Power of social media

I found an interesting website which is full of facts about social media. Statistics are from the last year.(http://www.onlinemarketing-trends.com/2010/11/social-media-in-2010-top-10-social.html ) So what has social media done to the traditional advertising, such as TV and newspapers? I found out that only 18% of TV campaigns generate a positive return of investment. What comes to newspapers, they have lots of problems. 24 out of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing declines in circulations because the news reach users in other formats. For a marketer these numbers are critical, you really need to think about how to reach your customers because of social media.

Word of mouth is more powerful than other advertising formats. The fact is that only 14% trust advertisements, but in terms of impact of social networks on advertising, word of mouth is the most popular option with 78% of customers trusting peer recommendations on sites. What would be better for a brand than everyone speaking of it or recommending the brand.

There are people like Rebecca Black who´s video has been watched very many times. But there can also be a commercial which gets a lot of viewers. One example is commercial from Samsung. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw) Extreme Sheep LED Art. It´s a few years old, but when it came in 2009, a year later from that, the video had been watched more than 11 000 000 times. Today, more than 14 000 000.

There can also be questionable ways to try viral marketing. For example in 2009  Denmark's official tourism agency had a viral marketing campaign, but a hoax one.  There was a model pretending to be a desperate new mother who had a one-night stand. In the end, the revelation caused an outrage in the country and the video was removed.  When the commercial came, in five days, more than 800 000 had seen the commercial and later the amount increased over one million. Well, this is all about ethics. But I think it crossed a line. (http://news.ninemsn.com/world/863283/denmark-sorry-for-one-night-stand-hoax)

Be ready- You can be the next ad face!

We all have seen TV commercials such as “how to lose weight in 2 weeks”. Then a woman or a man speaks how wonderful their life has been since the new weight lose product. The idea of using “real” people is old, but I think internet marketing is taking it more and more in to action. There is at least two ways how I have seen it used. It can be stories behind brands. For example, Jack Wolfskin, a German outdoor clothing and equipment company. The company has 240 Jack Wolfskin stores across Europe and Asia, especially in Japan. A Finnish Economy newspaper wrote an article few weeks ago about how the company invented the an imaginary character. Before the article I thought that Jack Wolfskin was a real person who dedicated his life for extreme outdoor activity. And I wasn´t the only one, my friends thought that too. Somehow the company created an illusion of real character. Maybe it spread by word of mouth. Maybe in the beginning there was only the name and rest were customers own imagination. How convenient is that. Pick up a good name, make sure that the message in a store and on a website is conveyed. Of course, it´s more easily said than done, but I think this is the reason why Jack Wolfskin became so successful.

So Jack Wolfskin managed to create a believable person behind the brand. We can see that other type of marketing action is how companies introduce their products through real people experiences. This is what big brands like Nike and Levi´s has done. This can be really effective, because for customers it´s easier to identify with a real person and it´s  believable when “ a common man” says his/her testimonials about a product. What Levi´s did was that they looked for a Levi´s girl who wanted to be their social media superstar. This increases viewers, because many people are interested in others backgrounds and life. You have opportunity to peep someone else’s life. Nike did this by using “ a common man” who told a story about running. By watching this everyone gets a feeling-- I can do that too.

 

In Finland we have clothing chain called Seppälä. They had a large campaign where the company looked for new models from everyday life to become their models.  The campaign was called “Their own life’s supermodels”. The idea was that it didn´t matter what size or age you were. You just needed to have your own style, because fashion can be different.

Furthermore, Chiquita banana Finland arranged a campaign in which they looked for Chiquita banana ambassadors. They looked for persons with brave and adventurous attitude. Chiquita banana sent winners to Costa Rica where Chiquita bananas grow. The ambassadors needed to write a blog about how banana plantations impact to environment and their other experiences.

And I think we all know the Dove real beauty campaign. They used real women instead of professional models. There were various ages, shapes and sizes to provoke discussion.

With these examples we can see how marketing has changed. We-- customers are behind the screen. It can be easier to interact with customers, if there is someone like us on the company website. It´s more natural for customers to approach when they feel they have something in common.