Viral Efforts from Switzerland

Having to complete my MSc Marketing dissertation combined with striving for perfection has unfortunately meant I have had no time left for blogging during the past few months. However, my hard work has paid off and I am very pleased with my achievements, the result and all the valuable knowledge I have gained. In my dissertation research I came across a variety of viral marketing cases and I would like to discuss some of them further here and in my next posts.

Mary Woodbridge – Mammut Sports Group AG

The Swiss brand for technical outwear Mammut has had some impressive global headlines back in 2005/2006 with their campaign called “Mary Woodbridge”. The campaign was made by the Swiss marketing agency Spillmann / Felser / Leo Burnett who came up with the story of Mary Woodbridge in December 2005. The campaign featured an 85-year old lady from Greenfield, UK, who planned an expedition to mount Mount Everest with her dachshund after having bought a Mammut winter jacket of such superior quality that unexpectedly, the elderly lady felt empowered to master any challenge. They created an interactive webpage showing her expedition training, introducing her dog and expedition partner “Daisy”, training sessions, a guestbook and movies (see here). As well as her age Mary’s story hits controversy as she planed to use a direct route from the base camp to the top, rather than using the suggested route offering four additional intermediate camps to rest. In addition, she wanted to dispense with the use of Sherpas as well as the use of an oxygen mask, as there are no such masks for her dog Daisy.

Woodbridge's wishful thinking

Having created a very insightful webpage, which seems to show that Mary Woodbridge had thought through everything and was more or less ready to go the only missing point seemed to be funding. In order to cover the financial side of her plans, “she” contacted major mountain equipment companies, international media, climbing magazines to request sponsorship for her and Daisy’s trip. A number of ads are placed in mountaineering magazines and internet forums were consulted for useful tips and advice. A great way to create buzz within the climbing and mountaineering scene and the social networking space. Quickly climbers, alpinists and bloggers discovered Mary, her story and webpage and soon after she hit the headlines. Once the story took off, media coverage and online discussions on forums, discussion boards and social networking sites were mounting. Globally, 250 newspapers, magazines and TV broadcasts reported about Mary, wishing her the best of luck for her undertaking. For some examples please see the list below:

• Mounteverest Net (English)
• Alpine (German)
• Czechclimbing (Czech)
• DNA India (Indian in English)
• Het Niewsblad (Belgian)
• Informativos (Spanish)

Woodbridge Press Coverage

Once the buzz reached it’s peak the story was revealed  by Mammut stepping out of the dark with the slogan:

“Equipment this good can cause a loss of common sense”.

Initially, clips like the one above were shown without Mammut’s branding at the end. Bringing Mary Woodbridge to life was the start of Mammut’s new marketing communications strategy that intended to promote their core value of mountaineering safety of best Swiss quality. Their intention was to remind sportsmen that the ever improving Mammut gear offering increased safety, does not justify unnecessary risk-taking. Follow up advertisements of Mammut built on the Mary Woodbridge story and the above introduced slogan, please see below.

Overly confident skier in Mammut gear is annoying bikers...

Moreover, point of sale and magazine advertisements were supporting the Woodbridge campain, which helpet to increase the buzz as well as to promote the campaign’s message (if you want to download Mammut’s promotional brochure with Mary’s story please click here). Another case, showing that the combination of online and offline marketing efforts has a positive outcome on a campaign’s objectives.

The publicity campaign was a huge success in terms of awareness creation and international brand disclosure and was also awarded with numerous awards such as the Swiss advertising film award (EDI Award), the Swiss Marketing Trophy, the Crossmedia Award, the Epica Award, the ADC in Switzerland, ADC bronze in Germany and silver at the New York Festival.

Leaves – Zimtstern GmbH

Staying within the area of Swiss technical outwear, I came across a clip by Zimtstern, a Swiss snowboard and street clothing brand. The clip was directed by Marco Lutz,  a Swiss film director, who has been responsible for a variety of memorable cult snowboard movies, which have been a worldwide success and produced by Stefan Bircher. Matching to this winter’s collection by Zimtstern, which is following the theme of “wildlife” the idea around “leaves” came to life. Hence, the viewer is surprised with classy snowboarding on a nice sunny day in fall, on leaves and as fas as the eye can see – no sign of snow!

From a viral marketing perspective, a viral video requires certain key characteristics in order to appeal to a wide audience. In my research about “The Strategic Use of Viral Marketing amongst Social Networks” I identified the following key content criteria: entertaining, compelling, creative, relevant to target audience, adding value to viewer, share worthy, engaging, simple, interesting, honest, shocking/surprising, short, unique and new. Watching the leaves spot I am very keen to say: this spot, if seeded successfully, has got all the potential to become a huge viral success within the snow sports industry and reward Zimtstern in terms of an increased brand awareness. It has only been two months and the clip has already received considerable coverage from bloggers, forums, magazines, social networking sites and is placed on several video sharing sites. Additionally, the clip is free to download on www.zimtstern.com, which supports the ease of viral spread.

And because it has been so nice, please see below the making of the spot “leaves” by junior film maker Pierre Castillo Bernad.

