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Dear reader: If around the same time about 9 or 10 years back, someone were to tell you that two brands Google and Facebook would be changing the face of Television Advertising, you would have considered them bonkers. Read the feature and you will see why it’s not true. For all those David Bowie fans, the article on what many consider the first rock icon brand would make for exciting reading. Hilary Clinton has hit the Presidential campaign trail in the US and the piece on how you can build a brand in 5 days would intrigue as much as it would impress. For all the savvy brand marketing experts, there are a few pointers in the 5 Whopping Branding Mistakes article. Advertising on Twitter has undergone a sea change and we capture the evolution in our feature in this issue. Content marketing is here to stay and savvy brands irrespective of their B to B or B to C lineage are taking the plunge- we take a bird’s eye view of the most mentioned B to B brands online and there are a few surprises. Luxury brand Hermes has been adapting & reinventing itself over time. The interview with the Hermes CEO highlights what heritage brands must do to stay relevant in today’s chaotic market place. There is also a very interesting feature on fashion brands and it’s link to Shopping Tourism. All this and much more as ever packed into this June issue. Over to you to savor and share! Best always
Suresh Dinakaran @sureshdinakaran linkd.in/1dsjYaW
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bit.ly/1h95tgO suresh@groupisd.com Managing Editor: Suresh Dinakaran Creative Head/Director Operations: Pravin Ahir Magazine Concept & Design/ New Media Specialist: Mufaddal Joher Country Head, Australia: Norbert D’Souza Country Head, UK: Sagar Patil Country Head, India: Rohit Unni Digital/Social Media Marketing: Loknath Swain, Vishnu Nath Associate: Brand Success: Andre Van Helsdingen Web Specialist: Prasanta Kumar Sahu Online Support: Mahendra Kumar Behera
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CONTENTS
The Evolution Of Advertising On Twitter, And What Comes Next How To Build A Brand In 5 Days How can fashion brands leverage shopping tourism? How Google and Facebook are changing Television Advertising David Bowie Branding: Lessons From Rock’s Original Chameleon Step-by-Step Directions for Writing Your Next Piece of Content [Infographic] Five Whopping Branding Mistakes You Might Be Making The Most Memorable Ad Campaigns Share These 3 Elements The Most Mentioned B2B Brands Online Yale on Sustainability:A New Marketing Strategy for Chevy Volt How Facebook Unified Its Brand Organic Hashtags and Branded Content Hermès CEO: Heritage brands must adapt to remain relevant Engagement Secret Sauce: Learn From Social Networks to Attract and Keep Audiences for Yourself Book, Line & Sinker
The Evolution Of Advertising On Twitter, And What Comes Next By Rachel Quin
In five short years, the Twitter Ads platform has evolved into the smart choice for injecting your campaigns with pinpoint precision. With Twitter Advertising increasing by over 95% year on year, senior marketers are rapidly making Twitter Ads a staunch pillar of their marketing strategies. In fact, efficient Twitter Ads use can drive leads at one-third of the cost of other paid channels. The power to connect with a specific group of target
users (down to a specific individual) when combined with detailed segmentation and targeting tools gives Twitter Ads the competitive edge over rival social media advertising solutions. We decided to look back at key points that lead to Twitter Ads developing into a platform that raises the bar for incisive, cost-effective social media advertising. But this isn’t a mere jaunt down memory lane, we also look to the future and highlight practical suggestions that will deliver maximum results from your Twitter advertising campaigns
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April 2010: Promoted Tweets
a cost-per-click reduction of up to 92% on web content.
From the outset, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone declared traditional ads were not appropriate for Twitter. Promoted Tweets were ‘distinct from traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising’, with a mission to provide less intrusive ads with more relevant targeting opportunities.
December 2013: Conversion Tracking
June 2010: Promoted Trends Promoted Tweets were swiftly followed by Promoted Trends. Brands can now have their campaign hashtag at the top of Twitter’s trends, initiating conversation about a new campaign and driving awareness of a brand. The first brand to get involved with Promoted Trends was Disney-Pixar endorsing the release of Toy Story 3.
Increasing transparency further, the introduction of conversion tracking meant that Twitter Ads users could attribute a specific action they wanted to track (ie. purchase, download, sign up) to the Promoted Tweet that drove that action. This allows marketers to see which Promoted Tweets are delivering the best return based on the action they want to track. Further Conversion Tracking with Transaction Values Data outlines the exact order quantity and sales amount that each campaign is responsible for.
October 2010: Promoted Accounts Promoted Accounts allows brands to increase relevant followers, by appearing in the ‘Suggested For You’ Twitter sidebar. The first brand to use the Promoted Accounts feature was Xbox. In December 2013, Promoted Accounts made the move toward being included in timelines too, expanding the ways in which brands choosing to promote their Twitter accounts can be seen by their target audience.
July 2014: Twitter Analytics Further understanding the necessity of accurate data for marketers, Twitter released their analytics platform to encourage statistically informed Tweeters. All users were given a solid grounding of key analytics to show how their organic posts were performing, including metrics such as clicks, impressions, and media views which aren’t publicly available like retweets or favourites. The analytics can be used to identify existing posts to promote, or to discover what type of posts were working well to help marketers plan ahead. Twitter’s analytics can be used in isolation, or as a springboard for further actionable analysis with SocialBro such as analysing the accounts of who your followers follow, discovering the influential retweeters behind well performing Tweets, and building lists based on the interests of your followers listed in Twitter Analytics.
June 2012: The First Twitter Card
August 2014: Objective-Based Campaigns
June 2012 saw the gradual roll-out of Twitter Cards, starting with the option to include expandable rich media such as videos, pictures, and links in Tweets. The cards were more than just eye-candy, they later matured into formats that easily gather leads, deliver downloads, and efficiently provide
Objective-based campaigns are like Burger King, you can ‘have it your way’. Choose what your aims are, what you’re willing to pay for each action, and off you go! This simple campaign creation process makes Twitter Ads more cost-effective for marketers. For example, if your goal is
to generate leads via Twitter, you’ll only pay when a user submits their information via a Lead Generation Card in your Promoted Tweet. Objective-based campaigns combined with SocialBro’s campaign management capabilities make it even easier to optimize your campaigns with actionable performance intelligence.
Partners, advertisers can reach new and potential customers who have shown buying intent. Over 1000 ready-made partner audiences are available for marketers to custombuild their campaigns around, including the ability to exclude certain sections of those audiences and to expand their targeting to users similar to those within a Partner Audience.
June 2014: Website retargeting
Looking Forward…
Website retargeting means that a visitor to your site is not lost if they’re a Twitter user, they can later be targeted in a Promoted campaign. This feature can also be paired up with conversion tracking and Twitter cards to reach high quality Twitter users who have visited your site, tracking their journey from their first visit to their conversion.
Why should you keep abreast of the new features and updates to Twitter Ads? For a start, with each development, Twitter has shown that they’re committed to delivering an advertising platform that provides marketers with simple, effective solutions. But what might come next? We sat down with our CEO to gain some insight on the direction that Twitter Ads may take in the future:
September 2014: Tailored Audiences Promoted campaigns can now appear exclusively to your selected list of targeted Twitter users. Translation: not a single penny is wasted on people that advertisers aren’t interested in, ensuring only the most high quality prospects are paid for. Tailored Audiences and SocialBro are a match made in heaven. SocialBro can build highly targeted lists from range of filters that can then used for Tailored Audience campaigns in the Twitter Ads portal. Want to target profiles following your competitors in a specific region, or every Twitter user in your email database that has over 500 followers with a specific level of influence? These lists (and more) can be created for a Tailored Audience campaign in a few clicks.
