Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The Chiquita banana sticker has long been iconic.
 
Dole and Del Monte always had stickers on their bananas but they didn't have the foresight to use them as form of pop-art expression like Chiquita did. The commemorative stickers Chiquita created for the 1980 Winter Olympics are a great example of this. Tapping into a huge sports event was standard stuff for beer and potato chips thirty years ago, but for a fruit company? It stood out in a big way.
 
According to Chiquita, the inspiration for all this came from what people did with the stickers after they ate the banana. Some clever mind in marketing decided the brand could travel far beyond the kitchen if they made the stickers fun or even collectibles. Kids would affix them to their school notebooks and toddlers to their foreheads.
 
Flash forward to 2010. The idea for this latest installment in the Chiquita sticker tradition was simple: give each banana a personality.
 
And they look great. Created by Art Director DJ Neff, most come in the form of graphic faces that take their design cues from Japanese anime or skateboard culture. Others come in the form of meaningless platitudes like "Be Your Own Banana." And you can also design your own custom stickers, (Mr. Potato Head-style) at EatAChiquita.com.
 
All in keeping with the tradition.
 
Dave Sylvestre

Since the recall of 12 vehicles beginning January 26, the volume of discussion in social media around Toyota has grown significantly and sentiment is trending extremely negative. This drop in sentiment was a leading indicator of sales which fell 8.7% YOY in February.

So far they have taken the appropriate steps with traditional PR and have web page addressing the recall, but I have not seen as much engagement in social media as I would have expected. There have been few tweets or facebook posts in response to the numerous comments. Toyota shut down their corporate blog "Open Road" several months ago. Although it was not getting much traffic, it would have been a great forum for discussion with customers right now.


AdAge recently reported that Toyota has established a social media response team consisting of "six to eight people monitoring the online conversation and responding at all times." Toyota is reaching out to advocates by retweeting and reposting their positive content.

In addition Toyota is partnering with Federated Media to host a branded channel called "Toyota Conversations" on TweetMeme. As TechCrunch noted, the feed looks mostly positive signaling that they might be pulling in the more "friendlier ones."

But is that enough to help flip the negative sentiment? Turning that negativity isn't something Toyota can do overnight. It's going to take time to regain that trust and loyalty. They are headed in the right direction by dedicating a full-time staff to respond. And Doug Frisbie, Toyota Motor Sales USA's national social media and marketing integration manager, seems to be the right guy heading it all up. He understands that listening to customers is key. In time, however, you need to take your engagement beyond listening. Here are some more ideas that could help regain that trust and bring back loyalty:

1. Take Customer Service to Twitter. Set up a Twitter customer service channel specifically to answer customer's questions about their vehicles

2. Utilize Your Dealers. Set up a Twitter channel where dealers can also join in and help promote the company's good faith in trying to repair the problems. Best Buy has done something similar with their Geek Squad Twelpforce.

3. Open the Dialogue. Allow customers to post feedback, questions or concerns on Toyota's Recall site. Toyota could engage in meaningful dialogue right on its own site.

We can see how all three could be seemingly scary for the brand. But engaging -- carefully and honestly -- is the only way to help shift that negative sentiment. How do you think Toyota should be engaging with customers right now?

Russ Hopinkson
Sarah Jo Sautter

UK-based clothing brand FCUK is offering $250 worth of clothing to anyone who can successfully seduce a woman on ChatRoulette.

While many will look at this and see a distasteful stunt, the brand is doing a good job of connecting with its hard to influence target demographic. It's difficult to overstate the importance of a brand being social in an unobtrusive, relevant way. People are talking about the contest online and offline and that's precisely the type of conversation that moves merchandise.

There's a tendency today to simply push out a Facebook fan page and call it a day. This approach can be harmful for brands that don't have the content or creative tactics to support their presence. It may also be harmful for Facebook as it moves from a closed money losing startup to an open money making advertising platform.  

If you want people to use their personal networks to promote your brand, you need to find a way to be relevant to the conversation. Social media strategy is not a formulae -- two parts Facebook one part Twitter -- it needs to be different for every brand.