Marketing Strategy: Comparethemeerkat.com

Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov was a Soviet espionage administrator, who defected to the U.S. in 1938, warned Leon Trotsky of his impending assassination (read more here). Nevertheless, for the last four months “Aleksandr Orlov” the meerkat with a Russian accent broadcasts on TV in order to reassure people that they should not get confused between the two pages; comparethemarket.com and comparethemeerkat.com. He explains that lately many people have been misspelling the words when looking for price-comparison site Compare The Market in search engines and landing on his page Compare The Meerkat when trying to find a cheap car insurance. If you have not seen the TV ad yet, please see it yourself:

I remember seeing that clip for the first time and wondering a little about its sense. However, despite some doubts the ad caught my attention as well as the attention of many others. Being curious I went to investigate a bit to find out more myself. Compare The Market is a price-comparison website, which aims to provide its customers with the most beneficial and cheapest quotes from various major organisations offering car, travel or home insurances; credit cards; mortgages; loans etc. Some examples of such organisations include The AA, HSBC, Nationwide and the Post Office. Compare The Meerkat is a site founded by the Russian meerkat entrepreneur Alexandr, who claims to be a member of the Russian aristocracy and lives in Moscow. His site provides information about various meerkats, their origins, hobbies and favourite activities. A month later another clip appears, where he claims that there is a big difference between his page, comparethemeerkat.com and the price-comparison site comparethemarket.com, by playing both jingles that sound pretty much identical.

Aleksandr Orlov's Twitter Page

After getting lots of positive response and people liking these adverts, Aleksander did not rest on his laurels. He created an account on social networking site Twitter gaining great response within only a few days and currently has 14,935 followers (see his page here). Hence, Aleksandr took advantage craftily of the numerous branding and social networking opportunities delivered by Twitter.

Matching his character his account provides funny and light-hearted content, which is also adding value through a personal touch to the brand itself as well as and additional level of online customer support. According to Revolutionmagazine Aleksandr even encouraged his Twitter followers to leave statements on how they like the business in order to create a testimonial area on Comparethemeerkat.com with their comments and photographs (read full story here).

Aleksandr also has created a Facebook page (here you can see his profile) with stunning 409,565 “fans” where he similarly to Twitter discusses funny stories and jokes with people who have signed up for him.

Aleksandr Orlov on Facebook

Both, Twitter and Facebook show high potential for customer interaction and also very high response rate from people involved. In marketing terms that can be seen as brand management and reputation building from a funny and relaxed perspective: people start to like Aleksandr and part of their affection will be transformed to Compare The Market eventually. Moreover, there is also a profile on YouTube (see here) where people have signed up as followers and leave comments on the videos. It seems that people are highly enthusiastic in communicating with Aleksandr. On all pages high interaction between customers and “Aleksandr” is apparent, which represents an essential element for successful social networking.

With reference to George Everett, the creator of the campaign states in Marketing Magazine:

“Facebook and Twitter are fantastic media for us as they allow us to build a conversation with consumers,’ he says. ‘People only insure their cars once a year but we will be at the front of mind.”

Only recently a new character has been introduced “Sergej” the one who is responsible for IT and seems to be an important part within Aleksandr’s company – and also gives the brand another mascot. His appearance gains greater importance and he has even received a role in the newest clip, that came out two weeks ago:

Compare The Market have created a spoof on their own name and perfectly combined online with offline efforts within their marketing concept by combining above-the-line advertisement such as print, TV and radio with below-the-line advertisement such as social networks and web pages. This shows that new media are even stronger if combined with traditional methods, if applied effectively so that one can boost the other in the most efficient way.

With reference to Marketingmagazine the responsible agency VCCP had the clear brief to boost the brand name “Compare The Market” in order to generate brand awareness and to stand out in a very crowded market. Hence, return on investment has been achieved clearly as brand recall is ensured massively – I am sure that people will definitely remember the brand, as VCCP have done a great job.

In SEO terms, which is the concept of optimising the ability of others to find your brand’s online appearance best possible when using a web search engine such as Google or Yahoo, Compare The Market have also succeeded. Having an account on the most popular social networks boosts a brand in extremely high positions on web search engines. By building brand awareness via social media, this also allows them to have a direct influence towards increasing online traffic and finally their sales.

This entire campaign is a brilliant piece achieving a viral effect that does not seem to stop spreading. Definitely an outbreak in promotion by combining online and offline efforts. It shows how successful a clear marketing strategy can be, when created properly by applying currently popular tools. They took advantage of the popularity of social networking sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in order to build a platform for interaction with their “fans”. I am sure some people may argue whether having lots of followers supports their business, but once more I believe that awareness creation, which is achieved perfectly in this case, has a long-lasting effect that will stay in mind. And if you ever should require cheap car insurance… I am sure you will remember Aleksandr and give their page a go – if this is not successful marketing, then please tell me why!

And because its so nice…here some more of Aleksandr!

Cardosystems – Can Cellphones Make Popcorn?

By watching TV yesterday I have discovered the show called “Rude Tube” on channel E4, which I found very amusing. Basically, Alex Zane, a British comedian,  presents the most popular viral videos that have ever been shown on the Internet. On their web page, individuals can leave comments and rate videos, but they must sign up, as only registered members are able to leave a comment. A good way for a TV channel to take advantage of the numerous opportunities delivered by the World Wide Web in order to become more interactive. E4 have also achieved great success by launching a feed on Twitter, reporting the latest news of the popular TV series “Skins” and hit 10,000 followers in one day. You can follow them as well by clicking here. Skins is a British award winning TV series that tells the life stories of a group of teenagers living in Bristol.

