Why Do People Follow Brands?

This week we’ve look at a more content based theme: Why do people follow brands? What makes them engage.

Studies show that the majority of consumers who engage with a brand in a digital space tend to purchase the product and make recommendations to friends and family.

•  Over 97% of people say that social media has influenced their decision to make a purchase of a brand or product.
• Over 23% of people have downloaded a branded app onto their mobile devise.
• Over 18% of people follow a brand on Facebook for interesting and entertaining content.
• Over 22% of people follow a brand on Twitter for interesting and entertaining content

But why get involved?  Most companies have a Facebook fan page but I’ve chosen a few examples that have recently stood out from the crowd to gain attention and make people want to actively follow them. It is worth mentioning that in general consumers get something in return – games, chat or updates, becoming a two-way communication between the consumer and company.

Skittles, ‘Rock Paper Scissors’:

Skittles have introduced a new banner across the internet advertising their brand.  Although it’s an idea that we’ve seen many times before, it does prove that simplicity works. By clicking and playing the game, the link takes users straight to ‘like’ their Facebook page. This method works to increase Skittles fans in an easy, effective manner. Essentially consumers actively choose to get involved. In turn, Skittles can update members with news and events.

McDonalds, Burger Roulette:

People got involved with the brand by activating their webcam and measuring the size of their mouth. Then a burger was recommended for  the user. The person could like or post this to their wall, inviting others to join. One lucky person a month would be sent a coupon for a burger!

Honest Tea, ‘The Honest Store’:

The aim? To increase Honest Tea’s distribution in America.

To grab consumer’s attention Honest Tea created a part guerrilla stunt, part social experiment. ‘The Honest Store,’ was a pop-up shop stocked with ice cold Honest Tea with nothing but a money box and a sign requesting “$1.00 on the Honor System”, testing the honesty of six cities across America. Then, with hidden cameras in place, photos and video content from each city were collected, revealing the results through social media. The story proved to be media gold, and the tea brand is now well on its way to being a household name in America.

BMW, ‘Flash Projection’:

A recent cinema spot by BMW in Germany used flash projection technology to leave a more lasting impression of the brand’s logo in the audience’s minds. Flash projection technology allowed BMW to reproduce the effect of looking up at the sun, or seeing a bright flash of light. Once you close your eyes, the contours of that light slowly fade away, leave the sun’s silhouette seemingly ‘on your mind’.

GU, ‘The Great GU Drum Off’:

GU created a giant drum set and invited passers to play. They ran the videos on Youtube and ran a competition to see which participant was most popular. The winner won a Virgin Experience Voucher. People were attracted to the brand and ‘liked’ their Facebook page in order to keep up to date with news and competitions.

Burberry, ‘Bright Foldable Glasses’:

The fashion label has launched a YouTube channel take over experience with an unexpected twist to promote its new Eyewear collection The page becomes interactive, allowing users to select different colours and watch engaging videos, then to go on and purchase the product.

Snoop Dogg, ‘Shop Snoop Now’:

Snoop Dogg made headlines recently for the progressive group deals he runs from his Facebook page’s “Shop Snoop Now” ecommerce tab. Each day, one product is featured for a special group deal – the more “Likes” the product gets, the lower the price for the product.

Curry’s and PC World, ‘Your Moment’:

The ‘Your Moment’ campaign has launched online offering people the chance to win Panasonic cameras and camcorders and a top prize of £5,000 by uploading their favourite summer moment. Online ads and video direct users to the brands’ Facebook page and encouraging them to upload their own pictures. Participants share with friends to get to vote a weekly winner for a new Panasonic camera or camcorder. The overall winner will receive £5,000. Essentially, a great, fun way of engaging consumers.

Finally… The anti-use of Facebook!

Sundek: ‘Unplug Yourself’

Surfing  has become hard to follow with too many distractions and too little time. Sundek had an unconventional idea to persuade people to log out of Facebook, aiming to increase the number of people surfing instead. Participants logged out of Facebook for a month which was monitored by an application for inactivity. The winner gained a week of surfing lessons in Malibu. There were 8500 participants  and 98000 visits to the webpage.

AN INTERESTING STAT!

