E-marketing – blog

I grow up with the internet. I like it. I don’t think I could live without it.

But, however. Is everything happening on the Internet? I don’t think so. “Buzz” is becoming the new fashionable thing, even areal goal for every company. But is it so efficient? I love advertising, its very funny and interesting. A good place to work because it’s driven both by strategy and creation. But is the Internet the best place to spend money? I mean. Wow. For sure, from the creative point of view there are a lot of great, funny and smart campaigns that took place on the internet (for exemple this one, looks like the one showed in class).

Buzz creation, community management, adhesion, trafic, information… all these elements can be done through the web. OK. And they can be done well. It’s a great brand new area. Excitement is everywhere and nothing really understand how it works. How many people call themselves “community managers” without even knowing how to manage a facebook page? But how to manage a facebook page? Nobody really knows. The only thing we can do is looking at the best practices, trying to be innovative and stick to what’s legal (and that is sometimes hard for some companies!).

But what is more relevant: spending 500,000$ in a web-buzz or the famous – and not over yet – “90 secs TV spot”? I don’t know. But what I know is that a buzz campaign, if it’s not targeted precisely, smart and centered on a real communication need is a waste of money and of time. Internet is great, and is a tool that must be used. But there is still the world out there, and this world is not over yet. Some companies should stop being driven by trends and sparkles, and stick to what’s relevant, useful and efficient. In a word: be aware of what’s new and could be used without running after the “new thing” because it’s new. Keep cool and smart, please.

As a consumer, I hate e-advertisings. It makes the connexion slow. Very slow. Pop ups open all the time as if I was on Youporn. Sometimes it even makes my laptop bug. It’s annoying. Very annoying.

One day, my uncle told me about adblock under Firefox. I anticipated a life change. It was. Faster, easier much faster. A life without advertisings. I felt like living in Naomie’s Klein perfect world. A forgot everything.

And then, I got it: I was also forgetting the advertising possibilities on the web. I did not knew any more which campaign worked or was online without looking for them on specialized blogs or websites. So I was doomed. Doomed to get through all this “crap” (consumer point of view) in order to get new ideas (marketing point of view). A very well done split of personality.

I deactivated my adblock. But I feel so uncomfortable that it ruins my e-experience. What could I do?

Further: why people don’t use adblockers more often? Fortnunately for the brands… but on the long-term, is advertising going to be blocked by surfing softwares? Has e-advertising a future as everybody thinks nowadays? Not sure…

 

Working in marketing means knowing the tricks, but also not avoiding them. We have to play the game!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

Blogs exist on the Internet for a decade now. And they became non only a real institution but also a way to use freedom of speech. From casual tumblr to personal blogs, from everyday thoughts to a real edition process the variety of speech tone is strikening.

 

However. Writing styles and tones have always followed their support. You don’t write a newspaper article for The New Yorker as you write a 100 pages essay sold in book stores. The way you create an interaction with the reader, the way you try to catch his attention is highly linked to the kind of support you use. And that for some simple reasons: the reader’s attention depend from the “reading moment” – attention availability – which influence the length of the text. The length will influence the type of style you use. Going strait to the point, using longly developed examples or simply using references is dependent from the reading context. A traditional example of it in the classical French literature is comparing Alexandre Dumas’ novel (the famous writer of  The Three musketeers) with Honoré de Balzac (another contemporary French famous writer). Dumas’ novels were published in newspapers, every week. Balzac published his novel through the classical way. Dumas’ writing is very sharp, strait to the point and full of dialogues whereas Balzac takes time to describe the places and people very precisely – onto the dust on the chimney. Dumas’ strengh is the plot while Balzac strengh is the athmosphere. To get into the athmosphere you have to take time whereas building the plot needs dynamic. You can actually feel in Dumas’ writing the rythme of the releases in the newspapers, and how he tries to manage keeping the reader’s attention.

 

The writing is truly linked to the support you use because you have to feel when and where you are loosing the reader. But what about the internet? Is blog writing that far from the other types of support’s? Blogging means you write on the internet. And you are read by e-users. The reading context is driven by fast and quick changes of pages, applications. It must be short because the reader don’t have time any more to stay and scroll again and again. But at the same time, blog articles are often longer than Newspaper’s ones because there is no material limitation. It’s a balance to find. The length has to adapt to the content.