March 2015: Partner Audiences By combining Twitter Ads with their Marketing Platform
“Twitter’s core user base is approaching a very chunky 300 million, but the impact of Twitter Ads goes far beyond that. As Dick Costolo has pointed out, there are already around 500 million monthly unique visitors that consume Twitter content without logging in, and that’s before the impact of Twitter’s partnerships with Google, Flipboard and Yahoo Japan which will open up more “off Twitter” exposure. Since it has become easier for developers to build and monetize mobile apps on Fabric, we could see an even greater audience for Twitter Ads on mobile in the future. This colossal reach is getting a lot of people very excited, but the really exciting part about Twitter Ads is not only how many people you can reach, but what happens when you couple it with the segmentation and precision targeting you need to reach many more of the right people with the right message. Identify those people, drill down and target them specifically, get insights into their interests and behaviours from how they interact with your campaigns, and execute targeted follow up campaigns – that’s when you tap into the massive revenue driving potential that this channel offers.” Javier Burón, CEO, SocialBro These were some moments in the history of Twitter Ads that we felt were important, but with developments happening all the time we may have missed some. What features of the Twitter Ads platform have you found most useful?
How To Build A Brand In 5 Days By Mark Wilson
AFTER HILLARY CLINTON’S LOGO BROKE THE INTERNET, MOVING BRANDS CONSIDERED A NEW, LOGO-LESS APPROACH IN A FIVE-DAY DESIGN SPRINT. When Hillary Clinton announced her bid for the 2016 presidential election, the Internet freaked out—mostly over her campaign logo. Rumored to be designed by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut, the logo was called everything from an ode to the hospital sign to an Easter egg revealing Clinton’s true, right-leaning agenda. We challenged Moving Brands—a global creative agency with AAA clients like Sony, Google, HP, and Netflix—to rethink the Clinton’s approach in an impossible project. While a new brand might be built over the course of months, even years spent going back and forth with a client, we gave them just five days to remake Clinton’s brand in a small-team design sprint between their London and San Francisco offices. Despite the constraints, they managed to create an evocative conversation piece—a political campaign without a logo— that offers a fascinating peek into the branding process.
Step One: Get To Know Your Client
To get started, Moving Brands brought together a few designers, a copywriter, a brand and communications expert, and a project manager. They were supported by whomever else was available each day. Usually, the agency’s designers would meet with a client to get a deep, nuanced perspective on their work. They’d have several conversations with various members of the company, conduct interviews, and hold workshops. That would inform everything to come. “The biggest difference was that we didn’t have any client input nor feedback so we have to really research and study what Hillary has been saying publicly and read various articles to understand her story,” explains creative director Aki Shelton. “We love collaborating with our clients and most of the time, many of the answers are in our conversation with them—we’re just there to help identify and define them.”
Step Two: Research and Form A Point Of View The designers ran several internal polls and interviews (and did a lot of Googling) to form what they call a “point of view,” or, in essence, what would become Clinton’s branded take on the world. This point of view encompassed everything from her views on debt, abortion, and education.
Step Three: Define The Brand Story, “Make It Real” With a Hillary Clinton persona in mind, the team built the brand story. In this case, it was a first-person letter from Clinton herself. The letter proposed that we unite on the causes that we all care about, it imagined the world we would want, and it suggested that citizens come together to make that world a reality. “Make it real” became the punchline of
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WE’RE TALKING ABOUT POLITICS, WHERE THE CONCEPT OF REALITY IS SHOCKINGLY RARE.
the story—the unifying thread of the entire brand. But is “make it real” really unique enough to be a brand, let alone help Clinton stand out?
“I would normally agree [that it’s too cliche], but we’re talking about politics, where the concept of reality is shockingly rare,” copy director Michael Meyer says. “We all have coworkers and family members with wildly different points of view on political issues, but we’re able to live, work, and talk together ... the media often portrays America as completely polarized, but in our experience, that’s just not the case. Hillary is the most centrist of all of the candidates, and we believe that her brand should reflect that.”
Step Four: Decide On A Name
candidate. Instead, they opted for an electric red and blue—a contemporary remake halfway between an American flag and a 1980s seafoam and pink color palette. “It was also how we [tacitly] addressed the fact that Hillary has a good chance of being the first female president,” Meyer explains. “Historically, that’s significant, but Hillary does not play the gender card. The palette is unisex, but warm and optimistic.” Imagery of the brand was carefully curated. Photos had to have just the right tone: “real but not gritty, posed but not preconceived.” Airbrushing, even for the 67-year-old candidate herself, wouldn’t be in line with the “make it real” tagline playing itself out in photography.
Ditching The Logo Ultimately, the team decided that the photo-driven visual branding, anchored by Hillary herself, would be more powerful than any one campaign logo. “There’s no symbol in the world that could ever have as much equity as Hillary’s name and face. She’s an icon in her own right,” Meyer explains. “All a brand needs is a consistent visual design element that makes it instantly recognizable in any application.
Any recognizable brand—whether it’s a company or a product—needs the right name. But in the case of Hillary Clinton, Moving Brands decided that name shouldn’t be “Hillary Clinton.” Instead, it should just be “Hillary.” “Everyone in the studio was referring to her as Hillary, which at first seemed inconsequential until we started talking about how much of a differentiator it was. It’s a huge and rare advantage to be on a first name basis with America,” Meyer explains. “Additionally, it helps to separate her from the baggage of previous Clinton administrations. Hillary Clinton was First Lady—Hillary is the Senator/Secretary of State/ Presidential Candidate. Once we got to ‘make it real,’ using her first name became a no-brainer to be more relatable, more approachable—more real.”
So to unify the visual brand, the team created what they call an H-Frame system. Yes, it’s built from the “H” in Hillary, and it leverages the brands electric blue and red colors to frame any images and text in the campaign. “We didn’t want this to be called a logo. It’s not just about the one symbol to represent Hillary’s brand. We created a system and voice to represent Hillary’s brand instead,” Shelton says. “Brand is about story, aligned touch points, and how you connect with your audience. We saw all the conversations on the Internet where everyone was criticizing the existing logo (symbol), and we thought that was totally the wrong conversation. We should have asked, ‘What is her story? Why should everyone care?’ rather than, ‘Why an H and an arrow?’”
Steps Five and Beyond: The Visual Brand With the brand’s name and story intact, the designers turned their attention to all that visual stuff that most laypeople would call “the brand,” like the typography, imagery, colors, and, of course, the logo. The new campaign’s boldest decision was to ditch the stereotypical red, white, and blue of the American flag, which, while traditional (in fact, the team came across some pins that FDR had used in 1932 that looked “exactly the same” as what we use today), seemed too tired for a progressive
Mark Wilson is a writer who started Philanthroper.com, a simple way to give back every day. His work has also appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, Esquire, American Photo and Lucky Peach.
How can fashion brands leverage shopping tourism? By Sarah Jones
Shopping tourism is growing, but to best reach these potential consumers, fashion brands and retailers should begin marketing to them before they leave their home country, according to a report from Fashionbi. Just as travelers heavily research hotels, restaurants, sites and entertainment before embarking on a trip, they are also using online media to plan their shopping excursions. Brands should ensure they are catering to their potential international clientele with Web sites in their native languages and social accounts on the platforms popular in different markets. “Different factors in different countries have lead to growth in shopping tourism, in the recent years,” said Ambika Zutshi, CEO of Fashionbi, Milan. “Mainly, the availability of the products not present in their home countries drive Latin Americans and Asians to Europe, the high tax rates in Asia
drive Asians abroad, where the cost of a luxury good in Asia can compensate for both travel and good expenses combined in Europe. “A lot of Chinese also trust better the authenticity of the product and the level of services offered abroad than the ‘shopping experience’ in their home-countries,” she said. “There is also a great amount of ‘prestige’ attached to shopping a product from Chanel in Paris than in China for the Chinese.” For its “Shopping Tourism: How Fashion Brands Can Leverage on the Overseas Shoppers” report, Fashionbi conducted a survey, in which 60.44 percent of respondents were females. The majority of the survey participants travel abroad one or two times a year, while 25 percent travel less than once a year.
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Buying overseas U.S. tourists generate the most sales, and between 2010 and 2013, sales from U.S. citizens abroad grew on average 10 percent year-on-year. However, more recently, their sales growth has stalled in comparison with Chinese consumers’ spending when traveling. In 2014, 76 percent of tax-free sales were for apparel and leather goods, with the average receipt about $788. Jewelry carried a larger general receipt of $2,690. Fashionbi’s survey found that generally women are more likely than men to rank shopping as a somewhat or very important aspect of their travel experience. Asian and Latin American residents are also more likely than European citizens to place a high importance on shopping as a tourist.