How many brands do people follow on Facebook? Percent of respondents:

1 – 2.01%

2-5 – 53.47%

5-10 – 21.2%

10 or more – 13.32%

Happy Friday!

Loella

Branded Mobile Apps

This week we are going to have a look at a couple of branded apps that deliver an engaging mobile experience.

According to new statistics from analytics firm Flurry, the average mobile user now spends 81 minutes per day on mobile apps compared to 74 minutes spent surfing the Web (both desktop and mobile). This is the first time that mobile apps usage overtakes surfing according to the source.

So with mobile apps becoming a more and more important part of our daily lives, many brands are now trying to profit from this opportunity of engaging consumers.

The Lynx Stream

Lynx have recently launched a mobile app that allows users to track all their mobile activity on a big night out. The app acts as an aggregator by compiling tweets, Facebook posts, photos, videos, texts and check-ins onto the stream, giving users the option to generate a cool video at the end. The idea behind the app is innovative and by allowing users to re-live unforgettable nights out, the brand successfully generates an engaging and unique experience.

 

Pringles: The Crunch Band

Another great example of a truly innovative mobile app comes from Pringles. Their Crunch Band app allows users to play a selection of different instruments and works by using the accelerometer to make different sounds. The app allows users to plug it in to packets of Pringles that then act as a loud speaker. In addition, there are added bonuses for scanning the bar code of Pringle packs to unlock new features and badges inside the app.  The app is a really smart way of engaging with consumers and linking the Pringles brand with the music festival season this year.

 

NikeID

The NikeID Store app allows consumers to customise shoes on the go. The app is very clever and has a bunch of cool features such as point-n-shoot which allows users to take photos and use the selected colour palettes from photos to customise sets of shoes.  The app also allows the sharing of designs with friends via social networks, and consumers can purchase their custom made shoes straight from the app.

Zonacitas.com Singles Finder

Zonacitas.com, Argentina’s top dating website, has recently released the Singles Finders mobile app. The app aims to assist single people with finding the perfect date by telling users the exact amount of single people in different locations. This is an innovative and engaging app that will certainly create some buzz.

 

Pizza Express

The final app this week comes from Pizza Express. Their recently launched app offers a world first, by giving customers the option to pay their bill automatically through PayPal in restaurants around the UK. In addition, the app also enables customers to find and book a restaurant table, view menus, and store special offer codes and receipts. This is certainly a great and innovative mobile app that simplifies the paying process in Pizza Express restaurants.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTOR8RoETb4

 

Have a wicked Friday!

Alin

1 July – QR Codes

This week we are going to look at the original and exciting uses of QR codes as a means of engaging and enticing consumers.

There has been much interest lately in the use of QR codes in marketing and advertising campaigns. QR codes are a two-dimensional image encoded with information that is ‘decoded’ using a mobile phone application. The reader application reacts accordingly based on the patterns within the image, upon which a variety of functions can be performed, such as the display of an image, hyperlinking to specific URLs, linking to video content or simply just providing further contact information.

Diesel lets you ‘like’ products

First up is a lovely use of QR codes by Diesel. They discovered that lots of people partake in ‘liking’ products on Facebook in order to show to their friends what they are interested in; therefore they attempted to bring this online experience into their stores, with a little help from their friend the QR code.  When consumers would scan the QR code it would automatically “like” the product on their Facebook and post it to their wall, which would enable the shopper to get a discount on the product (which seems like a fair exchange for essentially advertising the product to your entire Facebook)

Tesco’s shopping experience

Similarly Tesco in South Korea has recently integrated QR codes into the shopping experience to engage with consumers. By scanning the QR code at the virtual Tesco stores in subways, the selected food items were automatically placed into the shopper’s online shopping cart, ready to be delivered to them at home. Through this campaign Tesco not only strengthens their mobile marketing arm but further promotes their tagline ‘every little helps’, making life simpler for the shopper. Genius! Take a look at the power of the QR code:

Petition for signatures

Another clever use of a QR code was used in France’s National Library as part of the’ take a stand again the death penalty’ campaign. The QR code was cleverly used to drive petition signatures instantly:

AXA  creates an attractice code

Here is an example of one the biggest and most beautiful QR codes created, for AXA which cleverly began a conversation with customers by driving users to their mobile site. Check out the cool multi-coloured code here:

As you can see QR codes can pretty much be used to display any kind of content so the possibilities for its use as a marketing tool are endless. However one major barrier for the use of QR codes in commonplace advertising is that mobile phones do not come with a QR code reader built in and therefore users need to download a reader in the first place- which although is free and fairly simple, may still serve as an issue that advertisers face.

