X.Feng

Dunkin’ Donuts has recently started a new mobile marketing campaign which rewards consumers via a mobile challenge to increase its customer’s brand engagement. (See article: “Dunkin’ Donuts bolsters iced coffee sales via mobile reward challenges”, by Rimma Kats) This intiative was done with Scvngr, a free location-based game and gaming platform. Smartphone users with the Scvngr app are able to check-in to places they go to, complete challenges to earn points and unlock certain rewards, and finally share these activities on social network platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Leveraging on such gaming dynamics is a good idea as this really fits in nicely with the brand’s identity by delighting customers in a fun and interactive way. What could delight them more than being rewarded for having fun? The brand has taken a step further to activate social engagement, and providing something more than just product information in traditional marketing. It could not only possibly increase brand loyalty and convert customers, but also allow converted customers to convert new users to the category or brand switchers through word-of-mouth in social network platforms.

All in all, this whole campaign could be said to be a simple yet innovative one that goes a long way to promote the brand and its new product.

Inbound marketing techniques are winning over managers who are shifting away from outbound marketing tactics and pumping in more money on inbound strategies, especially SEO and social media.

According to eMarketer, companies in North America spend 41% of their 2011 lead generation budgets on inbound channels and another 24% on outbound marketing, with the rest unclassified.

Also, a report by HubSpot indicated that businesses dominated by inbound marketing have a 62% lower cost per lead than firms that do mostly outbound marketing.

It seems that with the advent of social networking and growing importance of SEO, inbound marketing is fast dominating the everyday marketing programmes managers use. Still, I feel that there should be a fair balance between outbound and inbound marketing tactics to craft a well-rounded marketing programme. SEO and creating good web content certainly gets customers to ‘subscribe’ to the brand, but I think pushing out professionally crafted messages the traditional way really helps to reinforce the messages that marketers want to get across. Besides, some customers, even if they are interested in the brand, may not be motivated to check out the brand’s inbound marketing content. Instead, they still rely on the information and content sent out through traditional outbound marketing tactics. Instead of replacing outbound marketing, I guess inbound marketing could actually serve as a good complement to a company’s existing outbound marketing strategies.

The Starbucks Card eGift, which digitally expands its existing card program, has been integrated not just into social media, but even mobile platforms. Anyone can digitally purchase and send Starbucks Cards to friends via Facebook or e-mail, and upon receiving the eGift, recipients will have the option of printing out the personalized card for redemption, transferring the balance to their existing Starbucks Card, or adding the gift as a new card in the Starbucks Card Mobile app.

The e-gifting experience was previously tailored just to Starbuck’s Facebook community as a Facebook app. It really revealed just another way that managers could leverage on social media to reap additional profits. Besides making it more convenient for customers to purchase gift cards, this application allowed business to happen even after closing hours. The entry ticket to reaping such benefits though, was to have a large community or fan base on social media platforms like Facebook. The target audience could be considered to be limited to customers ranked on the higher rungs of the Technographics ladder. Hence to achieve pay-offs significant enough to justify such marketing techniques, this community has to be large enough. However, now that this experience has been expanded to mobile apps, users do not need to have to be a social media user to send or receive eGifts. In fact, an e-mail address was all that was needed to start gifting and receiving. Starbucks integration of e-gift cards into mobile strategies definitely serves to increase the potential of its gift card business. Now, its target customers have been expanded to include even the ‘inactives’. Given that this new avenue could potentially be a very lucrative addition, I foresee that many companies with existing Card Programs may consider additional avenues like these as well.

Google had recently announced a change in its search algorithm, which drops low-quality websites in results while elevating high-quality websites with original content such as research, in-depth reports and thoughtful analyses. This change is expected to affect over 11% of all search queries. (Article: Google clamps down on “content farms”)

This was done as a response against “content farms” which are low quality websites that figured out how to play the search engine optimization (SEO) game by repeating content that favours its search ranking instead of writing for quality.

