Integrated Branding Blog | Movéo

Brand Transparency in a Social Media Age

Internet access provides consumers with endless amounts of information at their fingertips. To put this in perspective, let's compare our process of collecting information today to that of 15 years ago. Imagine a grade school student in mid-90's. If this person needed information they would probably start out by asking their parents or another family member. If that proved insufficient, the next stop would an encyclopedia or perhaps a trip to local library.

Image courtesy of flaivoloka on stock.xchng

Now compare that to today. You want to know how to tie a knot, cancer research, book reviews, etc. - it's all a search and a click away. And since this information has become available, we have become much smarter consumers. We care more about what's in our food, what effect our actions have on the environment and so on. If a brand is unethical in any way, we are going to hear about it and hear about it fast. It's the new word-of-mouth and it's much more accessible and viral.

This is why brand transparency has become increasingly important. Brands can't hide behind walls and tell us who they are. We decide who they are by how they act and the quality of their product. Our purchasing decisions will be made with more information at hand. To succeed brands will have to be open and part of the discussion so that consumers are aware of the value their brand has on issues we care about.

We've always been social, we just have the technology now to easily connect with others on a massive scale. Word-of mouth has never traveled so fast. Brands need to remember that with every decision they make.

3 social media marketing tools that track your brand

As a company, it's important to know what others are saying about your brand. Thankfully, there are tools to help us keep track of what is being said and who is saying it. Here are three tools to help discover these online conversations:

socialmention
This site allows you to create alerts, just like Google Alerts. You'll receive e-mails of the latest mentions of your company on blogs, bookmarks, comments, images, events, news, videos, audio and Q&A.

TweetDeck
Download TweetDeck and you can keep track and organize conversation on Twitter and Facebook that involve your brand. You can also save searches and see who is replying to your Tweets. Best of all, it's all in one window that you can customize.

Keotag
Search for tags that mention your brand (or any keyword). It's simple to use - just type in the keyword you'd like to search and then click on the engine you'd like to search through. There are a number of engines available including Technorati, del.icio.us, MSN, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! and YouTube.

Know of any others? Feel free to mention them in the comments.

What’s everyone Tweeting about?

If you don’t believe Twitter has any marketing value, get this. You can use Twitter as a research tool even if you don’t have a Twitter page. Would you like an example? I thought so.

Let’s take one of our friends - Stericycle. This company offers an array of product recall services. If they want to know what the Twitter community is tweeting about in regards to the keyword ‘recalls,’ they can go to search.twitter.com and find out. See for yourself: recall-related Tweets.

The search results mentioned above show all the Tweets that mention the word ‘recalls.’ Savvy companies have used this to see who’s talking about their brand and counter it with positive PR messaging. Companies with a Twitter account can reply directly to the user and try to resolve issues, thank them for being a patron, or whatever makes sense. There are endless creative ways to use Twitter. I suggest you start by searching to see what the community has to say about your company. This is similar to Google Alerts, which we’ve mentioned in a previous post, but it only involves people on Twitter.

How have you used Twitter for your company?

Viral marketing...just what the Dr. ordered

You didn't hear it here first. In fact, you've probably already heard it online, on the radio, on tv, and in print. In March, Dr. Pepper sent out a press release stating that if Axl Rose (Guns N’ Roses leadman) released his record, Chinese Democracy, in 2008 that they would give a free can of Dr. Pepper to everyone in America - except former GNR guitarists Slash and Buckethead. The album had been in development for well over a decade due to Rose’s tired rock star antics.

The story died down after a few weeks of viral buzz and media attention, but it resurfaced when the record was indeed released last month. In an attempt to comply with their end of the bargain, Dr. Pepper allowed customers to visit the Dr. Pepper Web Site within a 24-hour period to claim a coupon worthy of one can of soda. The site eventually crashed due to an inability to handle the flurry of hits it was receiving. Dr. Pepper extended the window of opportunity an extra 24 hours because of the chaos.

Now, Rose is threatening legal action. He's claiming not only did Dr. Pepper not hold up their end of the bargain, but that this stunt "ruined" the release day of their new album.

