In addition to online marketing, businesses seeking to thrive in an online world should understand and utilize the internet for public relations. Online marketers need to realize the strong role PR can play in brand-building, influencing stakeholders, and damage control.
So what is the difference between online marketing in general and PR?
While both overlap in many ways, a key difference between marketing in general and PR is that marketing is used to ultimately lead to an increase in profit, while PR is mainly used for branding.
Furthermore, public relations on the internet is very different from traditional PR.
For one, it is more interactive. The company doesn’t need traditional media for releasing information, so it no longer has to depend on a middle-man to spread a message and can just release it on its website. Businesses can also use social-networks like Facebook to rapidly respond to any given event. This gives them the ability to mitigate any damage before it spreads, or blow something out of proportion if it hurts their competitors.
Twitter can also help with brand-building, since tweets can be made to sound personal. Many CEOs from corporations, like Richard Branson from Virgin Mobile, create their own personal Twitter account for the public and use it for branding and giving their consumers the illusion of intimacy.
The interactivity of the internet also allows companies to find out how the public might perceive them quickly and easily through the use of search engines. Quick feedback from the public would make it easier for a business to change what doesn't work with consumers into something that does.
I spent some time in my earlier post explaining why the “Roller Babies” campaign for Evian worked, and why its new campaign will not go viral.
I truly believe that viral marketing is the single most effective way for advertisers to get attention to a product or service on the internet. Once a successful ad has been created, it will spread itself (like a biological virus) through the internet. Sounds simple, but viral marketing is tricky and success is hard to replicate. In an earlier post I went over what makes a viral campaign successful. I will now show some examples of two other creative campaigns that were wildly successful, and why they appealed to consumers.
I absolutely love this campaign. Blendtec, a company that manufactures powerful, high-speed blenders, decided to upload videos on Youtube blending various things. Their video for "Will it Blend: Iphone" got over 8 million views on Youtube.
What makes this campaign so great? It successfully combines advertising for not just one, but TWO different products, all while providing entertaining content to the viewers. I would be surprised if BlendTec is not getting paid to blend products, since its videos give the product a lot of attention. Recently, BlendTec has been blending a lot of Apple products, which only confirms my suspicion.
The Last Exorcism: Chatroullete Campaign
Brilliant is the word that comes to mind for this campaign. 'The Last Exorcism' was an upcoming horror movie and its creators wanted to excite viewers about it. Their plan was to use ChatRoulette, a website that pairs random users for a web-cam based chat session, to find their targets. They recorded a video of an attractive girl who actively flirts with the person on the other end of the chat-session. The real person she is connected with doesn't know that she is a pre-recorded video, but thinks that they are talking to a real girl. But as the session continues, the girl starts becoming possessed with a demon. Her eyes roll back to the back of her head and begin to bleed, she begins to growl and scream and progressively become more terrifying, and finally lunges straight at the camera. After this, the screen goes black and the website address for 'The Last Exorcism' is shown.
I thought this campaign was amazing, not only because of its shock value, but because the person on the other end of the web-cam session never sees it coming. Within days, the blogosphere was buzzing with this campaign, with videos of people and their reactions to the possessed-girl video. Everyone was talking about the movie, which was the goal of the producers. (If you want to watch the video-- you can see it here, but be warned it is scary).
What makes these campaigns great is their pure creativity and entertainment value. I think this type of viral marketing is the most effective because it has the potential to provide an immense amount of interest in consumer at a fraction of the cost of normal advertising.
Recently a new kind of e-commerce business model has emerged websites like Groupon and LivingSocial. These 'deal-of-the-day' websites offer printable coupons which can be used at various local businesses.
These companies work as middle-men, providing small businesses a way to reach a broader audience. It increases consumer awareness of businesses and offers an incentive for them to try new products or services. Groupon, in particular, is experiencing enormous growth, partly because of a massive marketing budget, and also because it offers users an extremely useful service.
As e-commerce nears its online limitations, these deal-of-the-day companies are breaking new ground by finding creative ways for consumers to connect online purchases with real-life results. For example, as discussed in class, there are certain things consumers do not want to purchase on the internet. Some clothing items, food, and other similar things are generally purchased in the real-world, where consumers can touch, taste, and smell them.
