Der Grund für diesen Blogpost heute ist diese Fernsehwerbung von Vodafone, die ich in den letzten Tagen entdeckt habe.
Auch wenn ich persönlich kein Vodafone Kunde bin und es auch nicht werde, muss ich sagen, dass die Werbung mich zum schmunzeln bringt. Ich frage mich dennoch, wie viele Menschen die Botschaft, die Vodafone mit diesem Clip überbringen möchte wirklich verstanden haben. Ich denke das viele vor dem Fernseher sitzen und nicht realisieren, dass Vodafone eine Kampfansage gegen T-Mobile, O2 und Eplus startet. Auch interessant wäre es zu wissen, wie effektiv eine solche “Marke X ist die bessere Wahl” Werbung ist.
Meine Master Dissertation habe ich über die Effektivität von Events in der Deutschen Getränkeindustrie geschrieben. Unter anderem ging es auch um die Wirkung von Kommunikationsmaßnahmen auf die Konsumenten. Dabei waren zwei ganz wichtige Punkte:
Emotionen & Integration
Bei dem folgenden Werbeclip ist meiner Meinung nach beides bestens vereint.
Ich finde die T-Mobile Werbungen echt super, wirklich emotional und man kann einfach nicht umschalten.
Die Stimme von Paul Potts macht die Menschen vor dem Fernseher aufmerksam, so dass man sich die Werbung bewusst anguckt, was in Zeiten der absoluten Reizüberflutung, natürlich besonders optimal für die Marke ist.
As advertising changes from just print into more creative and attention catching direction, this form of human advertising is beneficial, as it is aimed to attract a crowd of pedestrians with stunts by the sign spinner. This performance should result in word of mouth (wom) advertising and interest in the product or company.
Sign spinning emerged due to a boring advertising job, which means presenting a sign, that people on the road can see it… This was absolutely too boring for Joe Ambert, Max Durovic and Michael Kenny who worked for a sign company and started doing tricks during their working time. This seemed to be paid off. The sign spinners get more and more attention, which can also be seen on You Tube. Loads of people upload a private video of their sign spinning experience, when they walked or drove on the road.
Sign spinning is getting bigger and bigger and also training courses and competitions are offered. Furthermore, there is also a blog web page www.signspinnerworld.com which shows sign spinners mainly all over the USA. But also in other countries, this type of hobby emerges now. And it could also be seen in the world wide web, that the demand for sign spinners as advertising tool is enormous.
As you can see in the first video, the girl named Heidi Clarke, found a jacket, which was lost by a man she admires. She tries to find her Prince Charming through the web. As I first watched the video by accident, I thought: Is she really trying to find one single person on earth through a YouTube video?
No, of course not. This video is aimed to find thousands if not millions of people, preferably men, who want to have exactly this jacket, she is talking about.
Heidi is not Heidi, she is Lily. Furthermore, she is not Cinderella but an actress, and said: “I was employed by Witchery Man and yes I even managed to get my face on national TV.” Witchery is launching its first menswear line and this is the corresponding viral marketing.
In general, this campaign reached approximately 60,000 people within four days and nearly 200 comments were posted, for the most part by men.
There were quite different reactions to her video, as mentioned some men answered her and state that they were her man in the jacket and some made fun of her.
As well the blogger world talked about the video. Some found that Heidi talks in too much detail about the “really nice” jacket with its “beautiful silk lining“.
Nevertheless, it is the question how successful this campaign was. Of course, the company reached a huge amount of people, but still and even more important is the sustainable image of the company, as many complained about this campaign. A comment to an article of the story was posted in the Australian news.
“I have already emailed them to inform them I will boycott and will take great pleasure in telling friends to do the same. The educated public is sick of these stunts and cheap antics.“
It is estimated that the “man in the jacket” campaign get a free media coverage of about $8 million, which was as fact itself beneficial and desirable for all companies. However as Gruen Transfer stated “But is any publicity good publicity? Was the gamble worth the negative press?”
As stated in the Sydney Morning Herald, such campaigns can potentially scratch a brand image, but web pages like YouTube will still be a mean for marketing activities as experts state. The only thing, which would harm the potential impact, is that marketer will be more careful in this area. Furthermore, “Posing as an ad isn’t the crime but crossing the line between all out lying and being clever is“, says David Whittle of digital agency Mark.
Just one more video in the end. I will show you a response to the marketers of this viral campaign.
I was looking for some information in the internet, about the actual situation in the job market, especially in marketing jobs. Because I am now starting to think about applying. But I am curious whether I will get a job or not or how long it will take to find a job. I often hear about people who are fired or have to work less, because of the recession.
Because of he contradictory messages, I find it difficult to create my own opinion about the actual situation. On the one hand I’ve read some articles and heard from industry professionals that a recession can be an opportunity. I have been at the Marketing Live conference this year in Leeds, they and as well in our university, we talked about the fact, that marketing isn’t an expense, it is an investment and that it shouldn’t be neglected, especially during recessions.
The American Business Press states:
“the findings of the six Recession studies to date present formidable evidence that cutting advertising appropriations in times of economic downturns can result in both immediate and long-term negative effects on sales and profit levels.”
And this is the chance for a company to interfere. When competitors cut their budgets, smaller companies can enter the market and get on the gravy train.
