Mrlukeabbott

In last weeks Viral Tuesday I featured the latest video from IamWhoIam. The virals originated from Sony and were initially distributed to music blogs and are believed to be part of a marketing campaign to promote an upcoming album. But the most interesting part is that the virals are not attributed to any artist. This has lead to wild speculation online that it could be anyone from Christina Aquiera to The Knife, Lady Gaga, Goldfrapp or even Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. Thats a wide palate of diverse musical backgrounds.

Each viral has a code and The Guardian ran a story last week concerning a fan who has claimed to have cracked the code, claiming it to be Mrs Aquiera, but there’s just a strong argument for this set of virals to be from a new artist. So far the three virals on Youtube have over 330,000 views, although as of today the original virals have been removed and some re-uploaded so the view count will be much less. They are also being discussed across the web on serious music blogs and sites that might not normally discuss Aquilera to many topics, threads and pages on Christina Aquilera message boards

Since nobody knows who the artist actually is, all preconceptions are thrown out the window. Which leaves the big question that once the album is attributed to a specific artist and eventually released will the fans of Aquilera / Gaga / Goldfrapp / Nine Inch Nails or whoever it turns out to be listen to the music with an open mind? Will they unite and download it having left all their pre formed opinions to one side?

Cliques, communities and fans all share similarities hence why they band about together be it offline (mates will always share likes and dislikes) or online (fan pages, online communities, blogs). Breaking through to those sets of people can be a hard thing to do because people will have a preconceived set of values that a product must meet in order to be accepted. A hardcore indie head will not dare utter the words ‘hey, I really like the new Christina Aquilera stuff’. On the flipside (and I’m going to take a wild generalisation based on my own experiences) Aquilera fans will generally be unadventurous in their musical choices and for them to consider buying an album from an artist they might never of heard of, could be just as big a step.
Everything we purchase or consume is based on a set of values established on past experiences. Even the TED video I posted in the Optical Illusions blog post last week, demonstrated how certain visual illusions take advantage of what the brain perceives to be true based the brains’ past experience. Even our eyes will deceive us even when the evidence is right in front of us. For a product to break through that barrier of prejudgement is no mean feat. Preconceptions form such a strong part of our purchase decision that without these past experiences we only have half a product.

For example, all we have here are the slightly more tangible elements, thats short music clips accompanied by strong imagery. The part we don’t have are the underlying elements such as beliefs and attitudes. Marketing is there to form these within people. However the IamWhoIam campaign so far is playing upon our lack of opinion in order to position the product with potential consumers free of any judgement.

Isn’t this how music (and many other products) should be judged? Yes, maybe, but it isn’t. History is littered with products that were technically superior and better but due to a number of factors never really grabbed the public attention. The one that springs to mind immediately is VHS and Betamax, the latter technically superior but confined to the scrapheap long before VHS joined it. The marketing of the products plays a critical factor in building and forming attitudes towards any product. This is why the IamWhoIam is interesting, and, although it may turn out to be Christina, if it does, she will have succeeded in having me listen without prejudice.

Cadbury Creme Eggs

The first Cadbury filled egg arrived in 1923, but it another 48 years before what we know now as a Creme Egg was launched onto the market. Availble between New Years Day and Easter each year it is the biggest selling confectionary item during that period. The main production factory in the UK produces 1.5 million eggs per day. In 1985 the brand introuced the ‘How Do You Eat Yours’ strapline that first hit TV screens in 1990 and later featured Spitting Image puppets and a young Matt Lucas of Little Britain.

Creme Egg Goo’s Social

After twenty years asking ‘How do you eat yours’ the tagline was dropped in favour of ‘Here today, Goo tomorrow’. The chocolate egg is a favourite of the 16 – 24 year old age group, and what better market to target through the use of social media? Initial digital activity in 2007 included a Youtube channel and a microsite. The 2008 campaign expanded on this early start to include;

– a microsite with downloadable mobile game, an FMCG first

 

– a game called ‘Room with a Goo’ was created and promoted through Bebo and included a viral mechanism for friends to forward on

– a Bebo profile and widget that allowed friends to interact with each other

– friends could destroy or rebuild each others eggs through different activities

– Creme Eggs appeared in two episodes of the Bebo drama Kate Modern

– online advertising included hompage takeovers of Yahoo, MSN, MTV, Channel 4 and Vodafone

The result was over 20,000 fans of the Bebo page and 8,000 people installed the Bebo widget (Source), and agency CMW picked up several awards for the campaign.

Creme Egg 2009 Campaign

When 2009 rolled around CMW identified brand advocates from the previous years’ campaign and sent them a DM package (see picture below). It contained a letter thanking them for ‘releasing the goo’ and three Creme Eggs. Besides thanking people for their brand participation in 2008, it’s aim was also to stimulate social media activity for the product in 2009.

Further online support came from a Microsite that also included a blog and online game, a Bebo page, Facebook page, Youtube channel and a series of in-game adverts that can be viewed below. The 2009 Creme Egg campaign recorded an increase of 10% unique visitors year on year, 41% increase in ‘dwell’ time over the same period, double the number of average visits per user and 54% of visitors played the online game.

Creme Egg Twisted
Having honed their social media talents on Creme Eggs for two years, agency CMW, pushed the Creme Egg Twisted campaign into new territory in terms of social media marketing. As with Creme Eggs a DM package that resembled a steel security box was sent to bloggers and brand advocates (see picture below). Inside were two Twisted bars and the wrapper of a third that had escaped. The ’sender’ of the package was hell bent on covering the planet in ‘goo’ and invites recipients to join the Cadbury Intelligence Agency (CIA).

‘Operation Goo’ saw almost 10,000 people sign up as CIA Agents via a website. Their mission was to track down up to 16 Twisted bars located around the UK, via clues given on Twitter.

A ‘twist’ in the game then saw 10 Super Agents selected, who were then supplied with a flip camera and a mission to track down the ‘goo’. The super agents had to upload their adventures onto Youtube and use their talents to generate further social media buzz. Points were awarded for creativity, social networking skills and the lengths the agents went to in their mission. The agent with the most amount of points stood to win a hefty £20,000 for their efforts.

Super agent Dean Stokes was announced as the winner on July 16th, 2009. Dean had over 2,000 followers on social networking sites and clocked over 5,000 views on his Youtube channel. Deans blog is available here. Further information is available on CMW’s blog.

Here are 59 more great Guerrilla marketing and Ambient advertising I have picked up on in the last couple of months. In no particular order;

McDonalds Free Coffee Campaign #1

McDonalds took an inventive approach to the launch of their coffee in Canada.

McDonalds Free Coffee Campaign #2

This second ad is a converted lamppost made to look like a giant pot of brewed coffee and a cup with the wording ‘free coffee’ across it.

Optical Illusion Road Sign

This optical illusion sign is in a Melbourne car park. It appears readable only to drivers in a certain position, while unreadable to other car users. The idea of delivering a high impact message to individuals in specific positions, while those nearby are unaware, could be developed for marketing application.

This was from 15 Funny Road and Rail Notices list first published in the Telegraph, full list here

1200 Bodybags

Ok this is from 2006 (or thereabouts) but I only picked up on this last month. Truth.com released an anti smoking advert where 1200 body bags were dumped at the doors to a major tobacco company. The 1200 represents how many people are killed from Tobacco related illnesses every day. A study revealed the Truth.com campaigns were successful in reducing teen & underage smoking by 300,000.