Forty-six percent of outbound tourists reserve almost half or more of their travel budgets for shopping. Only 6 percent of tourists buy with plans to resell when they return home. Most shopping abroad is impulse buying, with only 43 percent planning a shopping list in advance. However, for men, this rises to 59 percent who walk in with pre-planned purchases. Shoppers who plan ahead use brand Web sites and online shopping channels to research, while impulse buyers rely more on social media and magazines and are more open to input from friends and family. By providing global appeal on social media, a number of brands have launched creative campaigns that deliver relevant content. For instance, Michael Kors’ What’s in Your Kors series packs imaginary handbags for trips anywhere from Paris to St. Barth’s.
Depending on where the tourist is from, they may have different reasons for buying overseas. Ninety-two percent of Asian tourists place importance on having a memorable experience, compared to 27 percent of all respondents. The majority of respondents agree that better product availability is a main reason to shop while traveling. Shopping malls are the most common destinations, with high street stores favorable among Asian tourists and western European consumers preferring concept stores. Business travelers are less cost-sensitive than leisure travelers, typically spending two times the amount of regular tourists. These travelers value time, so hotel stores, shopping centers and airport points of sale are ways to reach them.
Other types of trips include cross-border shopping, in which consumers travel across country lines to a nearby nation primarily to shop. For instance, Finland is working to attract Russians with a special shopping center and the U.S. woos Canadian shoppers with special duty relief and shipping offers. When trying to gain sales from tourists, destination management organizations can play a large role in policy and marketing to attract travelers. For instance, New West End Company had the UK government review Chinese visa regulations, which in turn boosted sales for the retailers in its London Luxury Quarter. London Luxury Quarter also co-hosted a “London Luxury. By Appointment” event with VisitBritain and British Airways featuring brands such as Fortnum & Mason and Selfridges. The event brought together brands and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in Shanghai and Chengdu to make one-on-one connections with Chinese consumers in their home country Fashion brands can also partner with hotel chains, giving exclusive benefits to rewards members. This provides insights about shopping habits of members globally and brings consumers to retailers through association, particularly if the store is within close proximity of the property. Fashion brands have also found ways of incorporating themselves into the travel experience through branded hotels, such as Armani’s or Bulgari’s properties, to partnerships with museums and cultural institutions. LVMH is building a mixeduse complex in Paris, La Samaritaine, which will include duty
free shops, a Louis Vuitton store, office space, apartments and the first Cheval Blanc hotel within the French city. French crystal maker Baccarat officially opened its first branded hotel in New York March 18, which claims to shake up the luxury hospitality industry in the city.
A number of countries are making moves to speed visa approval up for Chinese tourists, with France rolling out a 48hour visa and the Italian Consulate-General in Guangzhou speeding up applications, spurred when China Southern Airlines began offering direct flights to Rome. For luxury brands, an influx in travel may also mean movement of counterfeit goods. Sixteen percent say they believe fake merchandise is beneficial because it provides accessibility, however 26 percent think it is wrong to take money away from brands and 45 percent recognize its illegality. A number of governments, including France, are using marketing to raise awareness and combat counterfeiting. “Initiatives like ‘Welcome Chinese Certification’ are available for brands/retailers to achieve higher visibility and trust amongst their Chinese shoppers,” Ms. Zutshi said. “Another challenge is that of ‘Dai Gou’ (shopping on behalf of) or ‘Retail Forgery’ as better known worldwide, where every year, tourists bring back billions of dollars of counterfeit products to sell in their home countries.
Majority owned by Starwood Capital Group, Baccarat Hotel & Residences is located across from the Museum of Modern Art and nearby to Fifth Avenue shopping. This opening helps Baccarat expand into a full lifestyle brand, giving consumers more ways to interact with and experience its offerings (see story). “Here digital and social media can play a lead role,” Ms. Zutshi said. “Some brands are already producing exclusive products or offers for specific targets, such as for Chinese Spring or Moon festival holidays, brands offer special deals to Chinese travelers either in their own countries, or abroad or simply, via their local ecommerce channels. For instance, many tourist fly to London every year to shop luxury brands at Harrods and stand in long queues for hours, hence, the luxury retailers started to provide the products with exactly the same shopping experience through its Web site – with virtual bar and jazz music playing at the background, and such.
“However, brands are taking strict initiatives against that such as LVMH joining forces with Google to tackle the advertising and sale of counterfeit goods, online,” she said. “In addition, many country governments like France have strict laws against counterfeit products - anyone buying or carrying a counterfeit products in France can be sent to jail for up to three years and fined $373,140. Many brands such as Cartier, Chanel, Christian Dior and Louis Vuitton etc. have also joined hands to support such initiative by launching their own dd campaigns against the counterfeits. “Last but not the least, the pricing policies can also play a major role, such as the recent announcement of Chanel dropping 20 percent prices on its classic bags in China whilst increasing the same by 20 percent across Europe.”
Final Take Sarah Jones, staff reporter on Luxury Daily, New York
“Another way is to do special collaborations with hospitality industry either by launching their own hotel/restaurant with own products at display or by designing special co-branded locations, for example Christian Lacroix for Le Notre Dame in Paris or Vivienne Westwood for The London West Hollywood Hotel, Los Angeles,” she said. “A lot of strategic location partnerships like bridges and escalators outside the Fashion Mall in Las Vegas, Nevada connecting with popular hotels like Wynn Las Vegas, Venetian and Treasure Island, can also be a win-win.”
Rules and regulations While some of the biggest spenders hail from visa-free countries, shoppers from China and Russia need to apply for a visa, which can take about a month to process, stalling trips.
Sarah Jones is staff reporter on Luxury Daily, New York. Her beats are apparel and accessories, government, home furnishings, legal and privacy, nonprofits and retail.
How Google and Facebook are changing Television Advertising By Brian Wieser
Separate news from Google, Facebook and Salesforce.com this week highlight different approaches to advertising on different media. While the focus for television advertising will remain around brand-building among relatively broad audience, the Web will increasingly be about targeting new and existing customers using known first-party data whenever possible. Google announced that its Google Fiber service would start a trial selling TV ads in its recently established Kansas
City system. It would have the capacity to target based on geography (a capability that existing MVPDs already possess), type of program being shown (ditto) or viewing history (technically possible but not widely deployed). The company noted that advertisers will only pay for ads that have been shown (standard industry practice) and can limit the number of times an ad is shown to a given TV (this part would seem to be somewhat unique -- the idea of frequency capping in TV ad sales).
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The underlying dream of buying discrete volumes of precisely targeted TV ads persists for many. Pulling out the clichés, it’s about making TV as targeted as the web, ensuring that dog food ads only go to dog owners and allaying concerns for the advertiser who knows half of her advertising is wasted but doesn’t know which half. While Google will undoubtedly develop TV ad products that are more advanced than the industry’s state-of-the-art, as a practical matter, even if Google Fiber was a much bigger service, the most sophisticated brands would have difficulty with assigning budgets to Google for related initiatives. Beyond the limited footprints of individual MVPDs and the inconsistencies in ad product offerings in many instances, concepts associated with advanced TV are often held back because of technical inconsistencies across MVPDs and business model issues between programmers and MVPDs which make the whole process unduly laborious and unnecessarily expensive. These very practical limitations are only part of the reason why most advanced TV advertising services have a hard time achieving meaningful scale. In general, TV is primarily used by (and is uniquely powerful for) large marketers amplifying general awareness of brand attributes. Towards these ends, most marketers know why they prefer to focus their media spending on (and negotiate against) specific demographic targets, but few will believe that these are the only audiences that matter, given the sales of products that can occur outside of a target audience and the difficult-to-identify sources of influence from out-of-target-demo audiences that might contribute to business outcomes. For example, a luxury car maker knows that few people making under $100,000 per year will be able to afford to buy that car, but the marketer knows that the aspirations of the masses can make a product more valuable to those who can afford it. Targeting has a role in improving TV advertising and making existing TV advertising incrementally better (for example, with improved secondary audience targeting metrics across a campaign or by better balancing reach and frequency characteristics), but do not think that precision to the level of the individual will necessarily have long-term legs. In large part, this is because an advertiser seeking to reach discrete audiences in an interactive and/or highly targeted manner already has a medium of choice to use: it’s called the Internet, and it’s not running out of inventory any time soon. Our view has been that spending on digital advertising by large brands has primarily focused on notions of “engagement,” or interactions between a brand and their desired audience segments. It capitalizes on an architecture which allows for one-to-one targeting across essentially all inventory in what is a relatively automated fashion, and allows a brand to capitalize on the lean-forward nature of the medium. These factors lead to superior conditions for targeted media trading, made all the more valuable when desirable data is appended to media inventory.