Some German articles (example) state as well, that especially now it is the time to ask for a promotion or pay rise, because of the fact, that most people are scared to ask their bosses. But how can this work, when on the other hand, there are so many people who can not work any longer, because of shrinking number of positions in companies?
The CEO, John Challenge, of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas stated, that there are some industry sectors, which still provide job opportunities that include the fields of:
In this post, I want to illustrate a viral marketing campaign, which I find interesting, because it was again an example of a message, which is spread through the internet and creates a community. Here the community has to work on a common goal, although the people involved didn’t know each other before.
It was the real-life and viral marketing campaign for Microsoft in 2004 known as “I love bees”. It was an alternate reality game and it was introduced to promote the video game “Halo 2″.
At the beginning, specific video game players received a package, with jars of honey and a webpage address, www.ilovebees.com.
These people were considered as ‘influentials’ because they are well linked within the Web 2.0 and therefore could distribute the message very quickly. This webpage, normally committed to beekeeping and selling honey, appeared as hacked. Hidden information about the characters of the game “Halo 2″ in form of a puzzle or audio logs was provided to tell the fictive story, which the players had to reveal. The information must be detected in order to solve the game. This was the online part of the game, which tuned then as well in the offline world.
The players figured out information about global positioning system coordinates and time codes, but they had first no clue about what’s behind this.
Players found out, that the coordinates refer to a telephone booth, which will ring at a certain time and the must be answered in order to obtain more information. All over the world, players had the opportunity to talk with the characters of the game directly. As well several emails were send, calls and real life meetings, between players and characters were arranged.
Through this campaign, the consumers of the game got a real life experience. And the question is raised, whether alternate reality games can be an effective tool for marketing activities. First of all, here some information about the success of the “I love bees” campaign:
- The target group, Microsoft wants to attract was the younger male, but they reached as well some middle-aged men and women.
- 250,000 visitors of the webpage in August 2004 when it was launched.
- 500,000 regular visitors.
- Approximately three million people visit the webpage over a time period of three months.
- 9000 people around the world actively participated in the game.
- 2.5 million people where involved in this campaign and are committed to the game.
- “I love bees” won several awards for its innovation.
- The campaign got huge coverage in gaming publications, as well as in the mainstream press.
- And word-of-mouth advertising from players through instant messengers.
The game analyst Billy Pidgeon, stated that: “This kind of viral guerrilla marketing worked… Everyone started instant messaging about it and checking out the site.”
Such alternate reality games are often used to advertise products or brands, without promoting them directly. Furthermore, it is a great tool in marketing, because of it has potential to be recognised and distributed by word-of-mouth, as can be seen in the example of “I love bees”. The involvement of the main target group and their interest in the game, which in turn can lead to a relationship of consumer and company, is a strong advantage.
Nevertheless, there is another side. Such campaigns, as well as the example of my last post about flashmobs, are often criticised, because of the “sponsored consumers”. A consumer who agrees to “buzz” on behalf of a product is called a “sponsored consumer.” Because of this “buzz” marketing, consumer protection authorities question the appropriateness of such campaigns. The consumer is in some way manipulated by the company, which rises the question, whether a company want to incur a vulnerable position, where attacs from consumer groups or consumers in general are possible.
In this post I want to write something about building communities and why the Web 2.0 can be a vital part of this. And another point is, how this could be beneficial in marketing.
Of course, everybody knows networks, like Facebook, MySpace, bebo, Linkedin, Twitter, blogs and many more. I am in Facebook, since a few months. A few weeks ago, I entered the group “LEEDS FLASHMOB!!!!” They describe a flashmob as: “It’s a sudden gathering of people into a crowd that does something unusual for a few minutes in unison and then disperses.”
You might think now, what are you talking about!? And what has this to do with Web 2.0 excepting the fact of mentioning Facebook. Read on…
Another definition is: Flash mob – a work of situationist art whereby individuals communicate over the Internet in order to come together as a group without warning, perform some random, pre-defined action intended to disrupt and confuse the people nearby, and then disperse.(Ford, 2003)
There the word internet comes in. The internet and especially the Web 2.0 is an optimal way of distributing messages. Its speed of communication and the availability is the advantage. Furthermore, it is great tool to reach people all over the world and to create a community.
Back to my example, I have been in the city centre, where the happening should take place yesterday (14th of March 2009). But there was nothing. As I had a look on the Facebook group afterwards, most people where disappointed, because they are complaining about the bad organisation of the flashmob. I went there, because I was curious, how or whether a flashmob works. I have always been fascinated by such events, where a community of people, who don’t know each other, come together and be part of something. This gives me goose bumps. Nevertheless, the example of this community event fails its purpose. I don’t know, why this happens, but I think it can’t be the failure of the distribution of the message. Everything seemed to be clear and they have reached 2,428 people, which is enough to perform a nice flashmob. I think the humans behind the flashmob group failed in the implementation.
So, this was just a negative example, what I experienced regarding a flashmob. Nevertheless, there a a lot of positive examples, which could be find in the web.
As well very few companies already organised flashmobs in order to create an attention catching campaign to get their message across and furthermore to promote their product, service or brand.
Here an example of T-Mobile, it was produced for a commercial, but still creates an atmosphere of community among visitors and flashmob performers:
There have as well some flashmobs been in McDonald’s, where each person ordered a cheeseburger at the same time.
Such events often create huge media coverage and can create a we-feeling between a company and its customers. Therefore a flashmob can be considered as tool of promoting a product or brand.