Happy Friday,

Lauren

24 June – Facebook connect and Digital consumer engagement

This week we’re going to look at digital consumer engagement and how brands are engaging more and more with the consumer using Facebook connect.

With social media strategies becoming more complex we are seeing more and more customised videos which you can share with your friends and personalised apps using  Facebook connect functionality. There are queries about Facebook privacy but seeing yourself and your friends feature in ads is always appealing

Trip your face experience from Hotels.com

This new campaign from Hotels.com is really fun and quirky. They’ve created this rich customisable content experience called ‘Trip Your Face‘. Using the Elf yourself concept they’ve created 3 of ‘The Hangover’ type scenario where you wake up in hotel room in either New York, Las Vegas or Paris and have to play a video to see what you got up to last night.

Tripyourface.com

Mini Maps

Mini France has just launched a Social / Google Maps mash-up advergame called ‘Mini Maps‘. It’s a Facebook app that lets you customise a virtual MINI and then challenge Facebook friends to time trials around the world through a Google Maps mash-up, which basically has you racing your friends over satellite images of your favourite locations.

Nike and Graffiti challenge

This is a really nice campaign Nike Amsterdam created, to help youngsters get back into running. They launched the Nike+ mobile app in conjunction with a very cool Facebook app. But they also wanted people to connect offline and created the Nike run club and carried out Guerrilla and experiential marketing.

After identifying that youngsters think running is boring, Nike set out to make it a little more fun and socially rewarding. So they created a campaign called Nike Take Mokum, a social challenge that lets runners draw creative running routes over satellite maps through a Facebook app, before sending out challenges to friends to help complete them in the real world, through the Nike+ running app.

True Blood immortalise yourself

HBO have launched their latest digital campaign for season 4 of True Blood, creating a Facebook app called “Immortalize Yourself” that plays out a unique, customised video featuring you and your friends… You can choose who features in it, or let it pick randomly from your profile…

Although the Facebook connect functionality used here isn’t new it’s pretty well executed in this app.

Desperado Youtube take over

This final one I’ve included as I thought it was one of the best Youtube takeovers I’ve seen in a while, but also because fitting with the theme of this weeks post, integrates Facebook connect functionality as part of the experience.

The Youtube takeover for beer brand Desperados is different to most. It allows you to interact with the story with the slider but also socialises the whole of the expereince as brings your Facebook friends into the party by pulling photos in

Experience the take over

Happy Friday!

Lettie

10 June – Guerrilla Marketing

For this week’s post we’re going to take a tour through some of the best and most original guerrilla marketing campaigns of the past few years.

Guerrilla Marketing was invented as a way of promoting products and services without the need for big budgets or fancy equipment. All you need is a vivid imagination and a bit of time on your hands.  The aim is to provoke thought within the consumer, which in turn generates a buzz and excitement surrounding the brand in question.

The campaigns are usually positioned in locations to catch people by surprise, so at the train station or in the park. The idea is that when you’re not expecting an advert you’ll be more likely to enjoy it and process the message.

Here are some examples that you may find interesting…

True Blood Billboards

The TV series ‘True Blood’ set up these clever but quite chilling ads in New Zealand. Fans of the show will know that wooden stakes serve as the only weapon to successfully kill vampires; so the missing stakes are slightly unsettling!

Nivea ‘Goodbye Cellulite’ Sofa

These sofas were positioned around the ‘Miami Fashion Week’ event to promote Nivea’s ‘Goodbye Cellulite’ product. Using an everyday object to represent a skin issue has worked well in this case, especially the comparative aspect.