On Groupon, consumers can purchase cheap coupons for restaurants and retailers, and then go shopping at their real-life location to get what they need. This is part of the reason why they are experiencing enormous growth.
Source: comScore
There are other reasons why consumers are finding daily-deals websites so useful. Groupon and LivingSocial both will find deals most relevant to the user with the use of targeting techniques. They generally ask for your zip code, gender, and age, and then offer you deals they have determined are most appealing to your demographic. This allows the companies to maximize their reach to the demographics that matter the most to them, as well as giving consumers a 'personalized' experience.
As I touched on my first blog, privacy is a huge concern for consumers, especially on social networks, who have an enormous amount of information on any average user.
We talked before about data-mining, and how the information posted on social networks could be extremely valuable for consumers to target users and learn more about a demographic.
A brilliant article in Newsweek underlined the goal of companies like Google and Facebook:
"These companies will never stop trying to chip away at our information. Their entire business model is based on the notion of "monetizing" our privacy. To succeed they must slowly change the notion of privacy itself—the "social norm," as Facebook puts it—so that what we're giving up doesn't seem so valuable."
Today I wanted to talk about a feature on Facebook called "Facial Recognition" and what it means for advertisers and what kind of information it can give us. About a month ago, Facebook announced that it would be implementing this new technology which learns about the facial characteristics of a user and after a while is able to recognize that persons face in most posted pictures.
As stated by Sarah Purewall in PCWorld.com,
"Facial recognition technology will ultimately culminate in the ability to search for people using just a picture. And that will be the end of privacy as we know it--imagine, a world in which someone can simply take a photo of you on the street, in a crowd, or with a telephoto lens, and discovereverything about you on the internet."
I don't know about other people, but I am scared about the potential of this technology. To be sure, for advertisers and governmental agencies, this technology will be a god-send. For the average user, however, I think this is borderline dangerous, and can be easily manipulated to invade the privacy of consumers.
It is interesting to note how the internet, which began as the ultimate tool for total anonymity, has evolved into a sphere of our lives where nothing is personal and nothing is private.
I am very, very excited for Google+, a new social-networking website created by Google. The majority of this excitement can be traced to a great marketing campaign by Google.
Now normally, the thought of attaching myself to yet another social-networking website is exhausting in itself. Making the switch from Myspace to Facebook was a huge hassle, and the only reason I was determined to do it was because Facebook imitated my real social life better than Myspace did, and therefore might prove to be more useful.
Since then, Facebook has ruled the social-networking arena, becoming as irreplaceable to social-networks as Google is to search engines.
So far, Facebook has met all that I require in a social network with the exception of one annoying feature: everyone is your “friend” on Facebook, with no effective differentiation between family, co-workers, or your best friends.
Google noticed this flaw, and that is Google+ comes in. And I heard about this new network by watching their Youtube advertisement:
This advertisement was powerful because it addresses exactly the problems I found so frustrating in Facebook. According to its website: “You share different things with different people. So sharing the right stuff with the right people shouldn't be a hassle. Circles makes it easy to put your friends from Saturday night in one circle, your parents in another, and your boss in a circle by himself - just like real life.”
Joe Wilcox, from betanewscom, explains why Google+ is a marketing sensation in his article which can be found here. He explains why in a marketing sense, even naming the service “Google+” is an savvy move on Google’s part.
“In marketing, companies seek to control one word and have that associated with their brands. For Mercedes-Benz it's "prestige" or "safety" for Volvo -- "driving" for BMW.”
For Google, its search. In fact, Google is even more effective in word ownership because it can also function as a verb: to Google something is to search for it on the internet.
This is extremely effective branding, and it helps make Google the king of search engines. He continues:
“Facebook is never going to be a successful verb, so the company craftily created the "Like" button. Facebook wasn't the first cloud service to use Like, but it's the owner now.