Consumers of content, like you and I, would probably be happy with how we’re able to get better search results on Google. But this move is likely to have more implications on online marketers who are learning to play the SEO game. Certain SEO approaches, especially the quick and unorthodox ones that worked well before may be totally trashed and the new playing field would now require online marketers to work more on their quality of content in order to improve their search rankings. In addition to compelling content, what works is the originality of it. One possible way could be to add social engagement to the site.

Another social media snafu had occurred, but this time, it involved a government organization.

Last Friday, Singapore’s Health Promotion Board (HPB) mistakenly sent a tweet containing offensive language to all of its followers. (Article: HPB says sorry for offensive mis-tweet)

The report suggested that the mis-tweet was the result of an employee’s usage of the @HPBsg corporate account instead of his personal account.

No doubt, upon realisation, HPB immediately deleted the comment and responded to it positively, albeit the comment had already spread like wildfire among netizens.

Through this article though, it also got me wondering if it is critical for organizations to put controls on the tweets and updates that are being sent out by employees. With an increasing number of organizations jumping on the social media bandwagon, many companies use their staff or hire specific people to handle social media. However, because small mistakes like mis-tweeting resonate fast and could possibly jeopardise brand equity, I feel that more should be done to minimize the occurrence of such accidents. For example, organizations could incorporate processes that allow for reviews and approvals to be made before posts are sent. Drafted posts could be sent to a third party for an approval before its execution. One down-side to this though, is that the messages may lose their immediacy after going through reviews and approvals. Therefore, I guess companies should weigh these alternatives carefully to decide which approach is best for them. If they decide to do away with screening and controls, I guess the hired employee that handles the company’s social media account should be properly trained and aware of the significance of his/her role.

A report by Adage mentions, “A Nielsen study shows iPhone users are paying attention, while TV viewers not so much”. It said viewers were two times as likely to recall seeing the ad, three times as likely to remember the ad message and five times as likely to remember the brand as compared to viewers who saw the ad on TV.

This claim certainly caught my attention. The study, which was apparently commissioned by Apple and Campbell’s Soups, might have gotten people thinking that iAds are overtaking traditional advertising in terms of effectiveness or capture rate.

However, it is probably wiser to take this with  a pinch of salt. iAds may be more attention-grabbing now because people may click on these ads out of curiosity, given that such advertising techniques are still pretty uncommon and novel.

To add on, the target audience may be another point of inconsistency in the study. We have one group – the iPhone, iTouch or iPad users versus another group – TV ad viewers, or just anyone. Apple users, being drawn to the functionality of their gadgets, may pay more attention to what they are viewing on them. On the contrary, TV viewers are more likely to see a TV ad as just another ad that flashes by, devoting less attention to it.

A side point on iAds: It is no doubt a creative way of modern advertising. I guess being able to make ads more interactive through Apps would better justify why marketers are already pumping money into creating their own iAds. Redefining the experience consumers get while viewing ads probably makes them more effective.

Recent years have seen the rise in social gaming, in particular, facebook games such as Farmville or CityVille. As seen from the chart above, social gamers among internet users have increased steadily in the past year and have been forecasted to increase further in 2012.

Marketers could leverage on this to brand their products/services on this entirely new platform. This can be done through branded virtual goods, lead-generation offers, in-game ads and hybrid campaigns that combine these approaches.

Quoting from the article, “Social Gaming: Marketers Make Their Move”, the opportunities include:

Integrate your brand into an existing game through virtual goods

Use display ads or sponsorships in an existing game

Create a hybrid campaign that combines elements of these branding approaches

Develop your own game

Participate in an offer wall

In fact, Coca-Cola managed to successfully pull off one of such strategies by integrating its brand into Zynga’s Café World. Being a brand that emphasizes lifestyle and social interaction, this actually helped to reinforce the company’s brand message.

Will this then perhaps lead to the ‘Shiny Object Syndrome”, as other brands start to jump on the bandwagon and start investing blindly on this novel branding technique?

I feel that in the context of social gaming, not all products would be able to pull off something like what Coca-Cola did. I guess marketers should analyse how their brand would have a right fit with social media gaming. Do their brand associations include fun, social, friends, sharing, etc.? Besides, social gamers also fall primary under specific age groups (i.e. Generation Y). Hence brand integration into social games may see more relevance to only certain product categories targeting this age group.