Juice Salon Mumbai

This hair salon in Mumbai took to advertising their brand on a shopping centre escalator. On the bottom was a mans head while each step featured a different hairstyle. As each step reaches the bottom it completes the image and displayed the man with a different hairstyle. A really nice idea that could be used for a variety of products

Bubble

This ad below appeared in a South American magazine for a bubble gum product by Acor. When the magazine is opened it appears the person in the ad is blowing a giant 3D bubble

 

Hubba Bubba Israel

 

Red Bull #1 – Soapbox Race Jerusalem 2009

The Red Bull soapbox race has been staged in Ireland in the past, it’s a non motorised race of strange and peculiar looking vehicles developed by amateurs. To highlight this core message Avraham advertising agency in Israel added wheels to many structures, such as benches, bins and noticeboards, to highlight the diverse nature of the competing vehicals

Red Bull #2 – City Scramble Wall

To promote the Red Bull City Scramble the drinks company did this;

Red Bull #3 – Cola MI6

As already demonstrated Red Bull do like to take a different approach when it comes to advertising. How about this – using a laser to advertise the drink and also get up the noses of MI6. Although it looks too like its staged

Tyskie Beer

To promote this beer brand, stickers shaped like an over sized pint glass were placed on doors to bars, restaurants and shops. When customers grabbed the door handle it looked like they were grabbing a nice cold pint of beer

 

Gap: Shopping Turned on Its Head

For a new Gap promotion the company will give shoppers credits if a full priced item goes on sale within 45 days of purchase. The promotion tag line is ‘Shopping Turned on its Head’ and to illustrate this point they turned one store in Vancouver upside down over night and not just the interior either, but also cars parked directly outside the store.

And heres a video showing the store transformation…

Guinness Halloween

In Romania to promote the ‘dark side’ of the black stuff each pint was placed on beer mats shaped like ghouls and devils. This gave the impression that the shadow of the pint hid something dark and sinister.

Flyvertising

You have seen light aircraft carrying advertising banners in the past. How about that concept using flies? The fly happens to be the logo for the publishing house behind the campaign and it all took place at a German book fair.

 

Global Warming #1

Social marketing seeks to change attitudes towards certain activities these can vary from anti drink driving ad’s to safe sex. Its a genre of marketing that requires a different approach in order to drive the message home. Here are some ad’s related to Global Warming. First  hundreds of snowmen to protest the effects of Global Warming on the world.

 

Global Warming #2

1000 mini human shaped ice sculptures were placed in the Berlin September sun, melting in the heat. This was carried out by the German WWF

 

Global Warming #3

 

Global Warming #4

This is for Greenpeace in France, using imitation icebergs to highlight for global warming

 

Global Warming #5

The image is striking, of a man who’s body has ‘melted’ into the path due to rising world temperatures

Buildvertising

Over 17,500 square feet were covered with 5.6 million LED lights to turn an entire building into a giant billboard for Bayer in Germany. Wonder what this carbon footprint was…

 

Coops Paints

Powerful Fan

The Shanghai Haitong Building on the left in the image below is known for its unusual design. Taking advantage of this ‘waves’ style to the top of the building fan manufacturer Midea hoisted a banner on the building next door and said ‘powerful fan’.

 

Powerful Vacuum

Electroclux promote the power of its new product

 

Giant Piano

Remember that scene in Big, when Tom Hanks plays chopsticks on a giant piano? Now imagine a stairs in Sweden turned into one giant piano for Volkswagon

 

Art For Ransom

A not for profit arts organisation going under the name artforransom.org covered up the public artwork in Denver with black plastic and yellow tape. This was to highlight that the art around the city does come at a cost and shouldn’t be taken for granted in these tough economic times. The covered over art also displayed the organisations website where members of the public could pay the ransom and learn how to get involved.

 

Nail Biter Bag

An eye catching bag for to promote ‘Stop and Grow’

 

Lego Crane

Construction sites in Chile grind to a halt at weekends and one intrepid marketing agency decided to hang a giant Lego block from a crane.

 

Hate Dropped Calls

This eyecatching billboard and its missing section was located in Times Square in New York

Kill Bill

A blood splattered billboard and street to promote Kill Bill

2012 Flood

An underground tunnel advert for the disaster flick ’2012′, this is from earlier in November in Rio, and depicts the flooding of Copacabana subway.

Public Toilet #1 – ESPN Futebol

Toilets have proved to be interesting locations for ad’s. Take this one for ESPN’s football.

Public Toilet # 2 – Wolf Hot Sauce

From the urinals to the hand dryer…

Public Toilet #3 – VW Size

And back to the urinals to play up a ‘stereotype’.

Public Toilet #4 – Radio AM840: Pee Poster

This video below is for a Canadian radio station and takes place in the bathroom of the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team. A motion sensor triggers a ‘running commentary’ as the urinal is used.

 

Public Toilet #5 – Upskirt Advertising

For a TV station apparently

 

Public Toilet # 6 – The Practice (France)

To promote a new drama called The Practice, bathroom mirrors in cinemas were transfomed into two-way mirrors

TV Shows #1 – The Phone

Which leads us into TV shows and their use of Guerrilla and Ambient techniques. This first one is for the Dutch reality show ‘The Phone’, which earlier this week picked up an International Emmy for ‘Best Non Scripted Show’. In it unsuspecting members of the public have a chance to win €25,000, by answering ‘planted’ mobile phones. To promote the second series of the show, several mobile phones were smuggled into TV and radio studios to ring during live broadcasts.

TV Shows #2 – Ugly Betty

A simple idea to promote the upcoming series of Ugly Betty

TV Shows #3 – True Blood

When one of Aucklands largest construction developments stopped due to the recession, a quick thinking Ad Agency took advantage to promote the upcoming series of True Blood

TV Shows # 4 – True Blood

TV Shows #5 – Dexter

I suggest checking out my post on 8 Dexter Marketing moments, here’s my own personal gruesome favourite. A severed limb in a butchers fridge.

VW Small but Tough

This is the third such ad from VW I have featured in this post, this time playing up how tough their cars are.

 

Wonderbra #1

Wonderbra is another brand that likes to play up the benefits of using its product in an unusual way.

Wonderbra #2

 

Free Air Guitar

A promotion for a rock radio station

PSP Tennis

Amnesty International Shut Up

To highlight the false imprisonment these stickers were placed in public lockers

Anti Litter Bus Shelter

Litter found around bus shelters was picked up and placed inside the shelter, over time the shelter fills with more and more rubbish. Something like this might help to highlight the amount of litter found on most Irish streets

Home Plus Subway

These images wrapped around pillars in a subway station to promote Home Plus Supermarkets

Yellow Pages Hits The Target

Yellow Pages in Canada erected this yellow darts outside shopfronts and businesses to highlight local consumer search queries are better answered using their service than search engines

Lipton Green Tea A Clean River

Squash Club

To promote an upcoming Squash match between past and present pro’s at a club half squash balls with the match details printed on the inside, were stiuck to the glass to give the effect that they had smashed through

Calcium Sandoz

To promote the Calcium enriched Sandoz product in India a pole holding up a bridge is fitted with extra curves to form a bone shape.

Anando Milk

To promote the benefits of milk to children, and playing upon their fantasies of superhuman strength Anando Milk did this neat trick

Coca Cola Grip Bottle

To highlight the new better grip Coke bottle in France (cue Thierry Henry joke), the beverage co have stuck some velcro on posters at bus shelters to annoy passers by.

Anti Smoking

This ceiling sticker demonstrates the early demise that is in store if smokers keep up their habit

Improv Everywhere – Invisible Dogs

Not strictly Guerrilla marketing as there wasnt a product on sale, however what an excellent idea from Improv Everywhere. The third video of theirs I have posted up in the last month. This time over 2,000 people take to the streets of Brooklyn, New York walking Invisible Dogs.

Theres, like, 450 million on Facebook…so what?

The big stats are irrelevant, whats relevant is how many of your current or potential customers are on Facebook, how often they are on it and how often they look at your page on it. Some recent stats for Ireland indicate theres 1.58 million people using facebook, 850K log in once a day at least and 83% log in at least once per week.