However, one of the clips was the one, which all of you must have seen or heard about at some point. Once more, video sharing has served as a new media tool to create awareness. The original video shows four French people having a few kernels of maize on a table, surrounded by their mobile phones. Now they make all their phones ring simultaneously, and the kernels puff into popcorn. After a while a series of other cases from  additional countries appeared to make it look like like people tested it all over the world, but watch it yourself:

This video has currently 12, 869, 303 views on video sharing site Dailymotion, since it was released online in May 2008. For those of you who do not know it yet, it was all fake. The videos were part of a guerilla marketing campaign made by the American organisation Cardosystems, who tried to promote their headphones with new Bluetooth technology. The idea behind it was to encourage people to use headphones rather than the phone itself. In an interview with CNN the CEO of Cardosystems as well as founder of the campaign, Abraham Glezerman reveals all the secrets:

What a successful campaign with a return on investment of a 100% sales increase. Even marketing strategist Seth Godin refers to that case as a “vivid” marketing story. Nevertheless, one may argue whether this kind of campaign was ethically correct or not, as people were led to the conclusion that cell phones may cause serious health damage. Are there any negative consequences when marketing chooses to go the delusional way? Ehret claims in his blog “The Marketing Spot” that he would probably avoid Cardosystems if dealing in the Bluetooth industry:“I do have a hard time believing that there was no attempt at deception on Cardo Systems’ part. If I were in the market for Bluetooth, I would probably skip Cardo.”

The videos caused both excitement and outrage. Many people really liked the content and had a laugh about it, whilst others are in serious fear what their phone could do to their health. I suppose that the way in which news and information are distributed differs from country to country and hence, the perception caused by such marketing campaigns may differ depending on the culture. In this blog one of the readers claims, that the videos have scared many people in Israel.

Here is the final clip they launched to advertise their product:

In terms of awareness creation I believe that Cardosystems have done a great job. The video spread like wildfire on the web and achieved a stunning number of views and media response. The Internet is a great tool to get information, but this case also proves once more, that people have to be more critical about what they read or see. Everyone is able to publish content, so information that appears a bit dubious should be questioned by the reader and not trusted immediately. If Cardosystems had revealed themselves from the start, the video would have never achieved such a marketing buzz as it did. I find it difficult to judge whether they acted socially irresponsible or not, as finally, we all have the freedom to choose what we believe or not, but I think I tend to the view that they have not acted unethically and therefore, not broken the “rule” of corporate social responsibility, but I am open to a discussion.

What is your view on the subject? And did you know it was fake?

“violence is no solution” – Jungstil.de

Jungstil is a new online fashion retail store based in Germany that targets teenagers and young adults. The brand is promoting itself with competitive pricing due to saved expenditures through non existence of physical shopping stores. With the intention to become a special online store that stands out from the crowd, they have created a highly interactive web page around fashion and styling trends. In one section called jungstil.tv they provide visitors with self-made videos by a team of women who perform as consultants for style and fashion. They also have a section called service where they explain terms and conditions for returning goods. Moreover there is a video podcast by model and ex-fiancé of former German tennis star Boris Becker Alessandra “Sandy” Meyer-Wölden, who presents and comments some pieces from Jungstil’s collection and also talks about the latest fashion trends and states that “Jungstil’s collection can definitely keep up with New York” (watch here in German).

Alessandra "Sandy" Meyer-Wölden

As a model Alessandra Meyer-Wölden is no big name, but her short relationship with Boris Becker last summer made it in the headlines of many random tabloids, mainly because she is 15 years younger and the daughter of his ex-manager who passed away in 1997 due to lung cancer (one example of Dailymail here). In 2006 she  launched the jewellery brand Lovechild, which is considered to have a little bit of a “hippie-touch”, but counts itself  as successful having celebrity customers such as Lenny Kravitz (read Lovechild’s biography here).

Jungstil’s page is set up similarly to video sharing site YouTube and allows visitors to place comments below each video, but users cannot upload their own videos. By doing so an email address has to be entered which provides Jungstil with necessary contact information of its visitors and enables them to conduct email marketing. This is a very simple way to collect additional contact details, as people who comment on those styling videos may be most likely part of the target audience. Furthermore users have the opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions, which are answered by the editorial staff.
As an online store there are as well the advantages of having each single interaction to customers saved in a digital format, which allows Jungstil to create a customer database and thus, database marketing. Having all customer actions digital facilitates the identification of key customers and hence, the successful implementation of key account management. The right treatment of key customers retains them over a long period and there is strong evidence of greater generated profit from each customer per year, as established by Fred Reichheld in his loyalty business model. Having so much recorded interaction provides Jungstil with competitive advantage and the opportunity for customer tailored marketing.

On the 8th of April 2009 Jungstil published a promotional video that shall encourage for online shopping. With already 116,287 views and a lively discussion representing a mixture between excitement and disgust from viewers, this video definitely shows virals marketing characteristics.