Google's marketing coup could be "plus" associated with Google+ and +1, where you add someone or something to you. Plus is positive, it's more. The connotations are hugely aspirational. You could Like someone or be the plus -- be something more.”
Congratulations for Google and its marketing team for producing so much buzz so quickly about their new network. I am excited to use and and can't wait until it becomes available for everyone to use.
It seems that Microsoft advertising team has been scrambling for ways to increase revenue by introducing new forms of advertisements in XBOX and XBOX Kinect.
Called NuAds (Natural User Interface Advertisement), Microsoft is attempting to engage consumers with the advertisement. You can view the video here:
This campaign, judging from the “5,681 dislikes” vs the “185 likes” on Youtube, was an embarrassing failure for Microsoft.
There are many reasons why this campaign may have failed to resonate with viewers:
The advertisers are treating the advertisement as content.
Consumers draw a strong distinction between advertisement and content. Microsoft’s marketing team seems to have forgotten that viewers will opt out of viewing ads whenever they are able, and resent advertisement they are made to watch.
They are assuming viewers want to share ads with their friends
Very few advertisements (aside from viral videos) are interesting enough for viewers to wish to share them with their friends. Furthermore, no one wants to spam their friends Twitter feeds with advertisement, even if that advertisement is entertaining. I know that if my friends were sending me ads through Twitter, I would promptly stop following them.
Paying subscribers do not want to see more ads- no matter how creative they may be
I believe this reason is what prompted most of the Youtube ‘dislikes’. The campaign model is based upon increasing the amount of advertisement shown to paying subscribers—not the general public. Subscribers to XBOX-Live do not want to view more advertisement, and will resist any attempt to increase it, even if they made it more engaging/interactive.
I think advertising can be most effective when it is not blatant to the consumer. For me, subtle advertising works better than more obvious advertising. Advertising techniques such as advergames and product placement in movies are all attempts at infusing a product or service subliminally to consumers.
Very few people would choose to watch an ad, and consumers consider interstitials and pop-ups as intrusive and annoying. Advergames and product placements work well because they offer an incentive for consumers to view the message. The most effective of these advertisements is where the marketer is able to convey his message without interrupting the other content.
In fact, the best marketing doesn’ t seem like marketing at all to the consumer. Only recently did I notice that Google’s “Artist Themes” are really just a form of branding.
Google Chrome, the relatively new web-browser created by Google, allows users to change the appearance of the browser by installing “Themes”. These themes can alter the background color of the browser, add an image, as well as change the appearance of the buttons. Recently, Google began their “Artist Themes” program, which offers themes made by famous people, artists, and even companies.
For example, the “Candies” theme, by the designer clothing brand Candies, features their spokesperson (currently Britney Spears) in the background of the browser.
I think this is a great form of brand marketing, because once a user decides to install the theme, they see brand-related content in the background every time they open the browser.
We have talked about some aspects of successful online marketing, and I wanted to spend some time addressing some common mistakes. There are certain techniques that advertisers constantly use, which are not only unsuccessful, but will elicit strongly negative reactions in the consumer. When I see some advertisers using these techniques, not only do I ignore them, I will sometimes never visit the website again.
1.Obtrusive commercials:
For an online advertisement to be effective to me, it must draw me in, NOT force me to view it. As we have discussed in class before, it is becoming easier than ever for consumers to ignore and actively avoid advertisements they find displeasing. Viewers can use products such as AdBlock which allows a webpage to load without showing any advertisements at all.
The worst offenders are the commercials with sound that play automatically. I like to listen to music on my computer as I'm browsing, and when I begin to hear a commercial which I cannot close easily, I will simply close the window to the website altogether.
2.Too many newsletters
Many companies believe that when a person has opted-in to get their email newsletters, they are getting permission to send as many as they can. I enjoy getting email newsletters: They are informative, and increase awareness of a sale for the consumer. However, when a company sends me more than one email per week, I tend to start getting annoyed. I like hearing from these companies; but I do not want my inbox clogged up with their emails.
'The solution to this is simple: Give users options of how often they want a newsletter sent. I was having this problem with Victoria's Secret emails, and when I clicked on "unsubscribe", it led me to a page which allowed me to change how often I receive a newsletter.