Dr. Pepper's reply to legal threats by Rose and his lawyer:
"We simply commented on the delayed release of Chinese Democracy and openly encouraged the band to release it before the end of the year. Axl even expressed support for our efforts earlier in the year. We are disappointed that GNR's lawyers are turning a fun giveaway into a legal dispute."

In my opinion, this debacle of a marketing campaign benefited both parties. Rose is living in paradise city because of the publicity that has bolstered his album to the No. 3 selling record in America. Dr. Pepper's case is more interesting. Some have criticized Dr. Pepper saying that in the end, Dr. Pepper looked ridiculous. An article in Brandweek, one of my favorite sources for branding news, said “All in all, they came off looking pretty dumb.”

This, however, simply isn’t true. From a marketing stand point, Dr. Pepper has been a pop culture topic for almost an entire year. The mocking press release has traversed through the online community and has appeared in almost every major media outlet at some point since its release. This is the kind of marketing you can’t pay for.

Dr. Pepper had a plan all along. They didn't wake up one day and say “I despise Guns N’ Roses. Let’s send out a press release to mock the production of their latest album on behalf of our company.” Instead, they wanted to reach their target consumers by producing a press release that they would find humorous - giving them a brand image of young and fresh. I’m not sure if they really thought that this would fuel the band to finish the album, but the end result was almost a year’s worth of publicity for Chinese Democracy and Dr. Pepper.

If anything is in order here, Axl Rose should be thanking Dr. Pepper’s marketing team for sending out the press release that eventually led to all of this buzz. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be willing to bet you a Dr. Pepper that Chinese Democracy wouldn’t be listed as the No. 3 selling record in America right now.

Top global and online brands

Ever wonder who the top 100 brands in the world are? We've all heard about how Coca-Cola is the top brand world wide, but which brands are in their company and how do they rank online?

Here's a list of the top 100 global brands in 2008, according to Interbrand; and the top 100 global brands online of 2007, according to FutureLab.

Interbrand's best global brands of 2008

Futurelab's top 100 online global brands of 2007 (click on the Futurelab 100 link)

Lead Generation and Quality Scoring

A key metric with online advertising efforts is lead generation, or the ability to produce an engaging message for which a potential customer would give their contact information. While generating leads, one really needs to take into account the quality of the leads and how best to utilize them to create a purchase. 

Quality leads are necessary for success, because having a large quantity of unqualified leads does nothing more than flood a sales department with a pile of contacts to sort through (many of them useless). This in turn costs the company time and frustration. A best practice to employ when determining whom a lead gets passed along to is lead scoring.

Lead scoring assigns a point value to those that submit their contact information. The scale is generally 1 - 5, and the higher the lead score, the further along in the buying process, which means a greater immediate value to the advertiser. Lower score leads should nurtured rather than dismissed.  
At this point, its time to decide which contact is best to work with the lead.  Low score leads should go through the marketing team, as this is their chance to begin dialogue through e-mail blasts and newsletters with a potential new customer.  High score leads should go to a sales team, allowing them the chance to verbally contact or personally e-mail the lead to begin the conversion process.
We are also able to optimize current campaigns and plan for future initiatives using the lead scoring data. Publishers that produce low score leads need to be evaluated to judge if they have the potential to be nurtured or if they are simply providing bad leads, in which case they should be canceled. Ultimately, the cost on a lower score lead should be less than the high score lead. 

Dan Murray, Manager, Emerging Media

Auto advertising when stocks are plummeting.

As the U.S. auto industry experiences enormous stock decline, shifting advertising strategies may help steer away negative perception on how the auto industry spends money.  Just the other day, I saw a full-page back cover ad in the Chicago Tribune for one of the begging for bailout money automakers. Realizing a full page is costly and un-targeted when running outside of the auto section, I questioned how the company justifies buying such an inefficient placement.  I know that advertising is paramount in keeping – and hopefully building – the customer base for a business. But my question is: shouldn't the ad budget be used in a less expensive, and more importantly, an efficient way?  This would still market the automobile and it would also communicate that the auto manufacturer understands that they have made poor marketing decisions in the past and are now seeking smarter solutions for their needs.

