What’s the future of marketing? If this question had been asked in the 2000s, the answer would  have been “mobile phones”. So, what will be the next revolution? It seems that business people have a pretty clear answer for it: the so called “Internet of Things” (IoT). With these words people refer to a wide range of devices (computers, vehicles, clocks) able to gather information and data from different platforms or applications (social media, online systems, databases). The very interesting thing is that the variety of platforms is rapidly increasing and surprising new combinations of technologies are unrelentingly coming out. To have a better understanding of the extent of this phenomenon, just think that the expected growth of IoT is from the $33 billion in 2013 to $71 billion in 2018.

IoT revolution will obviously have a tremendous impact on the entire marketing world, affecting consumer decision journey, purchase funnel, marketing research, data collection, advertising campaigns and so on. This is why it is so relevant for every company to understand what’s going on and get ready to enter effectively and competitively in the new technological era. Here there are the most relevant tips for a business that wants to begin its adventure in the mysterious and amazing IoT world:

1)      Serve a specific need

Customers should be provided with a clear vision of what is the utility embedded in the product, in order to make it more desirable. In other words, the value proposition must be plain and easily understandable.

2)      Be compatible with other devices

Be careful that your product has the technology standards enabling it to connect with other trending services, since customers won’t be interested in dead-end items.

3)      Protect data

Be sure to guarantee the proper privacy level to you customers’ data and information, since it is a very crucial field. A step in the wrong direction here and the consequences for your business will be very bad.

4)      Be user-friendly

The vast majority of consumers is not aware of this new kind of complex technology and, more importantly, is not willing to spend a lot of time on learning how to use it. For this reason it’s crucial to make the device interface as simple as possible. Then, a more advanced and customized configuration could be offered to techies.

The following are some examples of innovative and useful IoT items that have been produced so far:

Belkin WeMo Switch to turn on/off any plug in device from your smartphone

Shopperception system for in-store advanced analytics based on a set of sensors and cameras

Sight Machine uses sensors, cameras and lasers to analyze a manufacturing process and guarantee its quality and consistency

At the early stages of a new technological era, companies should be at the same time very cautious about everything they do, being careful not to take anything for granted, and brave enough to experiment innovative ideas. Even though the risk is surely high, the opportunity of achieving a great first mover advantage is really appealing for a business.

Sources:

http://http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239811

http://postscapes.com/internet-of-things-examples/

Brand is probably the most valuable asset for an organization and one of the best ways to enhance it is to find the right advocates, people that really love your company and have the genuine desire of sharing their passion with friends. In fact, customers don’t really like having a relationship with a brand itself, they rather have a relationship with other people. Thus, someone who is totally into your brand, believes in your organization and feels to have a connection with your values, represents an incredible source of value for your company.

The question is: how can customers feel this deep attachment to an organization if its employees don’t? This is why a wise manager should work in order to transform all the employees in the very first advocates of the brand. Nowadays, the great majority of people working for a company talks about their employers through social media anyway, so the point is to train them to do it in the appropriate way. It’s not simple, since of course employees cannot be forced to become ambassadors or to share a certain kind of content, but it completely worth the effort: having delighted employees creates a hard to replicate competitive advantage.

Employees cannot become brand advocates if they don’t have a clear picture in their minds of what the brand values and culture really are. They need to understand the brand and the goal of a good manager is to help them to do it. The first requirement for a company is to have a well-known, strong, and distinctive vision. This should also help to obtain a good consistency in the messages spread by the employees. A good practice is to establish a communication team sending to all the people employed in the organization messages regarding brand, objectives and initiatives. Other communication channels as meetings and speeches are also very effective.

                           Dell employees at a regional meeting

Another important step is to clarify what does make the brand valuable and helpful for the entire society. Employees want to be part of something big and good; they love to feel that they are contributing to make some difference in the world. If they perceive that what the company is doing does actually matter, they will spontaneously share it with friends, family and other colleagues. What is fundamental is to generate a feeling of pride and gratification associated to the brand. For this reason, corporate social responsibility initiatives are the most appreciated and promoted by employees.