The form influence the content. But the content influence the writing style. And blogs, with the variety of contents implies an incredible variety of style. Anyway, it is possible to determine that there is the merging of a new writing style specific to the use of blogs. This style is dominated by the informal level of speech. Blogs imply a direct link to the readers (with for example the use of comments to create a discussion about the topic) and as so a tone close to the “actual speaking” . Moreover to stay “alive” a blog must be fed regularly. The blogger has an “imperative” of writing that makes them write fast and without a very high level of “self-control”. We are very far from the French writer Gustave Flaubert who wrote “Madame Bovary” in five years, correcting over and over each word of each sentence. We are here in front of a new oral style – much more oral than newspapers. Another particularity is the use of cultural references, to joke or create a complicity feeling. This is used a lot in blogs because 1) it is more appropriate regarding the oral level of speech 2) the blogger is addressing his post to a particular group, often target as part of his “tribe”. Finally, another particularity is the obviousness of the intertextuality. Intertextuality use to be implied but not direct. In blogs, with the post of photos, linked, videos… every intertext is quoted and the reader is pushed to go to it and enquire himself. This dynamic is very original and possible thanks to the flexibility of the support.

 

Writing in a blog is definitely an all new way to write. Internet is creating new expression systems, with their own conditions and particularities. Blogs, tumblr, 4chan… all these new channels are revolutionizing the writing and enable each individual person to sit in front of a page and write, post speaks. Something Dumas, Balzac or Flaubert would have never imagined…

 

During my internship in Havas Event, a French event agency, I have been impressed by the difficulty companies have to integrate social networking websites to their communication. I have two particular examples, both different but bringing interesting issues and solutions to this problem. The first one is a general public exhibition and the second a car launching.

 

“hellodemain” exhibition / Orange

Context: Orange, the French network company, decided to organize an exhibition in Paris targeting general public. The aim was to promote and introduce Orange’s intern innovations (produced by their R&D department) for the coming decade.

Communication campaign: Orange put an important budget in their online communication campaign, and used a dedicated web-agency – Publicis – to take care of these aspects.

This strategy had different aims:

• they wanted to increase the exhibition awareness,
• being the best in class in term of online presence (important when they position themselves as a major innovation impulse)
• internal impulse (the exhibition was also an internal cohesion event)

 

They opened the page in the end of May – the exhibition was happening from 23^rd to 26^th of June. The agency fed the page with a lot of news, photos, teasings about innovations, then videos, reports and games. The page was mostly used to convey information about the different innovations showed during the exhibition and relaying feedbacks.

They managed to gather about 8,000 fans. It is a good success regarding the fact that the exhibition was a one shot and needed some awareness creation.

 

Comments: Despite the satisfying number of followers and the quality of the content, the “hellodemain” facebook page made me somehow disconcerted. A significant part of the fans were Orange employees or involved in the event (as myself). If this page could be considered as a “best practice” in terms of content, the ROI is questionable… was it relevant to spend that money for so few following people ?

It is a fact that the quality of a Fanpage is more judged regarding the content and the quality of delivered information than the number of followers… The success of a Fanpage is related to the relationship you build with the web user. But an event is a short-lived product. Is it relevant to invest money to use a Facebook page only for 3 months? Even if the budget allocated only covers the exhibition period, is it a tool that event organizers should use systematically in their communication plans? Nothing is less sure…

Regarding the “hellodemain” case, I am convinced that its implementation was more a fashion thing that a strategic idea.

 

 

 

 

DS5 launching / Shanghai

Context: the French automobile constructor revealed the new DS5 in Shanghai, just before the auto show. The event was a private press conference gathering also Chinese and European VIP. One of the particularities of the automobile industry is that it enjoys a large number of aficionados. These consumers are very involved in the brand and follow its news and new products launchings closely. It was important for Citroën communication department to make them feel part of the event as much as the journalists present during the show.

The system was here smarter than Orange’s one, because their strategy was relying on a Fanpage already strong. They count more than 350,000 Fans and have a very good content policy. They release regulars information, photos and reports about their work. They organize games built on the different cars worlds.