Whether ChatRoulette will grow into something more than a meme is beside the point. It's hot now and FCUK is bringing something to the party.

Dan Neumann

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joewilcox

Fact and Fiction Behind the Fickle Teen Girl Demographic
When it comes to reaching teen girls online, traditional marketing efforts are as relevant as MySpace. They're not only a bundle of contradictions, they're still building their identities and moving among these different identities every day.

This target audience -- let's call her Caitlyn -- changes identities as often as she changes ringtones on her phone. At 13-years-old, Caitlyn has several different online identities: a scholastic identity, a church identity and others for volunteering, family time and, of course, her BFFs. So who's Caitlyn? She's all of these and more. How can you possibly craft long-term marketing campaigns around that? The situation gets more complicated: Three years from now, just when you thought you had her figured out, she turns 16 and the process starts all over again.

Our research into this fickle communications target has uncovered many insights.

For one, many marketers believe a teen girl is hyper-connected, that she's always online sharing everything -- including the good, bad and ugly about your company. But brands rarely enter teen girls' minds unless they are top fashion brands. Truth be told, they're much more preoccupied with their own social activities than marketing messages.

Teens are also believed to be early adopters of the latest technology tools. While this is true to a degree, teen girls are also insecure, so purchasing decisions don't always come down to the latest, greatest products. Caitlyn, for example, spent an hour in the Verizon store before deciding on a pink Razr instead of the Sony Ericsson W580i. Why? She trusts the Razr and she doesn't want people to think she's trying too hard to look cool.

Another fallacy is that teen girls need constant stimulation due to attention deficiencies. The assumption is they're almost all doing something else while they browse and that they leave sites they find too difficult to figure out. Yes, they multitask, but it's because they're so busy balancing homework and social lives; doing five things at once makes them feel they have a semblance of control.

And while many believe this generation is more socially concerned than any other generation, some teens are not ardent social activists. Many are not quite ready to abandon their fast-food lifestyle, so social posturing plays a small part in some teens' altruistic tendencies.

Lastly, it's widely believed that teen girls can filter information they find online, but this isn't always the case -- especially when it comes to information regarding mental, sexual and general health issues. She might end up on Yahoo Answers or WebMD, but Caitlyn is also guilty of Googling her health questions, which leaves her susceptible to misinformation.

Given the realities, here are some best practices for marketers:

1. See teen girls as social entrepreneurs and create a cause. While parents may no longer be the targets of teen rebellion, harmfully perceived ideas/organizations/ brands are. Teens want to make a difference and are susceptible to cause marketing because of their generation's innate altruistic sensibilities. The key is to incorporate charitable campaigns within the context of their day-to-day lives, so marketers can capitalize on teens that are genuinely interested in social issues and those posturing with personal gains in mind.

2. Unless you're Coach, Apple or Juicy, understand that as a brand, you're mostly irrelevant. When it comes to fashion, they're conscious of wanting to associate themselves with leading brands, but have little time for anyone else. If you don't help with teen girls' personal image, then they want to know, "What can you do for me?"

3. Plan to lose them and have a strategy to reclaim them. Rarely will you find loyalty with this target. You will lose them -- probably more than once. The trick is to find new strategies to bring them back.

4. Enable digital schizophrenia. We call this the "thousand points of light" approach to marketing. Choice leads to fragmentation and teen girls love to try new things, though not necessarily purchase them. The best marketers help facilitate this rapid form of marketing prototyping by offering teen girls free samples and online demonstrations to help them envision how the product fits into their busy lives. Just remember it's not about you, but what you're enabling the teens to do.

5. Don't forget mom and dad: Sometimes they're your real target audience. Sixty-three percent of teens say they go to parents/guardians for information on health and nutrition, according to the Scarborough Kids Internet Panel's Teen Health Perceptions Study.

Marita Scarfi

Editor's Note: This piece also appeared in Adweek.