In the video you see a women picking up a piece of garment at the sales and another women appears to have interest in exactly the same piece. After asking if she can have a look at it as well and grabbing it at the same time, the two females enter a bloody fray. The video is once more a video that contains violence and blood, so please little children – do not watch it, even if it is meant to be funny!

A great way for an online store to drive web traffic to a page, considering that many people will check out their page after seeing the video. From reading through the comments on YouTube it is fair to say that more people like the video then dislike it. However, both positive and negative comments will drive traffic and generate word-of-mouth. I am pretty confident that at some point the brand will make it into German newspapers due to the video.

In my view, another brand that did a great job in reaching their target audience by using a variety of new media communication tools. It definitely sets a high standard for an online fashion retail store, even if there is still room for improvement.

And now, find the similarities! 🙂

CWS – say no to dirt!

Viral marketing, as already discussed in previous blog entries enjoys increased popularity and respect amongst marketers. Various campaigns have emerged out of nowhere and pleased online users with creative, funny and somehow unique content. One of them came from the German organisation “Complete Washroom Soulutions” CWS two years ago in 2007 and is, in my opinion, well worthy to be mentioned.

CWS chose the way of celebrity endorsement. They enlisted supermodel and actress Milla Jovovich for their video promotion to add a little bit of style, coolness and sex appeal. The scene shows her in a posh nightclub in a toilet stall, kneeing on the floor and preparing to snort a line of the drug cocaine from a toilet seat. Unfortunately for her, the toilet seat’s automated sanitary mechanism gets activated and the seat starts to rotate in order to clean itself. Milla keeps trying to get her nose full, but she is too slow and her initial shocked face reveals a massive scream that makes the other ladies who are in the bathroom wonder… the viewer is left a few seconds and then the message “say no to dirt” appears. But see it yourself, if you have not seen it yet.

Not only a very appropriate slogan for a toilet solutions maker, but also a great way to highlight a situation that is a well known problem for many bars and clubs. They advertise their product by offering a solution to a common “problem” (a clean seat for everyone at any time) and also make a statement about drug abuse. In my view they can be given some credit for a small contribution of corporate social responsibility. With 1,091,485 views on social networking site Youtube there must have been certain success through awareness creation and increased web traffic for CWS. “Online you are what you publish” (says David Meerman Scott). In that context, CWS achieved to create a fresh and modern image for themselves with that particular clip. Moreover, raised public awareness of a B2B brand can influence some kind of a pull effect, which generates demand from the end-user up the supply chain. Whilst some may argue its actual value to the company, I think that having your brand name out there is certainly a positive aspect that can have a variety of effects. Brand awareness creation, which involves brand recall and brand recognition, supports strategic brand management when building name recognition for your organisation, service or product.

There may be a connection between an earlier anti-drug campaign that is shown on video sharing site Dailymotion. Unfortunately, I struggle to find any closer information about that one, but here is the video. (I’ll have to warn you, it is certainly not a nice scene to watch and blood is involved… so children under 16 should probably not watch it)

The CWS video promotion is considered as excellent by various experts such as David Meerman-Scott or Marketingprofs, because it shows that really every brand can go viral, no matter whether B2B or B2C as well as no matter what product type. Even a product that may be rather considered as “boring” and “unexciting” such as a toilet can create buzz and become memorable through its marketing. It does not always need to be a highly fancy consumer product, but the way it is presented must be somehow special. Granfield from Marketingmag reports that brand advertisement can become remarkable by telling a story (if you have a few spare minutes, read his article: “How to get the world’s attention without being remarkable” here, I think it is brilliant!) This matches with what I referred to in one of my previous blog entries: create content that engages and excites your target audience. Nevertheless, the product or service must be of a certain value and quality – marketing can do lots, but it’s certainly no magician that turns “rubbish” into profit. Well… it actually did work with some brands, but that is my personal opinion and I do not want to cause any offence by mentioning names. 😉

In the end viral marketing could be referred to as “online gossip”. As long as you create something that makes people pass it on, remember and discuss it you have definitely secured “your foot in the door”. People love stories, otherwise things like books, TV and cinemas would not really work. I am sure nearly every one of us is guilty of having been involved in some form of “gossip”. Now, just apply the gossip to marketing, think how you can make the people you want to get interested in your story and get started!

Rising from the Ashes? – Woolworths goes Online

The recession hit many businesses hard, even long established brand Woolworths, Britain’s major retailer, suffered massively and was forced into receivership and finally went into liquidation.

The high-street chain collapsed in November 2008, only one year before its centenary. Founded by Franklin Winfield Woolworth in 1909, Woolworths established into a 800 chain giant. Right from the start selling a variety of merchandise such as toys, sweets, children’s clothing and haberdashery. Thanks to mass production “Woolies” was able to be very price competitive and that is how they outperformed many British competitors when it came to china and glassware. According to Lavan from The Times Online,  in their first year of trade in Britain they offered free pots of tea to customers and introduced new shopping experiences through an American store layout encouraging to browse around (read more here).

But competing on price only is a risky game. Referring to the BBC , the main problems arose when it was heavily undermined by Amazon and large supermarkets like Tesco started selling non-food products (full story here).

