Marketing | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Fruitful Facebook YouTube Advertising

Susan Reynolds drew this Fruit of the Loom video with Vince Gill to my attention, and it illustrates several important points about marketing and advertising and how it is changed with the advent of social media and networking, in the era of TiVo, YouTube and Facebook.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjGruchlKGw]

In the post-TiVo world, there is a great premium on great creative in advertising. You may have seen the :30 version of this ad on TV, in which Mr. Grape’s cell phone rings as the music is swelling to its peak. If ads are interesting to watch, people are less likely to skip them.
Great creative should draw attention to the brand being advertised, not just to the creative itself. How many clever ads have you seen that make you laugh, but you can’t remember what product or service was being advertised? Anybody over age 30 is likely to recall the Fruit Guys from previous Fruit of the Loom advertising. So even without an explicit underwear message in the TV :30, people get it.
Viral Distribution is Free. The full version of the ad is over two minutes long would be prohibitively expensive on TV, and yet it costs Fruit of the Loom nothing for distribution through YouTube.
Facebook multiplies the YouTube effect. YouTube placement makes it easy for people to recommend a video commercial to friends, and in Facebook it’s almost automatic. I had seen the :30 a few times on TV, but then saw in my Facebook News Feed that Susan had posted it on her profile. I commented on it and also posted it to my profile, which placed it in my mini-feed and in the News Feed for my friends. I also sent it directly to 9-10 of my friends. As my friends interact with the video in Facebook, the news will spread virally to their friends as well.

Everything about this video is done well, from the soulful playing of the Fruit Guys to the groupies mouthing the words as they gaze at the performers to the touching home videos. It isn’t slapstick viral and it probably won’t get millions of views, but this is about underwear, after all. You need to have reasonable expectations.

Note that every step after putting the video on YouTube was free for Fruit of the Loom. As of right now the two-minute version has been seen 5,300 times on YouTube. It will be interesting to track how this does over time.

Update: Here’s another good Fruit of the Loom music video from last year. Between the two versions I’ve seen on YouTube it’s had over 90,000 views so far.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLj4YgDiRW4]

Technorati: Facebook, TiVo, YouTube, Fruit of the Loom, Fruit Guys, Vince Gill, viral marketing, viral video, advertising, TV

Of COURSE Facebook is for Business

A recent Techmeme has it that “Facebook’s closed platform and data lock-in” make it “NOT for Business.”

Please. Of COURSE Facebook is for business.

Any place that has 35 million people spending an average of 20 minutes a day absolutely has business uses.

If Facebook isn’t for business, then neither is eBay. Except of course now everyone knows people have made hugely profitable businesses solely on eBay. Many businesses found eBay valuable as a means of finding and selling to broadly dispersed customers. Even for business-to-business sales.

Now, doesn’t eBay have exactly the kind of “walled garden” characteristics that so many find it fashionable to revile in Facebook? How does it differ?

Facebook is, as Mark Zuckerberg says, a social utility. Utilities are like heating and electricity. They do things, or empower you to do things. Right off the bat there are lots of ways businesses can use Facebook to accomplish their goals. I’ve outlined a few Facebook business uses here. But beyond that, Facebook is infinitely extensible. If it doesn’t do what you want it to do, you can wait for someone to develop the application you need, or you can contract to develop the application yourself.

And unlike heat and lights — or eBay for that matter — you can use Facebook for free.

The problem isn’t with Facebook. It’s a lack of imagination in how to use it. Facebook, Twitter and all the other web 2.0 tools are just that: tools.

They aren’t the only tools for business; but web-wise MacGyvers will find creative ways to use them – not necessarily exactly according to the user manual (oh yeah, there is no user manual) – to accomplish their organizations’ goals.

For those concerned about mixing their personal and professional selves, I offer this: You can have lots of interaction with people with common interests in Facebook without becoming their Friend. You can just belong to the same groups. And for non-family members, you can use the limited profile to avoid divulging an information about yourself that you think others might find controversial. More on that in a future post.
Technorati: Facebook, eBay, business, marketing, PR, Twitter, MacGyver, walled gardens, social networks, social utility

Integrated Web Marketing with Other Media

Integrated Web Marketing was the focus of this morning’s final session at the Frost & Sullivan Sales & Marketing East 2007 Executive MindXChange. The formal title: Search and Cross-Channel Integration: How Search Marketing and Other Media Together Drive Results

Our presenters were Patrick Garrett and Kristine Segrist from Outrider and Steve Dennen from comScore. Unfortunately I didn’t get to stay for all of Steve’s presentation because I had to leave for the airport, but what I heard from him was really helpful and interesting.
Patrick and Kristine started with some diagnostic questions, as they sought to “bring sexy back to search.”

Are you integrating Search and PR?

They started with the story of rats overrunning a Taco Bell in New York City. Here’s the YouTube video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws]

ABC.com ran Google ads on rats Taco Bell and related terms right away to take advantage of the situation and drive people, and about 36 hours later Taco Bell bought ads to tell its side of the story. So Taco Bell did the right thing, but was a little late. For crisis management, any time you have a statement you want to get before the public, you need to buy ads on related search terms.
Are you supporting major promotions via search?

For example, Nationwide mortage and Pizza Hut did Super Bowl ads featuring Kevin Federline and Jessica Simpson, respectively.

Here’s the Pizza Hut ad:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM6bRf8h95s]

And here’s the K-Fed Nationwide ad:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDJs2F1nesY]

Pizza Hut did a better job of promoting its ad, with a branded YouTube channel.

Is your search campaign capable of reacting to external factors?

Example was Sears home improvement having its ad bids on air conditioning keywords go up based on localized rising temperatures.

Are you measuring the impact of other media on search?

Kristine identified four keys to effective search integration

Alignment
Engagement
Measurement & Analysis
Search as a Diagnostic Tool

The Alignment case study was PMDD (severe PMS), in which a pharma company ran an unbranded campaign to raise awareness. They had viral user generated content site, while understandpmdd.com was the site for learning more, tracking daily moods, etc.

The viral site featured a video by the Veronicas, which also was available on YouTube:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Qq-OxpSw8]

More highlights to come…

Technorati: Web, Marketing, Conferences, Frost & Sullivan, Integrated, Outrider, Taco Bell, rats

MSNBC Dropping Windows Media Player

MSNBC is moving to all Flash and away from Windows Media Player in its video delivery environment. That’s one of the most interesting tidbits from the just-completed session, and it comes from Kyoo Kim, VP of Sales for MSNBC.comThat’s actually quite stunning when you consider that the MS in MSNBC stands for Microsoft. But that’s what the marketers and customers are demanding/accepting.

In the end, customers really are royalty.

Technorati: Microsoft, MSNBC, Flash, web video