Life Beyond Facebook
Carnegie-Mellon professor and game developer, Jesse Schell, offers an extremely insightful and thoughtful perspective on how Facebook and "reality-based" social platforms are going to affect our lives as consumers and marketers.

His conclusion, everything we do will be part of a game wherein we earn points toward rewards (social, virtual and real). Brush your teeth? +10 points! Walk to work? +100! Someone link syncs with your Tattoogle AdSense tattoo? +500!

He believes "...It's possible that they'll inspire us to be better people -- if the game systems are designed right."

Do you find yourself --- consciously or unconsciously -- altering your behavior based on virtual rewards?

Thanks to James Vreeland for the link.

Sam Cannon

Someone [Case-Mate] finally came out with a phone case I would be proud to carry around. They've taken some of the more current designers/artists and given users access to their color and design palette. You can get addicted pretty quick to creating some cool phone cases.

With that said, I do have to admit I like the site experience as well. I dig the animation transitions (slick, organic, and smart). The toolset is pretty user friendly too. Though I wish I could create an object and then grab and move it around on the phone case to get it more exact. Seemed to me this function would be step number one in building out the tools.

Enjoy! And let us know what you make.

Casey Riggleman

image adapted from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackol/

There's long been a war in the cola arena between Coca-Cola and Pepsi and the battle to win the heartiest social fan base will be the next interesting milestone to unfold between the two.

A UK blog reported that Coke is devoting more to their social marketing efforts this year. Specifically it's focusing on community platforms such as Facebook and YouTube. And Pepsi said no to Super Bowl ads this year in favor of a $20 million social media budget.

Pepsi's money is going towards a grassroots program they're calling Pepsi Refresh. It not only hopes to build a community online, the company plans to sponsor thousands of local efforts. Pepsi has six professional ambassadors that have already accomplished something significant in their category (health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the planet, neighborhoods, education). They write posts for the site to inspire readers to submit ideas and discuss. Pepsi's capping the idea submissions at 1000 each month -- maybe to encourage fair voting, maybe to help them manage the submissions?

Though this isn't PepsiCo's first attempt at social. They launched the DEWmocracy campaign in 2007 as a crowdsourcing effort to develop a new product. Now they're doing it again using 12seconds.tv, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Nike is moving more towards social media as well. To play off the current "Deny Destiny" TV spot,  Organic filmed exclusive interviews with players and redesigned the Canadian site to include Facebook, Twitter and YouTube components. Nike also enlisted Steve "Dangle" Glynn, a popular hockey blogger and YouTube personality, to blog and tweet about the World Juniors.

For the Olympics, NikeTraining rolled-out the Nike TwitterStream for each athlete for each event. On each athlete page -- while they compete -- there's relevant tweets for fans to follow while they watch the games. You can participate by using designated hashtags.   

Creative Director Elliott Smith says their redesigned Canadian site "is meant to be just one part of visitors' online experience, rather than the hub. Comments for the videos are duplicated on Facebook, because that's where the target market 'lives and breathes every day,'"

Colleague Karri Ojanen doesn't think brands should rely singly on social media to connect with their customers. "The clients and agencies who can think of their decisions in terms of not just the individual tools, but the whole toolkit, and put it together with their own unique situation are the ones who will win. Coke's Prinz Pinakatt and Unilever's Cheryl Calverley seem to both understand that. They're not completely doing away with sites, but recognize the need to emphasize connections instead of a fairly static campaign property."

Sandy Marsh struggles "with there being any division anymore. The whole of the internet is social. What would be revolutionary is a brand that obliterates the divide rather than chooses one side or the other. I'm not saying I know quite how that can be done, but..."

Craig Ritchie agrees that brands will "benefit from moving away from the old model of buying traffic for short-term experiences," but thinks these examples still seem "like channel-based thinking." Brands that continue to adapt to consumer behavior rather than trying to interrupt it with messaging will be the ones to attract and sustain the fans. Starbucks, LEGO, Toyota and Dell (just to name a few) are already looking at the digital experience holistically. And these -- so far -- are the strongest in social media.
 