Another implication which came across my mind would be the effects of novelty wearing off. People tend to pay more attention to things that are new. Having played a few games on the social network, I realised how soon it took me to get excited over a game, only to get bored of it in a couple of months at the most.

I’m curious to find out the next brand to be integrated into CityVille, my current boredom chaser!

Viral marketing has been one of the most powerful and well sought after advertising tool. With the advent of social media, its effects are bound to multiply and if able to utilize successfully, this form of marketing will definitely bring in the crowd.

How then makes a good viral marketing strategy? I’ve seen sites saying companies should offer incentives for spreading the word. Indeed, this will incentivise people to spread good things about the brand/product. However, I would then question the reliability of the content that’s spread. Would it be said out of a certain extent of obligation?

In fact, a furore among the blogging community and critics began when a young Singaporean food blogger demanded for complimentary meals at a restaurant. The news article mentions, “When presented with the final bill of $435, Lau initially refused to pay and repeatedly told the restaurant’s chef, “I never pay for food in any restaurant.”

Food blogs are common in Singapore. I guess it’s a form of viral marketing for many restaurants, especially those that are not very accessible or less well-known. But I guess the idea of offering rewards can be a touchy issue, as we could question if the content was spread because the advocator really believes in the brand/product. We wouldn’t really know if the blogger was paid to do reviews, nor would we know if the blogger blogs because of perks like complimentary meals or other incentives, as in the case of the Singaporean blogger. Though fellow food bloggers condemned his actions, I guess incidents like this may make viral marketing seem a little less attractive after all, if people start to take its content with a pinch of salt.

Indeed, Social Media is an attractive platform to bring a brand’s marketing communication to the next level.  To name a few, social media increases reach to a global audience and enables the company to generate instantaneous responses. It’s not difficult to name companies that have succeeded in incorporating social media into their game plan. But the challenges we know may well be way understated.

We all probably understand that on the Internet, anything that could possibly be said, be it the good, the bad, or the ugly, will be said. But wouldn’t the bad and the ugly have a more deleterious impact than the good have a positive impact on the company’s reputation? In general, people take good things for granted. But on the contrary, they condemn bad things more intensively. Similarly, discussions that centre around something that people didn’t like about the company may turn out to be much more heated and damaging, sometimes even having the company take action, as seen in the case of GAP reverting back to its old logo after public outcry.

I’ve also read about the 80/20 Rule on Larry Brauner’s blog. It’s interesting how it can be applied to social networking as well. To list a few he mentioned,

80% of all blogging is done by 20% of all bloggers

80% of all blog comments are made by 20% of all blog readers

80% of all online social networking is done by 20% of all online networkers

I shall assume using the 80/20 rule that 80% of social media contents (comments) are made my 20% of customers. But even if this is largely true, marketers could not focus only on this 20% of its customers. Using Technographics, if everyone is somewhere within the ladder, the impact of social media really is vast.

Creators blog content, critics repost them and comment, collectors link these content when they organize them for themselves, joiners discuss them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Spectators among with all the aforementioned consume them, viral spreads them to inactives. I guess the impact of social networks resonates much further than what I had imagined.

As online platforms become a rising need for marketers, I guess many companies would depend on deliberate research to craft out SEO strategies most suitable for their business model.

What’s more, online platforms, as opposed to traditional brick and mortar, allow companies to transcend geographical boundaries to increase their customer base. However, this poses added challenges to SEO strategies. As the article ‘How Search Behaviours Impact Our Search Strategy’ aptly suggests, “If marketers are to succeed in selling their product or service to Asian consumers, they must take heed of the local culture and consumer behaviours. There’s no difference when it comes to search advertising.” The point is, search marketing has to be tailored down to the target market, and even though sites like Google Trends do help a lot, I think crafting out a strategic SEO plan is far more complex.

I found this thought provoking as I wonder if most companies expanding to Asia do consider the vast differences in terms of search habits. If Asians in general, perhaps due to culture, tend to search more general terms instead of long-tail terms, do these companies actually take the additional costs to buy more general key words into due consideration?