The facebook strategy was very simple but efficient

• phase 1: invitation to the direct diffusion of the reveal, joined with some officials photos (showing for example the lights of the car)
• phase 2: teasing photos of the event (the covered DS5, the structure were took place the event…)
• phase 3: live diffusion of the reveal of the car (end of the press conference: video show + live comments of the designers)
• phase4: replay available on Facebook and Youtube

 

 

Comments: this strategy paid. The DS5 gathered a lot of Facebook comments, but had also an important buzz effect. The Facebookfans forwarded the video and it created a buzz effect. They counted more than 123,000 views on the English video and 70,000 views on the French one.This viral effectiveness was never part of their communication plan and got above the company’s expectations.

This strategy was much more efficient than the Orange’s one, and for me it’s because Citroën took the time, budget and energy to build a community around their Brand. The Facebookpage is very rich, complete and dynamic. The followers are involved in the brand and often asked for comments, answers and participation. This Best in class position is reinforced by the “DS5 launching” example. This event was never meant to target the general public, but thanks to a coherent and efficient web communication, it became part of the Citroën’s fans brand experience. For me a true success.

 

 

 

 

 

The use of the Facebook creation in Event stays complicated. My experience showed me Facebook stays a community creator more than everything and it fits with difficulties to the short-lived format of the event. However, it can be a powerful tool to connect an event to a general communication plan – like Citroën did – if it is done smartly.

 

I chose to review the e-performance barometer 2011, a study designed to measure the performance of the players in the online wine market. It reveals information about the e-commerce sector in the wine industry such as online shoppers criteria or efficiency. The results of this study come out every two years since 2007, when the city of Bordeaux welcomes Vinexpo – the most important worldwide Wine Professional exhibition.

This study is produced by Gregory Bressolles, Professor of marketing at BEM – Bordeaux Management School, and ends with a list of the best websites for online wine sales in France and throughout the world.

In this review I will talk about the world results, more than the French ones and state some information given about the market. This study is a brand new element in for the wine e marketing. Wine is indeed a very particular product for which online sales is only in the first phases. There are a lot of barriers to wine sell online compared to other products, such has storage issues, logistic issues, lack of formation and information for the consumer and the fact that it is almost a “luxury” product or perceived as one which means more built upon front relationship with the sellers or relied on deep habits and knowledge of a particular product (“I now this wine is good”). However this market continues to grow and reveals interesting business opportunity for the best players.

 

Wine market on the Internet

 

The online wine markets is worth 2 billion dollars worldwide which represent 5% of global wine sales across all distribution channels. The market is still dynamic and did not suffer from the economical crisis. Its annual growth stands steadily over 30% since 2007.

The market is divided into pure players and click&motars, but only few are significantly profitable. For example in France more than 200 e-commerce sites share a 100 million euro market and only 3 players generate a turnover of more than 5 million euro each (1885.com, Chateauonline.com and WineandCo.com). There is an important turnover rate of companies for a share of online sales remaining marginal compared for example to supermarket. The market does not seem to be organized. These elements are indicators that confirm the revolution in the online wine sales market is not over yet.

 

The Internet channel is considered as a key success factor for the industry. They seem to be aware that they have to build a relationship of trust with the consumer if they want to overcome the inherent difficulties associated with online wine retail.

 

Study Methodology

 

In 2010 3,000 Internet users from 8 different countries have been involved. They came from Europe with France, Spain, Germany and UK, but also from the USA, Australia and China. The sample was composed to reflect the potential customers of the different websites studied, with 73% men, 43% came from the higher socio-professional groups and 73% had a high net annual household income (69% more than 30,000 euros).

At least 100 Internet users have to evaluate each one of the 28 different websites. This evaluation relies on 7 different criteria:

• Information: measure the level of relevance and detail of the information available. This criteria is determinant when it is not possible to touch the product before purchasing.
• Security/privacy: it refers to the level of trust in the privacy protection and the level of security the Internet users gives to the website. This criteria is important to transform a “visitor” to an actual “consumer”.
• Reliability: it goes with the respect of commitments taken by the website. It is a very important aspect to evaluate online purchasing performance. The website should produce information about delivery conditions and time, products availability, ordering process…
• Ease of use: measures the usability of a website and the degree of which the web user is able to find information he is looking for. This criteria is very important because it determines both the effectiveness of the “information” one and the “reliability” one… but almost all the other criteria linked to providing information.
• Offer: measures the diversity of the website offer. This criteria also takes into account the eventual promotions offers available on the website.
• Interactivity/personalization: measures the degree of interactivity and personalization of the website. Some example could be: newsletter subscribing, private access possibilities or easy to contact the company…
• Design: esthetical criteria (photos, illustration, quality and respect of graphic guidelines)

 

The 28 websites were: 20 French, 2 English, 1 Italian, 1 German, 1 Spanish, 1 American.