As an example, consider this week’s news that Facebook would expand its video-focused SSP LiveRail to include inapp advertising on mobile devices. Facebook-based age and gender-based data will more readily be included across digital advertising inventory well beyond Facebook’s own walls among publishers who use this product. High quality data such as that which Facebook can append to media trading is highly useful in helping marketers target audiences for engagement in digital environments, and will help Facebook continue to expand the share of digital media advertising sales it captures or influences. Targeting by audience characteristics remains important to digital advertising and will likely remain a significant basis for targeting for many years to come. However, an alternative (and possibly more valuable) targeting paradigm involves identifying segments of known customers, look-alikes of those customers and individuals who fall outside of both of those groups. This is where another product also in the news this week from Facebook called Custom Audiences comes in. Custom Audiences was highlighted when Salesforce.com announced the general availability of an updated version of a product it offers called Active Audiences. In its new form, Active Audiences can integrate a marketer’s customer data from one of Salesforce.com’s Sales or Service Cloud products into Salesforce.com’s Marketing Cloud tools, which in turn buys ad inventory from Facebook via Custom Audiences (or from Twitter via a similar product called Tailored Audiences). This allows marketers to buy ad inventory including audiences of individuals on a highly targeted basis using known customer data rather than audiences of individuals based upon proxies of what customers are expected to look like. Custom Audiences has been popular for marketers using Facebook, contributing to the company’s capacity to gain share-of-wallet from those who use it. Salesforce.com isn’t the only company powering the buys of Custom Audiences (they likely account for a low single digit percentage), as there are many alternative approaches to buying inventory in this manner. Alternatives are also emerging from agencies such as Merkle, which will enable advertisers to buy known customers through other publishers, applying CRM-based consumer data towards a much broader range of digital inventory. The trend towards targeting digital advertising to engage with known customers rather than a more generalized (if still targeted) audience is an important one, it will be more valuable to advertisers than alternative approaches. While there will be new approaches to selling TV advertising to new and existing advertisers, our guess is that the relative strengths around television will remain around brand building for relatively broad audiences. Targeting on the web will increasingly be about targeting new and existing customers using known first-party data whenever possible.
David Bowie Branding:
Lessons From Rock’s Original Chameleon By Claire Falloon
Before David Bowie was a rock star from Mars, he was an ad man—and a branding genius. Admittedly, he was only in the world of marketing for a year, but if his success at standing out is anything to go by, he was quick to learn its lessons. While differentiation may have been all the rage in the 60s and 70s, these days, constant adaptability and transformation are more top of mind: how do you maintain a brand in a world that is rapidly and persistently ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-chchanging? David may have made his initial mark quite some time ago, but his approach to his ever-morphing brand can still teach us a thing or two. From a visual perspective, if Bowie were a regular brand, he might give his brand guardians some headaches. With a look that has altered drastically from decade to decade, there is little (except coolness) that serves as a red thread. How would one create a guideline on how to execute the Bowie look and feel? Pale skin, maybe. Skinny frame, yes. But a flame-red spike one year and a silken-blonde flop the next? High heels and bodysuits one moment, 30s-style suiting and fedoras a moment later? It’s enough to send any self-respecting brand ops practitioner into a tailspin. Chaos! David Bowie Aladin SaneAnd what about his message? Again, Bowie has roamed around. Examining everything from Life On Mars to pop art, sexuality, love, drug highs and lows, loneliness, ambition, superficiality, being weird, or simply the joy of dancing, there isn’t a single theme that binds the Bowie brand neatly together. But Bowie is Bowie, undeniably and recognizably so, as celebrated in the landmark V&A exhibition that’s been touring the world. And Bowie has been Bowie for at least five decades, and powerfully so. So what can brands learn from the artist formerly known as Ziggy Stardust? To stand the test of time, and remain relevant all the while, the only thing that must remain consistent is your sense of self. David Bowie is an artist, an explorer of the new, a thoughtful borrower from artistic traditions past. An essential part of his brand is that he has the freedom to completely transform, to combine things in new ways, to create things that are unexpected. And does that also dictate that it would be off brand for him to consistently remain the same? Yes. Just like it would be off brand for a company whose purpose was to provide stability and reassurance to be constantly changing up its identity Bowie-style. To thine own self be true. Rock star or otherwise, it’s the golden rule of a
strong brand. And today it applies more than ever. In a world where our technology, mediums, and even ecology are in a state of flux, if we can all find our one true thing to stand for and pursue, we will be setting a course for success; creating the only kind of constant that can survive in an environment that refuses to sit still. Not a rigid grid of many rules. But a flexible path with a genuine goal in mind. And if, like Bowie, your one true thing is to embrace and explore many, then as a side note, please also prepare your visual identity guidelines for the very real possibility of rainbow-sequins. Claire Falloon is a branding professional with a healthy curiosity about Life on Mars.
Step-by-Step Directions for Writing Your Next Piece of Content [Infographic] By Verónica Maria Jarski
Everybody writes, but not everybody who writes gets to his or her intended destination. To help content marketers find their way, best-selling author Ann Handley offers this writing GPS. Before you write, know why you are writing. “Anything you write—even an individual blog post—should be aligned with a larger (business or marketing) goal,” says Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs and author of Everybody Writes, in the following Visual.ly infographic.
Next, you’ll want to reframe the idea to relate it to your readers. “Ask, ‘So what?’” suggests Handley. “And then answer ‘because...’ until you’ve exhausted your ability to reach an answer.” Back up your statements with credible sources and data. (You can use yourself as a source if you have relevant experience.) For the rest of the steps to creating a writing GPS, check out the Visual.ly infographic:
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Veronica Maria Jarski is the Opinions editor and a senior writer at MarketingProfs.
Five Whopping Branding Mistakes You Might Be Making By Colleen Fahey
Want to avoid becoming a breakthrough brand? There are plenty of ways to send out weak signals. Or even to sabotage your brand. At Sixième Son, we work with 35 to 50 brands a year. That gives us extraordinary chance to see the good, the bad, and the ungainly aspects of branding. Make the following brand mistakes, and you will definitely avoid success.
1. Be mono-sensory Most brands have defined their visual identities, which are held in place with the help of their graphic guidelines (and no small amount of willpower). But in a world of constant distraction, brands need to use every tool in their sensory kit to be perceived and remembered. Coca-Cola is masterful at suggesting multiple senses even when the company is only in the visual realm. The brand is especially skilled at evoking the sensation of cold. The simplest sign on the wall of a bodega or an ordinary soda dispenser uses graphic condensation droplets to create the
anticipation of iciness. Sometime in visuals, Coca-Cola goes beyond temperature to suggest a sound Those are silent but evocative ways to stimulate the senses. Still, as much as marketers know they need to take steps to engage the senses, they often leave sound, smell, and touch by the wayside. And few brands have style guides to govern sound or scent. Not all brands have the luxury of sharing the natural scents of Cinnabon or Starbucks, but many that do don’t guard their scents as rigorously. For example, in regards to Cinnabon, the Wall Street Journal reports, “Some store operators heat additional sheets of brown sugar and cinnamon to keep the aroma in the air.” Another example: Starbucks once removed breakfast sandwiches for a six-month retooling because they tainted the signature scent of the store. And brands beyond restaurants are adopting scents. Delicate tea-based fragrances grace a hotel chain or high-end apartment building, for instance. Retailers may add homey
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scents. Most companies neglect to create clear multi-sensory style guides to help keep the company’s image on track. For example, brands have the opportunity to codify their brand guidelines for scent. Even brands that don’t have their own retail spaces can connect with audiences via the powerful auditory sense by using a custom-tailored audio brand to distinguish their appeal through trade shows, on-hold music, website, online videos, apps, and sampling events. To stand out from the flurried background, and to be well understood, today’s brands must define ownable footprints in multiple sensory modes.
