Tag Archives: comm464

Do you really want the best job in the world?

 

The beauty of Queensland, now wouldn’t you want to work here? 😉

One of my favourite examples of consumer generated marketing and buzz is Tourism Queenland’s 2009 campaign for the “Best Job in the World”. It received extensive international media coverage (estimated $368 million) after asking viewers to enter video submissions and encouraging consumer generated marketing, reaching a global audience of 3 billion. They offered one lucky applicant A$150,000 and the chance to be a caretaker of a paradisiacal island in the Great Barrier Reef.

Despite their relatively low $1.2 million budget, they made a huge splash worldwide by refocusing on a novel concept. Instead of promoting the job scopr of island tourism their marketing centred on “The Best Job in the World”, with its exciting roles and responsibilities.

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Despite the focus on consumer generated marketing by engaging consumers through websites, page views and social media platforms, Tourism Queenland maintained some control over Ben Southall,  who kept fans engaged through his blog, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube feeds.

I found this super relevant to what we learnt in class – the concept is indeed more important than the budget. Even through the online voting process, Tourism Queensland covered a huge range of media platforms. There was site engagement as Ben connected with his fans, free regular content via Ben’s blog posts and constant video updates, giving him the chance to generate revenue and make a living. The content was also trustworthy as Ben was living the experience and blogging in real-time about what was happening.

There are also drawbacks, of course. Internet users with illicit purposes can create a false identity and obtain personal details and information from the unsuspecting or naive. It was also not easy for the contest team to organize a structure free-form of UGC. Also, there was a lot biased and questionable (though wildly entertaining and amusing) content offered by interested participants.

Reach (brand messages – call for submission)
Engage (Media coverage, online and video discussions)
Amplification (content spreads to friends, content boosted by advertisements)

This campaign was so popular that it spawned video submissions for Tourism Australia! YouTube Preview Image Sadly, the winner have been announced, but you never know when your next shot at The Best Job in the World will be 😉

The Customer Journey to Online Purchase

Google Analytics Funnels are shown above. They have several flaws.

Google Analytics allows us to build funnels only with URLs, so it will be challenging for a user wants to track events that do not match with a unique URL.

There are hacks around this with virtual page views in the form of snippets of JavaScript you can add to your site which forces Google Analytics to record a page view at a URL of your site. However, you can only track a series of consecutive steps that people go through all at once. Google Analytics funnels break down if you lack unique URLS to work with and can’t use virtual page views, people leave or bounce around your site between steps. Ultimately, it is challenging to determine when a customer is moving through different steps of the business.

In class, we have been learning about fascinating looped frameworks such as McKinsey’s customer decision journeys and the conversion funnel. In April this year, Google Analytics has added a conversion funnel benchmarking tool which plots the various channels’ impacts on purchase paths by industry.

Different marketing channels from Assisting to Last Interaction channels

Under assistance, we comparing the awareness, consideration and intent ratio against the last interaction ratio to determine the channel’s position.

However, as different markets utilize various marketing channels and social media platforms, it will be increasingly challenging for them to figure out which channels to invest in at what point in a customer’s decision journey.

The Customer Journey – Assist or Last Interaction

This channel provides a clear quantifiable spectrum for whether each channel plays more of an “assist” or “last interaction” role. There are also paths for different industries and regions.

Furthermore, there are so many ways to determine how the length of the customer journey (in number of days and number of interactions) differ depending on the kind of purchase.

Below are some of the ways you can do this:

Average order value (size of a typical purchase)

Marketers can observe the typical path to conversation and how that affects the average order value.

Total Purchases by Days – Total Revenue comes from purchases made in > 1 day

Credits:

http://www.google.com/think/tools/customer-journey-to-online-purchase.html

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-analytics-adds-conversion-funnel-benchmarking-tool-148874

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/use-conversion-funnels/

Coca Cola: Every day is a Journey

Professional, engaging and featuring fresh new content

The relaunch and dare I say, reinvention, of Coca Cola’s new website really impressed me, and I admire that Coca Cola is stepping up its game and redefining itself as a global brand to reinforce its own social DNA. Coca Cola has always been an iconic brand, but this website has cemented its reputation, redefined its brand presence, tied its stories neatly together and engaged the customers in a meaningful manner.

I decided to apply the 7 Cs of Customer Interface to this website, as well as overall usability in terms of accessibility, identity, navigation and content.

Context 8/10

Aesthetic – The content resembles that of a slick magazine, with emphasis on relevant international news stories. The site has an appealing and professional color scheme which is very eye-catching. The colors are consistent and match the images and overall cohesiveness of the website.

Functional – The home page is neatly categorised into different sections according to whatever engages the user and looks very professional as it has ‘Stories’, ‘Opinions’, ‘Brands’, ‘Videos’, ‘Most Read’, ‘Most Shared’, ‘Most Watched’ and social media plugin sections which are clearly separated and displayed.

Social Media Plugins are clearly displayed, easy to follow and boldly state the number of followers

However, the website seems to be available only in English.

Ease of Navigation – Consistent logo and menu bar at the top of the page. Drop down menus under clear menu categories makes it easy to navigate.

Content – 9/10

The content is arranged to resemble a slick magazine or digital media brand’s website, with the emphasis on international stories. “The more editorially-focused website creates, aggregates and curates content while maintaining the core functions of a corporate website (careers, investor relations, press releases, executive bios)”.

Good combination of text, blogs, well-placed graphics and videos; engaging editorials and relevant pages and content.

Communication – 7/10

Coca Cola’s website has strong communication features. Site-to-user communication includes email notifications and social media plugins and live newsfeeds.

User-to-site communication is either by email, the toll-free hotline, snail mail, or the option to submit an idea or newsletter subscription.

Commerce – 2/10

The website lacks a transactional capability, as its main purpose is not to promote a product or service, but the brand as a whole. The ‘Brands’ section of the website could be considered one of its advertising features.

Customization – 2/10

Customization is not really allowed as visitors do not have the opportunity to personalize the site. The student zone allows interested applicants to filter their career preferences through the search options.

Connection – 6/10

Links to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other social media networks are clearly visible. Links to press releases and company statements are displayed. There could be more relevant links to external sites.

Community – 8/10

There is a strong sense of community due to social media plugins such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google+, Linkedin and YouTube, as well as the blogs and breaking news. This helps to achieve the goal of the website which is to encourage debate and different perspectives, building an engaged and well-informed community.

Embedded below is an example of one of Coca Cola’s advertisements, a clever mix of advertising with an underlying social mission which emphasizes its “Coming Together” campaign.

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Overall, I feel that Coca Cola’s website leverages on the value of customers and word of mouth. It has built a strong conversation prism by creating a more organized picture of the new web to better harness the Social Web’s potential, activity and overall reach.

Furthermore, I admire its detailed and organized social map for how it targets social networks and communities and is clear about its social media usage, intent and powerful capabilities.