Would you like to know how many people on are Facebook in your area, by gender, age, relationship, interests, and education? Check out this link http://www.facebook.com/ads/create/, fill in the three blank fields (Destination, Title and Body), but just enter anything, what you really want is the next page. That gives you the options to identify how many of your target audience is on FB. This graph shows the breakdown by age from 13 – 65+ using FB in Ireland in May 2010.

Am I a profile, a page or a group?

If you are a business, you are a page. Do not set up a personal profile or a group. Pages are by far the best for business. A personal profile will limit you to 5,000 friends and for some reason few people know this. Theres a bunch of business, that I notice are nearing the 5000 limit. Once they hit that they can’t add anymore.

(UPDATE) For example this Bar in Waterford sent a message out last week saying they had 970 friend requests, but since they had hit their limit of 5,000 they could not add anyone. Instead they set up a second profile and told their current fans if they knew anyone waiting to be confirmed as a friend to send them to their other profile.

So from a marketing perspective this is a massive problem. All the time invested in FB could go to waste. You’re now limited with what options to choose from. You can either start again from scratch with a business profile, and notify your ‘friends’ of the new page, or set up a second profile, as the local pub have done, which could be misleading and it could mean updating multiple profiles. If you move from a personal profile to a business one make sure you delete the old profile once you have notified your existing fans. Having multiple business and personal profiles will just confuse future friends / fans.

Why do Facebook profiles look the same?

Due to a complete lack of personalisation. Businesses are rushing to be on Facebook but marketing a business is about standing out from the crowd. You wouldnt take out an ad in a newspaper that is a carbon copy of a competitor’s advert would you? So why have the exact same profile as other businesses on Facebook? A little bit of personalisation can go a long way. And just how can this be done on FB?

Wall logo

Do you know you can have a logo that is 200px wide by 600px long? It might mean having your logo vertical or needing to do some clever editing make it fit into that space. But, with a little bit of thought, the logo can be made to stand out.

(UPDATE) Here are some examples; First a logo that takes no advantage of the space and instead is cammed into a tight corner. There is almost no brand presence on this page and for a company that have blown me away in their digital marketing in the past this is pretty poor:

Above Man City take full advantage of the space and there’s plenty of ways to do so. Take this example from the Body Shop; their logo takes up a relatively small amount of space, but so not to waste the rest of the logo space, they use it as an advert

(UPDATE) 4b. Page Icon or Thumbnail

Missed this first time around. These icons appear beside any post you make on your wall or another persons wall. The icons are actually small images taken from your profile picture. They can be taken from any part of the profile picture you want. To change them hover over the profile picture, click on edit and select change thumbnail.

Facebook.com/YourBusinessName

Yes get your own facebook vanity URL. They have been available since last summer just log in as the page admin and go to

Static FBML

with a little HTML knowledge you can create your own personalised tabs. Every business has tabs for a ‘wall’ and ‘info’. But static FBML allows users to create their own tabs with whatever content they want. That could be a completly personalised page promoting an offer right up to a mini website within Facebook. You are limited by your own imagination but you can start by downloading the static FBML application on Facebook. Just search ‘static FBML’. This isn’t available on personal profiles, so another reason to go with a business profile.

(UPDATE) This seems to be a very useful tutorial on using FBML.

Landing page

This is automatically set to ‘wall’. The landing page is the first page new users see when they look at your business. But the wall is boring and it says nothing abnout your business. Through the use of the Static FBML box you can create your own personalised tab, then you can make this tab the default tab that new users see first. So imagine new users land on a customised page all about your business? Doesn’t that sound much better? Just go to edit page, wall settings to change the default landing page to your new tab. This also isn’t available on personal profiles.

Apps – Free ‘V’ Paid

Apps in facebook can cover just about everything from quiz’s and poll’s right up to having your own shop on Facebook. There’s a bunch of free apps out there that can be installed on a page to compliment your business and help you drive customers and sales. If you can’t find the app you want for your business find a company to build you one. What app’s you install or have created very much depend on what your business is and what you want to do. There’s great companies on our doorstep doing this such as Betapond here in Waterford that are creating app’s for many well known brands.

(Update) check out AppBistro for the latest and best currently available app’s for pages some free, some not.

I need stats, stat!

Facebook Insights

Available right in your admin view of your business page. Facebook insights can provide data on your profile activity such as fans and engagement. All this is important to see how fans are engaging with you content. And another reason to use a business profile over a personal one – this feature also isn’t available on personal profiles.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics can be installed on your profile to track where your visitors are coming from and data such as new versus returning visitors. Not essential but useful to see how traffic is arriving at your facebook page. Although there’s an expected overhaul of Facebook Inights due which may provide this data without having to install Google Analytics.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

Sudden Design Changes

Do you remember when ‘like’ was ‘fan’? Way back in the day, back in late April 2010? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? But the change from ‘fan’ to ‘like’ highlights the sudden changes Facebook takes with little or no notice. (In the 5 weeks since I posted this originally theres been 2 more sudden changes that have affected FB, but in fairness, FB rectified the issues within 24 hours). The company likes to announce things hours before they go live and for many, the first time they realise these changes are when they see them on their page. The biggest change that they have notified us about is the imminent change to the size of the ‘tab’ canvas pages which is being reduced in width from 760px to 520px. Although they said this change was happening in early 2010, they haven’t announced when, which will probably mean any business with a customised tab will need it resized.

Ads, Ads and More Ads

Facebook ads

Facebook offer the opportunity to advertise to fans, and when you couple this with the highly targeted information the company has on each user (see point 2 above), the ads have the potential to be highly targeted. A recent report from Nielson also found a positive correlation between brand awareness and organic traffic as well as paid for traffic through advertising (report is here). What does it mean? Paid for advertising can be effective increasing brand recall. How effective may depend on a case by case basis and how tempting the ad is to click to the viewer. I spoke to a colleague who has incorporated Facebook advertising into their marketing strategy. Early signs indicate that the ads send more traffic to their website than Google ads, and they’re cheaper. So they might be worth investigating for your business.

(UPDATE) Also I noticed this at the weekend; ads for the Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Dun Laoghaire. Ad’s promoting their new course, Cyber Psychology, when clicked don’t bring you to anything but to a search engine, and the course isn’t even listed! The link is broken so IADT are just wasting their money – so make sure you test your ad links first! Notice the ad on the right side of this image;

And when it is clicked it brings me to this:

Ads not on Facebook

I’ve been a long time believer in promoting your Facebook presence off Facebook. I mean people don’t automatically know your phone number or web address, so where ever you promote this information think about slapping a Facebook logo in their too. Get your vanity URL and include that as a simple link. Last week Facebook revealed that businesses who advertise their Facebook presence off the social networking site get at least 20% more fans.

It’s All About Content

what should i post about?

So you want to post regular (but not too regular) the only problem is that you don’t know what to say. Well first don’t be too pushy, it reads bad, and can be off putting in a desperate kind of way for fans. But a way of conceptualising what to post is like this. Think of your Facebook page like a magazine and your fans are your readers. Your fans like your page because they have an interest in what it is you do so expand on that. You sell clothes – your readers have an interest in fashion, a restaurant – an interest in food, a hotel – an interest in travel and local tourism… There’s entire industries based around these so coming up with content shouldn’t be too hard. Yes in the beginning it will be hard, but once you get a grasp it will flow. Not only should you be looking externally, but also look internally, look at the people and processes that make up your business is there a way of bringing those to the fore? (UPDATE) A really good example of a brand with nothing to say but goes about it in a great way is Coca Cola, yes it might be the biggest brand in the world, but what can they say about Coke that we already don’t know about? Their posts revolve around the concept of Coke = Happiness and bring in everything from random thoughts, to Coke history, to examples of their marketing, to videos about the guys who set up the page (they weren’t employees at the time) to fan tattoo’s! See their profile here, although you may need to wade through a lot of fan posts to get to the posts from Coke

Say something in a new way

Thats almost my marketing motto – look for a different way of saying the something. You might be fortunate enough to have a business that is easy to generate content for eg. a music venue. But not everyone is fortunate to have a business that is a natural fit to social media. In order to rise above the clutter how about trying competitions, promotions, video, photos or even quiz’s to engage the audience? But try to focus on engagement. For example a competition to launch a new product – try and get your fans to come up with a marketing tagline for the product. This will help get fans onside, interested in the product and entered into a competition, and for the page it means the fans are creating new and unique content for your other readers to read and maybe even comment on. Such engagement wouldn’t happen if the competition winner was just selected randomly. So make the most out of how you engage.