2. Be unemotional If you’re hard to relate to, you’ll be hard to remember. And if you base your brand on rational benefits alone, you’ll also be hard to relate to. Many brands claim to be the leader (local, national, or global) in their categories without letting prospects know what emotional benefit they’re offering. Will the audience feel more confident? Will they enjoy the pride of looking smart to their colleagues? Will they relish the comfort of sleeping well at night? Confidence, pride, or comfort can be expressed viscerally in branded music, which speaks a language that all can understand—and which is exceptionally good at evoking specific emotions. You can see this in the auto category, where Peugeot has just stepped away from the metallic and machine-like audio codes of the category and plugged into the emotion you feel when you drive their precise and elegant autos. The melody’s crystal clarity expresses the uncompromising standards of the brand. The futuristic sound design and the rhythm section convey the concepts of modernity and movement while the airy female voice, reflects sensuality and driving pleasure. In two detailed international studies, research showed that the audio identity had reached 64% recognition and had improved brand perception by 33% among the respondents in five countries around the world. B2B brands often err on the side of the rational and the visually oriented. Energy companies, construction equipment, consultancies, and the like get tricked into thinking that decision-making is rational. They eschew the more emotional and sensual side of brand relationships. Sometimes, that changes when new competition appears.
3. Have conflicting images Are you conveying a particular impression at one touchpoint
then presenting yourself so differently at another that people can’t believe it is the same company? A brand can be both technically excellent and warm. It can be both diverse and hospitable. But you can’t be a credible neighborhood bank and a global institution. You can’t sell artisanal craftsmanship and mass-market consistency. Moreover, your brand can have auditory conflicts, too. When I was buying a microwave, I figured that Samsung must have a sensitivity to sound because its Galaxy mobile phone had such a simple and sophisticated ringtone. I couldn’t hear its signals in the store, and I chose a Samsung. The first time I used it though, much to my surprise, the end was announced by a high-pitched BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. Your brand (and your audio brand) can evolve as long as its core values remain the same. SNCF designed its audio brand when it was first faced with competition. Since then, the company has updated it twice: once to emphasize an eco-friendly message and a few years later, to focus on ease and convenience. Though the instrumentation and sound effects altered, the warm caring tune stayed the same.
4. Be inconstant Changing your brand too often, means you don’t have a brand. Sears has suffered from inconstant branding, stumbling from appliances and hardware to the “softer side” and now to the vague promise, “More to you,” focusing on sub-brands and partner brands like Craftsman, Kmart, and Land’s End. Retail industry expert Barbara Farfan says, “The Sears brand isn’t the most patriotic, it’s not the most green, and it’s definitely not the most valuable.” Another way brands can be inconstant is to present themselves to employees one way and present themselves to their consumers a different way.
5. Be comprehensive The essence of branding is sacrifice. If it takes 30 pages to define your brand, it means it is undefined or yet-to-bedefined. This makes for a tepid brand. Your potential and existing customers are unclear about who you are–and who you are not. *** Find your focus. Disseminate it via every sensory path you have. Create your multisensory style guide, and reap the rewards. Colleen Fahey is US managing director of Sixième Son, a unique audio branding agency with clients across the globe. She is also a contributor to The Get a Job Workshop: How to Find your Way to a Creative Career in Advertising, Branding, Collateral, Digital, Experimental and More.
The Most Memorable Ad Campaigns Share These 3 Elements By Jennifer Connelly
It takes more than a simple creative burst to cut through the clutter of meme contests and personality quizzes percolating their way through Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the social media networks. In this 24/7, plugged-in universe, marketers must create “light bulb” campaigns that stand out against the din of the news feed. Sometimes this is achieved through complex, multifaceted campaigns. Other times, a simple but persuasive concept, visual or narrative will hit a home run. The Clinton Foundation recently took the former approach, pulling off a major coup with its NOT-THERE.ORG campaign designed to call attention to the release of a report on the status of women and girls across the globe. On International Women’s Day, the campaign co-opted 40 existing advertisements, removing images of high-profile women like Scarlett Johansson and Serena Williams from magazines, billboards and bus shelters and replacing them with NOT-THERE.org. The multi-faceted campaign touched on all media sectors, with iHeartMedia removing women’s voices from songs, and a social media component that included online videos and the call for women to change their profile pictures to a blank silhouette. With the support of celebrities like Amy Poehler, Cameron Diaz and Sienna Miller, and media outlets trumpeting their own participation, the campaign achieved a slew of media attention from outlets as varied as The New York Times, US Magazine, People, Vogue and Advertising Age, to name just a few. Beyond just media hits, the scope of the stunt seemed to resonate across the broader marketing world, proving that big, bold thinking and flawless execution are still achievable in today’s highly segmented and micro-targeted landscape. Of course, it’s not just the grandiose ideas that pack a punch. We all remember those Got Milk ads featuring well-known actors, musicians, athletes and even cartoon super heroes sporting the famous milk mustache. This simple visual, initially created for the California Milk Processor Board and licensed by the National Milk Processor Education Program, conjured a sense of nostalgia, making wildly successful people seem extremely relatable. Whether highly complex or simple and straightforward, successful marketing campaigns bear the same hallmarks:
1. Anticipatory thinking. Before jumping in, think through all the potential positives and especially the negatives of your idea. Bud Light’s twoyear old “Up for Whatever” campaign has steadily helped build the company’s social engagement. But a newly released tag on their bottles encouraging drinkers to “remove no from your vocabulary” caused a social media firestorm. The brand shut down production of that particular bottle label just days later.
2. Goal oriented. You may have what seems like a genius idea, but will it actually achieve the desired result, i.e. grow a business, attract customers or bring attention to a cause? The Taco Bell Chihuahua became a highly recognized mascot in the 1990s, but the dog didn’t help the fast-food chain sell tacos. In fact, the marketing campaign produced a 6 percent drop in sales. Why? Because touting the fact that a real dog likes Taco Bell didn’t make human beings want to run to the restaurant to eat the food.
3. Engage and connect. The best ads and marketing campaigns tap into a growing trend, feeling or shift in the public’s perception. In 1988, Nike sensed a growing fitness craze and coined the iconic phrase “Just Do It.” The athletic company, once second place to Reebok, quickly dominated the athletic footwear market, increasing sales from $877 million to $9.2 billion in just 10 years.” There is no one right formula for executing a winning “big idea.” The key is to be open to inspiration from all fronts. Whether it’s perfecting a concept, like Thomas Edison did with the light bulb, or coming up with a whole new approach ala Benjamin Franklin’s electricity experiment, big ideas come in all shapes and sizes Jennifer Connelly is founder and CEO of JCPR, a leading independent public relations agency with practice groups in finance, technology, professional services and innovation and leadership.
The Most Mentioned B2B Brands Online By Ayaz Nanji
IBM is the most mentioned B2B brand online globally, according to a recent report from Brandwatch. The report was based on an analysis of over 5 million online conversations about 200 top global B2B companies. The researchers looked at mentions on social networks as well as on news sites, forums, and blogs. IBM is the most mentioned B2B brand online in most places. However, it is not the top mentioned company in every country. For example, oil-rich countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, talk most about energy brands, such as ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron.
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In the United States, IBM is the clear leader, dominating B2B chatter online in 26 states; however, other companies, such as Oracle, Rolls Royce, and Cisco, come out on top in a few states.
Business software companies get the most mentions online, followed by aerospace firms.
About the research: The report was based on an analysis of over 5 million online conversations about 200 top global B2B companies. The researchers looked at mentions on top social networks as well as on news sites, forums, and blogs.