Generations of shoppers commiserated with the sinking ship of Woolworths, a brand the grew up with, liked and trusted. A high amount of affection was shown when the brand’s followers on social networking sites started to increase when the recession started to kick in and Woolworths’ breakdown was covered all over the media. Referring to Marketingmagazine, Woolworth’s group on Facebook has rapidly increased exceeding a number of 23,000 members showing sympathy and sharing affection.

Whilst some were going under, investors caught interest and started to see potential business opportunities. A famous example is entrepreneur Theo Paphitis, who successfully turned around struggling and troubled retail businesses, such as the one of lingerie chain La Senza, which was one of his biggest successes (more). He is also known from the popular BBC programme “Dragons Den“, where according to BBC his focus belongs to the inheritance of his children and he is known for the sentence: “Why should I part with any of my children’s inheritance investing in this?”

Finally, the company was bought by the Shop Direct Group and Woolworths’ are now back with a new customer focused and very interactive online strategy.  Shop Direct Group the result of a merger between Shop Direct companies and Littlewoods in 2005 is one of the UK’s largest online retailers. Despite Woolworths’ popularity critics were arguing that Woolies were “out-of-touch”, lacking customer focus, as well as interaction. With reference to Manning from the Mirror, Woolies had no real unique selling point: “It is a jack of all trades, but a master of none”.  He also refers to it as outdated in an era where online shopping is outperforming shopping in giant out-of-town centres (read more).

This shall all be changed with the new business model and a vibrant marketing strategy. Shop Direct Group’s new strategy is to reduce Woolworths’ operations on only online with a strong focus on customer information and involvement through interaction. Woolworths has been relaunched online with a very strong web presence.

Shop Direct Group, which is preparing for Woolworths’ relaunch in the upcoming summer is certainly doing a good job and improving main weaknesses. It seems like they have recognised the power and opportunities that lie in online social networks. As a sign of high interaction with customer they are collecting feedback and areas of interest through social network pages Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and last fm. They set up groups called “the first single I ever bought” and encourage users to list their experiences and create a “nostalgic playlist”. Marketingmagazine states that well renounced agencies Glue London and The Brooklyn Brothers have been appointed for Woolworths’ social media presence and engagement. In order to keep customers up to date with newest information they regularly put information on Twitter, Facebook or their newly created blog (www.woolworthsblog.co.uk). This move enables them to be much more transparent and automatically provides Woolworths with more closeness to its “followers” and their feedback. A great way for their online reputation management as well as a source for ideas or concerns from interested individuals.

On Twitter they recently tested if there is any demand for some of their new offerings and according to Marketingmagazine, Twitter followers were prompted to list their top five Woolworths’ products – a great way to conduct market research in order to detect customer’s favourites (Read more).

Moreover they have created a page specially for Easter (www.woolieswonderland.co.uk) – a page that encourages its visitors to find six virtual eggs in order to secure a place in a prize draw to win a family home entertainment system…and of course to drive web traffic and collect contacts, but don’t tell anyone 😀

All in all it seems that Woolworths is on the right course. By applying clever and strategic marketing techniques and using appropriate new media tools, they can reach their audience, engage with them and discover what are the right steps to do next in order to have a successful comeback as an online store.

First Direct – A Fully Customer-Oriented Business Model

First Direct, one of Britain’s fastest growing banks, operate solely on a digital and phone basis (no branches) have managed to create a very impressive business model making use of new media and new technologies.

logo first direct

In banking, with reference to a Mintel report, there is a tendency towards customised and simplified business transactions, First Direct appears to be a simple and transparent service provider with a focus on its customers and with customer driven operations. It ticks all the boxes, of how a successful organisation should operate. Through brand differentiation, and as all their services are entirely built around customer needs. they have created something their customers can identify with. Marketing Strategist David Meerman Scott would approve of this, as he stresses the importance of creating content that solves people’s problems, rather than trying to promote the brand.

He states: You must unlearn the use of gobbledygook about your products and services. Instead start from the problems and needs of your buyer personas. (Read the full article here)

First Direct won several awards related to their operations such as: “Carbon Trust Standard” (They were the first bank to receive the Carbon Trust Standard award. More info), “Institute of Customer Services (ICS) Satisfaction Award“, “DADI podcast award” and many more. Not only that these awards improve First Direct’s brand reputation, but they certainly led also to positive publicity and word-of-mouth.

There are a two aspects I would like to consider a bit closer that give insight into First Direct’s business excellence.

Online / Telephone Banking

The benefit of operating online or via call centres is that every customer contact data is recorded and helps to develop a customer profile. This increases the quality of service as every employee servicing a customer has a wide range of technology available that provides full information about the person during the contact and thus, allows the  best possible service performance. Hence, there is opportunity for perfectly tailored database marketing to the customers. Moreover First Direct can make use of these data to learn more about their customers, make decisions about target markets for specific campaigns (customer segmentation), evaluate and compare customer values and finally, provide specialised offers for customers. Database marketing is invaluable, as it allows First Direct to create exceptionally tailored offers and services in a market based upon trust and confidence.