              McDonald’s employees taking part to a charity event

The top leadership should be the supreme example of brand advocacy: the CEO needs to be the most proud ambassador of the brand, if he wants to see all the other employees doing the same. Companies should also try to recognize and prize employees who share positive content regarding their brand; perhaps through small but meaningful actions, as commenting, retweeting or liking employees’ posts.

To conclude, here there’s a link to a video of Starbucks president Cliff Burrows talking about how the company deals with serious topics as diversity and inclusion. Notice how he calls employees “partners”, fostering their sense of beloning. According to me, it is a valid example of what a manager could do to make people working for or with him aware and proud of what they are doing:
http://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/community/diversity-and-inclusion

Sources:

http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/60-million-employees-social-media-advocate/295823/

http://www.jrsconsulting.net/freearticles_12.html

If you are a bit active on social media you have probably watched the new John Lewis’ “Monty the penguin” video. The British department store has created this two minutes ad for the upcoming Christmas holidays and its success has been immediate. The number of views and shares was already incredible after the first 24 hours since it was uploaded: 7 million views and more than 200.000 shares. Thus, it was not surprising when it reached about 14.9 million views after the first seven days. The ad tells the very cute story of a young boy and the relationship he has with his best friend Monty, a pet penguin. In the very unlikely case you haven’t meet Monty yet, this is the famous video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iccscUFY860

This Christmas-centric campaign has clearly gone viral and the digital success has noticeably led John Lewis retail stores to actual revenues: the Monty plush toys sold out in few hours. What did ensure this amazing popularity to the video? What can people learn from John Lewis on how to create a viral video? Even though the conditions making it possible for a content to become viral are very variable and often unpredictable, Monty can give digital marketers some important tips. The following are the main features that can help a video to be easily shareable:

Being reasonably short
The video lasts almost 2 minutes. The point is that every video should be short enough to keep the interest and the attention of the Vine videos generation. Given this, it’s clear that the very first 30 seconds of a video play a crucial role: managing to be interesting and also a bit mysterious is fundamental to make people stay glued to the screen.

Sharing a cheerful content
What can be more upbeat than the inspiring story of a little boy helping his penguin friend to find true love for Christmas? It’s proven that positive emotions make it more likely for a video to be spontaneously and passionately shared by digital users. Thus, touch the heart of the audience and they will surely want to share the feeling with their friends.

Being timely
Halloween has just passed and people start to feel the Christmas atmosphere in the air: Monty has been able to perfectly harness the Christmas magic power. Generally speaking, except for the obvious season-related occasions, a good video should always be connected to current events or popular trends.

Linking the online and offline strategies
John Lewis department stores have been filled up of penguin toys and other kinds of related merchandise, enabling the phenomenon to spread even more, also through non digital channels. A full consistency between online and offline strategy is essential for a campaign to be effective and to obtain the desired returns on marketing investment.

Using social media
A Twitter account for Monty has been crafted just for the occasion. Through this channel the penguin shares additional information, updates and other details regarding the story told in the video. Using various social media as a support for a campaign helps increasing the video resonance and interacting with followers is very useful in creating a stronger engagement. As always, a well-planned digital advertising campaign involves the use of proper hashtags and the creation of an ad-hoc one, as it is #MontyThePenguin in this case.

Sources:
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2380274/monty-the-penguin-breaks-records-wins-christmas
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2014/08/07/6-qualities-to-make-your-videos-go-viral/

             Snapchat logo

Snapchat, the viral photo sharing application for smartphones boasting a 100 million user base, has recently and deliberately entered in the world of advertising. This decision has given rise to a double challenge: on the one side Snapchat has to help marketers to figure out how to deal with the app and why expiring ads could be a good investment for them; on the other one, companies need to rapidly find the best way to harness this brand new channel, accordingly to their target audience.