3.Ads in Text
If a website has advertisement that appears when one hovers over certain words, or links within the content that lead to an advertisement, I will never visit it again. Period.
4.Slow loading website
This may be less of a concern as more people begin to have faster internet connections, however, today it is still a problem. As a noticed in the post about the Evian campaign, a slow website (especially one that crashes the browser) will not only increase frustration, but also build resentment in the consumer.
Two years after unveiling their remarkably successful “Roller Babies” video, Evian has released anew video made to go viral. “Baby Inside”, released on April 14th 2011, has so far received 1.3 million views. Both are part of the broader "Live Young" campaign.
However, will this new video repeat the success of the first “Roller Babies” campaign?
Lets recap the first “Roller Babies” campaign:
-Based around this video:
-First posted to Youtube in 2009, and went viral soon after.
-The international version alone has received more than 42 million hits, a total of all language versions is more than 100 million hits.
This new campaign again features the theme of "Live Young".
The campaign is also attempting to be as interactive as possible. On their website "Lets Baby Dance", you can be a part of the video with the use of a webcam.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe that the success of the first video can be replicated, and here are the reasons why:
-The video is not as creative as the first, nor is it as funny.
Viral videos need to inflict strong emotion for the viewer; it does not matter whether that emotion is positive or negative. We have seen plenty of terrible vides (for example, Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ music video) get attention just for being REALLY terrible. The original ‘Roller Babies’ got attention because the concept of babies dancing to hip-hop music is comical and absurd. The new video is also cute, but also very forgettable. Forgettable things do not go viral.
-The website is cumbersome and annoying.
The makers of a website must consider how accessible it is to consumers, and it seems Evian overlooked how people with slower computers and internet connections will view the website. When you log onto the page, it immediately begins to load a long video, which crashed my browser twice. Even when I decided to use a different browser, I still had to wait several minutes for the content to load. I will not visit the website again, nor will I link to it for my friends for this reason alone.
-Evian is marketing the video too much.
Videos are called “Viral” when they behave, essentially, like a virus. The creators make the video, and then stand back and let it spread itself through social-networking and word-of-mouth. The spread of the video must seem organic, and not strongly "pushed" by commercial interests.
Nowadays, it is extremely important for a company to have a strong presence on the internet. This means effective advertisement, mastering social media, and building a brand community.We have studied in class how effective e-mail marketing, easy-to-use web design, and targeting a specific demographic are all important in internet marketing.
Even more importantly for the internet, it is providing a service that is useful to the consumer.
However, today I want to talk about something we haven’t talked much in class about: creating a “buzz” and “viral marketing”.
When a company already has a strong brand and name recognition, creating a successful website is not particularly difficult. Companies without brand recognition outside of the internet, including companies based solely on the internet, find it very difficult to build a consumer-base.
Viral marketing, instead, allows companies to maximize reach while minimizing profits. The trick is to create a campaign which spreads itself, much like a virus. Once something "goes viral", the marketer doesn't need to put in any more effort. However, creating something that has "viral" potential is a tricky and difficult task.
Here are some basic features of viral marketing:
-There is a strong emphasis on “newness”.
- The marketing must evoke a strong emotion in the viewer. This is a key feature of viral videos, and it does not matter whether that emotion is positive or negative. - It must be memorable. - It must be easy to view and share.
These basic features show the similarities and differences between viral marketing and traditional marketing. As you can see, viral marketing has to be more bold and leave a strong impression on the viewer than more traditional advertising because it relies on the viewer to replicate.
Twitter, the social networking and 'micro-blogging' service, has become a haven of internet advertising.
This seems strange considering the limitations of the service. For example, people have to choose to follow you in order to receive your 'tweets', which limits the reach for advertisers and makes it hard for to catch new consumers.
Maybe the most limiting character of Twitter is that it will only allow you to post 140 characters per tweet.
However, from my experience on Twitter, it seems that advertisers have found clever ways to use this new hot social-networking tool. And it’s a good thing they have learned how to use twitter for advertising: it is growing continually and has become a social-networking staple like Facebook.