Caribou Coffee’s life sized oven

Caribou Coffee in Minneapolis designed bus shelters resembling ovens, to promote their ‘Hot n Wholesome’ menu range. The great thing is, these shelters also doubled up as commuter heaters – perfect for those cold winter months!

Honda Civic – Cereal Freebie

This imaginative campaign for Honda Civic in Canada was executed earlier in the year. It plays on the excitement we all had as children to find a free toy in our cereal packet. I’m pretty sure they’re not planning to give Hondas away, but the execution is great and it’s an eye catching and original idea.

  

Have a break, have a sit on a Kit Kat bench

Not a good place to sit if you’re feeling hungry! This Nestle Kit Kat bench shows the simple use of an everyday  object which fits the product perfectly.  With Kit Kat’s famous slogan ‘Have a break …have a Kit Kat’, what could be more appropriate than a bench?

Bus Stop Scales

The Dutch city of Rotterdam saw these rather humiliating bus shelters appear in 2009. If travellers wanted to sit down to wait for their bus they would be weighed by the hidden scales and their weight would appear on the screen for all to see. Yes, this may motivate people to join a gym, but humiliating people into joining your gym? I’m not sure if I’d want to give Fitness First my money after that…

Need a new BBQ?

These two are perhaps the simplest idea we’ve seen so far. At first glance these look exactly like barbeques. Once you realise they’re drains it prompts an element of disgust at the idea of grilling your food on a waste disposal area. This in turn might make you question whether your barbeque is in good shape. All in all, this is a really good example of minimal budget creating maximum impact in a campaign.

  

Unicef Dirty Water campaign

Guerrilla marketing can be used for a good cause as well; Unicef created a huge buzz, raised awareness and funds for their ‘Tap Project’ by setting up this dirty water machine in New York.  Check out the video here:

What do you think of these examples? Reckon they’d make you like a brand, or would you be more influenced by a big budget TV ad?

Happy Friday!

Rosa

3 June 2011 – Online car ads

Hi Everyone

Today we are looking at car ads as it has been a while and we like to know what clever things are out there.

Citroen

This is an interactive banner on the mtv page, where you are invited to drive the Citroen Aircross across the page. It is appropriate because the main product point seems to be the new navigation system. Try it out here.

VW Eos Homepage takeover

Here is an online ad for the VW Eos, it is a homepage takeover which plays on the top up/top down product feature by making the sun shine and the roof come down when you roll over the leaderboard. Once you click on it, the car drives off around the page, revealing different information boxes as it goes, have a try here.

VW truck race

Race other trucks with this game from VW. I’m not in the market for trucks, but did still give it a little try.

GT5 Steetview example

You may have already seen this, but I had to include it as an example of using streetview to give you a more realistic driving experience online.

BMW X3

 Here is the worlds longest banner ad, I can’t bring myself to read the whole thing but it does grab your attention.

Subaru

Staying true to their image, here is an ad by Subaru bringing across the ‘speed’ messsage very clearly.

Fugitive Chronicles

I love this and even though this homepage takeover isn’t really a car ad, I thought it had to be included as it is masquerading as one.

 

Happy Friday

Nicola

27 May 2011 – Location-based services

Hi,

This week’s topic of conversation is location-based services. The examples below range from the simple and cost effective, to the more technical, including a rather sinister use of the data collected from such services…

Location-based services were seen to be the up-and-coming trend of 2010 with many brands picking up on the popularity of operators such as FourSquare and Facebook Places. However, these aren’t the only location based services available as Visa is also dipping its toes into the water via it’s debit cards, as well as Everything Everywhere – the parent company of mobile operators T-Mobile and Orange – and Barclaycard which are forming an alliance in order to offer an NFC (near field communication) based service to customers.

Murphy USA Gas Discounts

This is a very basic example of a location-based service but in tough economic times it’s probably quite welcome by most. Murphy USA, a US based petrol station, is offering customers who check in on FourSquare $2 off a $20 purchase of petrol as well as a packet of Stride gum – a small amount of effort for a 10% discount!

Cheryl Cole Billboard

This is another fairly simple use of a location based service but this time with Facebook Places. I think any billboard that features Cheryl Cole is likely to turn most people’s heads and hence a prime position to feature a ‘check in’ in order to enter a prize draw to win tickets to an X-Factor show.