How does the Snapchat advertising actually work? First of all, the sponsored content appears in the “recent updates” section of the app, not invading the personal communication among users, and people are able to choose whether to watch it or not. The advertising snap is not individually targeted and it disappears after the reproduction or, in any case, after 24 hours. Thus, it is pretty clear that the marketing approach to be used in this channel should be different from the one suiting other kinds of social media. The aim is to provide the users with an advertising experience that is both “fun and informative”, as Snapchat has plainly stated on its official blog. It seems to be an attitude which focuses more on creating satisfaction and enjoyment for users, rather than pleasing advertisers.

                           Screenshot displaying the Ouija ad.

Notably, companies deciding to invest on a Snapchat advertisement run the risk of spending money on something that the audience can simply refuse to watch. This means that the marketing effort should be oriented on the ability of to offering a really appealing and catchy content to users. Marketers creativity will surely be the main driver of success in the world of vanishing ads. Thus far, the feeling is that companies don’t want to miss this opportunity, but still they don’t know how to exactly do it. Here’s the video of the first Snapchat ad, a trailer promoting the “Ouija” movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwqhExxwRU0

We have to give credit to Snapchat of its attempt of pushing the digital marketing through the path of producing a mutual value-adding content, benefitting both customers and companies. In fact, Snapchat ads seem to be a fair deal for everybody: the app will raise some money, the customers will watch just what they care about and the companies have a new digital channel to reach their target. Let the challenge begin!

Sources:

http://blog.snapchat.com/post/100255857340/advertising-on-snapchat

http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/10/28/advertisers-mull-where-snapchat-fits-while-prepping-to-move-fast/

McDonald’s international marketing strategy is famous for being one of the most relevant examples of glocalization. The video below provides you with a nice and brief explanation of how this fast food giant has been able to successfully penetrate so many different markets during the years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCG7ScRP1ws

Now McDonald’s glocalization strategy is landing in the digital marketing world, with a brand new and intriguing challenge. Mr. Martinelli, the US digital marketing manager at McDonald’s, has announced that the company’s new goal is to roll out about 14.500 Facebook pages before 2015, with the aim of getting as close as possible to customers. Moreover, they are planning to launch Twitter accounts for all the main restaurants to improve the quality of the CRM. The local marketing teams will take care of the pages using a program called Salesforce Social Studio.

This ambitious plan is supposed to give to McDonald’s the possibility of thoroughly monitoring all customer conversations about local stores and considerably increase the one-to-one engagement. In fact, the digital manager recognized the outright relevance of being able to deliver “a relevant content at the right time to the right people” and also to play an active role in their conversations. They aim to establish a constant and immediate interaction with the customer base. This is particularly relevant for a company like McDonald’s, that is constantly fighting against rumors regarding the quality of the food it sells, since it will enable them to stop the diffusion of harmful buzz very quickly.

This is not the first time that an international brand has used a similar approach with Facebook. For example, WalMart launched 3.500 pages on the social network for its local retail stores in 2011, but the results in terms of engagement didn’t meet the expectations. Even though McDonald’s claims to have a deeper understanding of the situation and of the related risks, an hyper-localization strategy as this one could end up to be incredibly effective, but it surely entails various risks and difficulties. It will doubtlessly require high investments in staffing and a significant dose of trust between headquarters and local management.

These are the main challenges that the international burger retailer will have to face:

1. Be consistent in the content
2. Produce tailored messages
3. Don’t cannibalize themselves on social media
4. Don’t let the customers feel confused
5. Have a very well-prepared local marketing staff

Sources:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1320152/mcdonalds-14500-facebook-pages-will-us-closer-customers-says-digital-manager/

http://www.campaignlive.com/article/three-challenges-mcdonalds-will-face-deploy-14500-facebook-pages/1319119

We all know that seasonality is a fundamental feature in a digital marketing campaign and holidays represent incredible opportunities for brands to interact with their existing customers, reach new ones, increase their engagement and create an enduring awareness. Halloween is around the corner and it’s time for marketers to unleash their creativity to take advantage of this chance in the best way.

