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Monthly Archives: March 2014
Chill’s Doomsday Campaign – Flash of Genius
Again, I can’t believe that I didn’t know about this file until just now.
Dec 21, 2012 – We knew it all along. Everyone was talking about it. There was even a movie about it.
No one was actually admit believing it but deep down we somewhat were a bit scared. So Carlsberg came up with this brilliant idea of making fun out of doomsday.
Appeal to the Cool Hunters
They started off with this amazing TVC on “Not allow to be unhappy” because the end is coming – body height doesn’t matter; what are you still afraid of? The whole concept resonanced with whole instant gratification which we celebrate for Gen-Y and younger.
Celebrity Collaboration
This is Asia. Celebrity influence is vital. They collaborated with May Day to talk about a bucket list. May Day is a very popular hip music band from Taiwan with huge following in Greater China. The bucket list sharing is perfect in getting the target audience to have the fun mood. Here’s what their bucket list is, what about mine?
Of course, with integrated media plan to make sure the idea is widespread and plus star stud concerts, especially May Day and events to created a 360 effect.
(Agency: Zenith Optimedia)
I wish I could find more info on their offline events. Hope you can still get the idea with the two videos.
Digital Marketing Vs ECommerce 101
I’ve been asked this questions too many times “What’s the difference between digital marketing and ecommerce?”
Interesting enough, it usually came from head hunters.
So here’s my take on the differences:
Digital Marketing
It’s part of the overall marketing. It’s one of the many marketing means, like OOH, Print, TV etc. Digital marketing includes anything marketing means with digital media, which includes but not limited to:
– Your Own Website
– Search Engine Marketing
- Paid Search
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- To put it on layman terms, you basically paid a few keywords/query related to your brand/products, when people type in these keywords, your ad appears on the search results as ad. It’s paid advertising
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- According to Wikipedia, SEO isis the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.
- Again, Laymen terms, you user different strategy to make your website attractive to the search engine so they rank you higher when people search
– Display
- Display includes banners and text links (this is more important for cultures that love to read, eg. China)
– eDM
- Including sending emails to your own database and to the database of others – still one of the most cost-effective methods for driving quality traffic to your site especially in-house eDM
- Social Media Marketing
- For this I can go on and on… See 4Cs for Social Media Marketing and blog
A Shoppable online magazine
– Mobile Marketing – any marketing done on mobile or tablet platforms including advertising, website, app SOLOMO etc.
ECommerce
Ecommerce is according to Wikipedia, “commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, is a type of industry where the buying and selling of products or services is conducted over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction’s life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies such as e-mail, mobile devices, social media, and telephones as well.”
Laymen terms again, it’s the act of doing business on digital channels. For that you need marketing and operation.
For different industries, operation can be very different. Just to name a few:
– Hotels/Travels – Operation involves the payment gateway, booking engines on the site and how it links to the reservation system in the hotel or air ticketing system
– Online learning – Operation involves payment gateway, how the online subscription is manage. How you are billed monthly, when your subscription end etc
– Retail – This is very complicated. There’s a term called – Fulfillment. Basically, operation includes planning assortment and inventory for ECommerce, warehousing the products, packing the products, payment gateway, application integration middleware, ERP, shipping the product out, return & exchange and aftersales.
Of course, there’s the marketing side of Ecommerce which is quite overlapping with digital marketing. However, Ecommerce marketing is not just using digital means, you see OOH sides or print advertisement or even TVC promoting online sales. This is Ecommerce marketing too. So, it’s not purely digital.
Getting more confused? One Sentence, digital marketing is one of the marketing means; ecommerce refer to the whole process of doing transaction with digital media. Hope it helps.
Ode to Burberry
Ever since 2009, Burberry has always been a true pioneer and inspiration for digital marketing. It’s one of the few companies that fully immerses and embraces the digital world.
‘[Digital] is something that should never be an afterthought – it should never be a checklist that is something to do. Digital for me is not a project; digital is a way that we live. If you deal with it as a project, it will always be superficial.
