Tag Archives: emarketing

Who is fun, quirky, bubbly, and always excited? LUSH!

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A consistant and effective brand personality on social media platforms is important for companies of any size. Sometimes if responsibilities between the content creation of different platforms are assigned to different people on the team, it is hard to align the voice of the brand. One company that has done a fantastic job creating a brand personality and aligning them throughout the multiple platforms is Lush Cosmetics.

“Lushies” who have interacted with Lush on any of the social media platforms would call them fun, quirky, down to earth, bubbly, and always excited. Here’s an example of a tweet that they posted just 4 hours ago.

Not only do they create content with such fun personalities, one of the great things about Lush is that they make the effort to reply and interact with all the tweets that are made about the brand.

In this example, not only is Lush acknowledging positive feedback from a customer, they also make the customer feel like their feedback will actually get across to the specific branch/person as well.

When a bad comment or complaint hits, they are prompt in their response and address or apologize for the issue. For example, Lush had a technical difficulty with their phone system today and many ‘lushies’ tweeted their dissatisfaction. Lush replied all the negative comments with an apologetic tone and recommendations to visit their website or email them instead. In addition to that, the Lush team made constant updates on their Facebook and Twitter about the situation to keep customers well informed.

Companies whether big or small should create guidelines including the type of personality and voice that they want to represent on social media.  Sharing this information with all employees on the team can help to align all the platforms representing a better brand presence of your company.

Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show brings ‘social’ to their sexy workout routines

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Sparkles, diamonds, smiles, 6-inch heels, big bouncy hair, elaborate wings, and a lot of lingerie. There really is no other than the upcoming 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. With over 11.5 million viewers in 2011 of “essentially an hour-long commercial” , called analyst Erika Maschmeyer, the Victoria’s Secret marketing team really knows how to get their fans excited. This year, without a doubt, they have stepped it up even further with some creative and smart social media marketing techniques.

Photo from style.time.com

Just over a year ago, the brand has launched their new VSX by Victoria’s Secret sports wear line.  To promote their new launch in collaboration with this year’s fashion show, Victoria’s Secret created a Facebook app called “Train like an Angel” where they brought ‘social’ to your workout. On the app, girls can watch workout videos with their favourite ‘Angels’ and their expert fitness instructors, download workout tips, listen to their tailored workout playlist, share their experience and stories through #TrainLikeanAngel on Twitter, and even watch fitness and fashion editors from Fitsugar, Fashionista, and Shape magazine train along with the angels

This is a social media marketer’s big BEAUTIFUL mess. Yes, there’s a lot going on at once, but everything just fits together so perfectly.  Every year, girls complain on Twitter and blogs about how they want to look just like those angels after the show. This year, Victoria’s Secret offers the opportunity to train just like them, as they all count down to the actual show.  The integration of the Twitter hashtag encourages the girls to motivate each other rather than complain about themselves. The excellent choice of bloggers and editors whom are invited are influentials in the health and fashion industry who will further promote the event on their own website and magazine.

My only question is, why did they decide not to post those workout videos on their Youtube channel? I’m sure those videos will get much more exposure if shared on that platform. Perhaps they think that the videos can be better tracked through the Facebook app only? They must have had a good reason for it.

What do you think?

 

Can Melotweet, Evian’s musical Twitter campaign, persuade you to buy water?

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Recently there’s all this buzz about Evian’s new Twitter campaign called Melotweet. Basically, in one small blurb, it is an app designed for Ipads and Android tablets where you can turn your Twitter timeline into a musical experience. Your incoming tweets turn into droplets that drop down your screen in random areas.  You can customize the screen with different obstacles in which the droplets will hit onto and create soothing musical notes to create a musical piece.

“What if Twitter ceased to be a tool to become a toy?”, Melotweet asks.

 

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Some may ask, how does a musical app like this got anything to do with water? Well, Evian is apparently trying use this as a symbol for their “Live Young” brand. Possibly relating the feeling of creating a fresh new perspective (like young people would) to the Twitter platform.

My opinion on this campaign? I’m neutral (leaning on the dislike side).  The app is fun and interesting, but it’s not really practical at all.  On the consumer end, I don’t really see why I would use this app more than once (if at all). But then again, this campaign did receive a lot of buzz in many blogs and news articles. Funny thing is, even with all the media attention, their official promotion video still only has 2700 views.  For many, it’s a new concept by incorporating a musical element to Twitter, but it’s been done before. Have you seen the Twitter campaign hosted by Metropole Orchestra called Tweetphony? Now that’s an amazing musical Twitter campaign.  I just don’t see a strong tie between Melotweet and Evian’s brand.