Howdy! It’s been a while but life, work and the summer got in the way. So I thought what better way to return than with something on a topic I know a bit about

Coming up in the next 4 posts are 100 Facebook Marketing Tips covering everything you need to know about the platform. From the basics to much more detailed stuff. These posts took a lot of work so show your appreciation by tweeting, likeing or even subscribing to my blog.

Part 1 – Before you start, Page Basics & Newsfeed Marketing
Part 2 – Edgerank Tips, Facebook Fans
Part 3 – Community & Page Management
Part 4 – Facebook Features, Ad’s, Measurement and Facebook Commerce
Things to know before you start.

Does your brand suit Facebook?
Answer honestly can your brand entertain fans with multiple posts per week? There might be 750 million people on Facebook, but none of them want to read bland corporate PR speak. There are 15 million competing brand pages on Facebook, why would someone really want to Like your’s?

Facebook Promotion Guidelines
Get to know these guidelines. Stick to these to avoid your page from getting suspended or deleted by Facebook. If that happens you lose everything.

Facebook Is Not Free
A good page needs a lot of creativity, time to brainstorm ideas, implement and manage campaigns, day to day management, and a budget for apps in order to comply with Facebook’s promotional guidelines. You either pay someone to do all that, or you do it yourself. Either way its somebody’s time your paying for.

Facebook Page Guidelines (internal)
Put together some guidelines for your staff to guide them on how to use the page and what’s acceptable behaviour. Here’s a deeper insights as to why this is a good policy (not just for Facebook) and here’s a handy template to use (PDF download)

You Page’s Goals & Objectives
What do you want to achieve with your page? Awareness for your brand? Act as an extension of customer service? Use it to drive sales? Work out what exactly the goals are and how they will be achieved. Having no clear strategy or unrealistic goals are the two biggest reasons why social media project fail.

Facebook Won’t Turn Solve Everything
If you have shoddy products, terrible service, poor marketing, non-existent customer service, Facebook won’t solve any of those problems. These are issues within your organisation that need addressing. If anything Facebook will give people a place to complain publicly about these issues. If you already know them, then why aren’t you doing something about it?

Time & Attention
Social media is like a flower, it doesn’t grow over night and it’ll die if you don’t pay attention to it. Get into it for the long haul or don’t bother at all.

II. Facebook Page Basics

Wall Logo
Facebook allows for a max 180 (w) X 540 (h) pixel logo for Facebook Page. Avoid going too small and, with the new page layout, avoid going too long as it will push the navigation menu below the fold. Ideal size around 180 X 270.

Navigation (Tab) Menu
See the navigation menu and all the different tabs such as Notes, Discussions, Photos, Videos? The ones you don’t use are like blank pages on a website. There’s no point in having the discussions tab if you don’t use it, or photos if you dont have any yet. Get rid of them in the edit page section, you can always put them back later.

Facebook Page Guidelines (external)
What behaviour is acceptable amongst fans? Having explicitly stated guidelines act as a guide to fans, and also can be referenced in the case of a dispute. You can’t really go to far here, banning any form of criticism, for example, is way to heavy handed. Be honest and fair. Here’s a handy guide.

Page Growth
If your adding new 5% new fans organically (outside of campaigns and ads) each month your doing well. Post good updates and you can easily grow organically by 10% to 15% per month. It’s not easy but it’s not impossible either.

Off Your Page Promotion
There’s ton’s of ways to promote your page outside of Facebook. Try adding a social plug in to your website on your website, put a logo in-store, in your email signature, on a menu the list goes on. The easiest way to identify where to put a link or logo is to examine what parts of your business customers come into contact with and direct them to Facebook from there.

III. Newsfeed Marketing

The Very Important Newsfeed
The Newsfeed is the single most important element to Facebook Marketing. According to Facebook 85% of interaction on the platform occurs in the Newsfeed, although a more recent Comscore study puts this down to 27%, also stating that fans are 40 – 150 times more likely to consume content in the newsfeed than on a brand page. Thats how important Newsfeed communication is, it’s the key marketing space on Facebook.

 

The Starbucks Example
If that’s not enough to convince you how important the newsfeed is in terms of marketing maybe this is. Starbucks has 24 million fans on Facebook, but not all fans will be online all of the time. In May 2011 Starbucks managed to reach over 6.5 million fans through the newsfeed, impressive enough. But when you take into account the friends of fans who saw the brand pop into their newsfeed because of their comments and likes that figure jumps to over 17 million Facebook users. Thats the Starbucks brand in the Newsfeed of 17 million users without paying for ads, or investing in apps or video. It’s good quality newsfeed content that helped.

Your Page’s Icon
A page icon is the little square image that appears beside all your posts. Sometimes when brands change these I don’t recognise the brand immediately and I find it slightly off putting. Since this will be beside every post you make having a clear, distinct and recognisable icon is important.

Post Content
Bring out your brands personality and do away with the the cheap off brand chit-chat. I am talking about such updates as ‘Happy Friday’, ‘Whats everyones plans for the weekend?’ etc. They lack any sense of what your brand is about and seem slightly banal. I mean really, a big corporation cares about what I’m doing this weekend? It’s insincere, boring and borderline spam. Just imagine the poor fan checking their newsfeed on a Friday to find all these crap clogging it up.

Post Content #2
Thats not to say it can’t be done successfully. The shoe superstore Schuh do ‘Happy Schuhsday’ every Tuesday and post up photos of what types of shoes their staff are wearing. Thats seriously good, it brings staff and fans together around the subject to hand – shoe’s.

Post Content #3
These banal posts lack any real personality. Perhaps it’s the fact you won’t know all your fans and written words can take a different meaning to how they were intended that see’s such a proliferation of such posts. But why sound like your competitor or any other brand on Facebook? Jack Nicholson didn’t stick an axe through a door and say ‘Happy Friday’ or ‘How was your weekend?’ Yes it’s all about conversation, but no-one wants to talk to the most boring person in the world. Dull posts are also a major reason why people unsubscribe from pages. Being different is good, in fact marketing is all about being different so why do brands insist on posting the same banal chatter? Think of that poor fan with the same drivel in his newsfeed on a Friday. A great example of a page for posts is Skittles. It’s crazy off the wall posts get thousands of likes and comments each, with no real competitions or campaigns.

Post Content #4
What type of posts get the most interaction from fans? It’s photos apparently. Which isn’t surprising – its an immediate visual payoff. Photo’s get almost three times the interaction of a link and almost double that of a video. Whats surprising is that the 2nd most popular form of post is a plain status update.

Post Content #5
If you are posting a link, include some personal analysis. In other words tell fans why the link worth clicking this increases the chances of them clicking through.

Post Content #6
Mix up the types of posts you make. You can add photo’s and video, but also think about using Facebook Questions or Events instead to notify fans.

Post Content #7
Buddy Media looks at the most effective words used in posts. Fans respond well to directions such as; Like, Take, Submit, Post, Comment, Tell Us. However they don’t like aggressive words such as contest or promotion. Instead they prefer; Win, Offer, Event, Winning, New.

Post Content #8
Also from that study the words Where, When, Would, Should were preferred over How, Who, What, Did and Why.