-Christopher Bailey, CEO of Burberry’
It’s hard to imagine that this digital marketing genius is not from a marketing background at all. He was from creative background. He always openly admits that Burberry as being “as much a media-content company as a design company.”
Avant Garde Web site Design
– Easy navigation
– Big visual to tell the story
That’s just the surface.
1. Media Content Power House
Launched in 2009, it was Burberry’s first big scale digital move – one of a kind style sharing platform. The beauty of it:
– Invites Burberry’s loyal following of trench coat to post their selfies to the Art of Trench site to share their taste
– Link the user generated content to its ecommerce site to allow direct transaction
– Relied largely on public relations and word of month and user submission for the campaign exposure
– Facebook fansbase grew to over 1 million at the same year of launch
– Ecommerce sales grew by 50% year of year
– Apart from online buzz, they also held various event around the globe to promote Art of Trench. One of the notable events recent was the Art of Trench Exhibition in Shanghai.
After that, there are a lot of follow-suits, #WonderFurla and the more recent #MyCalvins
2. Strategic Collaboration
Partnering with the right parties is like being with the cool gangs in High school. If all the cool kids carries an iPhone, iPhone is the cool must-have. (Ok, reality check, there was no iPhone when I was in high school. I grew up in an high school full with humble bookwarms. Good grades were cool and we wrote poems and essay for pastime. That explained my poor sense of style or complete lack of it when I was young)
Burberry makes their media content one step further by collaborating with right influensers.
By collaborating with the God Father of Street Style Snap – Scott Schuman, aka the Sartorialist, Art of Trench mini site was filled with artfully crafted fashion images. By leveraging on then already-famous, the Sartorialist, Art of trench created an exclusive “in-the-know’ feel that appealed to the luxury consumers
(Screen cap from thesartorialist.com)
One of the finest example of Burberry’s strategic collaboration. By working with some of Britain’s finest musicians, fans can enjoy rare live acoustic performance directly from Burberry’s social platform.
The platform featured a series of short films of up and coming British musicians who have been hand-picked by Mr. Bailey, shot in scenic locations with the artists wearing Burberry clothing. The films bring a hip edge to the brand’s image. The project can attract a wider audience that enjoys other aspects of British pop culture. Don’t forget, these films are highly shareable content for social media.
Acoustic is on Facebook and on Chinese Douban.
Fashion Show Live Cast with Apple
Fashion shows used to be exclusvie and somewhat private for the “in-the-know’, Burberry invited fans to watch the show all together with social media. In 2013, they took one step further, by partnering with Apple’s then newly launched iPhone5S, with an enhanced filming function, to document every step of the way to the spring/summer 2014 fashion show.
Of course, the benefits were mutual. Both brands gained the buzz and praise they deserved by being innovative and visionary. No wonder Angela Ahrendtz gained the attention of Apple’s HR too.
Burberry Kisses lets Google Chrome and mobile users share “kisses” via a desktop camera or touchscreen devices. The kisses can then personalise, by adding a Burberry Beauty lip colour’, before sending it on. The “journey’ of each kiss is then ‘brought to life’ via a 3D animation using Google Earth and Streetview. The kiss actually travels. Not as impactful as Art of Trench or Acoustic, Kisses does give technology ‘a bit of heart and soul’, according to Mr. Bailey. It’s indeed a very cute idea.
3. Digitalized the in-store experience
No one can beat the London flagship store which was designed as a physical manifestation of the Burberry Website.
Burberry World Live
Real-life Bespoke – customers can engage with the products both online and in-person, customize their apparel and try on RFID-tagged items in front of a mirror that projects them onto videos
iPads – with complimentary iPads in hand, customers can relax on the couches as they browse through the products, view videos of clothing being worn by models, video videos and read social reviews. Customers can even pay through the iPad thought waiting in line at the check-out counter.
Burberry World Live also give customers the chances to attend events including gigs by the Acoustic artists, which are streamed online.
I’m sure Christopher Bailey would speak better himself.
4. Complementing social platform contents
Facebook – the Official Voice
•Facebook timeline is home to a plethora of pictures documenting Burberry fashion shoots and advertising its products
•New content published daily with prepared marketing message.