Ayaz Nanji is an independent digital strategist and the co-founder of Inbound ContentWorks, a marketing agency that specializes in content creatio. He is also a research writer for MarketingProfs. His past experience includes working for Google/YouTube, the Travel Channel, AOL, and the New York Times.
Yale on Sustainability: A New Marketing Strategy for Chevy Volt By Brandchannel
In brandchannel’s series with the Yale School of Management, Yale Center for Business and the Environment and Yale Center for Customer Insights, a team of MBA students considers how Chevy Volt could become America’s top electric car. Their case study below reflects the views of the authors and not brandchannel or Interbrand. When Chevy first launched the Volt—a sporty compact car that combines the benefits of an electric vehicle (EV) with a gasoline engine—it had high expectations for sales, looking to “leapfrog the Toyota Prius.” Ultimately, the Volt significantly underperformed on its already conservative initial sales target of 60,000 units in one year, selling only 7,621 units. In late 2014, the Nissan Leaf was outselling the Chevy Volt at a 2:1 ratio. It seemed that despite overwhelmingly positive customer reviews and distinguishing performance features, consumers were not resonating with the brand. Major reasons for the Volt’s poor sales include ineffective advertising and communication of the value proposition, as well as a tension with the Chevy parent brand. Several marketing strategies could help the Volt gain additional market share and become America’s truly allpurpose electric vehicle.
Ineffective Advertising and Communication When we talk about EVs, the Toyota Prius is the clear first
mover, with excellent brand recognition. The Nissan Leaf is associated with “innovation” and dedicated green consumers. However, the Volt’s differentiation has been much less clear. Its ads have been inconsistent, ineffective and boring—many of its 62 YouTube ads have fewer than 10,000 views. The crux of the Volt’s value proposition—its range extender, which eliminates “range anxiety” by enabling drivers to take long road trips without stopping to charge—is lost on ad viewers. One short-term solution would be to develop a community of Volt evangelists through traditional and social media channels. Chevy can organize road rallies and meet-ups, as GM did with the Saturn brand. Chevy can leverage social media, as the marketers behind the Ford “Fiesta Movement” did when they gave 100 free cars to social media influencers. The campaign generated more than 40 million Twitter impressions and 650 million YouTube views, bringing brand awareness to 56 percent.
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Chevy can hold a social media competition between Volt drivers who have the highest lifetime MPG. Such a campaign would be a low-cost way to create a high return on brand recognition, as the Volt’s target demographic primarily views advertisements online.
Tension with the Chevy Parent Brand The Volt’s advanced EV technology appeals to an urban, educated and liberal demographic—one that is concerned about climate change. This contrasts sharply with Chevy’s brand image, with its top-selling car, the Silverado, considered a gas-guzzler. Silverado buyers identify with Chevy’s marketing that emphasizes ruggedness, rural living and patriotism. Notably, 70 percent of initial Volt buyers were first-time Chevy customers who primarily use their car for city commuting. Chevy must address how to resolve this tension, so the Volt and the Silverado do not hurt each other’s brand image.
showcased in the surfing-themed advertisement.
The Volt Could Distance Itself from Other Chevy Brands The Chevy Volt could also take the opposite route, detaching from Chevy and creating an independent brand. There is a strong case for this as well. The 2013 Consumer Reports car brand perception survey found that consumers strongly associated Chevrolet with performance—it ranked third behind Ferrari and BMW. Chevrolet’s worst showings though were for technology/ innovation, safety and environmentally conscious/green fronts—it didn’t even make the list, while Toyota, Smart, Tesla, Honda and Ford all ranked in the top five. Chevy’s brand image suffers on the very attributes the Volt attempts to compete on. In that way, Chevy, a 100-year-old brand, brings baggage that might negatively affect Volt’s brand positioning, denying the Volt a fair opportunity to appear credible and authentic to its target customers. Creating a new independent brand—similar to what Toyota did with its Scion line—would provide Chevy with the opportunity to fundamentally rethink what a technologically advanced and futuristic car brand might look like, in a riskfree and controlled environment.
The Volt Could Emphasize Similarities and Synergies with Other Chevy Brands One solution is to more strongly marry the Volt brand with the Chevy brand. This strategy would emphasize areas where Volt and Chevy values overlap: performance and independence. Online advertising could focus on the power of the Volt— more horsepower than BMWi3 and quicker than any hybrid. Another emphasis could be to use 100 percent “Made in America” energy for 90 percent of trips. And when you want to go on a road trip, you’ve got the independence and freedom to drive as far as you want. Imagery for this campaign could include a young, allAmerican father leaving his urban job to drive out to the beach and surf with his young son, with Beach Boys-type music and an old-fashioned ’50s feel-good American surfing backdrop.
Advanced technology is another favorite feature of Volt owners, which also figures heavily in Chevy’s marketing of its new Wi-Fi-enabled Silverados. A popular Volt feature is its ability to recharge while driving down hills—drivers can see the electric range go up on their dashboard, which could be
With a new brand, Chevy could experiment with nextgeneration dealership models in which orders are placed online or in-app only. Meanwhile, traditional physical dealerships would take the form of salesmen-less experience stores where consumers could “tour” the various features of physical cars using augmented reality, including live social feeds that capture global consumer feedback about, for example, the car’s futuristic dashboard. This sort of disruptive innovation is best executed without the weight of a legacy brand, such as Chevy, dragging the new brand’s strategy down.
Next Steps The Chevy Volt is a strong contender to be the car of the future with its distinctive range-extending features, medium price point and high customer satisfaction ratings. Its current marketing has failed to tap this potential, however. Its ads are diffuse with inconsistent and ineffective messaging. Above all, a tension with the parent brand threatens to undermine any strategy. For the short term, it can borrow a page from its competitors and galvanize a community of brand ambassadors through social media competitions and give-aways. In the long term, however, the Chevy Volt team should carefully consider aligning more closely with the parent brand or detaching completely—and stick to it. By Rob Youngs, Grant Mulligan, Jade Zhang, Deepak Ghosh and Pamela Jao in partnership with Professor Kosuke Uetake of the Yale School of Management, Yale Center for Business and the Environment and Yale Center for Customer Insights.
How Facebook Unified Its Brand BEN BARRY ILLUMINATES HOW FACEBOOK GOT ITS BRAND ACT TOGETHER— SOMETHING OTHER COMPANIES COULD LEARN FROM. By Mark Wilson
Remember when Facebook was ugly? Truly ugly? Like the carpet of a dorm room after a weekend of Jell-O shots ugly? Then they started hiring designers, like Ben Barry, who in addition to serving as one of the company’s propaganda czars, helped guide the fledgling startup to the largely improved visual brand you know today.
Curiously, one of Barry’s big rules was that Facebook not use the “f” for every context. He specifically didn’t want it re-used and re-configured for every sub-brand of Facebook. Just imagine if, at the bottom of your Facebook page, you had that same F used for Facebook Messenger, and for Facebook Calendar, and for Facebook Photos—it’d be absurd.
In a post on his site, Barry outlines how, between 2012 and 2013, he led the shape-up of Facebook’s brand identity. It’s a problem that’s in no way exclusive to Facebook. All companies, big and small, have to consider how their brand evolves. A brand may be the face of a company, but most companies are in constant flux, offering new services and products all the time. In this regard, a visual brand has to both anchor the company’s identity and leave room for whatever comes next. Here are three lessons we gleaned from Barry’s post that might apply to your company:
So he not only created new icons for every sub-brand, he offered examples of every way the icons could be mixed and matched in different contexts. Truth be told, he offered a lot of options—more options than many brand standards might allow—what I dare say were too many, even. As Barry puts it, “instead of trying to be very restrictive, I wanted to try to accommodate the past while moving us towards consistency.”
1. Declare Your Center
Facebook had so many different sub products (like Messenger and Camera), that its brand had become fragmented, with designers creating bespoke icons for everything. This wasn’t just lousy aesthetics or organization, though. It was a waste of designers’ time, Barry says. Without cohesive brand guidelines, they were forced to create a new logo for every new project that came their way. Barry solved that problem by working with Jorn van Dijk and Brandon Walkin to create the Facebook favicon—that now-ubiquitous Facebook “f”—and outlawing all other icons. The “f” was designed to work in a multitude of contexts—like rounded iOS apps and squared Android apps. It was at home in any context.