Visa and Gap Real Time Location Based Discounts

Straying away from the slightly more well-known location-based services, Visa is trying to employ a new kind of location-based customer experience. When a customer meets a certain criteria, such as shopping at a retailer within a particular area, or spending a specific amount within a given time-frame, they will be sent an SMS containing details of an offer they are entitled to. Currently, Visa only has one partner, Gap, and at present there doesn’t appear to be any further plans to expand on this. However, it is interesting to see other location-based techniques being utilised.

Everything, Everywhere partners with Barclaycard

The newly formed partnership between Everything Everywhere and Barclaycard is set to bring the UK’s first commercial contactless mobile payments service into action by using NFC, this will reduce the need for credit cards and cash and could be available as soon as July this year. However, although this is currently only geared towards making payment easier and faster, with time I’m sure the use of NFC will expand to encapsulate where consumers are and what they are buying in order to target them with relevant promotions and deals.

Geoloqi

Another slightly more advanced location-based service which could prove very useful is Geoloqi. Geoloqi is a real-time mobile and web platform used for securely sharing location data. Some of the helpful tools that Geoloqi enables customers to use include:

–          Leaving yourself a note which you’ll get next time you’re at the grocery store.

–          Receiving an SMS when you’re near apartments that match your Craigslist search criteria.

–          Automatically checking in to your favourite places on Foursquare if you’re there more than 10 minutes.

–          Turning on the lights when you get home and turning them off when you leave.

If I die…

Now, I’m not going to say much on this one apart from the fact that it may make you cautious as to how much information you share with location-based services in the future..!

Happy Friday!

13 May 2011 – Free stuff

Hi Everyone

With the deluge of long weekends firmly in the past, most of us have probably spent the week coming to terms with the reality of working 5 consecutive days again. So we thought we’d lighten the mood by talking about something everyone loves – freebies.

This week is all about innovative ways to give out interesting, handy, or just downright awesome stuff. Enjoy.

Budweiser

Budweiser gives you free beer (via mobile couponing):

Beautiful sunshine, scorching hot temperatures, ice cold beer? Budweiser have got it covered. They’ve developed an app which gives out vouchers for a free pint of beer at your nearest participating venue as soon as the temperature hits 20oC or more.

Pet food

GranataPet gives you a free bowl of dog food (via an interactive billboard):

We have showcased this before but this is a great use of geolocation technology for instant gratification. Dog walkers who checked in to foursquare at an interactive billboard were rewarded on the spot with a free bowl of dog food for their furry friends.

Tropicana

Tropicana discovers free electricity (using a lot of oranges):
With the core of their product at the heart of this installation, Tropicana show us why oranges have far more uses beyond a glass of juice at breakfast.

Pringles

Pringles gives you a free speaker, and a nifty way to recycle your can:

To all the Pringles-loving-yet-environmentally-conscious folks out there, finally the eternal dilemma has been resolved. Pringles are giving away a free mini speaker, which fits neatly into the top of your empty can, so no more bin fodder. (article is from the US, but here’s the link to the UK campaign).

Coke

Coke gives you more happiness, via a free pop-up cinema:

The Happiness Factory strikes again, this time in Colombian traffic jams, with the launch of Coke Minis. Going beyond the simple sampling mechanic to get the product into the hands of consumers, they turned it into a full on cinema experience – complete with big screen, corresponding radio channel (to tune into whilst you’re in the car) as well as models handing out hot dogs, nachos and other snacks, all for free. Suddenly traffic jams aren’t so bad.

Happy Friday!

6 May 2011 – Osama’s death tracked through media

Hi

 It would have been hard to escape the big news story this week! From the cover of the Economist and the US stock market to the front page of the Metro and your facebook wall. But I think it is interesting how our reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden and our need to express our feelings and the search for information can be tracked in a way that would not have been possible two years ago. 