•App for Acoustic
Twitter – Product focus
•Every single tweet includes either a video or an image, often of celebrities wearing Burberry clothes at social events.
•Very few links back to Burberry’s ecommerce site.
•Uses Twitter to promote and build its brand image, leaving it up to users to find their way to the online store.
•All the tweets are pre-planned marketing messages
•A separate feed for customer service – marketing messages and customer queries don’t get mixed up with one another.
TweekWalk
•Burberry live tweeted its runway show, providing Burberry Twitter fans with behind the scenes photos and rare insights into the fashion world.
•When static photos proved too passé for Burberry, it switched to animated gifs. The gifs brought the movement and life of a fashion show straight to fans, which is great if you ever wanted to see an endless loop of a model twirling in Burberry coat.
Instagram – Friendly Images
•Posts images that could have been taken by anyone with a smartphone, not advertising imageries
•Enlisted top Instagram photographers to generate buzz about the Brit Rhythm fragrance, using the #ThisIsBrit hashtag. People who received samples in the mail posted their special deliveries on Instagram, tagging @Burberry.
•Show London in its full glory with images of the brightly lit flagship store and Big Ben through the London mist.
Pinterest – Imageries Inspirations
- Various Pin Boards for fashion inspiration
- London focused Pinterest board pays homage to the city that gave birth to its trench coats with iconic images of the city. Perfect if you’ve ever wondered what London looks like through the Hudson Instagram filter.
They are also on Youtube, Tumblr, Weibo and Douban.
Feel Special Content
Personalised Message
Personalised messages for everyone who shared the image. Acted as a reward for engaging with the content and also helped create a personal attachment with the brand. It’s also likely that the recipients shared the new Images with their own social circles.
Handwritten note from Chris
Asset created for celebrating 10 million Facebook fans
Thematic Integrated Campaigns
Britain Weather
Everyone knows Brits are obsessed with weather especially when the whole world’s focus was in London during the Olympics. Tapping into this is fashion brand Burberry, which has created a summer ad campaign based on monitoring the vagaries of the British skies in billboards around the world, as well as on the Weather Channel….
The campaign includes digital billboards situated in major cities across the world, including London, Paris, New York and Hong Kong, which are fed live London-based weather content. Screens will be updated with imagery of the city and live temperature checks over the course of the day.
In addition, Burberry has partnered with the Weather Channel during the Olympics, providing all advertising on the Channel’s global iPhone/iPad apps, where it will also show imagery of London weather conditions.
My Ode to Burberry!
[The post hasn’t been properly quoted all the source yet. I’ll add up the reference part within a week).
Flash of genius – IKEA Sleepover
I can’t believe that I hadn’t seen
This until now. I’d love to sleep over at IKEA or attend a wedding there. Perfect for brand immersion 😉
Flash of idea – social media campaign for sunglasses
#Hope2see hashtag idea
How does it work?
– link it with charity, an obvious choice would be Orbis – helping people to see
– encourage people to upload photos of their idea of beauty and hashtag #Hope2see, the beauty they want all people to see
– a portion of earning of the product will go to the charity that actually help people see beauty in life
The idea is not thought through. Hope someone would take the idea and make it a reality
[Viral Marketing] Wren’s “First Kiss” – Flash of Genius
Would you kiss a stranger? Would you do it in front of a camera? If so, how could you react to the awkwardness? Here’s a video of the answer for 20 chosen strangers.
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I’m sure you must have heard of it already. This quasi social behavior project featuring 20 strangers kissing for the first time definitely warmed your heart and brought a smile on your face when you saw it, along with the 25 million fellow viewers.
The first time I saw it and thought it’s very cute and was totally intrigue of the soundtrack. I love Soko now. It looked like a social behavior experiment to me. “Should we make out more?” “What’s your name again?”
The whole video looked very natural and real. Just like a lot of fellow Facebook fans who saw this video, I didn’t know it was an ad. The video was picked up by Gizmodo and the article didn’t leave any hints of commercial (Watching complete strangers kiss for the first time is really beautiful)
It wasn’t until the next day I read adWeek that came the shocking news. It was actually an Ad for Wren, an American Apparel company. I never knew this company exist until I read the article on AdWeek (Cringey-Cute Clothing Ad With Strangers Kissing Has 7 Million Views in One DayWren makes out like a bandit). The first 1 second of “Wren presents” really didn’t catch my attention at all.