 

 

Results

 

The results enabled the study managers to create 3 groups of websites.

The top 5 in the world composes the first group. They were able to build a strong relationship with their users. It appears that the “ease to use” and information criteria are both much more mastered than the worldwide average, apart from design and ease to use – which seem to be determinant.

 

The mid-range rated sites focus on Reliability, Information and Offer. The websites of this group are very close to the average profile.

 

11 sites compose the bottom of the league. They have received the most negative evaluation in almost all the performance aspects. Their scores in design and interactivity are particularly low.

Best wine online websites

 

Limits and interest of the study

I found this study very interesting because it concerns a new online market. The wine is not matured online and it is still possible to see how it is growing, the different business opportunities and to study why some websites manage to reach profitability while others don’t. From the same point of view, this study does not concentrate on the number of visits but deeply on the web user behavior and appreciation of a system. The use of the different criteria make it possible to understand why people use more a website than another in terms of quality more than in terms of traffic success or turnover. From the service experience, this study is very interesting.

On the other hand it only concerns a small sample of both websites and web users because only 100 users analyze each website. Moreover, the sample is representative of the online wine buyers in general and not of the particular target of the analyzed website. The three different editions of this study (2007, 2009 and 2011) show the same structure and did not evolve that much from year to year – neither the methods nor the criteria or the size of the sample. This study is a very interesting tool for the industry and online selling’s in general but its managers should consider enriching it if they want to keep it conform to the market reality.

 

Source of article: DP-2007, http://www.eperformance-barometer.bem.edu/etude_2011.php

 

ANNEXE

 

Best practices

I found interesting to extract all the best practices suggested by the study in 2007. Source: DP e-performance Barometer

 

Information: Describe each wine accurately via an illustrated information card (labels, …). Give details on the different vintage years. Provide flavour ratings (site wine steward and / or independent guides), the characteristics of the soil, a brief description of the land, flavour advice, information on the storage potential of the wine or information on food accompaniment. Offer multilingual support and have an individual marketing approach for each country.

Offer: Develop and update the range regularly, Internet users always like to discover new wines and this enables the retailer to generate loyalty. Offer a large range of products with different prices and characteristics. Allow the Internet user to order a single bottle and not an entire case at once. Put in place promotions to stimulate sales.

Design: Use multimedia channels to make online retail less dry (videos, animations…). Offer a graphic charter which is sober and consistent with the types of products sold and the positioning of the site.

Ease of use: Offer a user-friendly navigation interface. Facilitate the Internet user’s research by offering several search options (by price, region, grape variety, colours, occasion of consumption, etc.). Provide an internal search engine. The merchandising techniques applied to the Internet can be used (bringing topics to the forefront by use of “aisle-end displays”, etc.)

Security / Privacy: Offer various methods of payment and reassure the Internet user at the point of purchase (bank logos, quality seals, …). Allow easy access to the Terms and Conditions of Sale. Provide information regarding the data protection policy (possibility to unsubscribe from e-mailings, …).

Interactivity / Personalisation: Enable users to contact the site’s wine steward (e-mail, direct chat) in order to obtain answers to their questions. Provide videos of the producer’s vineyard in order to establish visual contact. Offer a parcel tracking service online. Use direct marketing techniques to get to know the client base better. Via e-mail, direct, rich and inexpensive communication can be established with the customer. Offering personalised newsletters, adapted to the expectations of the users, forms part of this approach. In order to build up loyalty, offer the best customers access to dedicated services (my favourite wines …).

Reliability: Indicate the level of stocks in real time. Offer a variety of delivery methods and timescales. Ensure the delivery can be tracked on the site and / or by e-mail so the customer is informed at every stage. Provide efficient and impeccable customer service in the case of breakages, delays in delivery …

For my first post I would like to introduce the web campaign on wich I worked last year, for TBWA/Compact. It took place in 2 stages in France: the first one in June 2010 and the second one in February 2011. The web part was integrated in a 360° campaign, with such tools as press ads in magazines, event and direct marketing toward professional targets.