What do you think? Does Melotweet make you want to buy more Evian water?

When personalization gets tricky in the social world

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As I was browsing on Facebook the other day, I realized my friend got an official VIB (Very Important Beauty Insider) welcome kit including a VIB member card in the mail from Sephora. VIB STATUS MEMBER CARD?!?!? (I thought), how come I don’t have one? So I went on the website, logged in and did some research. Apparently anyone who is a Beauty Insider (a free reward program they offer) who spends more than $350 a year automatically gets upgraded to VIB status. Taking a closer look at my emails, I realized that I was in fact an official VIB member as well. This is the email I got:

After I realized I was actually a member, I felt kind of offended that I didn’t receive the VIB loyalty card as well. So I went on the Beauty Talk (Sephora’s online forum) and found a thread of conversations with people who came across the same situation.  Here a few clips of what people had to say:

 

After reading this, I completely understand the situation (correct me if I’m wrong). Sephora’s digital marketing team decided that personalization was the way to go with their loyalty cards.  With all their customer’s past purchases tracked, they can generate an algorithm that determines which discounts, coupons, gifts, and advertisements would be most effective to the individual customer. Don’t get me wrong, Sephora has amazing marketing in the social world, but what confuses me is personalization all the way from deciding who gets the VIB loyalty card?

As you can see, personalization is great.  You can target different customers with different promotions and earn greater conversions. However, things could get sticky when fans are able to talk and share with each other on a global scale. Some may realize they are not offered the particular promotion that they want (as you can see from some of the clips), and some may decide to share their dissatisfaction to the world (me).

But then again, I love Sephora, so if they decide to send me a (late) VIB loyalty card now, I”ll accept it and forget about the past —- loyal advocate.

Social Films: A social media campaign that has yet to be exhausted

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We all know that social media, or web 2.0, is an important or even essential ingredient to marketers of the business world today. What makes social media so different from traditional advertisement though?  SOCIAL of course! The interaction between the business and the fans through casual conversations, pictures and videos.  It’s a chance to listen and monitor what your customers are saying and even better- to influence them in the right direction.

Recently, Intel and Toshiba partnered to create a campaign that included almost every

aspect of social media. In July of 2011, they worked with D.J. Caruso, the director of Disturbia, and created a social film on Youtube, consisting of 8 episodes, called Inside.

 

They set up a story of a girl called Christina, played by Emmy Rossum, who wakes up trapped in a room with her laptop. What was her only choice of escape? Through the help and support of the fans on the Internet.  Everyone could participate in influencing the plot of the story through Facebook posts and tweets. One lucky audience even had the chance to star alongside Emmy by Youtube auditions.

On Facebook, each character of the movie had their own scripted Facebook pages where the fans could interact with them on a personal level.  Here is a clip of a fan’s posts:

The film actually took the advice of this post in the next episode; an example of how the audience’s Facebook posts could ultimately change the storyline.

Another creative way to get more viewers was with the power of the ‘Like’.  On one of the episodes, Christine showed her viewers a note written by her kidnapper.

This steered lots of new viewers on board and pushed the current fans to spread the word.  Smart eh?

Here’s a video of all the audience interactions that took place during the campaign if you’re interested:

It is incredible to see so many different types of people from all around the world work together on this one project.  This is what social media is all about.  Connecting people who never would have had the chance to before and bonding them with similarities and interests

Now how much BUZZ did this create?

  • It was watched over 50 millions times and counting
  • There were 4 million interactions with the main character on Facebook
  • Hundreds of stories on the press including comments from Cosmopolitan Magazine, The Washington Post and Good Morning America

And how does this all bring back to Intel and Toshiba?

The Toshiba laptop that Christina uses is one of the main characters of the film.  It was the reliable and technologically advanced device that saved the character in the end.

Now my question to you is: Why haven’t I seen this kind of campaign in the health and beauty industry yet? It may not have to be as grand as this social film, but I have seen other smaller campaigns like “Away we happened” sponsored by AT&T. This size of campaign is absolutely feasible for companies like Lush and Lululemon. I’m interested to see what the future of social films would bring us when more companies decide to adopt this brilliant idea. It’s a happy family connecting the business and its fans through Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and a whole lot of conversations.

Here is the full ‘Inside’ movie: