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Grow your online assets by aligning bought, owned and earned media.
If you want people to talk about you, do something remarkable. How about installing a giant digital sun in the middle of Fed Square in winter? That should do the trick! 
Fed square always does cool stuff as part of the annual Light in Winter programme so we were thrilled to get the chance to help fan the flames on this one. We were asked to provide a social media strategy that would harness the anticipated chatter and build their existing online profile. They had already build up a solid following on twitter and facebook so we had a great base to work from.
The artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer saw his installation as a platform for expression, and felt the public would make their own symbolic projection and interpretation. Our strategy was to facilitate this, giving people an outlet for the emotion that would be conjured up when they laid eyes on this truly awesome sight.
We used bought media to drive online engagement on twitter and facebook, asking people to share with others how they have been ‘enlightened’ by the installation. We incentivised them by offering a chance to win a weekly travel voucher from STA for their own journey of enlightenment.
Our ads appeared in the Sunday Age, mX, and on Facebook, driving hundreds of high quality inspirational entries that were collected and published on twitter #fed_square and via a facebook app developed by FRANkVizeum and housed on the Fed Square fan page. Fed Square’s owned media assets were also used to stimulate interest with messages appearing on the web site, newsletter and throughout the square itself.
To penetrate further into the online social world we launched a foursquare page with special offers for foursquare users driving patronage to the all-important tenants, we created a Twibbon and donated $1 for every avatar change, and encouraged people to have their ‘tweet-ups’ as fed square by offering special deals.
Across the campaign period and beyond we also ran a targeted blogger engagement campaign via Nuffnang, highlighting events such as ABBA World, Tim Burton and Rupert Bunny exhibition as well as featuring restaurants and cafes generating over 80,000 blog reads.
The campaign drove a 51% jump in Facebook fans, a 32% increase in twitter followers, and web site traffic is up 16%. Great results from an integrated approach to social media strategy.
Facebook transformed into the real world
Coca- Cola and Facebook teamed up recently and brought Facebook to life at the Coca- Cola Village, a water park in Israel.
With the help of IDF bracelets developed by Publicis E-dologic people could “Like” real objects and activities in the park. On arrival every visitor was outfitted with a bracelet ID linked to their Facebook account and transmitting RFID signals allowing them to use the “Like” machines throughout the park. If a visitor “likes” a special feature of the park, it will automatically appear on their Facebook news feed. Additionally, a photographer was present and if you wanted to tag yourself in any image you just had to wave your ID bracelet to the photographer.
The images also appear automatically on the Coca- Cola Village Facebook fan page, fully tagged of course.
It is a very innovative way to connect the virtual with the real world and enables Facebook users to share their experience with their friends worldwide in a fun and new way.
Personally, I think I would have had a lot of fun “liking” things via my bracelet and being automatically tagged in photos. It is stuff I do anyway on Facebook and I don’t see the harm. Facebook and Coca Cola just facilitated what people do anyway, only difference that is was in real time.
I would also argue that this exercise was a very clever way to revive the “like” button. These days the button means almost nothing and is just a virtual grunt of appreciation. By transferring it into the real world however, it becomes an association with a real emotion. Surely, that will result in a fantastic brand image for Coca Cola which in turn will result in more sales.
No doubt, Coca Cola gains the most out of this exercise and it has been reported that over the three day period 35,000 pieces of content was posted on Facebook. On average each of the 650 visitors posted 54 branded pieces of Coca Cola merchandise to their Facebook page.
While Coca Cola is famous for bringing the brand alive via events such as the Coke Zero and Mentos Rocket Car or the Coke Happiness vending machine, it is the first time Facebook has ventured outside the virtual world.
I am wondering if we really want Facebook in the real world and if Facebook will repeat this exercise in a different location soon. It certainly is a trend to bring Facebook, your activities and “likes” into the real world, evident in the launch of Facebook Places in the US last week. Facebook Places, Foursquare and other real time location sharing apps will be gaining more and more popularity and possibly become the next big thing, at least for a while.
I certainly would have a lot of fun using the RFID signal bracelets and hope I get a chance to do so in the future.
Social Media Sentiment for tomorrow’s Federal Election
On the eve of a particularly tight federal election i thought i’d give our new media analysis platform (MAP) from Sysomos a run.
Marketing magazine published a Gillard vs Abbott on social media yesterday from Nielsen which says “With many saying the race is neck-and-neck between Gillard and Abbott, the difference could be the influence social media has on voters who are yet to make up their minds,” said Mark Higginson, insights director of Nielsen’s Australian online division.
They talk about “Gillard” having 5X more YouTube views and 6X more Facebook fans than “Abbott.” I thought we’d look at sentiment, over the last 30 days, rather than volume in the land of Forums, Blogs & web-based news sites (below).
What’s interesting? Well “Tony” has the most negative sentiment in all three arenas and “Bob” attracts the most positive sentiment in forums and blogs…”Julia” wins positive sentiment in news. The latter may well be a reflection of media ownership in Australia and that News Ltd is behind “Julia.”
MAP allows us to be a good deal more granular inc. demographics, geo, recency, most authoritative…and more but i’m keeping this top line.