Post Frequency
This is a biggie, because it’s so varied. I have seen studies that say the biggest brands manage an average of 24 posts per month, but then this study suggests that the optimal amount of times is 12 posts PER DAY. But juxtapose that with this study which says the number one reason why people unfriend brands is because of too many posts and you are left scratching your head. I’ve always said these studies are only guides because they take an average of so many pages and where does your page sit? Maybe it’s closer to the low end or the top end of the scale? I would expect a dozen posts from a news organisation, but not from a local business. In my opinion go for one post per day, but if you end up having to make banal posts such as in points 15, 16 & 17 above your’re better off not posting. You really have to make a judgement call yourself on this.

What Time To Post
There is so much research into this as well out there some of it contradictory and maybe Wednesday mid afternoon is the best, or maybe its the weekend between 5pm and 6pm. Again businesses vary in customer segments (Students versus Mothers), time zones (Dublin versus Sydney). Use insights and try to spot a pattern as to when your posts get most comments, likes and impressions (ie. showing up in Newsfeeds). You should also remember posting the same time every day could also miss out on pockets of fans who just aren’t on at those times. A litter variety could work better.

What Time To Post 2
Buddy Media released a paper (Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts) which breaks down the best time to post by industry.

Entertainment: Friday – Sunday
Media: Saturday & Sunday, but avoid Monday
Retail: Sunday
Business & Finance: Wednesday & Thursday
Fashion: Thursday
Food & Beverage: Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday
Healthcare & Beauty: Thursday
Sports: Sunday
Travel: Thursday & Friday

Getting Content Ideas

Look at your competitors to try and get ideas for content. See what is working for them and what isn’t and don’t just look within your home market either. Look at markets your not even in to see what good ideas other brands are coming up with. However, never steal ideas, instead do them better.

There was some seriously cool campaigns in September. What we’ve been seeing for sometime is a move towards The Internet of Things – where everyday objects that were not digitally connected, become connected. RFID is an example of this and that’s been around some time. This past month we have seen a very diverse set of products become ‘digitally enabled’ – for better or for worse. There was a live Twitter feed in a print magazine, chocolate bars with GPS technology, RFID enabled socks and an in-store loyalty programme that uses facial recognition technology.

Nestlé ‘We Will Find You’
This ticks all the boxes for me. For the consumer it’s a very simple to communicate concept, that requires minimum effort to take part in with a very clear benefit for them and a big technology twist. You can also enter codes from promotional packs on a Facebook app to win a cash prize.

Hunted ‘Byzantium Security’
Hunted is a new BBC HBO co-production about a female spy who reappears a year after she is presumed dead. This online game uses photos, video and audio in what seems like a series of bizarre questions – you think your building towards an end, which you are, but… well that would be telling. I passed this onto three friends of mine to play and they gave up, when I told them what they missed on the last level they were kind of annoyed at giving up. In other words – spend the five minutes until the end. Oh and it log’s into your Facebook account to pull content for some of the rounds. While I really liked this game, I’m not so sure the connection with the TV show was clear (except bar a trailer played at the end), but that’s not it’s biggest flaw – the biggest flaw was all three of my friends dropping out before finishing the game and thus missing the connection with the TV show and – the point of the whole thing.

Play Byzantium Tests here.

In the US, more precisely on Wall Street, the game was supported with this out of home communication and banner ad’s on WallStreetJournal.com

FaceDeals
I mentioned this in the intro – users are checked into businesses via face recognition technology and then sent an offer based on their ‘likes’. This has huge potential for high street retailers – online retailers can use your data to serve you with more relevant information (think of Amazon ‘people who also bought’ accounts for 20% of their sales!). FaceDeals could link the online data of Facebook with offline retailers to provide more relevant offerings.

Durex
There’s a few brands who really like to have a lot of fun with their marketing – Durex is one. This spot from Poland is very clever.

Alzheimer’s ‘Donate Your Timeline’
September 21st was World Alzheimer’s Day. To mark the occasion Alzheimer’s Disease International brought out an app that temporarily erased your Facebook Timeline. In other words, for one day, you’re entire (Facebook) memory was forgotten – which is something Alzheimer sufferer’s go through every day.

Fed Ex ‘Always First’
This is a student project for Fed Ex from the Miami Ad School. It’s not an ad as such but deserves to be. A simple message communicated in a very visual way.

NotFound
NotFound is a campaign by Child Focus to help find missing children. The campaigns asks companies to donate their 404 pages to the organisation so they can advertise missing children. It’s a very interesting connection that’s taking a web page that most companies do nothing with.

Grey Poupon ‘Society of Good Taste’
Grey Poupon is a mustard brand in the USA. The brand launched a Facebook app that is only accessible by discerning people. If the app deems you to have poor taste in likes, comments, or not as educated as they like – you don’t get access to exclusive content.

Check if you have good taste here.

CW Live Twitter Feed in a Magazine
This is a strange mix, a live Twitter feed on a small LED screen in a print magazine. The feed is pulling tweets about new CW TV shows starting this month. The brand is allowing both positive and negative tweets to be displayed, with only tweets featuring swear words not being displayed.

Watch the ad get ripped apart:

Harry’s Bottle Message
A bar in Singapore has come up with a very cool way of bringing single people together – using beer and QR codes. You buy a beer with a tag, scan it, attach a digital message to that tag and then send the beer to the person you want to talk to. They scan you tag and boom! A conversation begins. Since launching in August Harry’s have reported sales of beer amongst those using the app are double than those without.

 

In previous parts I’ve looked at the use of new and unconventional marketing methods such as Guerrilla, Ambient and Viral techniques since 1999’s The Blair Witch Project. Part 4 focuses on two of the biggest films of 2008 Cloverfield and The Dark Knight.

Cloverfield
Released in early 2008, this film had audiences talking right from the get go with an astonishingly different trailer released the previous summer. It stood out for several reasons. Not only did it look to be entirely shot on a camcorder, but it featured a huge monster which we didn’t get to see, and the film had no name. Online buzz was rife with potential names and Cloverfield was one of the early suggestions, but to most the film was only known as 18.01.08 (its release date). With the film taking a visual cue from The Blair Witch, both were shot in a hand held style, and neither film featured footage of the ‘monster’, so is it any wonder then that much of the marketing parallels that of the Blair Witch Project?

Lets start with that trailer again…

While the campaign featured more traditional elements such as the use of TV trailers to promote the film, there was a lot more going on online. The trailer (and the film) expands on the ‘reality TV’ visual concept, making use of social network profiles of the Films characters and updating them in real-time, so, as Movie Marketing Madness points out ‘when its December 15th in our world its December 15th in the Movie’s world’.

The drink Slusho also became an important element of the marketing campaign. It’s a drink made by the Tagruato Corporation that features an ingredient called ‘seabed nectar’. It was eventually revealed through the real-time timeline that Rob was going to work for the company in Japan, hence the going away party at the start of the film. Visitors to the site Slusho website could read up on the product, get downloads and were even encouraged to create a Slusho advert. The Tagruato Corporation then became the subject of fake news reports that showed the destruction of an off shore drilling station owned by the company. The cause of the destruction is unclear.

Further online content included a fake website with video content posted by the characters Jamie and Teddy who were dating. Teddy goes to Japan to work for Tagruato only to be kidnapped. He manages to send Jamie a parcel with a note and something wrapped in tinfoil, believed to be the seabed nectar. Jamie eats it and goes nuts. Eight of the ten videos in the series can still be be viewed online here.

