Evian baby = Success on campaign as well as sales??

Looking back on the lecture yesterday, we have discussed the stuffs about how company gives a big incentives to the consumer who win the video competition. I found it quite true, when a company wants to engage a lot customer to its video competition somewhat the incentives must be big. However, Evian quite make an extraordinary moves with its baby dancing campaign, though it does not give any incentives, but it still engage a lot of consumer.

This is the first video which hits millions of viewers and then they engage the customer with the second video which tells that every people could join the evian baby video.

http://www.letsbabydance.evian.com/ <-- link to the Evian baby campaign.

Well, come to think of it, many social media does a unique campaign and engaging a large number of consumer. However, do they purchase the product? may be yes, may be no. Then, how to link the social media marketing with sales?

Therefore, I think in order to make a successful social media campaign, a company must endure the successful campaign to ensure it still stick in the consumer mind and create a brand community ( represents the consumer - brand loyalty, rather than mere "fan" ) rather than mere a campaign. Then, while the company has a strong community, the people inside that community will do all the Word of mouth thing.

What do you think?

Does this evian campaign makes you want to buy Evian water? For me, I don't feel like it, but it kind of attached to your memory so whenever you want to buy water, then evian babies come into your mind.

Old ways advertising VS. New social media

Looking back on how the marketers did advertising, got me thinking what really differentiate the old advertising and the new social media.

Old marketing communication used to give all information about the brand, product, company through many media to the audience. Is it only about pitching the information? Do marketers listen after they pitch all the information to the consumer? How do they listen? No. Yes. They listen in a hard way. Marketers need to analyse the data of people viewing, assume all the possibilities that can be thought by the audience, summarise the findings and take an action for it. How on earth could a man possibly knows what other man thought by using data? I most certainly could not. Therefore, marketers can only assume and sometimes assumptions are wrong- and that costs a lot of money. ( Coca Cola's taste case ) That's the biggie issues for doing the old marketing communication.

On the other hand, new social media offers what we all need, the platform to communicate. In the case of Obama campaign, they used social media to create its brand buzz and also as a platform to listen to its audience input. I sort of think that the really standing out features that social media offers is the consumer-centric communication. Consumer-centric communication means that a communication which are driven by the consumer participation ( where consumer can show their expression for the brand, two way communication emphasising on consumers ) whereas in the old kind of marketing communication, the marketing communication emphasises on the company rather than the consumers. Therefore, in social media, it creates the brand advocacy which made from the buzzes that derived from consumer discussion and drives the marketers to listen and do the action according to what the consumer said.

While the old marketing communication enforces the information that the brand want to pitch to the people ( company likes to exaggerate which sometimes made people hard to believe-too good to be true ), social media gives the WOM which are derived from real experience from consumers themselves. Therefore, social media have the advantages as it could enforces a brand advocacy that serves as WOM which suits all kind of users ( all kinds of consumers buyer readiness level )

Having said that, a brand could just pitch all the good information and gives the best buying experience to their loyal customers, and they will automatically made a good WOM statement and encouragement to the other users to buy the brand. That's the WANTED achievements.

Talking about social media as the marketing communication, according to MerchantCircle , social networking is the most used tool for a small business marketing communication strategy. Do you agree that small business should have the Facebook fan page or other social networking profile?

Marketer uses social media correctly?

As we have discussed how social media change people's life, I have just found the right song to reflects it. It is a youtube song. Social media is really associated with our lives even it interacts with every single activity that we spend the entire day. It got me thinking the lecture we did on tuesday on how marketing can really uses social media as a great tool to attract, engage, retain, and got the consumer to stuck into their brand.

Seeing how social media really does a lot on build a brand image in the consumer mind, have me thinking on how crucial it is to put the right person to communicate the brand/product to them. One flaw, and that's the end of the relationship. However, not only the message with flaw which could ruin the relationship, but also how the message got through. Flipping some of the companies/brand Facebook fan page, I realise that not all companies/ brand engages the audience. They just put up their Facebook fan page telling all the stories about their products, but there is no answer from the consumer. If me reading at that whole page about their awesomeness and new product, I would not comment the page as well. Like, who cares??

Well, all consumers got their level of knowledge of particular brand. The process :

unawareness --> awareness --> knowledge --> preference --> liking --> conviction --> purchase --> post purchase --> preference --> loyalty

I would say that the hierarchy to achieve brand loyalty is somehow like this, may be there is no hierarchy ( the process could jump, for example : low and high involvement could have different steps).

To engage the consumer, the brand/companies should know what the level of knowledge the consumer have. If you promote only your new products and you awesomeness everyday, I would say the people who cares is only the one on "knowledge", "preference", "liking", "loyalty" level. They are not quite broad yet. They don't actually engage the new comers, like me.

Do you agree with that?

social media = individual market tool?

Last week when I failed baking my cake, I came across one website and youtube link which really interest me. This is Bakerella, she began her habit of blogging because she wants to keep track of her baking and decorating attempts. However, as time goes by her blog become more and more famous and apparently she has already launched a book called cake pops.

Not only social media helps to market products, but also individual. Agree? Can you imagine how easy it is to become successful from just blog your word and habit? and comparing with the real world situation, how many writers' script have been rejected by editor/publisher? and how many blog has been more successful than actual written book in terms of number of people who read, view, and subscribe? Take the example of a movie called Julie and Julia, which based from a real world story about a girl who blogged all the recipes she cooked from an old cookbook which written by Julia Child. How easy is that? From a ordinary blogger and then inspiring a movie story?

Do you think that social media like Vlog, Blog, or even Facebook page could boost your career?

-joan.

-Clever Doritos.

Take a look at Doritos' Website. I think they are pretty clever. Instead of wasting a large amount of money investing in the advertisement shows on TV, they made a social media campaign by using Youtube as the mediator. Well, I could almost believe that Youtube is the new TV for me and Doritos nailed it, agree? Imagine how wide the target market spectrum Youtube can reach, it's amazing! and Doritos knew it. Therefore, they invites people to make an advertisement for Doritos and ask them to post it on Youtube. In this way, it creates a buzzing happening brand name on Youtube. By doing this,they put their brand name out there without having to invest a lot of money in advertising-just simply give the winners reward.

This campaign has created an engagement where people can express and influence their relationship with the brand to others-not only put their brand out there, but also established a deeper meaning relationship. For example, Doritos made a similar campaign in US except that they set the theme as Superbowl campaign. I personally haven't seen any Doritos TV ads before and I thought this is really a good way communicating with their customer by using "indirect"/"side ways". Anyone have ever seen any Doritos TV ads before?

p.s : For those who has no idea what Doritos is, Doritos is a company which produces savoury snack specialise in nachos and its salsa.

-Feel free to comment, love to hear.

First post!

This is my first post as I am participating on MKF5601 subject.

Hello everyone! My name is Joan, I'm Indonesian. Currently doing master degree in Business ( Marketing ) in Monash University. I missed the first two weeks of this subject as I just re-enrolled. Feel free to ask and comment. Let's have fun!

-joan.