Frontiering Talk

Who says traditional companies can’t play in the social media space?

I remember subscribing to J&J’s Babycenter’s weekly email just over 10 years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our first child. You got a very well packaged 1 page email explaining what part of the baby was growing. Babycenter has continued to grow, providing advice related to planning and having babies.

This week Paidcontent tells of Babycenter’s purchase of Mayasmom, which is a social network aimed at mothers. The social network will be extended across the Babycenter network. Along with this purchase, there are plans to create an Advertising network for this category.

Perspective: This is a smart move by J&J, and just shows that finally some big corporations are not just placing ads on existing social networks, but providing consumer driven communication channels.

Tags: Frontiering Websites, Social Network, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Perhaps because alcohol products have had greater restrictions advertising on mainstream channels and therefore have had more time to experiment with other levers. But it is now more evident with the announcement that Jim Beam’s CMO Rory Finlay is committed to refocusing it’s advertising budget into activities aimed at generating Word of mouth.

Word of mouth marketing is not new. It started around the camp-fire when people debated over what were the best hunting tools, and conversations continued into market places where trade flourished. But since the invention of the TV, which radically changed the way brands spoke to consumers, many big brands have either forgotten or ignored the levers that drive word of mouth marketing.

Perspective: The science of how you measure word of mouth marketing is still in it’s infancy, and no doubt organisations like WOMMA will continue to promote various metrics to try to standardise the way word of mouth can be measured. But there are some quite simple initiatives that marketeers can do to maximise the word of mouth marketing effect of their campaigns.

Here’s a check-list that it worth considering as part of every campaign or activity, which should help you enhance the word of mouth marketing impact.
1. What conversations will this campaign drive?
e.g new product feature discussions, boasting about the experience, will they be category discussions or specific to your brand?
2. What mediums will these conversations use?
e.g. at an event, on an online discussion group, social networking commentary, dinner table discussions
3. How can we make it easier for these conversations to take place?
e.g. Can you provide photos of an event that consumers can download and post to their social networks?
4. What can I do to monitor some of these conversations? (one of the easiest success measures is an increase in online discussions that unlike tacit conversations are recorded. Hint, you need to know what the existing conversational levels are to measure a change, so if you don’t have an online monitoring service, consider starting one.
5. Testing
Can I test the campaign’s word of mouth impact before hand or with a smaller sample? For example, run the campaign in an area where you can more easily measure the impact, this will provide an opportunity to make any changes before a major launch.
6. Incentives
What incentives can I give people to share the conversations with others, and what ways are there to reward this? Are there opportunities to allow people to create Consumer generated content to express their opinions.
7. Involve your staff.
Can you utilise your existing employees to generate conversations related to the campaign?
8. Call to action
Does the campaign have calls to action which allow people to sign up to special offers?
9. Use your evangelists.
Do you have a record of brand advocates, or a loyalty program, and if so, have you involved them or made them aware of the campaign? if you don’t, then use this campaign to start a database.
10. Evaluate the results
Make sure you learn from the results, get into the habit of asking these questions before the campaign is designed, so you can change where necessary.

Tags: News, Social Network, WOM, Word of Mouth

Facebook is set to capitalise on it’s massive growth and the depth of knowledge it has within the millions of profiles by providing an Ad-targetting service that goes beyond the current selections of age, gender and location of the user.

The new service will allow targeting based on the profile’s favourite activities and preferred music. Currently Facebook displays ads in flyers around the border of Facebook pages, but the new ads will appear in other places interspersed with profile content.

This follows on a report commissioned by Newscorp called Never Ending Friending, which discusses two campaigns from Addidas and EA there were run on the Myspace network. The report was compiled by Forrester research and argues that communication should be measured by the spread of a message not just from a business to a consumer, but also the ongoing discussions from consumer to consumer.

Perspective: Social networks can no longer be ignored as a serious communication medium. Determining how to “join” the conversations for marketeers will require innovative value equations. For example, a health business might decide to sponsor a niche health groups, providing free consultations as well as relevant advice to facilitate conversational engagement.

via Wall Street Journal

Tags: Social Network, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Nearly 1400 members of a facebook group known as “Bring back the Wispa” seem to have convinced Cadbury to relaunch the historical chocolate bar, which will be relaunched on October. There are about 90 facebook groups that were used by Wispa fans to record their appreciation for the brand.

“We have noticed the web interest for some time and the consumer passion has undeniably swayed our opinion to relaunch Wispa.” said Cadbury spokesman Tony Bilsborough. He went on to say “This is the first time that the power of the internet played such an intrinsic role in the return of a Cadbury brand,”.

Perspective: Brands should be monitoring consumer conversations not only for research, but as a communication strategy, allowing fan clubs like these an active say in how the brand grows.

via NYTimes

Tags: Frontiering Websites, Social Networks, Word of Mouth

Following up the discussion on Video advertising, it seems Google is finally ready to puts advertising into Youtube videos.

Sample here which works if you are using IE as your browser.

The ads appear about 15 seconds after a user begins watching a clip as an overlay. Users can close the ad, but the ads will disappear themselves after about 10 seconds. Rates are suppose to be $20 for 1000 impressions.

Perspective: Google has been testing these ads for a while, and it will be interesting to see how quickly marketeers move into this medium. I expect caution at first, until confidence is established that the right ads can be run against the right content. This initiative may also encourage more content deals between Youtube and major content distributors seeking to monetise their video content.

via NYtimes

Update: looks like Ten (australia tv) may be about to sign a deal with Youtube, reports B&T.

Tags: Frontiering Campaigns, Frontiering Websites

Adotube is a new video advertising network, that allows publishers to monetise their content showing roll-over ads that display inside video content. The main use for these ads are “opt-in” or lead generation initiatives. Another example is LiveRail which places ads below video content.