 

 Tracking the death of Bin Laden through twitter

 

 His death and the announcements afterwards are reflected in increases in twitter activity and at 12,4 million an hour, that’s a record number of tweets! This graph shows how they increased/decreased through the night and during President Obama’s speech. Follow the link for a better view of the graph below.

 http://mashable.com/2011/05/02/bin-laden-death-twitter/

 

 

Google maps shows where Osama Bin Laden died

 

 It is unlikely this is the exact location where Bin Laden was found but it does tell us a lot about where he was hiding out. He was in a beautiful, urban area which was something of a tourist destination. Many are posting ‘reviews’ on the Place page expressing their emotions at his death.  

http://mashable.com/2011/05/02/bin-laden-google-maps/

 

 

Osama is dead facebook page

 

This went live years before the announcement of Osama’s death in order to advocate the theory that he had in fact died ages ago. However within two hours of the report, this page had 150,000 likes and thousands of pictures and comments. It is rather un PC but serves as a real time discussion board so here is the link FYI.  

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Osama-Bin-Laden-is-DEAD/134112283298465 

 

 

 

Spike in internet traffic

 

Users flocked to news sites for the latest information on Osama’s death causing a spike in internet traffic.  According to ‘Akamai’s Net Usage Index’ there was a 28% increase in traffic in North America and a 24% increase in global web traffic.  Akamai only measures news sites so overall traffic would be a lot higher as social media sites also saw huge surges in activity when news broke. Twitter reported 4,000 tweets per second around the time of Obama’s speech and according to ‘Mashable’, 50% of their readers heard about the event via social media.

http://mashable.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-traffic/

 

 

 

Foursquare users check into post-Osama world

A quick search on Foursquare in New York for “Osama” reveals such checkin locations as “Osama bin gonathon” and “Osamapacolypse 2011.” The gesture recalls, on a much larger scale, how users began checking in to a major New York City snow storm in 2010 with made-up venues such as Snowpocalypse 2010.

 Social Media timeline of Osama’s death

 

This is quite interesting to see, it tracks the social media comments from Athar who first heard helicopters hovering ahead and unknowingly reported the raid in real time, to confirmation by Donald Rumsfield’s chief of staff. Follow the link below to see view it.

http://www.cyberjournalist.net/social-media-timeline-of-osama-bin-ladens-death/

 

Happy Friday

 

Nicola

 

28 April 2011 – RFID

Hello

This week the topic of choice is RFID.

So what exactly is it?

RFID stands for Radio-Frequency Identification which in layman’s terms refers to a small electronic device that consists of a small chip and an antenna. It essentially works the same as a bar code or a magnetic strip on the back of a credit card, providing a unique identifier for that object which has to be scanned in order to retrieve the information.

Oyster Card

The first example of RFID I have to show you involves something that most of us carry around in our pocket everyday – the ever handy Oyster card! The Chromaroma app allows users to enter a game whenever they check in on the London transport system – tracking the number of swipes, places, modes of transport and even the number of passengers passed.

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/chromaroma-gamifying-london-transport/

Coca Cola

RFID can also be used to generate social media buzz around an event. Young teenagers attending the Coca Cola Village in Israel last summer were given RFID brackets enabling them to digitally like the facilities they were using. Perhaps even more impressive, if they were snapped by a photographer during the day, the photo would automatically tag them and post the photo on their wall.

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/coca-cola-village-like-facebook/

Renault

Renault has also tried to engage consumers by allowing them to share their offline experience with their online friends at an automotive exhibition in the Netherlands.

http://jazarah.net/blog/renaults-rfid-facebook-connection/

Information display

Now for a slightly more ingenious use of RFID. By simply placing the RFID enabled object into a small ring of light, the object automatically displays information relating to that object. One of the examples shows a set of household keys which magically displays an overview of the home from the amount of water used, to the weather and everyday tasks that need to be completed that day.

http://journal.benbashford.com/post/4530562245

Apple

Apple has also secured their piece of the RFID action by obtaining a patent for a RFID tag reader for their screens.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/20/apple_awarded_patent_for_rfid_tag_reader_in_touchscreen_devices.html

Hotels

And finally, probably one of the most unlikely places you’d expect to find an RFID tag…

http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/smart-takes/washable-rfid-tags-track-hotel-towels-sheets-robes/15530/

Happy Thursday and enjoy the Royal Wedding!