At first, I thought it was a miss that in the video there’s almost no hints of Wren in there except I later found out that two of the key feature dresses were worn by the kissers. I do adore the dress worn by the older women.
Think twice, it’s actually a genius move to make the video as non commercial as possible to make it viral and bring the name out through PR. I was curious to find out more about the brand. Actually it has a very tasteful site and nice products.
The video will gain more views for sure because it has been picked up by Mashable and fashion magazines. Once viral video is picked up by mainstream media, the second wave of viralness starts. It’s 25 Million views as of speak.
Companies always want to make viral video and few could actually make it viral. Why? They tend to keep a lot of product placement and obvious branding in the video. In the end, the video just became another not too special TVC. Sad but true. What we saw in this success is that it blend the brand essence into the video story itself and to appeal to audience on an emotional level. Emotional connection almost always sells.
Just a reminder of the old checklist of a viral video:
– it’s amazing and wow you
– it has cute babies, cats, dogs etc in it
– it’s super funny
– it’s really touching
– it’s for a good cause
– it’s super sexy
How can a company video get one of the above and still stay on brand? That should be the real challenge. “First Kiss” is a real success because it has got one parody already (And Here’s the First Branded Parody of That Super-Viral ‘First Kiss’ AdBritish frozen yogurt is a good fit) Of course, it’s not as viral or even close.
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Would you kiss a stranger in front of the camera? I would, as long as the person is good looking with nice breath 😉
Why I love ASOS – From the Eyes of an Ecom marketer and an online shoppaholic
I wouldn’t say it’s a confession of an online shoppaholic. It’s more like putting things into perspective from a target audience’s eyes who happens to be a semi insider.
My Favourite eCommerce site of all time is ASOS! No doubt about it. It’s THE eCommerce site that got me addicted to online shopping and abandon brick and mortar as a whole.
Why do I love ASOS? Cheap and stylish isn’t just the only factors. [All images below are screen cape
1. Appeal to your Audience
Most of the customers, including me are almost always attracted by its deals and offering. Much too often, I didn’t end up buying just the discounted products, but a lot more full price products.
They know their target audience well. What are they looking for? They are looking for affordable fashion that gives you your character and make you able to stay up with the trend without paying your whole salary.
Deals on Home Page:
What grabs your first attention is the key visual that showcase “what’s in?”.
And next – Deals! Prominent discount sign just beneath the top navigation:
What’s more? They appeal to both people who look for a percentage discount with image and also the people who look for a fixed amount off discount with plain text.
2. Basics
- Free shipping to over 190 countries. Try beating that.
- 850 brands from fast fashion to high street fashion at outlet prices.
- All prices are shown in my local currency.
3. User Friendliness
Easy Navigation
- All you have to do on Home Page is to pick gender and what items you are looking for. To avoid cluster, you can filter by size, colors, price ranges and brands etc. The filters are all conveniently located on your left hand side that doesn’t distract you from the alluring products
- After filtering, you can actually see what fits you. You can choose the viewing options to display more for your to you see at one time. I can further sort by price and what’s new
- If there’s multiple colors available, there’s a sign showing ‘More Colors”. When mouse over the products, you have the options to save or quick view, which is pretty normal for all fashion ecommerce site. What really got me is their Runway video of almost all products that helps you the visualize how the piece of clothing looks like on human (They give you the size of the model and what size they are wearing too)
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- Fit Visualizer – that’s actually something new that I never tried. I personally just think it’s a good gimmick but not that friendly to use. Not that I will actually take out a dress and measure it according to the instruction and fill that in. – Nope, not for me. The size guide is actually more practical.
- Enticing suggestion – they match a look for you that you can easily “buy the look” with a click and also the product suggestion are so accurate. The dresses they show are just what I also like.
- The checkout is just smooth.
