program is one example of this.)

An advantage of social-network advertising is its ability to inspire the viral spread of brand information by influential brand enthusiasts. This is also known as the momentum effect. The momentum effect does not rely on display advertising or social media presence alone, but instead “occurs when brands build on their basic value of their display advertising and brand profile by encouraging friends to share the brand’s message” (Advertising 2.0).

You can read more “Thoughts on Friendvertising” in pages 42-48 on Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World, but to create an effective “Friendvertising” campaign, consider that there are three general approaches you may want to take:

  1. Advertising using display ads on social networks.
  2. Embedding your brand in social networks with brand profile pages, branded widgets, and promotions.
  3. Building an exclusive, branded social network.

Whatever approach or combination of approaches you choose to take, remember that there are several vehicles for Friendvertising:

  1. Display Advertising is offered by many social-networking sites and is based on CPM (cost per thousand exposures).
  2. Brand Membership (Profiles) give brands personas within social networking sites, that, when paired with aggressive conversation strategies, can prove great vehicles for the momentum effect.
  3. Brand Communities, which may be created independently by brands or developed within social-networking sites, empower consumer groups to unite on particular topics.
  4. Sponsorship of relevant social-networking sites, (such as Nikon’s sponsorship of Flickr), is the perfect way to build enhanced exposure for brands who wish to grow their number of loyal, brand enthusiasts.

 

 

Top 10 Social Media Disasters of 2011

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on December 28th, 2011 in Advertising 2.0, Social Media Marketing, twitter, Web 2.0

This past year brought an increased awareness to the value of social media for marketing. More companies than ever before are now integrating social media into their marketing strategies, but given that the use of social media for marketing is still in its early stages, unfortunate mistakes are bound to occur.

David Amerald, author of the best-selling ‘SEO Help: 20 steps to get your website to Google’s #1 page’, reminded us in his post for Social Media Today earlier this month that along with these mistakes comes great learning opportunities for those of us involved in the field of social media marketing. “We stand alone in the animal kingdom by our ability to learn through inference,” Amerald says.

To provide us with an interactive presentation of the Top 10 Social Media Disasters of 2011, Amerald created a short YouTube video highlighting what the disasters were, who incurred them, and what the lesson learned was. Which of these train wrecks do you remember? Did you see any of them coming before the collision occurred?

If these lessons collaboratively teach us anything, it is that no company can choose to integrate social media for marketing without thoughtful research, planning, and measurement strategies in place prior to launch. Furthermore, no campaign can run on auto-pilot.

Social media marketing is live at every moment of the day, and without efficient monitoring, any campaign will see its share of problems.That being said, the live nature of social media marketing also implies that companies will have to act fast, responding to problems as they arise, and involving a PR mindset every step of the way. But it’s fun, it works, and it’s the direction advertising is going in. If your attitude is to never stop learning from the successes and failures of yourself and others, you’ll do just fine.

10 Steps to Social-Media Marketing Campaign Planning

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on December 19th, 2011 in Advertising 2.0

In Advertising 2.0, I map out the process involved in planning a social-media marketing campaign. Given the ease of access to social media accounts, many companies eager to “be on Facebook” or “be on Twitter” often neglect the planning process – a mistake that could waste precious resources like time and money.

There is also an assumption that every brand should plan a social-media campaign; while social-media campaigns can prove beneficial for most brands, some preliminary research may be required to execute a successful campaign*. (*See page 27, “Should your brand plan a social-media campaign?”)

10 Steps to Social-Media Marketing Campaign Planning

  1. Identify the overarching objective for the campaign and establish whether social media is appropriate for this purpose.
  2. Conduct a situation analysis, which highlights the brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the social-media environment and beyond.
  3. Specify the target audience and the characteristics of the audience.
  4. Elaborate on the individual goals the brand wishes to achieve over the course of the campaign, taking care to state these goals such that they are specific, measurable, realistic, and time-lined.
  5. Allocate a budget for the campaign, ensuring that sufficient resources are allocated to accomplish the goals set out in

    How do you begin planning for a social-media marketing campaign?

    step 4.

  6. Choose a social-media marketing strategy, including the mix of social media to be used and the plot or story line that will be the basis of content.
  7. Specify tactics, including the specific social-media vehicles within each channel (e.g., if social networking is selected, which sites will be featured), the brand’s positioning for each site, and the tie-ins throughout the campaign.
  8. Identify methods for activating the social-media campaign via other media (i.e., how can the brand’s presence in the community be promoted outside the community?)
  9. Execute the campaign strategy and tactics, according to the social-media plan taking care to make adjustments based on community responsiveness and momentum.
  10. Measure and evaluate the campaign’s effectiveness to enable ongoing campaign revisions and insight for future social-media campaigns.