Telephone and Online banking can be perceived as a move towards a greener economy that supports the carbon footprint reduction. Having branches all over the country is related to high maintenance costs. In the case of First Direct these costs are limited to two headquarters and therefore the funds can be invested in consistent improvement of services, quality and technology. Besides,without the overhead of managing and maintaining branches First Direct are able to channel more resources into web development.

Interaction

First Direct make perfect use of their web page, a very fresh, creative and interactive offering – atypical for a bank in my opinion. The webpage provides podcasts with recent queries, concerns and expert information about interesting issues for their consumers (check it out). Moreover, one can find useful information about how to save energy at home. One podcast by “Energy Doctor” Mark London from “Energy Saving Trust“gives specific advice for energy savings in every household, by visiting a customer’s house (listen to the advice here). Not only are they are anxious to keep their own carbon footprint low, they also motivate their customers to take part as well as promote and encourage them to turn off the function of receiving paper bank statements in order to support their campaign “virtual forrest“. First Direct claim to plant one tree per 20 customers who switch onto paper-free transactions and let people vote where the tree should be planted. Another interesting approach is that they provide a section called “enthuse” with video clips of customers, who tell you their personal experiences with the bank and the reason why they are satisfied. These people can be seen as so called “brand advocates”, as they promote the bank by spreading their favourable perceptions and thereby generate greater brand awareness. It’s more credibe when someone like you and me gives you advice, rather than a brand trying to promote itself. This is supported by several consumer behaviour studies which identified higher confidence from consumers in personal recommendations amongst acquaintances than in advertisements.

These examples show how much more one can do with the help of new media tools, and how much more a customer may expect from a simple bank website. And as their side wouldn’t be already much more advanced that the ones from other banks, First Direct have only recently introduced a new tool: the little black book. This serves in form of a social network that is based on recommendations from First Direct customers to First Direct customers, where they can exchange information about travel, restaurants, bars, shops, services, money-saving tips etc. A great idea considering that a third of First Direct’s customers join via recommendations from existing customers, as stated in Chris Laweer’s article on FutureLab. First Direct state:

As first direct customers, you’ll know by now that we’re not like other banks. We tend to do things a little differently. We know you appreciate that – and that’s precisely why we wanted to create the Little Black Book.

Or rather, why we want you to create it. Because the Little Black Book isn’t just another review site. It’s more of a unique source of inspiration – a collection of interesting recommendations made by people like you for people like you that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else but here. And it’s exclusively for first direct customers.

A very smart move to engage with their customers! Not only did they build a social network for and with their customers, but also they gain further insight into interests and specific data about their customer. This in turn, will allow First Direct to create even better and more tailored offers for their customers. Imagine Mr X will show as being very proactive and keeps posting reviews of British heritage tours he’s made. First Direct needs some sort of reward for this customer. That they can tailor an offer, fully based on personal interests, in Mr X’s case probably a short trip to a place of interest – or even better, one that matches his interests, but it is not recorded that he has been there yet!

It appears that First Direct spends more time and effort in getting to know their customers in order to provide them with the expected services and added value. In essence, it excites me to think how great marketing opportunities must arise from all the customer data First Direct has access to. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone who is banking with them, and have no personal experience, so I cannot add any personal judgement. However, my impression stays the same. First Direct have created a very impressive business model, that seems to be a cutting-edge example for the creative and successfully implemented use of technology and new media means!

In that context, based on another statement from David Meerman Scott that says:“You must unlearn the idea that “leads” are the only way to measure your marketing efforts. Instead, consider how you are engaging your buyers and building a position as a trusted resource”, he may compliment First Direct’s efforts once more, as that is exactly what they are doing.

Delete 10 of your friends on Facebook and get a FREE whopper!

What a shocking statement, but believe it or not, that was a recent Burger King Campaign in the USA.

Previously, in April 2005, Burger King landed a massive viral marketing hit (I have discussed viral marketing already in a previous article) with the campaign of the “Subservient Chicken“. The idea was simple, the success massive. A guy dressed in a quiet poor quality chicken costume standing in the middle of a random living room and performing a variety of commands, which can be inserted deliberately by the viewer. Nothing too special to be honest – but the web page turned out to be an enormous success.

Subservient Chicken

According to an article of ViralBlog, Adweek reported that people got absolutely excited by submitting the weirdest commands, spent an average time of seven minutes on the page and also turned the subservent chicken into some sort of a “pop culture”.(read more here) It seems nearly impossible to find a command that bloody chicken does not do. From “jumping jack”, to “riverdance” to “handstand”… it even has a go when you type in “fly”.
According to AdWeek the page had over one million hits within the first day and 20 million hits within the first week. The entire campaign was launched because of Burger King’s, then newly launched, chicken sandwich that could be served the way customers wanted and thus, Crispin Porter‘s campaign for them.

When Burger King introduced another spicy version of the chicken sandwich, they created a campaign called “Chicken Fight” that was supposed to represent their two burgers fighting each other. Basically, a win-win situation for them, as Burger King never looses that way.

Chicken Fight

They wanted to express that their chicken burgers are outstanding and no one else but themselves represents competition. Some of you may even be familiar with the related spoof in Family Guy, where character “Peter Griffin” and  a giant cockerel fight each other meaninglessly over and over again without a clear winner, as the chicken to date has never died.