Rating… While Snakes on a Plane proved that generating pre release hype does not guarantee runaway success for a film, Cloverfield managed to live up to its hype and went onto become the biggest January opening for a film ever. Releasing such a trailer without a name was always going to grab the viewers attention and the content of that trailer alone probably would have been enough to get decent returns. What I liked most about this campaign was its use of real time. Much like the Blair Witch the web was used to elaborate on the films story by providing background on the characters and key elements such as Tagruato, and these were also developed upon as the films release date got closer. 8/10

Sources: Well worth reading Movie Marketing Madness as it has a much more in depth look at the films marketing

The Dark Knight
The campaign for the second Christian Bale Batman centred on an Alternate Reality game (ARG) called ‘Why So Serious’. The people behind it were 42 Entertainment, a company formed by many of the same people who worked on AI’s marketing with Microsoft in 2003 (and covered in Part 2).

The Why So Serious’ marketing took many elements of AI’s game ‘The Beast’, only to elaborate on its complexity. There was a number of websites to support the fictional Gotham including a Gotham City Subway, Gotham Times, Harvey Dent’s mayoral campaign and The Joker’s website WhySoSerious.com. The latter played a crucial role in the marketing of the film.

The Joker’s site included a ‘to do’ list, initially with just three items, this was added to as the movie’s release date got closer. The first item on the list was ‘Participate in local election but make it all about me’ – a reference to Harvey Dent’s Mayoral campaign. This took place on May 18th 2007, a full 14 months before the film was released. The list also went on to include 14 items (full list here). The items included; the Joker recruiting an army, encouraging fans to dress as the joker at Halloween and submit their picture, the most impressive received gifts and notes from The Joker and scavenger hunts that lead to private screenings of vandelised Dark Knight trailer. See the trailer below

Select participants ‘won’ mobile phones through two of the games that gave them a direct line with The Joker. The first began as an online game on the  The page revealed a series of real locations around the USA and players were encouraged to go to these locations and collect something under the name ‘Robin Banks’. Once they arrived at the location (always a bakery) they were given a box with a cake and a phone number on it. Inside the cake was a phone, a charger and a Joker playing card with instructions. The cakes were distributed on a first come first served basis. Callers got through to ‘Rent A Clown’ and then received a text telling them to keep the phone at all times.

A second phone hunt occurred in April of 2008 originating from a website called ClownTravelAgency This consisted of a list of 26 locations, mostly in the USA, but also London, Paris, Hong Kong and Sao Paulo and also a clue that read “Ready to have a ball? A special bag of fun awaits the first to claim it, but you’d better strike fast, there’s no time to spare”. It eventually lead to a locker in bowling alley’s, the reward to those who found the locker first was a bowling ball, engraved with a number and a police evidence bag with a mobile phone and charger.

Watch a news report from the USA on this.

These select participants with mobiles were contacted via texts to reveal several hidden online games that uncovered more hidden games and clues. Eventually this lead to a page offering free tickets to pre release screenings of the film.

Rating… Interactivity between brand and consumer is one way of getting past consumers general malaise towards marketing. Just how interactive can marketing get than having a direct line to the film’s protagonist? The marketing campaign lasted for 14 months and provided a level of immersion previously unseen in marketing, the game didn’t revolve around just the USA either with some, although, limited options for those who live outside the states. The game centred on The Joker, maybe because it’s easier to market the ‘dark side’, but also maybe because The Joker hadn’t appeared in a batman film for almost 20 years and what a perfect way to introduce and build a fiendish persona for the character before the opening credits of the film had rolled. This was an astonishingly creative campaign of great depth and global reach. It has surely set the bar for others to follow.

Picking up where my last collection of Guerrilla Marketing ended in late November / early December last year, here’s 52 examples of some of the best Guerrilla Marketing that have appeared since then.

In the last six months beer brands and car manufacturers have been increasing their use of such tactics to rise above the marketing noise. Tactics have been small scale such as unusual business cards, large scale such as the Heineken Champions League stunt involving over 1,000 people, while social marketing (the selling of a change in attitude as opposed to products or services) continue to use guerrilla marketing as a way of making an impression on the viewer.

While few marketing campaigns are truly original, everything has its roots somewhere (that Heineken stunt is an elaboration on Candid Camera stunts that date back to the 1950′s), it is how they are applied to communicate the brand message is new and clever.

Here’s the list, in no particular order.

German Wings
This is taking the Guerrilla aspect of the marketing deep behind enemy lines. This video below German is for low cost airline German Wings and was shot on a rival Easyjet flight where they make fun of the no frills aspect by the UK carrier.

Quebec’s Ice Hotel
To promote this newly opened hotel in Quebec snowmen with the hotel’s logo began to appear around the city. The hotel is a sustainable business and so the owners wanted to go down an eco friendly route with their marketing. All with the support of city officials

Cargo Business Cards

I’ve featured clever business cards here before, the best ones are ones that get a sense of the business across in a stand out way. This example is for Tam Cargo in Brazil and folds into a small package.

Massage the Message

Business cards for a masseuse. The details remain invisible until gentle massaged.

Kenwood Car Stereo
A burning car placed in the centre of Milan still manages to play music thanks to the kenwood soundsystem

ChicagoTown V Dominos
No visual material for this, but I felt it was worth including. In Liverpool last December the frozen pizza co. followed Domino’s delivery drivers to their destinations. Once the Domino’s driver headed off a ChicagoTown rep would call to the door and offer the customer their money back and a ChicagoTown Takeaway frozen pizza instead. This was to reinforce the frozen pizza’s triumph in taste tests when pitted against Domion’s and Pizza hut.

Heineken Walk In Fridge

To support the TV ads featuring their walk in fridge, Heineken placed this giant boxes on the streets of Amsterdam to insinuate the giant fridges existed.

Mini Cooper

To show just how compact these cars are, Mini placed giant cardboard boxes on city streets made to look like the packaging off a new mini.

Mini Trooper

Mini continues its love affair with Guerrilla Marketing and erects a giant billboard to warn drivers of cops looking for traffic offenders

Mini V Porsche
Keeping with their Guerrilla theme Mini challenged Porsche (a much higher spec car) to a race on June 21st. The challenge wasn’t only made in this video, but on Facebook, in the New York Times and in several trade magazines. Below is the original challenge. In the end Porsche didn’t show, so mini provided their own Porsche. You can check out the race on their Facebook page.

Campaign Against Vandalism
Citizens in Pamplona in Northern Spain woke one morning to find city furniture covered in giant magenta price tags. This was to highlight the financial cost of cleaning up after vandalism and anti social behaviour in the region. Full size here.

Confused
Similar again, the online insurance firm bubble wrap the most accident prone street in Britan and renamed in Accident Avenue.

Cancer: Coffin Towels
How about this idea to highlight the dangers of over exposure to the sun – coffin shaped towels. It really drives home the point, but so not to ‘kill’ the mood at the beach the organisaers, Friends of cancer Patients, also gave out free sunscreen.

Cancer: Toe Tags
Keeping with the cancer theme these Toe Tags were attached to sunbathers who had fallen asleep in a park in Zurich on the hottest day last year. With the addition of a toe tag, the sleeping people looked like dead bodies in a morgue.

 

Gillette Bloody Tissue
Similar to the Twilight fangs idea of an earlier post this idea is for Gillette, where they placed what looked like a piece of bloody tissue over existing ads to promote their better quality blades. They did receive permission from the marketers to place the bloody tissue on the ads.

 

Stihl Leaf Blower
After every day, each page of this Autumn calendar automatically falls to the ground, just like a leaf. So buy Stihl Leaf Blowers.

Volkswagon Fast Lane Slide
Not to let Mini corner the marketing vehicular fun Volkswagon make their claim for the fun tag. Why take the long and boring route when you can have the faster and more fun route? In this video a slide placed beside a set of steps acts as the fun versus boring or the volkswagon way versus the others.

Nationwide Auto Insurance
A nice optical illusion advert that really stands out.

Framed Side Mirror
Instead of leaving a flyer on the windshield this company that specialises in framing, decorated the wing mirrors of cars.

McDonalds Steam
From January I found this to late to go into the McDonalds post from a while back. Nice and inventive again from the McD crew, see how the steam in the bus shelter ad reveals a hidden message?

