“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! 🙂

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):