So how do advertisers market on Twitter?
There are two main ways used by advertisers:
A product page that functions as the mouthpiece for the brand:
Companies can use this brand page in several ways. Most use it as a way to inform consumers of new products or services, functioning as a mini-newsletter with links to the full story posted somewhere else. Some news companies, such as CNN or FOX, use Twitter to tweet headlines (with links), which is a good way to entice people to come to their websites.
However, this only works well for brands that already have a strong consumer-base.
Paying celebrities to promote the product/brand
Many well known celebrities have large followings on Twitter. For example, Kim Kardashian, the reality star, has over 8 million followers on Twitter. She regularly works with advertisers and will promote a product on her Twitter to her thousands of followers—reportedly earning more than $10,000 per tweet.
Websites like http://sponsoredtweets.com/ showcase many celebrities and their price per tweet for advertisers. This solves the problem of achieving the twitter follower-base which small companies may not have.
Of course, the Pay-Per-Tweet is available not only for celebrities, but normal people who may have a large following on the internet. Magpie, “the original Twitter advertising network”, gives some guidelines about how compensation works for their Twitter advertising service:
Pay-per-Sale: Here you get a cut of the sale price when one of your followers buys something on one of our customer's sites through one of your tweets. This is perhaps the most lucrative of the compensation models.
Pay-per-Lead: Every time one of your followers enquires about a service or joins up for a subscription or the like, you get compensated (compensation rates tend to be 15% greater than Pay-per-View, depending on the campaign)
Pay-per-Click: You get paid every time one of your followers clicks on a link. Currently Magpie's click rate is double that of any other online advertising.
Pay-per-View: You get paid a base amount for allowing a tweet to be placed in your stream - this amount depends on the number of your followers and the hotness of your tweets.
This is very similar to compensation models for traditional banner advertisement, and I think it may be more effective since it allows advertisers to reach to a target demographic.
It seems that social networking websites like Facebook and Myspace are continuing to grow and expand as the world is ever more connected to the web. By providing a way to stay in constant contact with their family and friends, social networks have helped make the internet an increasingly important part of our lives.
We are able to create a virtual persona, an 'avatar', which discloses all sorts of information to our virtual friends. We can choose to list our likes and dislikes, our goals and aspirations, and even our day-to-day actions and thoughts.
"Liking" on Facebook
One of the most interesting things about Facebook, and one of the most useful for advertisers is the "Like" feature. Facebook created it as a way for users to show their friends and family what products, services, and brands they enjoy. "Like" functions, therefore, in a way similar to word-of-mouth works in real life. We are heavily influenced by the preferences of the people we are close to, and "Like" provides advertisers with the ability to use this to their benefit.
Advertisers can make pages on Facebook specifically devoted to a brand or product, and when someone "Likes" it on Facebook, they will automatically receive a newsfeed of updates and announcements about it.
In this way, it functions similarly to the way email newsletters work. It provides a way to keep relations with existing customers, while also doing what email newsletters do not do: provide a way to influence someone's social circle.
So its no surprise that social networking sites like Facebook hold a gold-mine of information for advertisers. With the practice commonly known as 'Data-mining', the process of extracting patterns from large data sets, companies can make all sorts of inferences based on information provided by social-networking websites.
Social networking websites can sell this information to advertisers, but of course with this lies an issue of user privacy. As a facebook user myself, privacy is a huge concern.
The Information Gold-Mine
Advertisers can use the information I post on my page as a way to target me and my friends, which makes me uncomfortable. It is interesting to note, that companies like Facebook and Google (Gmail) do not ask us for any money to use their services. Its all free!
But that is naive thinking. We do not pay them in currency, like 5 dollars or Paypal credits. Instead we pay them by giving them access to our personal information. But what is that information worth? When you give someone 5 dollars you know exactly how much value they will get out of it. But what about your information?
We do not know how much knowing intimite details about our romantic life, pictures, friends, and thoughts is worth, but the owners of Facebook and Google sure do, and they are not going to be the ones to tell us.