McDonalds Steam 2
In a similar vein the fast food giant used steam from cooking its Angus burgers to project images onto it, on the roof of one of its stores in Puerto Rico – thus claiming to have created a new advertising medium.

McDonalds Paddy’s Day
Already featured elsewhere but its from 2010 and more than deserves its inclusion again.

Burger King
A nice idea from Burger King in Brazil. To prove burgers are made to order it comes with your face on it.

Ant Protest
I have featured fly’s being used for marketing in the past. This ad below features ants who are protesting against the Baygon incesticide product. The placards read ‘Stop the Killing, Stop Baygon’. The second video shows just how they got ants to protest.

AOK Germany
A German health insurance company installed these into their offices. Based on the proverb an apple a day keeps the doctor away, these are giant tubes with an apple corresponding to each day of the month. At the end of the month it gets refilled. Not sure if I’d really want to be trying the apples after the 2nd or 3rd week.

Toilet Advertising: Stickers
Usually toilet advertising appears in public bathrooms. However one book publisher took to putting stickers on the back of bottles that would normally appear in home toilets. The mesage? If your reading this, maybe its time to read a book?

A Thief in The House

Dos En Uno Gum
This Chilean chewing gum brand, known for its big bubbles flew this giant bubblegum balloon, with attached kid, over several cities in the country

Dutch Railway
To highlight to drivers stuck in traffic jams they might be better off taking the train DDB Amsterdam came up with this clever idea – to stick a short story on the back of a bus. Playing up just how long the driver is stuck behind the bus, when trains don’t have traffic jams

Dubai Metro
Still promoting public rail transport, these messages were left in dust on cars left at Dubai Airport

Universal King Kong Ride
To promote Universal’s new King Kong ride these massive King Kong like footprints and trashed vehicle were found on a nearby beach

Visa Pompei
Luggage carousels are popular when it comes to marketing, this one is made to look like flowing lava.

Gorrilaz in Belguim
To promote the recent Gorillaz album giant decals of the cartoon band memebers were palced at various locations around Belgium. Fans were then encouraged to go and get pictures taken with the band and to send them in, in return they were entered into a competition for tickets to a Gorillaz gig.

Alfa Romeo
Billboards turned into classified ads things.

Alfa Romeo Shopping Cart

Alzheimer Society
To highlight the plight of those with Alzheimer’s tourists and Hamburg locals were confronted by these a city map without any street names.

Dinosaur Meat
Look how powerful the Vitafresh technology is in this Bosch freezer, it has even kept Dinosaur meet fresh!

Hung New Zealand
Using billboard stands as part of the ad is nothing new, but this is a new twist on that again. Its for the HBO show ‘Hung’ about a high school teacher who uses his talent to become a male prostitute. Whats that ‘talent’? have a guess from this

KLM Comfort
This is from Manchester where KLM launched their economy comfort product with this…

Unusual Job Search
That famous Google job search from earlier this year is an instant classic. Here’s the video if you somehow missed it

Unusual Job Listings
Shield Security wanted to hire new staff with industry experience, so they went about this by advertising to staff at existing security check points. They did this by embedding steel letters into custom briefcases, which show up as a hidden messasge when run through an x-ray machine. Clever stuff

Ketchup Landmines

World Cup: Bavaria Beer
True Guerrilla Marketing – a small player with a tiny budget taking on the big boys with equally big pockets. When Fifa turned away 36 women from a Dutch game for wearing orange clothing because their clothes could infringe on Budweisers position as official sponsor of the world cup, little did they realise the whirlwind of publicity they would generate for the Bavaria Beer brand. Read more here.

World Cup: Kululu Air
The low cost South African airline Kululu Air is flying Sepp Blatter all around the country. It’s just a marketing stunt to drill up some free publicity for the airline. it’s not the real Sepp but a dog with the same name. Not to be confused with the real Sepp Blatter.

Kit Kat Chair
From Auckland these Kit Kat ad’s can be re-assembled into a chairGreenpeace at Nestle Shareholder Meeting

To highlight the plight of Orang-utans at the hands of Nestle, Greenpeace came up with this idea;

The Zoning Plan
This is Greenpeace taking a flashmob and turning it on its head to highlight what would happen if a nuclear cloud spread over a country – people would literally drop. Of course those not in on the flashmob are suddenly shocked when everyone around them drops to the ground as if dead. I’m not 100% sure but I think something like this happened recently in Dublin.

13th Street Interactive Horror
This is kind of clever an interactive horror cinema trailer to promote a horror film channel in Germany.

Nissan Micra Sunroof Cinema
There’s been a shift towards getting more adventurous in cinema advertising, the above example shows how ads are trying to break through any noise or clutter to connect with the viewer in new ways that will generate buzz. Another example was this from Ikea (No 15 on my list of Ikea marketing from here). Now Nissan do something similar with a projection onto the roof of a cinema to emulate the opening of a sunroof on their Nissan Micra. I guess when you look at the environment of a cinema it does have certain boundaries within which brands can play – Ikea used the screen, 13th Street Horror used audience participation and this plays with the darkness and the shape of the cinema. It’s not clear what is on the cinema screen as the sun roof opens, video shot from the drivers point of view would work well. Either way this increased test drive requests by 19% in Germany.

 

Maybe you can tell that I often blog about Guerrilla Marketing, that’s because I really like it. It’s creative and inventive and helps to raise brand awareness in those who experience the communication better than if traditional methods were used. However much of what I have posted before isn’t really Guerrilla Marketing, a lot of it has been big brands with big budgets. The true essence of GM is about the underdog using low budget methods to deliver a creative and impactful campaign against bigger competitors.

That’s why GM techniques often have high impact in their immediate surroundings because their are focused on a pre defined geographic area, and the use of word of mouth to spread it amongst those in the geographic area who did not see the guerrilla ad. Luckily with things like social media, digital cameras and phones such campaigns can be grabbed and shared with the world. Perhaps that is why there’s a definite increase in the amount of GM campaigns being used (although not really here in Ireland) of late, as they can then be used as great fodder for a viral (if done right). Also the term Guerrilla is very in vogue at the moment, it’s attached to really anything that has the intentions to disrupt the status quo, but rarely really anything does.

So I thought for the next post on GM, I’d get back to the roots of what it really is. Here’s a list of 10 really low budget GM techniques that I have seen. I’d imagine all of these were put together for less than €100.

SalvationArmyDonate.org

In Portland, Maine the Salvation Army got local businesses together to donate space to promote the work of the organisation. The result worked out completely free and tied in nicely with the marketing message – the Salvation Army spends more on people in need and less on unimportant things that could eat into their budgets.

Business Cards

Take the essence of the brand and deliver it in a straight forward manner. This example uses 2^nd hand business cards to promote a 2^nd hand shop, can’t get any more straightforward than that. Cost? €0.50c for a pen

Boneless Chicken Dinner

Getting customers to see the product in a new light could also work. This isn’t going to make you rich, but it’s memorable, and adds personality to a product that has never had a ‘brand personality’ before.

Campbells Soup

This again gets people to see the product in a new light. It’s probably more effective than the last idea. The placing of the soup with the cold and flu remedies catches people under the weather, and while they might be thrown at first as to why the chicken soup is beside the Lemsip they’ll quickly think of how comforting chicken soup can be. That translates into a bunch of new sales.

Flying Woks

This is possibly the most expensive thus far, but not that expensive. Its taking resources the company already has and moves them into a different location to help attract passers by. Its a good idea because it has a visual element, even if you fail to miss the sight of a bunch of chef’s outdoors the smell of freshly cooked food will grab you.  Add to that the free food and one business could have a lot of satisfied ‘potential’ customers who will go and tell all their friends. This type of marketing cant be done in print, TV or even on the almighty Facebook. A restaurant can talk the talk of being actually good, but this place obviously believes in their food and is willing to walk the walk.