 

Context: The Cork Stopper producers were loosing market shares against their competitors and decided to launch a campaign to make the final consumer more aware of corks benefits. The insight they wanted to share was the ecological qualities of cork in terms of recyclability, sustainability, eco-system protection…

 

Creative idea: The idea TBWA suggested was to create 2 buzz videos promoting cork virtues through the ecological angle. They illustrated the remote of the cork tree bark in showing a strip tease made by a man and a woman wearing cork clothes. They wanted to use the “sexual attraction” of internet, using humor and the curiosity people would have to know were if the strip tease was “full” or not. The videos still online are not the same than the ones used for the campaign (because of copyright issues). The original ones had breaks during the strip tease and one had to give the right answer about cork advantages to make it play again. In the end, the web surfer was led to the original website composed of “5 good reasons to prefer cork” and goodies. It was possible to send an e-cards to friends with the videos.

 

 

The agency bought a lot of space on different websites with banners and google ads targeting websites with and important trafic She also built an emailing campaign to wine professionals to start the buzz through primary target. They initialized a facebook and a twitter page, hold by a web 2.0 agency charged to regular newsfeeds about cork.

 

 

The videos below

Woman video

Man video

 

Results: the campaign was a satisfying success with more than 80,000 visitors in two weeks. The idea was to push the surfer to a website were they could get information about cork and its competitive advantages. The video did not have a great success on youtube but the number of visions on the web page and the time spent on each page was more than the objectives they had settle before the launching. The classic visitor spent 2 minutes and 53 seconds on the website (with a vidéo lasting 1 minute and a half) and went on 3,37 pages (amoung a total of 6 pages)The objectives in terms of number of visitors and pages viewed were more than achieved and the fallouts were positives and numerous.

 

 

Critics: Hence, the client was not totally convinced by the results. He was critical about the number of facebook fans the campaign achieved (about 750). It is true that no facebook system was set up in that time. The campaign was thought as a buzz, with its weaknesses: short and unsustainable. He was disappointed because he thought a buzz would necessarily lead to the web surfer adhesion and contested the campaigns outcome perception of TBWA.

 

Comments: This campaign was very interesting to work on, and that for some reasons. It underlined for me the fact that a “buzz” creation can have different scales. It can work on the small scale but it is very hard to create a “worldwide buzz”. Moreover, as it said by its meaning itself, a buzz is not a long lasting production. However a succeeded buzz should have both a significant lifetime and a high level of adhesion. That was for me the most important weakness of the cork campaign: we were working on a product with a very low adhesion level. Cork is not a very “sexy” product and it is somewhat hard to make the consumer aware of its benefits (mostly because it does not enter into account for the purchasing act because it is a “hidden part” of wine). The creative idea seems good regarding these different criteria: putting “sexy” into the cork, using humor to enhance people awareness about its ecological benefits were good ways to built an interesting relationship with the web surfer.

 

But why it did not work for Facebook?

The interesting thing is that the web 2.0 platforms existed and were settled and dynamic, but people did not subscribe to the different pages. Here again, it is maybe because cork as a weak adhesion power. But the campaign did work if we see the number of visitors and time spent on pages… It means that people clicked on the banner or the email, watched the videos, read the website but did not want to enter the “cork community” and promote cork despite the fact that they were now aware of all its ecological virtues. Something was broken in the “buzz” chain.

I can see two explanations for that: the first one is that this buzz was somewhat “artificial”. The fact that it worked is not contestable, but it was built almost entirely on the banners and space buying… we did not measure the transference rate, and this figure could have helped understand what was wrong. Indeed, if this rate was significantly low it would have shown what I suspect: people were curious of the campaign but not enough to want to share it with friends. The campaign was not involving enough, especially when you work on a product like Cork. Another explanation is that there is a “missing link” between the campaign and the 2.0 PR. Twitter and Facebook were thought as outer elements and not as structurally part of the process. The agency should have thought more deeply about the web surfer path through her campaign. For example, they could have asking people to subscribe to the Facebook page in order to see the end of the video in addition to question answering, so that people would have relayed the campaign through their Facebook profile…