These steps should give you a strong foundation for planning a social-media marketing campaign. Keep in mind that there are important lessons that have already been learned by those who have ventured into social-media marketing campaign planning before you. Lessons like understanding and embracing engagement, being equipped with the staff needed to carry out the campaign, and setting appropriate objectives will all help to ensure your campaign starts off headed in the right direction. (For more “Lessons in Social-Media Marketing”, visit pages 28-32 in Advertising 2.0.

 

 

Old Navy Uses Mini-Novela to Drive Traffic to Stores

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on November 25th, 2011 in advertising, Advertising 2.0, Web 2.0

According to the results of a 2011 TeleNoticias-LatinoWire Hispanic Social Media Survey released this past spring, 60% of companies planned to increase their social media budgets for the Latino market in the coming year (wiredlatinos.com). In October, Old Navy began a campaign that greatly supported this statistical find.

To promote their clothing line to Hispanic shoppers, Old Navy backed a six-part online mini-novela called “Stolen Styles” (“Estilos Robados”) that began airing on October 14th. The weekly episodes each ended with a choice between two outfits for Isabella (the fashionable star of the novela) to wear in the following episode. Viewers were able to text in their votes for her next look.

Consumers were made aware of the mini-novela through ads that ran on Telemundo’s TV network, website, and mobile site. Viewers could then enjoy the mini-novela on Old Navy’s Facebook page or Spanish YouTube channel, and Telemundo’s mobile site. Old Navy also distributed flyers for two weeks at more than 100 Old Navy stores in heavily Hispanic areas and utilized digital billboards in Miami to create awareness and drive traffic.

Sounds like a fun idea, right? Here are two interested points that give great insight on how Old Navy correctly and effectively created an interactive campaign to drive traffic and increase sales:

  1. None of the scenes within the mini-novela took place within an Old Navy store.
  2. Old Navy was never mentioned within the script of the mini-novela.

What Old Navy did in this campaign that made it successful was to value their consumers’ time and attention and to connect with their consumers in a way that was entertaining. In order for viewers to continually watch and participate in this campaign, they had to trust that Old Navy was not simply coaxing them to watch an advertisement. By saturating the mini-novela with Old Navy outfits and placing them on a character that people enjoyed watching, viewers who later made purchases as a result of this campaign felt that they were in control of their decision to buy.

Effective use of social media for marketing always amounts to a brand’s ability to connect with its consumer. Advertisers and marketers should learn from this campaign both the importance of effective social media for marketing and the value of marketing to the Latino market, as they are heavily immersed in the use of social media.

SOURCES: AdAgeHISPANIC,  WiredLations.com

Consumer Challenges on the Road to Engagement Online

Posted by Tracy Tuten Ph.D. on November 8th, 2011 in Advertising 2.0, Web 2.0

There are many steps on the path to online engagement. In order to reach our destination – an engaged audience who is eager to share our brand’s message – the path must be explored from inception to modern day evolution. With careful examination of the challenges marketers face, effective online engagement strategies can be created.  

What online engagement challenges do marketers face?

1. Media context affecting consumers online.

These days, it is almost impossible to acquire 100% of your media-engaged consumer’s attention.  BIGresearch’s Simultaneous Media Usage Study found that 70.7% of Internet users reported using other types of media when they are online; likewise, 67.9% of individuals reported watching television while engaging with other forms of media. Multitasking media usage makes gaining a consumer’s attention challenging.

Consumers can also view thousands of television and radio stations and peruse an endless number of websites in search of their interests. This ‘fragmented media usage’ means online media buying must reaggregate fragmented audiences to ensure ads are precisely targeted without sacrificing reach. The ‘long tail effect,’ when properly acknowledged by marketers, is exciting not only for  internet users seeking to explore niche interests, but also for marketers who want to reach even the smallest niche consumer.

In the end, however, even if an online ad is targeted to reach the niche consumer, marketers still must be aware of consumers’ perceptions of clutter online. Mindshare Online Research found that 62.2% of consumers felt the Internet was too cluttered with advertising. Perceptions of clutter online can be positively affected by advertisers who work to increase value and relevance of online advertisements.

2. Consumers’ perceptions of online advertising.

Internet users who have been accessing the web since the Web 1.0 days remember the flashy, often obnoxious and invasive advertising techniques originally used to gain viewers’ attentions. According to the Magazine Publishers of America, in a report titled, “Engagement: Understanding Consumers Relationship With Media,” only 30% of respondents indicated a positive attitude toward Internet advertising.

While advertising dollars are still being spent by companies to produce this type of material, the emphasis for marketers today should be creating advertisements for a Web 2.0 world. In a Web 2.0 world, we have the opportunity to develop advertising that is engaging, entertaining, informative, fun, credible, different – advertising that consumers invite into their lives.

What challenges have you faced on the path to online engagement? Please share your thoughts below.

For more information on “Consumer Challenges on the Road to Engagement,” visit pages 15-17 in Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 -World.