So who will win the social cola war? It might not be a clear cut champion. One might reign on Facebook, while the other might top Twitter. But really, it's how they use those tools and what (besides fans) that they hope to gain. As Forrester puts it, Pepsi "is putting Social Media to work for a higher goal--making the world a better place and associating the brand with that vision." They are taking social media seriously and thinking about the bigger picture.

Do you think companies are smart to devote more dollars to social?

Sarah Jo Sautter
 

Usually I'm railing against brands for not investing enough in content. But today, I'm railing against those who already have it...publishers. You've captured the audience with your content, but more and more, the key to profitability seems to be the offering of services for your readers.

The discussion over what services tie in with publications continues. As put forth in this article at PaidContent.org, many think hyper-local sites can offer advertisers a tighter link to their target customers through improved SEO presence and dissection of social communities. Sounds complicated.

But it's pretty simple. Content's value is fleeting, like the value of food at a party. If we all showed up because you had hot-off-the-grill spareribs and came away with a new job, friendship, a boat or a coupon for meat (especially if we were looking for these things), we're all more likely to come back next time -- even if you only have day-old meatloaf.

In fact, the services you provide are proving to be as critical to success as the content that brought the audience in. Want proof? Let's imagine some truly piping hot content.

Let's say on an old roll of film, I found a picture of Barack Obama at a party. He's younger and dressed like WWF superstar Hacksaw Jim Duggan. After hours of music and drink, our future president is mugging for the camera while beating up John Boehner (dressed as Nikolai Volkoff) and John Roberts (Iron Shiek).

So now I've got this of our President hammering the House minority leader and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with a piece of lumber and Old Glory.

Truly, this is a hot piece of content -- perhaps the hottest ever in many ways. I could do pretty much anything with it -- $100k from CNN or simply pasting it to my mailbox -- and eventually everyone on Earth will likely see this photo.

Even in this exception case, I can't rely on the content for business sucess. Chances are, I don't have another great politicians as wrestler photo (Joe Biden as Ric Flair?). So my once hot audience-grabber is now just a footnote in the 2010 Year in Review.

If, however, my photo debuts as the focal piece of content for a new WWF-classic-wrestler fan community or the Tea Party -- this content becomes the fuel for an ongoing business, with an offering of related services. I can find others who love wrestling. I can sign a petition to get these wrestlers out of Washington. Some of that audience will come back time and time again.

Looking for a real-world model? Edmunds.com -- my former employer -- springs to mind. While many sites have auto reviews to attract users, Edmunds offers endless services -- True Market Value pricing tools, to accurately price your current vehicle; a community for car lovers; real-time incentives updates; get-a-quote tools to negotiate with dealers without being on the lot...just to name a few. Not to mention, as in the story linked above, advertisers can target very specific segments of the auto buying public at the moment they are considering a vehicle.

They lure you in with great content and keep you by offering you services you need. Not surprising that Edmunds has thrived even during this downturn in auto sales -- nearly completely online.

It's right there for the taking to any site with a large audience. You just need to figure out what the audience could truly use. And a picture of the President pinning a future political adversary and chief justice wouldn't hurt, either.

--Mike Hudson

image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beauteous/

Consumers Are Choosing Life
In advertising, campaigns - series of messages that share a single idea and theme - have for decades been the central concept for forming promotional activities.

The advertising industry has been rooted in the idea of the campaign - that is what agencies, by and large, do. And campaigns come and go, while a few overarching themes in them are constantly refreshed with new pieces of creative.

Now, even as ad agencies have been migrating into the digital space, most of them have continued to approach what they do through the idea of a campaign. And the idea of a campaign is the idea of ups and downs. When the campaign is running, there's media in the market, and the audience grows. But as soon as the media ceases or as soon as all the people have seen the campaign, the audience breaks up and drives off. And then the agency and the client are on to the next campaign. That's what the entire advertising business has largely been about.