This second page (“chickenfight”) provided users the ability to vote on which chicken should win and also a game they could download and play. Unfortunately that page shut down in the meantime and does not exist anymore.

However, both of these sites showed high interaction potential from consumers by using new media, which appears to be an essential factor for successful viral campaigns. By taking part in the evolution of a multitasking chicken or by influencing a silly fight, fans got the feeling of being involved and engaged with the brand. According to Burger King the campaign was a great success and their web traffic increased massively.

With regard to Burger King’s return on investment AdWeek reports as follows:

“BK reported that sales had steadily increased an average of 9 percent a week. Since then, Geis says the company has seen “double-digit” growth of awareness of the TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich and “significantly increased” chicken sandwich sales. And the TenderCrisp does sell better than the Original Chicken Sandwich.”

Burger King’s “Subservient Chicken” and “Chicken Fight” made it into several marketing textbooks filed as successful viral campaign. Critics were concerned about the long-term benefit of these campaigns, but Burger King’s sales have improved since then.

Now they are back with another unusual campaign that attracted plaudits as well as heavy criticism. In their “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign on social networking site Facebook, Burger King created a campaign within the US that motivated Facebook users to delete 10 of their friends in order to get a voucher for a free Whopper.

Friendship is strong but the Whopper is stronger

Deleted friends were notified through a humorous notification sent by the application about what had happened and received the opportunity to send each other heavily branded “Angry Grams”.  The campaign took off and people were deleting each other for the sake of getting a free burger and obviously, added each other afterwards yet again. With reference to Inside Facebook the campaign was forced down by Facebook and the “functionality for violating users” had to be removed. Some argue that Facebook did not like Burger King encouraging aggression and that also caused some negative publicity.

A Facebook spokesperson announced to Inside Facebook the following:

“We encourage creativity from developers and companies using Facebook Platform, but we also must ensure that applications meet users’ expectations. After constructive conversations with Burger King and the developer of the application, they have decided to conclude their campaign rather than continue with the restrictions we placed on their application.” (Read the full story here)

Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice

According to the magazine The Marketer some bloggers were labelling the “Whopper Sacrifice” campaign as “puerile” and “obnoxious”. It must definitely have caused some negative publicity, but to date it is unclear for what exact reasons Facebook decided to intervene. Referencing the New York Times, Burger King responded with the following statement:

“While Facebook was a great sport, they did ask for changes that would have resulted in a different approach to our application, counter to what we developed […] Ultimately, based on philosophical differences, we decided to conclude the campaign and chose to ‘sacrifice’ the application.” (Read more here)

This was another very successful online campaign that seems to have appealed to  Burger King’s target audience. However, this sort of promotion may not be appropriate for every brand; as such an irreverent approach carries high risks for serious damage in brand reputation. The fact is that Burger Kind did their job well in terms of evaluating in advance whether their target audience will appreciate or turn down the campaign. Brand awareness and web traffic were definitely increased. At the point of closure the campaign generated 234,000 “deleted friends” which counts for over 23,400 free Whopper coupons.

Given the low costs of the campaign and the also pretty low NET costs of a burger for Burger King, the campaign must have had a positive return on investment. Free online as well as offline media coverage and lots of buzz – what else do you want as a brand, when you know that your campaigns appeal to your target audience?

Now the very important question (please vote):

Apple vs. Blackberry – The Battle Goes On!

I have already discussed the popular “video clip battle” between Apple and Microsoft in one of my previous articles and also the fact that others take advantage of the idea and use it for their own purposes (when two quarrel the third rejoices). Thanks to my brother my attention was drawn to an article in a Swiss newspaper that reports on a new battle, but this time between RIM’s (Research in Motion) Blackberry and the iPhone, a registered trademark of Apple. Currently there is a sequence of three videos circulating.

It starts with a video in which Blackberry attacks and beats the iPhone. At the end of the clip the following slogan appears: “The world’s first touch-screen Blackberry. Nothing can touch it.”

This video has been on YouTube only for three and a half weeks and already has 753,762 views. (Since March 25th the video I was refering to “BlackBerry Bullet Shows Apple Who’s Boss“ is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Death Songs LLC and hence the views with the new one are different) According to Tagesanzeiger it did not take long before a second video came up. Or was it Apple’s answer? Nevertheless, the following clip appeared two weeks later on YouTube and finishes off with the words: “simple facts”.

There are 155,759 views after 8 days on YouTube. What until now looks like a quarrel between Apple and RIM appears to turn into an advertising campaign for the site PleaseFixTheIPhone a page that collects improvement recommendations and complaints from iphone users and lovers (“the best mobile phone on Earth, ever!”) and formulates them into wishes. At the moment this page lists 2,250 wishes including 659,181 votes made by people who agree. Wishes can only be placed by people who have a Facebook account. They claim not to be affiliated with Apple and pronounce: It’s a modern love poem from iPhone fans who just want to improve their iPhone.