2. Know Where To Draw The Line On Your Brand. But Allow Flexibility
3. Rally Big Makeovers Through Low-Price Examples
Facebook didn’t always see the logic of his branding work. But he highlighted one project that helped him get more corporate buy-in. As a personal project, he tweaked the Facebook Camera app’s Klavika typeface, making it thinner and, as he puts it, “more humanist.” Internally, this relatively small project was a big hit. It bought him the capital (both political, and monetary) to bring in the Klavika typeface’s original designer to build a new version for Facebook. This typeface now lives at the heart of Facebook’s brand, and it informed all of the aforementioned improvements that Barry brought to the company. But to get it, he first had to create his own little preview of what it could be. Of course, much of what Barry did is really just best branding practices. But sometimes, these fixes are more easily said than done. In that sense, Barry’s work is an apt archetype for fixing a brand in a company that underestimates its brand’s importance. Mark Wilson is a writer who started Philanthroper.com, a simple way to give back every day. His work has also appeared at Gizmodo, Kotaku, PopMech, PopSci, Esquire, American Photo and Lucky Peach.
Organic Hashtags and Branded Content By Alex Samuely
As large and small brands alike fight for domination of social media applications such as Twitter, marketers should focus on dispersing new content via promoted hashtags that feature organic messages and authentic consumer reactions to keep buzz trending and entice more users to join the conversation. Fast food chain Burger King recently saw significant social media frenzy surrounding the promoted hashtag for its announcement of the return of the beloved Chicken Fries product, #ChickenFriesAreBack. However, although the hashtag was paid for and promoted on Twitter, the success stemmed from users’ joyful responses that permeated the feed, suggesting that other brands should follow this model of leveraging a promoted hashtag while focusing on the organic and authentic feedback from consumers. “When it comes to spreading the word about products or services, leveraging a mix of both brand-created and organically-developed hashtags are ideal,” said Elaine Feeney, president and CEO of Wayin, Denver, CO. “Regardless of how these originate, both require an engagement strategy integrated across paid, owned and earned media. ‘Hashtags are an excellent way to create and track a conversation,” she said. “The key concept for a hashtag is to surface a relevant topic and encourage broader audience interest and participation.
“The challenge with using hashtags is that they often are not part of an overarching marketing strategy or campaign leaving marketers unable to drive the business results desired.”
Maximizing impact Brands must also be respectful of trending hashtags that are not directly related to their products or services. While it may be tempting to jump on the bandwagon of a trending item or piece of news, marketers should ensure that users will find it relevant instead of intrusive. “Generally users want to maximize their impact/reach, and being able to follow an existing hashtag that a brand started and put some effort behind is the best way to go for that social media user,” said Dennis O’Malley, CEO and cofounder of ReadyPulse, San Carlos, CA. “Same for a brand, the last thing they should do is ‘hijack’ an organic trending hashtag. “It’s always important to know what other hashtags are being used along with others’ hashtags - too bad there isn’t a “hashtag buddy’ app in Twitter to view that.” However, if a brand is not able to purchase a promoted hashtag, one solution for ramping up awareness may be
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leveraging a live event and compiling a clever post or video to share with social media users. Creating organic mobile moments is imperative, and can see widespread success if done correctly.
When the Internet went into a full-fledged frenzy regarding the color of a dress that went viral several weeks ago, retailers such as Amazon and JCPenney immediately joined the conversation on #TheDress trending hashtag by making jokes about their own blue and gold-colored garments for sale (see story). “A content creator wants to stand out and generally not be part of a larger crowd that may not be focused on quality content,” Mr. O’Malley said. “Smaller brands have a great opportunity to find great content creators - seed Twitter or Instagram hashtags through them, then join the conversation.
social calls to action or other conversion-driving activities that encourage consumers to interact with your brand in a meaningful way,” Ms. Feeney said. “For example, retailers might ask customers who have recently purchased a product to send a picture or comment (using certain hashtags).
“Then, the retailer can feature the best UGC on their Web site or on an in-store display. Some retailers take it a bit further to show the top submissions on their Web site or in-store display and request the public to vote on the best and offer a prize to the winners,” she said. “That really serves the ultimate business goal by building stronger brand awareness, driving people to your own site and creating a fan wheel effect of turning your loyal customers into personal marketers for your product.”
Final Take
“The best small brands in marketing are making their content shoppable and displaying the content across marketing channels.”
Social tactics For brands that do intend to engage in promoted hashtags, incorporating calls to action must be a top priority. In the case of Burger King, consumers posted their personal reactions to the return of Chicken Fries, from dramatic selfies to adoring photos of the food item (see story). These photos were then reposted by the brand and helped turn the promoted hashtag into an organic one, filled with engaging mobile moments. “To get the most out of social media marketing, brand marketers should integrate social tactics such as hashtag use with proven marketing strategies that drive results, including
Alex Samuely is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York
Hermès CEO:
Heritage brands must adapt to remain relevant
By Sarah Jones
FLORENCE, Italy – Since its founding in 1837, Hermès has had to adapt to changing times, requiring a balance of modernity with tradition, according to the brand’s CEO at the Condé Nast International Luxury Conference April 22.
Creativity also comes into play in hiring. The company gets graduates of marketing programs sending in resumes for marketing positions, but they are typically more interested in intuition than formal schooling.
Helping it remain a presence over the years has been Hermès’ willingness to embrace new methods of communication and adapt its existing craftsmanship when working with what materials are available. As technology evolves, luxury brands must take the lead in a way which maintains their core values and aesthetic.
As a public company, Hermès does use its financial results as a tool to measure its performance, but it ensures that this only plays into its logical decision making, rather than which creative approach it takes.
“No matter how prestigious or old you are, you need to be relevant to your time to continue to exist,” said Axel Dumas, CEO of Hermès.
Hermès’ creativity also manifests through the brand’s digital presence, where it looks to have an unmistakable concept and presence.
Adapt and evolve
For instance, the brand sent out a team of “Super H” scarves to patrol the night skies in a new social video.
During World War I, Hermès was sent by France to buy leather. However, the horse leather it previously used was not available in the United States, which only carried cow. Responding to necessity, the brand worked with what it could find. This adaptive spirit continued as Jean-Louis Dumas took over the company from his father in the 1970s. The new chairman opened up communication to consumers, creating the house’s first advertising campaign, which showed a woman wearing one of its scarves with a pair of jeans. During this time, Hermès also extended its global footprint beyond its home in Paris. Now decades later, Hermès has a presence on every continent except Antarctica, with stores in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia and China, as well as more established countries. The brand balances its investment between the newer and longtime locations. “Don’t forget your existing market—it has been there so long, you should cherish it,” Mr. Dumas said. As it grows, Hermès is consistent in its artistic approach to everything from communications to design, creating an atmosphere of freedom for its creatives. Mr. Dumas said that every company has its own style, and it is important to stick with that particular aesthetic.
Looking ahead
The collection of scarves depict aerial scenes with an Hermès riff on the Batman distress signal, the quintessential circle punctuating the sky with a trail of light leading to its source. The French brand has been unrelenting with its quirky and charming social videos and interactive content this year. Hermès’ efforts, according to Mr. Dumas, are less focused on selling product than showing off its artistic side. The house is currently celebrating the art of exploration and urban meandering with an exhibit at Saatchi Gallery in London. Opened April 9, Wanderland features a curation of objects pulled from the Hermès archives and positioned to form a “cabinet of curiosities” that references Parisian-inspired scenes. This exhibit celebrates Hermès’ Parisian heritage while also showing the brand’s singular point of view and adoration for the unpredictable. With all of its efforts, Hermès is planning for the future. “We are not there for the desire of existing client—we are there to create the desire of tomorrow,” Mr. Dumas said. Sarah Jones is staff reporter on Luxury Daily, New York. Her beats are apparel and accessories, government, home furnishings, legal and privacy, nonprofits and retail.