But those who see the future of this business in the digital age are starting to see the rise of platforms. Platforms that are built to last. Platforms don't necessarily go into the market with a bang, with lots of media buy, but they grow over time. Platforms are rooted in utility, and they provide something that the customer, the audience, will feel like using, and using again and again. The best and most pervasive platforms become a part of the audience's lives. They're more like services and tools than a 30-second spot or a clever billboard ad.

And when the platform encourages the audience to create and distribute their own content and when it aggregates it from various sources, it then becomes a media engine for the advertiser. The content, the comments, and overall enthusiasm from the audience feeds back into the platform, which can then churn out the content back to the audience again. And that content is much more real, much more authentic than traditional advertising material, because it comes from the audience itself. That content is what is called earned media.

The most well-known example of this kind of platform is the Nike+ which Adweek awarded as the Digital Campaign of the Decade (noting the irony).

The problem with these platforms to many in the advertising and media buy+sell industry is that they don't match the idea that we've had for so long of what is advertising. To envision, design and develop these platforms, it takes a different kind of a team, a different set of talent than what's been used in traditional advertising. And it takes a different mindset. The way that people consume media, the way that they connect, is now driven much more by technology than it was before. To develop platforms, a new breed of creative technologists need to get a real seat at the creative ideation table. And, perhaps even more importantly, to make sense of all the different connections, links and experiences across different technologies and devices, agencies need Experience Leads to replace the old definition of Creative Directors. It's an opportunity, rather than a threat, for all of us, whether we're coming from the "digital" or the "traditional" side, to grow and explore new things.

Sure, old style campaigns will most likely still be made for a good while, as this giant industry slowly changes, just like VHS tapes were sold for a time after the coming of the DVD. But forward thinking individuals, agencies and clients have started to realize the change that is taking place. And this change is driven by the consumer, the audience, who, ultimately, is our real source of income. If we lose the attention of that group, we lose our business.

Change is often scary, but think about it: wouldn't it be nice to get away from the ups and downs of the campaign era, and enter a new era of sustainable growth?

Karri Ojanen

Check this out: Nutella's top three Facebook fan pages gather more than 5 million Nutella spooners or spreaders and the numbers are growing exponentially. The main page is No. 3 on Facebook, on the heels of Barack Obama (No. 1) and Coca Cola (No. 2), and boasts 3.5 million fans. How's that for social media success and what are they doing right?
 
To be perfectly honest, nobody really knows.

People Are Talking
In 2008 Jennifer Laycock reported about Nutella's popularity at a blogging convention and not even a year later, Nutella was already No. 4 in the Facebooksphere. Today, Nutella's FB page is the talk of the town with the  Los Angeles Times, Brandweek and Creative Match. It's even become a case study in social media workshops (see slide 33 of this slideshow). So ... what's the fuss about?

Possible Reasons
Social media buzz experts credit Nutella's Facebook popularity to these characteristics:
1. It's European and people think Nutella is cool.
2. It reminds people of memories/trips to Europe.
3. It has such a unique taste. And oh yeah, it's too good to be true.
 
The Fans Take the Reins
The unbelievable part? The Nutella FB page was started by a fan. Not Nutella. Nutella only spent $300,000 on marketing (not even social marketing) in 2008 so clearly, they're just happy when sales go up. Some see this as a shocking example of a brand ignoring its online community.

Sounds like the only online marketing effort of Nutella USA has been an online sweepstakes (that I shamelessly entered) to win a case of Nutella. All you need to do is answer 5 basic questions about your Nutella consumer habits. The survey has been online for 2 years. What are they getting out of it? I, for one, hope to get a case of Nutella.
 
Yes a case, and I'll eat it. I'm a die-hard Nutella lover. When I buy Nutella, it's actually by the case. I have the official Nutella cookbook on my bookshelves. I use an empty 10-lb jar of Nutella to store my sugar. My 4-year-old will only eat Nutella on toast for breakfast. And if I needed an excuse to spread the word, the Nutella World Day is today. Now, I should probably become a fan of Nutella's FB page too and do my share to contribute to Nutella's fan-fueled online popularity.

Are you a fan? Tell us why.

Laure Latham Guyot