Day: November 18, 2013

Can u imagine how far BATKID goes?  I will tell you from my personal experience that I actually see this post being “retweet” hundred thousand times on Sina Weibo- The Chinese Twitter !

Just in case  u have’nt heared of “batkid”, I will provided a short summary for you

Miles, age 5, is in remission after battling leukemia, and told the Make-A-Wish Foundation that his wish was to be “Batkid” and they mobilized the city of San Francisco to make it happen. Miles’ wish got picked up on a blog and spread like wildfire. Not surprisingly, a lot of San Franciscans were eager to help make his dream a reality. On Friday, November 15^th over 11,000 people volunteered to turn San Francisco into Gotham City and cheer Batkid on as he sped around in the Batmobile, responding to countless threats and saving the city. Then they made sure to tweet and post every second of it out to the world, ensuring that Batkid is now every bit as famous as his favorite superhero.  

Batkid’s wish is almost as touching as how a city seemed to come together to make this boy’s wish come true, and without social media I’m not sure how possible it would have been. I have to thank to social media which allow this love rally continue across the entire world.

 

After reading the post on Sina weibo, I went to youtube for the video, and other new channels in North Ameirca. Not surprisingly this story blew up my every media outlet I saw this weekend.It went sooooooo viral and On Friday #batkid was #1 on Twitter and  I saw post everywhere on my facebook. The kid also got shout outs from many celebrities through various marketing channel including the President Barak Obama himself !!

Social Media not only put this story to a new level, it also also put Make-A-Wish Foundation on a whole new playing field. It may seems to be coldblood to call this a brilliant PR stunt, I really don’t mean to take away any of the pure of the batkid story. I have to admit that I went to “Make-A-Wish Foundation” several time after reading the batkid story. And I saw post saying because of the numerous amount traffic, the website even had tech difficulties

This is what I found in a blog talking about this story through a marketing aspect:

“The foundation took something it does every day – making sick kids’ dreams come true – and turned it into a global fundraising strategy. And because they accomplished the campaign through social media, mobilizing the general public and celebrities to cheer on Batkid, it comes across as entirely organic.  After hearing Miles’ story, it’s hard not to want to donate or volunteer, but I doubt that anyone has thought of it as a marketing campaign. In fact, when I tried to Google: “Make-A-Wish marketing strategy” I got next to nothing. There was one blog post from 2011 and that said Make-A-Wish was going to shift from traditional to social in their marketing efforts. Mission accomplished.”

SOURCE: http://mi621.com/2013/11/18/batkid-the-coolest-viral-marketing-campaign-youve-ever-seen/

For me, this story is too heartwarming to be seen as a marketing campaign but it became so clear how fantastic of a marketing/PR event it was. Whether it was a conscious effort by make a wish or not, the beauty of it is that it raised awareness for make a wish by promoting a child’s wish. Definitely one of the coolest wishes i have seen granted!

As a loyal wechat user, I have noticed two recent move of wechat. One being starting to offer paid stickers( emoji). Secondly, The Tencent group (Wechat’s owner) has announced that they will be charging annual fee for the wechat official account.  Wechat is know as the most popular free messaging app in china, their recent move interest me to do some research into how those free mobile message app monetize for profit. Here is the summary of the top monetization strategy from those mobile message apps.

1. Stickers

Stickers typically come in “packs” of between ten and twenty and can be downloaded and used within one-to-one or group chats. Selections of free sticker packs often produced by the app itself, are offered to drive awareness and encourage usage with the hope that once users are hooked they will become premium sticker users. Premium stickers packs are usually priced less than $2 per pack, they are a mixture of the app own-produced content, content form established producer such as Disney or Sony and from smaller providers who produce bespoke content especially for the app.

In my opinion, having paid sticker is the best monetize strategy for the app because it’s cheap; users enjoy those sticker very much while paying for that. It’s also a sustainable strategy; people who like using those stickers are likely to buy more new stickers as well. In July 2013,the hot Japanese message app is earning $10 millon per month alone from the stickers. Wechat’s strategy of modeling Line’s sticker monetization strategy is a very smart call.

2. Official Account

Official accounts give brands, celebrities and merchants the ability to connect and engage directly with users. Content could include basic marketing messages but more likely will take advantage of the closeness of the relationship to the user and include prizes, media, exclusive news, offers, coupons or discounts.!

There’s several different ways for the apps to monetise through official account!

1.  Pay to create and promote official accounts!

2.  Pay per engagement e.g. per contact added, per message exchanged, per content downloaded!

3.  Pay per message e.g. brands could buy bundles of messages to send or receive!

With messaging apps having many millions of users in specific markets its easy to see how brands would be eager and willing to pay to get access to these users, particularly if users gain something valuable in return and are incentivised to connect to the official accounts.

Line is also a pioneer on this, according to the blog on “the next web” the company have to pay a one time fee (around $6,600) just to create the account. Other than that, the company will also pay to send messages. A 15 monthly message bundle for the official account is $5,000 per month while the 30 monthly message bundle is around $6,000. Wechat should definitely leverage on the official account, but I would suggest having different price levels for different size company. In that way wechat will have a bigger market for the official account, based on the fact that a big portion of  official account user now are small entrepreneurs. Tencent should defiantly keep this portion of customers.

3. In-app Game Platform

Messaging app game platforms enable their users to discover and download games and other apps, play against each other and share results and leaderboards. Users can also buy virtual items and purchase extras like coins, levels, tips, boosts or anything that the user needs to progress in the game.! Revenues come from in-app purchase of virtual items in games (coins/levels/tips – things that users need to progress in the game.

The Korean app Kakao Talkhas 30 million users have played at least one of their 180 games. There are 400 million+downloads $311 million in revenue during the first half of 2013!

Currently wechat has started to offer free in-app games, which are very popular among users. This give wechat a huge potential market for further monetize through the in-app games.