Perspective: It’s no surprise that innovative new techniques are emerging to help publishers make money from video content through different advertising methods. Content will remain important, and as it moves into narrower niche categories, increasing opportunities for linking relevant ads will emerge. At the other end of the scale premium subscription models for ad-free content will become more prominent.

Tags: Frontiering Products, Frontiering Websites

Music fans now have a chance to invest in musicians and even take a share of the profits, should the band become successful.
Slicethepie is a new startup that is hoping to provide the tool to connect Musicians with fans.

From the site ..

* Artists can raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums
* Fans can become emotionally and financially involved at all levels of the music industry - scouting, breaking, investing in and influencing real artists
* Investors can gamble on, trade in and profit from the success of these artists
* Artists who secure finance pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.

No doubt .. slicethepie will have plans to integrate into the major social networks, in particular Myspace, so as to build a critical mass of both musicians and fans.

Perspective: I can see this kind of trading place being applied to not just music, but to movies, books, product innovations, cars, banking products, even consumer packaged goods. The actual trading rules may be different, but the principles are to give your brands passionate lead consumers some control in return for their help / buy in to share in the brand’s future success.

Tags: Frontiering Products, Social Network

As mobile phones begin to play more of a role in the management of business documents, the very screen size of the phone means that unless you are easily able to print documents, you will continue to carry your laptops on the road.

Hewlett Packard, who’s very business stems from selling printers and ink cartridges have tackled this problem by providing a mobile phone to print service.

The service first requires users print documents to HP servers, which assigns the document a unique number, and transmits it to your cell phone for future management including printing, sharing or storing.

Perspective: As the world moves to store more of it’s information online, the need to share the information will change from a “desktop to email” sharing process, that sends the whole document, to one of sending the document id (or link) which enables the receiver to retrieve the information being sent. Technology to both store documents to an internet drive and send links to these documents have been in existence for at least 2 years. However, I think as the mobile phone evolves into a personal information device, we will start to see an increase in smart ways to communicate, discuss and store ideas and thoughts.

via NYtimes

Tags: Frontiering Products, Frontiering Websites, print

Proving that you really can let your consumers own and manage your brand .. even if it’s a football (or Soccer) team, My Football Club is attempting to buy an English soccer team.

Anyone can signup to own a share in the team for 35 pounds, and each member gets a vote in how the club is run, what players are selected etc.

From the site ..

For the first time in football history, fans have the opportunity to buy and then take control of a professional football club – both on and off the pitch.
Every MyFootballClub member will have an equal say in team selection, player transfers and the running of the club.
Members will own the club through their MyFootballClub Trust, and together they will attempt to guide their football club to success.

As at the end of July, 2007 MyFootballClub had 53,051 members.

Time will tell whether experiments like this are successful, and no doubt determine whether this type of ownership becomes a real threat to the traditional financial exchanges.

Perspective: My thoughts are that the internet is an enabler that can provide a sensible way for brands (or football teams) to involve their consumers (or fans) to increase their engagement with the brand. I don’t think you need to own a share in the company to share ownership of a brand. Brands that successfully allow their consumers to act like owners will gain the advantage of a passionate and genuine sales team.

Tags: Consumer Generated, Word of Mouth

Director Alex Jovy has come up with a novel way to get the masses to come out and see his next film: he’s inviting them to be part of the film-
making process.

Itsourmovie.com is a collaborative idea where anyone can audition online, vote for casting or invest. Alex has raised 120K pounds of a planned 1.2 million, and you can invest even if yuou only have 10 pounds. You can read a Synopsis of the film, which has a working title of “The Flirting Club”.

Perspective: It’s great to see more examples of ORSIM (open sourced, research, shaper-lead, innovation and marketing) .. a Zealot / Frontiering model. It’s a pity more brands don’t involve their consumers in the same way.

Tags: Consumer Generated, movies

Bluelithium has launched a new behaviorally targeted ad network, which is designed for political candidates.

Politicians can buy ads including display, rich media and even video ads aimed at niche audiences as specific as Women, ages 18-34, living in Chicago, with a household income of greater than $70K, who are interested in education.

Perspective: One wonders how long it will be until we have a CPV measure for advertising. What’s CPV? Cost per vote of course! Who says the man with the most money can’t win an election?

Interestingly, but hardly surprising in today’s fully connected world is a recent study by Kia Motors that points to major lifetime decisions are being made in the car, according to Gizmo.

Decisions such as moving house (%43), marriage (%23), where to vacation (%64), having kids (12%), getting a pet (24%), even getting divorced (7%), the survey are being made in the front seat of the car.

Driving a car is the one place many people are forced to switch off from their computers, phones, and other connected devices - which leads to these interesting social statistics.

Perspective: I suspect today’s connected world is created a polarised niche for major decisions. One the one hand people are migrating to the car, or to the hills, and on the other hand, people are influenced by the online social media chanels. One wonders how many decisions are being made on Social networks such as Myspace and Facebook?

Tags: Social Network

Loopt is a relatively new service that provides a tool for people who just have to tell others where they are.

Whether it be for finding friends, or seeing how long it will be until they arrive for an event, the service combines cell phone technology with knowledge of where the phone is, to broadcast this information to your select group of friends.

Perspective: I think Loopt has a place, and judging from their user base of over 100,000, it seems to have found a niche. I suspect they will need to link this service to the major Social networks like Facebook, and Myspace to reach a critical mass. This model also presents interesting localised advertising opportunities such as restaurants, bars, and even targeted sales items that may be matched to a user profile.

Tags: Social Network