One other note of interest, below, is the share of voice of Tony/Julia & Bob on twitter over the last 30 days. I wish all candidates the very best but i am inclined to agree with Mark Higginson that endeavour in the social space might be the tipping point.
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Happy 21st to The Essential Ingredient
One of our favorite brands The Essential Ingredient, celebrated it’s 21st birthday this week. We are very excited to work with this passionate team on their online strategy and community growing activities.
Why not check out their blog for yourself? In the last few months we’ve been working to produce relevant and current content about different ingredients, cooking methods, cookery and crockery, famous chefs, cooking school, recopies and more. All under the concept of “Inspiring Better Cooks”. We’ve been also working on their twitter and facebook presence making it easier for customers to communicate with them. The Essential Ingredient community person Tristan is always ready to chat about one of life’s most celebrated pleasure – FOOD!
We live in a world surrounded by Brands and Logos.
Can you imagine a world without Brands? Can I live in a world without Brands? Probably not.
Logorama is a short animated film which is made entirely through the use of 2,500 logos and mascots.
Logorama explores the extent to which logos are embedded in our daily existence.
“Logorama presents us with an over-marketed world built only from logos and real trademarks that are destroyed by a series of natural disasters (beginning with a hurricane, cyclone, tidal wave…). Logotypes are used to describe an alarming universe (similar to the one that we are living in) with all the graphic signs that accompany us everyday in our lives. This over-organized universe is violently transformed by the cataclysm becoming fantastic and absurd. it shows the victory of the creative against the rational, where nature and human fantasy triumph.”
[source: Mashable & Infosthetics]
FRANkVizeum & carsales.com.au create a media first!
Our good friends at carsales.com.au & Lookout Mobile have teamed up to bring sports fans the ultimate AFL and NRL iPhone applications for free in 2010.
Last year both apps were available @$3.99 and were the two most downloaded sporting apps in Australia. Aussie Rules live was also the 3rd most downloaded paid app in 09!
All the popular features of 2009 have returned like goal score updates and live text commentary, through to your team’s ladder position and fixture, with the inclusion of in-app integration of footytips.com.au and detailed player stats for the last 10 years.
The carsales.com.au sponsorship is the first of its kind in Australia, in which an iPhone application is available free, in return for sponsorship – “we are huge supporters of both sporting codes and innovative technology solutions and this was a way for us to show support to both mediums”, said Shane Pettiona, Chief Operating Officer of carsales.com.au.
The 2010 Aussie Rules Live & Rugby League Live apps are now available for download so hit the Apple iTunes App store today.
Enjoy & GO PIES!
Get a serious social media strategy in 3 simple steps
Melbourne’s freak storm on Saturday ended up as the most talked about topic on twitter and hundreds of videos were submitted to youtube:
This is mass media. This is main stream. This is where brands need to go next.
Here are three things to do BEFORE launching a facebook page:
1. Invest in social business strategy – don’t just start a twitter. Make sure you’ve got a plan first. This will be the best $20,000 you invest.
2. Find a community manager – earned media is not another task for your marketing manager. This will be the best $40,000 you invest.
3. Align social media with internal/external objectives – If you have the strategy and the management resource this should grow organically.
Anyone else with some more pointers?
A CMO's Guide To The Social Media Landscape
A CMO’s Guide To The Social Media Landscape, originally uploaded by FRANkVizeum.
If you need to quickly figure out what’s social profiles are good for this is a great place to start. CMO.com just released this chart outlining the good, bad and ugly of social tools and made it very easy to understand the different uses available for marketers. I was forwarded this little beauty by Marcel De bie from The amber Theater.
Times Shift
The times are a changing and the good news is that we can now measure what we’ve all been doing for years…time shift viewing on free-to-air networks and subscription TV using VCRs, DVD-R, TiVo, Foxtel IQ, Austar’s My Star and others
There are three viewing definitions, basically;
”LIVE” – viewing TV content as it goes to air
”AS LIVE” – viewing TV content at a different time to the live broadcast but within the same day
”TIME SHIFT” – viewing TV content 24 hours after the live broadcast
As i write we have one week’s data…so it’s ambitious to draw any trend conclusions, however here are 8 observations to be getting on with (when i talk about time shifting here it includes ‘as live & ‘time shift’ viewing…makin’ sense?)
1. News and sport are the least time shifted content (not surprisingly) and drama (particularly US drama) is the most time shifted
2. In the US and UK where such viewing has been in place for several years only 10%-15% viewers time shift
3. The current level for time shifting is only 4% viewers (less than we may have anticipated).
4. The introduction of time shift viewing in Australia has coincided with the establishment of the additional digital channels Go, 7two, One, ABC2 & SBSTWO. The net effect of these has been a reduction of about 7% viewers on the ‘parent’ networks
5. The loss to digital channels is likely to be made up by time shift viewing
6. We must anticipate that time shift viewers are largely skipping the ads and this may well increase in-programme integration
7. Last ad in break will become more important as ‘shifters’ possibly fast forward too far and rewind back to the last ad
8. The networks will no doubt try to increase their rates even more than during their annual negotiations and we can anticipate a ding-dong battle with buyers as the months unfold.
If you have any other questions or points of view please let me know, by commenting below and i’ll get back soonest.