3. Way to get you
- Abandon carted email – after you put in a few items in your cart and you didn’t check out with. You immediately get an email reminding you what you liked
- Limited Time offers – You get it all the time with a count-down ticking on the animated email
- Fans only offers – there are landing pages that are posted on Facebook that are only available for a limited of time that builds your urge
Enough for today. Now I have some serious shopping today. Stay Fab! Guess what I will buy? ;-p
Another example of Ageing Gracefully
She caught my eyes being the beautiful mom in “The Proposal”, gorgeous, full of life and a body that even young girls will die for.
The other day, “the Butcher’s Wife (1991)” was playing on TV. I saw her again. She’s no Demi Moore. She was the insecure church chorus lady that has a love for Jazz.
Who is she? She’s Mary Steenburgen.
That’s how she looks in 1991, as the Jazz singer in the local pub
(Screen Cap from IMDB)
And about a week later, I watched “Last Vegas (2013), I was stunned to find Mary there, as Jazz singer again and looking even more fabulous
At 60 years of age, she looks
Good genes or Good Doctors? Who cares? Some do age gracefully
4Cs for Social Media Strategy
Like a diamond, social media marketing strategy revolves around 4Cs – Care, Content, Campaigns & Collaboration.
1. Care –
Your customer care hotline is simply not enough for the digital age. People turn to social media to seek information or assistant.
The key is to respond properly and timely. First, set up standard of procedure of handling customer enquiry/complaints. Have you set up within what time customer enquiry needed to be responded to? Do you have a FAQ ready to answer questions? Have you set up a go-to list for questions what you need to seek outside of your department? How do you handle a complaint? What investigation needs to be done before. Of course, everyone knows is that you needs to take the complaint offline. Talk to the customer directly instead of arguing online. And above all, have a crisis plan ready. When do things need to be escalated? Crisis Plan!
Instead of passively waiting for customers/potential customer to reach out to you, you have to be proactive – look out there. Constant monitoring and an alert system is the key. There are a lot of tools out there to help you monitor trending topics or people talking about your brand, product or services.
Set up your own sentiment scores. Work with your agency or your PR team. This is essential if you are selling service. You want to know if people like you or not. Also, when you launch a campaign. Monitor the before and after number of people are talking about you and the sentiment score will also give you some insights on how successful your campaign is.
2. Content –
Cliché – content is king. It’s true though. Managing your brand’s content is not the same as writing your personal journal. Define your own content strategy. What content pillars can
1) tell your brand story
2) appeal to your fans and make them want more
Don’t ever post something because you have to. Don’t think as a brand marketers. Think as a fan. What’s this in for me? Will I like this content? Will I share with my friends? Seriously, I don’t really care where you have stores.
Tell me the right thing at the right time at the right frequency. Don’t know what to do? Test it out. Define when is the best time of the day/week to post, how many times you post and what kinds of content actually gain most traction. Fine tune your strategy as your testing goes.
3. Campaigns
It’s time to amplify your efforts. Campaigns are here to help you gain more attention than the regular posting.
Remember you have different audience and where you are in terms of social also determines what kind of campaigns you need.
If your community is small, sweepstake might be the way for you the gain the first batch of fans.
Photo contest can be a good way to motivate your fans to connect emotionally with your brand. What’s good about it? You don’t need as much translation work to determine who the winner is.
Design your campaigns based on your brand essence and what group of your fans you are appealing you. You need different campaigns for the mass, your new fans, your normal fans and your hardcore fans.
4. Collaboration
You can do things on your own but by partnering with the right gangs, you’ll be there faster and more successful. You want to leverage on other’s influence and strengthen your own branding or appeal to a new group of audience. Media, bloggers, or KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) are your friends. What can they do? They tell a better story. Think really good and hard on how you collaborate with them. Think of a win-win solution. It’s a passé for you to simply pay them to say something you want. Identify the potential parties you want to partner with and how you can partner with them.
After all, our focus is the Big C – Community. To build up a healthy community that supports your brand like sport fans is a help you convey your brand message and support you when things get rough.
Got ideas about social media marketing? Share!
iagegracefully 