Dan Murray, Manager, Emerging Media

Top B-to-B Ad Impression Sites Reveals Social Mistakes

A lot of buzz has been flying around about Web 2.0 and Social Media. However, when it comes to where ads are shown statistics released by Nielsen Online AdRelevance for September 2008 reveal that many B to B marketers are not keeping a close eye on where their ads are being shown. Five of the Twenty sites in particular really jump off the list at me and make me wonder what people are thinking?

 

#2 MySpace 153.7 million impressions. MySpace is cheap as far as both CPM and CPC goes. So most marketers don’t want to pass up on the possibility of cheap clicks. I have never seen a conversion from a MySpace based click in AdWords.

 

#8 YouTube 82.2 million impressions.  YouTube is another Google AdWords accessible site, and unless excluded it will quickly generate a large number of impressions. YouTube clicks are even rarer than MySpace clicks, and conversions are just as sparse to non-existent.

 

#15 Photobucket 39.2 million impressions. Photobucket is a photo and video sharing site and much like YouTube it seems to generate a lot of impressions and very few clicks.

 

#16 NeoPets 37.8 million impressions. Yes you read that correctly, NeoPets. I don’t know about you, but my ten-year old daughter isn’t going to be making any B2B buying decisions any time soon.

 

#17 Facebook 34.5 million impressions. Facebook, along with MySpace, are the leaders in social networking, the only real reason MySpace has more impressions is they are served by Google and Facebook is served by MSN.

 
What do all five of these sites have in common? It's Social Media.  And why are they such bad places for B2B advertisers online? Social Networks may include your business audience but they aren’t there to do business. Even small business people who are using these social networks as a primary form of marketing ignore the ads.

When choosing where ads will be placed online it is important not to only consider if your target audience is there but also why they are there. A person networking with friends or catching up with long distance pals just isn’t in the frame of mind to pay attention to the ads, and if they do it is often a negative reaction. Let people’s social time be social. Unless you are promoting a party at an upcoming convention or a sponsorship of a not-for-profit event keeping business and pleasure separate in online advertising increases click-through-rates by decreasing impressions that have no positive effect.

I have even tried using these sites as part of a brand exposure strategy. There were a few clicks but with a click through rate of less than one tenth of a percent and no increase in organic traffic discernible it made no sense to keep showing ads on social networks. If you want to dabble in Web 2.0 advertising on the social networks is not the way to do it. Put up one profile for a key employee and have them contribute to the community and answer people's questions in the forums or groups. 

Even Google is reminding us to Vote!

I opened up the Movéo My Client Center the other day to find the following message amongst the alerts at the top of my page:

 

Google's 2008 Voter Info Map 

Just another reminder that Election Day is almost upon us, and that then the political chatter may wind down for a while.

 

AdWords Ad Rates Increased in Q2 of 2008

According to reports in Internet Retailer, October 2008 pay-per-click advertisers experienced an increase in ad rates by 14%. During this period Google accounted for 77% of search advertising budgets and accounted for about 62% of searches.

At the heart of this growth for Google is the user experience. User’s surveyed saw Google scoring higher in consumer satisfaction, while Yahoo slipped, and Microsoft remained steady.

For search marketing this means that as competition increases on Google AdWords advertisers must have the right strategy to harness the best clicks, and create campaigns focused on driving qualified conversions.

So why has Google continued to increase revenue, the key is in how they have branded themselves and how that translates to the understanding tat they are serving multiple customers: Searchers, Advertisers, Web Site Owners, Content Providers, Consumer protection agencies, Governments. Even as they have added advertising to many of the new acquisitions, such as YouTube, Google has kept consistent with their branding: clean layout and relevant results, both organically and paid. As long as Google continues to improve tracking and targeting features faster than the competition, which is lagging behind, they will remain as the primary platform for most paid search budgets.

Recently Ask.com has relaunched their search engine and returned to their branding, semantic search, answering questions users ask. With a purposeful effort to constantly improve becoming more noticeable over the past six months it may only be a matter of time before Ask starts eating into the search and advertising shares of it’s competitors. The question to be answered is “who’s share of search traffic will ask.com eat into?”