Listing 5,220 views on YouTube within 10 days even this one shows rising popularity. With reference to OnlinePC these clips were neither a strategy from Apple nor from RIM, but rather a hidden campaign made by the digital advertising agency Guava. Rumours are circulating that Guava may have created the clips with the objective to promote its own services as a digital marketing agency. If that were true it would be a similar move to the one by Giovanny Gutierrez from Tinsley Advertising, who filmed his girlfriend playing Nintendo Wii’s “Hula Hoop” game, only wearing knickers and a t-shirt. He stated that he didn’t intend any commercial outcome but admitted having personal interest in getting recruited by Nintendo (read more). Tagesanzeiger reports (in German) that there have been no comments from Guava regarding their involvement with these clips yet.

If it were to be the other case and the first video has been developed by RIM, it highlights the importance of monitoring and controlling the World Wide Web consistently. The first video may have caused some serious damage to Apple’s brand reputation, which could have resulted in declining sales. By responding very fast with a similar video message Apple entered the battle, took the initial glory from Blackberry and did not let its “fans” down – in addition, it provided them with material to fight back on their blogs and amongst social networks. Brands which ignore their online reputation amongst social networks, blogs and communities are taking a very large, stupid and unnecessary risk. Not only is the use of the Internet and new media for marketing purposes increasing globally, but also the importance of being interactive online as a brand in order to satisfy rising customer interest and hence demand for online interaction is of an ever increasing significance. Through active online reputation management unfavourable mentions can be minimised by monitoring and influencing conversations in blogs and social networks.

However, all these videos have created buzz in a very short time and thus show high potential for viral campaigns.  They tick all the boxes by creating electronic word-of-mouth, making people discuss the involved brands (brand awareness creation) and reaching large numbers of individuals within very short time. It also shows that there is no need to have a stunning and exceptional new idea for each campaign. Already existing ideas can be creatively turned into diverse stories with different outcomes and intentions.

SEO vs. PR – A Valid Judgement?

The increased importance of the Internet, and hence new media, may make brands believe that having a substantial online exposure is “the one and only” marketing communications tool of the future to which they can entirely delegate this function and ensure their brand reputation flow. Classical marketing tools such as Public Relations (PR) are suffering as a result of being questioned regarding their relevance in a time where every individual can speak out and be heard by the rest of the world. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) experts that promote their service of focusing on increased online exposure are giving PR a hard time. Many brands believe that being well presented online with high page ranks and a lot of hits on Google (“Increase your Google hits” by Ron Castle) can replace PR services entirely.

Given the increasing online competition and rising power of new media, the idea of placing the main focus on online campaigns is very tempting. SEO agencies specialise in increasing the level of online exposure using systematic keyword and metadata management, they promote themselves as a way for brands to ensure high page rank and search engine position. Nevertheless, they are lacking the ability to offer “reputation management” and cannot fully replace the role of a PR agency. Globally, the use of the Internet and social networks has increased rapidly, which has offered many opportunities for individuals and brands to have a “public voice”. Even if the role of PR has been challenged by the Internet offering great opportunities to “do it yourself” its importance should not be underestimated. Core tasks of PR such as reputation management, strategic counsel, expertise and increase in media exposure cannot simply be excluded.

Comparing the people behind the services, PR and SEO are two very different dimensions. Whilst SEO specialists have high technical skills and interests, their job consists of HTML generation, page content formatting, systematic keyword selection and implementation, metadata management and page linkage to relevant online resources. In contrast, PR people have rather linguistic skills along with research interests; their business is in understanding the industries and environments their clients operate in order to provide them with strategic reputation management and advice through a network of relevant contacts. Also from an academic perspective it would be different study programs; PR/Marketing for the ones and IT for the others.

Moreover SEO and PR pursue two completely different objectives: whilst SEO aims to create long term traffic, PR in addition to long term traffic, is also concerned with short term traffic. Another aspect is the difference of their operation areas: SEO influences online exposure only and PR concerns on- and offline traffic.

So why is there this ongoing discussion about SEO vs. PR?

As David Meerman Scott points out, keywords alone cannot substitute for good content, which supports the fact that the skills of PR people are required. He also stresses that brands should create content that its target customers or as he calls it “buyer personas“ are interested in – it has to solve their problems, rather than promote services or create content around beneficial key phrases. “For ranking in Google, however, the main benefit of a press release is not direct links or page rank from the press release directly; it is primarily the people who decide to write an article and create links to the product or brand because of the press release“ (Matt Cutts, head of Google’s WebSpam team, 2005), which also implies that people must like your content in order to link to it.

Unity is Strength

PR and SEO - unity is strength

SEO should not be considered as a direct competitor of PR, but rather as a tool that PR must apply, in order to flourish online.

Successful online campaigns should always be backed up by offline strategies to achieve cohesive reputation control. All in all these are marketing communications that should be part of an ongoing marketing strategy. I found that picture in a post by Emmanuel Idé, who also shares the opinion about combining PR and SEO that serves as perfect illustration and modified it a little.

Combined these two can maximise ROI factors and secure both the push and the pull effects of marketing communications. Having a balance of push, pull and profile strategies is also recommended by academic literature (e.g. Chris Fill – Marketing Communications). Finally, is consideration of the statement by Phil Dennison, senior marketing specialist of Business Wire: “Make sure name and brand are in the right place at the right time when people are looking for them.” (Read the full story here)

Many organisations are already doing it, and an excellent presentation is delivered by Common Craft: