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February 1, 2009

How Social Media Wins Elections

It was clear from the onset of the US Presidential Elections Obama had one of the best marketing teams known to man. Not only was the election historic in terms of the first black president being elected, it was also one of the first that took marketing to the next level and used all forms of medium in an effective manner. Medium used:

Obama’s campaign was also noted for the groundbreaking way in which social media was successfully used to engage and arm voters, not merely as a fad. I have just stumbled upon a report carried out by Endelman which covers Obama’s use of social media in thorough detail - social-pulpit-barack-obamas-social-media-toolkit-109.

Summary:

The whole social media mix had 4 main stages, Crawl, Walk, Run, fly and there was online monitoring through all of these stages to analyse the success (or failure) and optimise towards the best solution for each stage. The succes behind this was very simplistic; it firstly captured individuals and slowly turned them into supporters (obviously this worked due to the strength of Obama’s manifesto and ideals). Secondly once these non-bias individuals became supporters they were then armed with richer content which served to educate them of Obama’s idealism’s. Once this was done these individuals effectively became mini canvassers themselves. This was due to people using their own social media (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) to spread the word. One of humans most trustworthy source of information is through our peer groups as we feel we know these people and what they say we can relate to. The whole backbone of these 4 stages served as a small hook dangling bait to a fish and once converted the individuals themselves became huge trawling nets used to pull in friends and family.

The other key learning companies and politicians can gain from his use of social media is how to make sure the content is not only portraying a message but more importantly is seen to talk with the people not at them. Without this the campaign would have alienated itself as people would not have felt a part of the process. Some ways in which this was achieved was via email updates and more importantly the way Obama was completely open behind ‘closed doors’ such as personal images of him behind the scenes with his family which allowed the people to touch a deeper level with, what in history has been regarded an untouchable figure head, the Peoples President. Essentially what was done during the elections could be set as the milestone for others to follow, learn from and expand even further.

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January 28, 2009

News Spreads Fast in a Digital World

Sitting at my desk I got a new message at work. Opened it up to see a potential life saver that will put a smile on my face. It ended up being a letter sent to Richard Branson by a guy who was massively dissatisfied with the in flight food. For the rarer few of you who still have not had this delight enter your inbox you can see it here (click the blue download button in the new window).

After time I started to hear more and more people chatting about it until eventually it was on The Times’ website so obviously this was starting to get media attention. The thing that shocked me though was just how quickly the online social media hype exploded with chatter about the letter. Using Twitscoop a colleague produced the below graph:

This was sent round yesterday and as you can see there was an exponential increase in hype on Twitter.com. It turns out that the key spark to this inferno was Stephen Fry (twitter name - stephenfry) who mentioned the letter on his twitter page.

This exercise shows the power of social media and the potential in harnessing it for brands to get an insight of how they are regarded at a peer to peer level and a non bias audience. The more companies start to see social media as a serious influence to their brand image, the more we are going to see encroachment of corporations into our online personal live’s to influence what we think. Obviously I am all for it otherwise I would have some serious moral dilemmas with my job however it is going to be interesting to see how far it is taken.

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January 27, 2009

Advertising on a Budget

“Oh, must be a bad time for advertising though?” - This is regularly the first thing that gets thrown at me whilst mentioning the career I have chosen to take on. Well…the answer to this is no and to be honest it is a narrow minded opinion amongst most (not just people but also brands).

During a recession obviously people tighten their belts significantly. Whilst this occurs the last thing people want to buy is the unknown especially over a certain price threshold. Your day to day items such as groceries will still get purchased, that’s a given. On goods that are seen more as luxuries, brand plays a more important role than it did before the economic downturn.

Whilst advertising is seeing a slowdown in profits this year it is not the doom and gloom that people first imagine. Short term thinking companies are cutting budgets as marketing budgets are the easiest to claw money from with, supposedly, very little effects. Whilst this is true, the effects are more long term and comes back to haunt companies in longer time periods especially if competitors in their sector carried on pumping money into marketing to re-inforce a ‘trusting’ brand (or whatever image is deemed good by the consumer of that product) as they inevitably will overtake in terms of brand uplift and, consequently, increased sales.

Now this is where my bias comes into the equation. Add this fore ward thinking from companies and combine it with the ‘new’ world of Digital advertising and you have a match made in heaven. The world of the Internet obviously reaches millions but the real advantage is the accountability clients can obtain which allows a far higher knowledge of ROI (return on investment, a standard buzz word thrown about by marketing folk!). This year we are and will continue to see a growth in digital especially as there is a shift from traditional offline adverts to mobile and Internet. Don’t get me wrong; I am not insinuating TV etc. is dead. They have an important role in brand building exercises during better times. With the likes of BBC’s iPlayer and Channel 4 OD how long will it be until TV enters the digital realm?

So hopefully this has helped to persuade some of you pessimists out there that advertisng is still doing well and more companies should be looking at the long term when assessing their brand in the market place.
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