Get Cracking at Adding Tools for Sharing to your Campaigns

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

I saw this great TV commercial the other day that reminded me of a Twitter conversation taking place about mismatched socks spawned from blog posts by so you wannabe a Domestik Goddess and Bargainista.

What was the commercial? It was an ad for the Egg Farmers of Ontario. You can view it here. I loved the ad, even though I’m not the target market (moms). I immediately wanted to share it with my Twitter pals having the sock discussion but realized that the ad didn’t have a url, which meant I could only share it, if I could find it.

I was quickly able to guess that it was probably from the Get Cracking website, which is some good branding by the way — don’t change your url.

Once I arrived at the site, I was able to see that the ad was there and learned that they were trying to engage mothers by asking them to share their thoughts: “As a mom, what does ‘it’s okay to be real’ mean to you?” and to provide their favourite “real” moments.

What a great campaign with legs for a fabulous viral aspect. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been set up for success.

Sure there are some boxes where you can forward the pages to friends. But where was the url in the TV ad? Relying on people’s memories is not the best thing to do. Why didn’t the TV ad engage and excite viewers to visit the website and share their stories? That’s such a great drive to get traffic to the site — and continue the momentum of a great commercial. Talk about a missed opportunity.

The other major things lacking from this campaign are social media tools. The video should have links right in it to embed into popular applications like Facebook YouTube and even book-marking sites like Digg. You should be able to forward the video from the video player/page itself rather than from a link further down the page once you’ve answered the other questions.

You can’t make something viral (as many of my industry peers and I say over and over again). But it makes it a lot easier for something to passed along if you provide the tools that make the sharing experience seamless and integrated.

Oh, and my favourite line from the commercial? “Mom, you don’t have to fold the napkin fancy; I just roll it into a ball.”

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18.03.2008 Bargainista, Facebook, Integrated marketing, Twitter, viral marketing No Comments

I Twitter a Confession

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

Back in November, I wrote a post about Twitter and was having a very hard time wrapping my head around it’s usefulness.

I must confess, I’ve been spending some time with it and think that I might be turning into a convert. Sure there are a lot of social tools out there, and Facebook allows you to share items and status updates with your friends pretty easily; but what I’ve found is that while Twitter seems to do the same thing, it does it in a different fashion. With only 150 characters (including spaces) to update what you’re doing, it’s a very convenient way of sending quick updates to friends and colleagues on various things you’re doing in your day.

I liken it to the new grapevine for the technological age. I hear about new blog posts people have enjoyed and/ or posted. I also find it’s been helping me prioritize which articles from the numerous industry newsletters I should read first. It’s also been great at keeping me in the loop with other happenings within the industry and across the globe.

In general, I have to say I feel, well, more connected.

I struggled in my previous post understanding how this could be considered a great marketing tool. And I think I finally figured it out. Like anything, Twitter is not a tool that should be used on its own, but if used as part of an overall marketing strategy to the right audience, I actually think it could really work. Now in terms of specific ideas I have – I won’t give that away, afterall, being in the business myself I think I might have to save those gems for my clients. :)

Here’s a few quick tips on how to make the most of your Twitter experience (keeping in mind I’ve only been a Twitterer for a short while).

- Explore the Twitter tools and applications available and incorporate Twitter into your daily life, such as your blog or Facebook.
- Use a different update program. Rather than simply staying logged into Twitter’s website, download one of the many add ons that allow you to update on the fly (like Messenger). I currently use Twitterfox for Mozilla.
- Import your address books to allow you to easily find friends and colleagues who use the service.
- Once you start following people, look to see who they are following (not in a creepy, stalkerish way) to look for those you might want to network with.
- And Lastly, don’t be afraid to update your status often and/ or begin conversations with others – about things that might be relevant to all of you.

Happy Twittering…. Oh and and if you want to, go ahead and Follow Me.

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23.01.2008 Twitter, online marketing, viral marketing, web applications, web marketing 2 Comments

My New Favourite Site

Monday, November 19th, 2007

I may be a marketer – but I too am a consumer – and as a result of both those things I have to give credit to one of the most brillant sites I’ve come across in a long time.

Ihatedoorknocking.com is nothing more than a marketing ploy – but one that couldn’t resonate better with its target market if it tried.

As a homeowner, I often get those knocks on my door asking to see my gas bill to ensure I am getting the “discount” on my utility bill that I should be. Give me a break – share my personal information and account number with some stranger? I don’t think so. This site takes that experience and pokes fun at it in every possible way.

You can print door hangers and watch a few comical videos on how to get rid of door knockers. My favourite is the turning of the tables using the second most annoying door knocking example out there (the third one down).

I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard at a marketing campaign.

I first heard the commercials on the radio several months ago and confess though I’d always been meaning to go to the site – I didn’t get there until today. However, they were so memorable that not only did the url stick in my mind all this time, I told several people about the commercial and the site without even having visited it. That’s word of mouth marketing if I ever experienced it.

When you get to the site – it’s very obviously sponsored by
RiteRate, an online energy utility company. However, it is not shoved down your throat and nowhere on this microsite can you get a quote. If you’re interested, you can click through to their site and get one. Yet the entire time, they encourage you to “stay a while” on the microsite and “have some fun.” The site has tons of little goodies including “tall tales” told by door knockers, knock-knock jokes, the top-ten list of good door-knockers (including the kiddies who trick or treat and cookie-selling-Girl Guides), and of course the ability to report door knocker sightings in your neighbourhood.

This is a great example of branding as well as subtle marketing that allows the consumer to come to you. They’ve taken the most annoying aspect of selling gas and turned it into a statement about their brand and their respect for customer service. By not including a quoting engine on their microsite they are staying true to their statement that the customer should take all the time they need to make an informed decision. I am not a customer of RiteRate (yet), but one of my other browser windows currently open is their site so I can get more information – because after working so hard to prove they offer more than just a price difference to me, I definitely deserve to ‘hear’ them out and see what they can offer.

The only thing I would do to improve the site – add more interactivity. Allow users to create and upload their own videos of how to get rid door knockers. Also, instead of just posting door knocking alerts, allow people to email these (and share the site) to their friends and neighbours. This has great legs for a wonderful viral campaign, but requires the user to work at creating this, something I ‘knock’ them for.

Kudos to the creators behind this idea and site though – absolutely brilliant.

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19.11.2007 online marketing, viral marketing No Comments