Engagement Secret Sauce: Learn From Social Networks to Attract and Keep Audiences for Yourself By Jordan Kretchmer
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Social networks have become an uphill battle for marketers. They’re literally addictive to consumers, who now spend 40+ minutes on social media every day. But for marketers, who now face a sea of competing content and little to no unpaid reach, social networks are simply no longer the most effective way to reach those consumers. So a growing number of marketers are beginning to rethink social networks, and many are driving traffic to their own websites and mobile apps instead. Bringing your audience home has huge advantages. Consumers who want to stay in touch with your brand are nearly three times more likely to visit your website than to engage with you on Facebook. And the more time a consumer spends on your properties—whether shopping, discovering, or researching products—translates into a longer, stronger relationship between that consumer and your brand, according to a study from Kantar Media. So how do you make your own properties as captivating as a social network? Here are four ways they do it, and how you can, too...
1. Content fuels everything The top reason consumers visit social networks is to find great content, especially stuff that’s either entertaining or informative, a study by Millward Brown and Tumblr found. And, from brands, consumers want news, product offers, and entertainment, a study from Ogilvy found. So make your website a consumer destination for content— not just about your brand but about anything relevant to your audience. You don’t have to write it all yourself. Supplement your original content with curated content from experts and customers.
2. If it’s not real time, then it’s stale Part of what makes social networks so addicting is the constant flow of fresh content. We can’t predict what will be in our feeds the next time we log in, so we’re constantly tempted to log in and see what’s new. If your website and mobile app always look the same, your audience has no reason to come back. People are talking about your brand in real time already, and if your fans see your site as a real-time destination, they’ll come straight to you for the latest updates. So integrate realtime content across your website, marketing, and advertising campaigns. Your entire homepage doesn’t need to showcase every tweet and Vine video about your brand, but you should have at least some content that updates in real time.
3. Don’t just give them something to look at, give them something to do Strangely, one of the most basic elements of social networks remains one of the most prominent features that sets them apart: engagement. When you’re browsing Facebook or
Pinterest, you don’t just look at content—you actually interact with it by sharing, liking, commenting, favoriting, etc. Social networks don’t have a patent on that technology. You can invest in engagement apps on your own properties. Things like polls, reviews, comments, and chats allow visitors to engage with your site the same way they would a social network. And social apps like media walls and trending widgets pull UGC (user-generated content) from social networks and give fans a way to interact with it directly from your site. In fact, 88% of companies that implemented real-time, social applications onto their sites increased user engagement as a result, a Livefyre study found.
4. Foster connections between people What is the one word that the mission statements for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, and even Tinder have in common? “Connect.” They connect people who have things in common. So, although it’s important to give people ways to connect with your brand (they want that, too), you can make their online experience even more meaningful if you also provide a way for them to connect with each other. When Sony PlayStation* announced the PS4, for example, it drove all of its ad traffic to a social hub, GreatnessAwaits. com. But Greatness Awaits wasn’t just a newsroom for all the latest updates on the new console and games; it was designed to be the go-to community for gamers to share in each other’s excitement. They could chat with each other about the upcoming release; upload in-game screenshots and videos; see real-time Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and Facebook posts from other fans; and even see what games were trending globally on different social networks. PS4 outsold its nearest competitor by a 2:1 margin, and Greatness Awaits became so popular with fans that PlayStation continues to use it as a social fan destination. *** Social media is now officially a decade old. The industry is maturing, and marketing strategies need to evolve with it. Social media marketing no longer lives exclusively on social media. It needs to exist everywhere a consumer is interacting with your brand, whether on your website, in store, or in your advertising campaigns. In 2015, it’s important to start thinking holistically about your social engagement strategy. Social networks were just the beginning. *Sony Playstation is a Livefyre customer.
Jordan Kretchmer is the founder and CEO of Livefyre, a real-time content marketing platform used by global media companies and brands to engage consumers via real-time content, conversation, and social curation.
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The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing
The Art of the Pitch: Persuasion and Presentation Skills that Win Business
By Emanuel Rosen
By Peter Coughter Peter Coughter presents the tools he designed to help advertising and marketing professionals develop persuasive presentations that deliver business. Readers will learn how to hone their individual natural presentation style, how to organize a powerful presentation, how to harness the elegant power of simplicity, how to truly connect with an audience, how to rehearse effectively, and most importantly, how to win.
The Anatomy of Buzz, written by former marketing VP Emanuel Rosen, pinpoints the products and services that benefit the most from buzz and offers specific strategies for creating and sustaining effective word-of-mouth strategies.
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die By Chip Heath, Dan Heath
Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity
Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”
By Avinash Kaushik
Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
By Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz
Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say “yes”—and how to apply these understandings. Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.
In Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi lays out the specific steps—and inner mindset—he uses to reach out to connect with the thousands of colleagues, friends, and associates on his contacts list, people he has helped and who have helped him. The rise of social media and new, collaborative management styles have only made Ferrazzi’s advice more essential for anyone hoping to get ahead in business.
Web Analytics 2.0 presents a new framework that will permanently change how you think about analytics. It provides specific recommendations for creating an actionable strategy, applying analytical techniques correctly, solving challenges such as measuring social media and multichannel campaigns, achieving optimal success by leveraging experimentation, and employing tactics for truly listening to your customers.
By Robert B. Cialdini
Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
By Jeffrey Gitomer Salespeople hate to read. That’s why Little Red Book of Selling is short, sweet, and to the point. It’s packed with answers that people are searching for in order to help them make sales for the moment— and the rest of their lives.
By Cal Newport In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawedpreexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping.
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C/ID: Visual Identity and Branding for the Arts By Angus Hyland, Emily King
How Brands Become Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding
Following the explosion of identity design in the arts and the reinvention of the art gallery/ museum as a brand, this book provides a survey of recent and current design work for cultural clients, including galleries, museums, theaters and auditoriums. Thirty international case studies clearly express what good design can do to improve the fortunes and/or images of an institution.
By D. B. Holt
Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: The Classic Guide to Creating Great Ads
Advertising Concept Book (Second Edition)
By Luke Sullivan, Sam Bennett (Contributor)
In creative advertising, no amount of glossy presentation will improve a bad idea. That’s why this dedicated to the first and most important lesson: concept. Structured to provide both a complete course on advertising and a quick reference on particular topics, it covers every aspect of the business, from how to write copy and learn the creative process to how agencies work and the different strategies used for all types of media.
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This has inspired a generation of ad students, copywriters, and young creatives to make their mark in the industry. But students need new guidance to ply their craft now in the digital world. This new fourth edition explains how to bring brand stories into interactive, dynamic places online, in addition to traditional television, radio, print, and outdoor ads.
Based on extensive historical analyses of some of America’s most successful iconic brands, including ESPN, Mountain Dew, Volkswagen, Budweiser, and Harley-Davidson, this book presents the first systematic model to explain how brands become icons. Douglas B. Holt shows how iconic brands create “identity myths” that, through powerful symbolism, soothe collective anxieties resulting from acute social change.
By Pete Barry
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
By Clay Shirky
By Nicholas Carr
For decades, technology encouraged people to squander their time and intellect as passive consumers. Today, tech has finally caught up with human potential. In Cognitive Surplus, Internet guru Clay Shirky forecasts the thrilling changes we will all enjoy as new digital technology puts our untapped resources of talent and goodwill to use at last.
Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. As he describes how human thought has been shaped through the centuries by “tools of the mind” from the alphabet to maps, to the printing press, the clock, and the computer Carr interweaves a fascinating account of recent discoveries in neuroscience by such pioneers as Michael Merzenich and Eric Kandel.
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other
The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition
By Sherry Turkle Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But, as MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle argues, this relentless connection leads to a new solitude. Alone Together is the result of Turkle’s nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain.
By Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, McKee Jake The Cluetrain Manifesto began as a Web site (cluetrain.com) in 1999 when the authors, who have worked variously at IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Linux Journal, and NPR, posted 95 theses about the new reality of the networked marketplace. Ten years after its original publication, their message remains more relevant than ever.