Twilight

Yes I did say these examples were low budget and how they were for the ‘underdog’, so how exactly does one of last years massive films fit that criteria? Well firstly it is low budget look at what they did, simple little stickers that were in the shape of vampire marks with the words ‘Twilight’ and ‘Get Bitten’ printed on them and the Guerrilla aspect? They stuck them on ad’s for other products around Sydney Australia. It’s going to annoy a bunch of marketing companies, products, but also get picked up by the media and create a buzz among those who see it with those that didnt.

DignityInDeath

Stickers placed on park benches by DignityInDeath to imitate memorial plaques. Each sticker provides a graphic description of death in uncomfortable and stark situations. The purpose being that such deaths are avoidable through the legalisation of assisted suicide.

Dolce Hotels

I couldn’t find an image for this so you shall just have to use your imagination. Dolce Hotels are using what they describe as disruptive in hotel advertising targeting their customers. Using simple things like post it notes stuck on headboards and messages on bathroom mirrors in lipstick the hotel are trying to use “a humoristic and inspiring touch, we hope to show our flexibility for both business and leisure”. Nice, cheap and memorable.

Guerrilla Mind Hacking

This was produced as part of a Guerrilla Art expo and features a series of thought bubbles placed at enough of a height to look as if they belong to passers by.

Rock Climbing School For Kids

Great idea, using chalk to draw an iconic image that everybody will recognise in an unusual location that is related to the service. How easy is that? All it takes is a bit of thought and preparation.

So there you have it ten simple, straight forward and low budget ideas that demonstrate what GM is really about. You don’t need oodles of money but with a little bit of creativity you can go a long way. The most basic ideas here required something to write with and a surface of some sort.  GM uses creativity to stick in the mind of the viewer and such levels of creativity are almost impossible to achieve in other forms of communication.

It’s been a year since I wrote anything on social media statistics in Ireland, so it’s about time for an update.

This is the first in a series of posts on Irish Social Media Statistics. This post will focus on general statistics available on the use of social networks in Ireland, our online habits and even smartphone penetration – these all matter. Later posts will look at specific networks these including;

Facebook (Post now live)
Twitter
Youtube
LinkedIn
The series aim’s to bring together all the research thats currently out there. It’s taken a good bit of time to put together so do please go forth and share.

Internet Use in Ireland
This first section is about how we use the internet in this country.

A recent ComReg report suggest Irish users spend 10 hours 7 minutes online each week (1)
However Comscore reports this figure as 20.1 hours per month, with users visiting 1,966 pages on average (2)
An AMAS survey found 77% of 16 to 29 year olds are on the internet every day
64% of 30 to 44 year olds are online every day
43% of 45 to 69 year olds are online every day
21% of 60 to 74 year olds are online every day
25% of those surveyed said they hadn’t been online in the last 3 months with 62% of those in the 60 – 74 age group. (3)
The takeaway here is that we’re spending more time online than ever before, which isn’t a surprise. In a late 2010 study Comscore were reporting we were spending just over 18 hours a month online, less than two years later and this has increased by 10% to over 20 hours. The AMAS figures also show an increase in how many of us are going online each month – in all age categories, including ‘silver surfers’. More of us are using the internet and for longer than ever before.

Social Network Use in Ireland (4, 5)
In a *May 2012 survey Ipsos MRBI asked 1,000 respondents what social network, if any, did they have a profile on;

53% had a Facebook account (+6% since May 2011)
42% Do not have any social network account (-6%)
15% Twitter (+5%)
13% LinkedIn (+5%)
13% Google+ (+13% since May and 3% since Feb ’12)
1% Foursquare (n/c)
Social networking growth has levelled off in Ireland, perhaps we have reached saturation point. While the figures above show small percentage growth for all networks in the last 12 months, with new kid on the block Google+ having as many users as LinkedIn and just 2% behind Twitter. Foursquare has remained niche and will probably remain so. What these figures don’t tell us is – how long are we spending on these networks. A person saying the have a Google+ account and logs in once per month, is very different to someone who Tweets on a daily basis.

In another survey of 1,000 social network users for Nokia DMA’s;

77% stated Facebook was their preffered social network
7% stated Twitter
72% of resondents update their profile from home
17% on the move (mobile) 11% update from work
59% of people use Social Media to keep in touch with friends and family
35% of people access social media mostly on their smartphone
Irish Parents of Kids & Teens (LSE)
In a January 2011 study into Irish kids and teenagers, aged 9 – 16 years of age, and their use of social media was conducted by the London School of Economics (13). They found:

39% of Irish parents don’t allow their children to have a social network profile
42% of parents allow their children to use social networks freely
20% of parents allow their children to use the social networks without supervision
60% of females aged 9 to 16 years and 58% of males aged 9 to 16 years have social networking profiles (this figure includes Facebook and others)
Smartphone Penetration in Ireland (12)
In a study carried out by Red C into smartphone penetration in Ireland in November 2011, it found;

49 of the irish Population own a smartphone
This was up 14% on March 2011
This figure is expected to rise to 71% by the end of 2012
37% of males own a smartphone
32% of females
Smartphone by Demographics

39% of under 25 own a smartphone
41% of 25 – 34 year olds own a smartphone
37% of 35 – 44 year olds own one
33% of 45 – 54 year olds
19% of 55+
54% of ABC 1′s own a smartphone
56% of Dubliner’s own a smartphone
46% of smartphone owners own an Apple device
16% Samsung
9% HTC
9% Blackberry
7% Nokia
Advertising (6)
According to the IAB online Adspend study, €5.8 million was invested in advertising on social media websites in 2011.

Social Media in the Workplace (5,6,7)
An Integrity Solutions survey of 84 IT and security professionals in December found;

24% of Irish businesses block all employee access to social media sites
27% allow some restricted access
49% allow full access
In a survey conduced by Candidate Manager in the UK & Ireland(9);

14% of Irish businesses use social media to scout for staff
Of these 92% of these use LinkedIn, 43% Facebook, 32% Twitter
In a study by The Wheel, 64% of Irish businesses were found to use some form of social media for business activities (8)
Social Media & Product Opinions (10)
A TNS Digital Life study into how consumers use social media to share product opinions.

51% of Irish people like to write about brands on social media
This compares with a global average of 47%
When asked about motivation to write about brands;

74% did so because of a special offer or promotion
47% did so seeking advice
A study by Accenture (13) into the Irish market found

67% of Irish people use social media to explore their options before making a purchase decision
46% of us will write about our purchase/product experience
36% of us trust comments about brands that come from people we know
26% say negative comments affect the purchase decision
30% of us have posted negative comments online
Social Media & Non Profits (8)
In a survey of 178 charity organisations conducted by The Wheel, the national representative and support body for community, voluntary and charity organisations;

90% of Irish non-profit organisations use social media
75% love or like using social media as part of their operations
72% said social media has had a positive impact on their relationship with stakeholders
49% struggle to implement it
75% use social media channels to reach potential supporters
67% use it to enhance existing relationships with consumers
Of the social networks at their disposal;

81% said they use Facebook
43% use Twitter
31% are on Youtube
29% frequent LinkedIn
18% blog on WordPress
18% upload to Flickr
How popular are they on social networks?

35% of charities have fewer than 100 followers on social media
23% have between 1,000 and 5,000 followers
6.2% have more than 5,000 followers
Social Media & Politics (11)
In a study by Dr Ciarán McMahon, a lecturer in psychology at Dublin Business School, into last year’s Irish elections, he found;

Candidates who had a Facebook account received 4,402 votes on average
Candidates who did NOT have a Facebook account received 2,100 votes on average
Candidates who had a Twitter account received 4,885 votes on average
Candidates who did NOT have a Twitter account received 2,676 votes on average
78% of candidates had a Facebook account
while 57% had a Twitter account