For some kinds of business, as for example the food or the apparel ones, the connection with Halloween is pretty obvious and digital marketing campaigns show a direct relation with sales. However, for many other fields it is not the same: what can possibly link the night of witches, monsters and dead with detergents, cars or furniture? A well-planned digital marketing campaign does. Smartly harnessing the power of the Halloween atmosphere can bring valuable results for every business, regardless of the size and the product category. In order to achieve this goal, it is fundamental to understand which are the main tricks that a good marketer has to perform to treat the target customers.

Booking.com “Stay if you dare” campaign for Halloween 2013

1)      Use a memorable tagline and hashtag

A funny, creative and impressive catchphrase is essential. Try to make a non-trivial joke connecting your product or brand to Halloween and it will be the best way to be stuck in the minds of your customers for a long time after the end of October. It must be something short, smart and of course easy to remember. Create a related hashtag, use it in all your social media and encourage your followers to do the same. This step is very useful for marketers not specifically aiming at increasing the sales, but generally working on awareness.

2) Create buzz

          Pepsi’s irreverent Halloween ad

Try to create an innovative campaign, able to surprise your customers, maybe adding some ironic and/or irreverent elements: this will make people talk about the campaign. A buzz surrounding your brand is a powerful tool to achieve a long term awareness.

3)      Be careful not to look as desperate to be seasonally relevant

Don’t try to create connections where they cannot exist, since they would seem implausible. If your campaign looks as strained and unnatural, customers won’t like it, they won’t feel any engagement with it. The final result will be just bad for your brand.

4)      Be interactive

Interacting with your customers and make them be an active part of the campaign is essential to achieve the wished success, and thanks to all the online features, it is really not that hard. Take advantage of a wise combination of social media and website to get people involved and to give them a complete digital experience. An outstanding example in this regard is given by Target’s digital campaign for this Halloween: they used their Instagram page to provide their followers with an original interactive game. They’ve been posting pictures that, when put all together, create a frightening digital neighborhood. Navigating in this online space, users are encouraged to click on “trick” or “treat” links, leading them to different kinds of content.

                                                   Target’s “Halloween Hills” on Instagram fro Halloween 2014

  5)      Get in the Halloween spirit

Try to make changes in your website and social media sites in order to get in the Halloween mood. Even just colors, fonts and a little bit of graphic tricks can be enough to be nicely connected to the seasonality. Introducing some Halloween-related features is also an option. A good website design team can make the difference in this context and the impact on customers can be great.

Pringles’ “Can-o-lantern” Facebook feature on the website

6)      Deliver a content

Don’t forget that all the previous efforts are completely useless if you don’t provide your customers with a valuable, thrilling content. Decide in advance what do you want to communicate and make sure that every tweet, post or picture will lead the users to some interesting information.

7)      Be consistent

The last, but not the least: make sure that all the advertising campaign parts are consistent with each other, with your brand image and with your general marketing positioning. Otherwise the customers will just be confused and the Halloween-themed advertising will play you a bad trick.

Sources:

http://www.jasonpaulmarketing.com/scary-good-marketing-opportunities-halloween/

Five Social Media Marketing Tricks for Halloween

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2377250/3-brands-3-social-media-strategies-for-halloween

One of the major challenges for people working in marketing areas is the one of collecting consistent and reliable information about customers and, in particular, about their decision-making and purchasing processes. A typical marketing research takes place in a room, where a bunch of experts asks some predetermined questions to a group of people. Clearly, the risk of obtaining answers with a bias given by the particular way in which the interview has been structured is very high: stilted questions and presence of researchers end up with strongly influencing the customers’ answers. People are lead to think about solutions that maybe they would have never spontaneously considered in the everyday life. Therefore, the result is never completely trustable and satisfying, since we have seen that the emerging data cannot reflect the real purchasing pattern of a free and normal individual.

A very original solution to this concerning problem comes from a new app for smartphones: Journey HQ. Why is it so innovative? Simple: it allows to get rid of both the abovementioned intrusive features that affect the reliability of a classic marketing research, questions and question-setters. The app, which is notably developed by experts instead of techies, gives the opportunity to the customer to track his purchasing pattern as he prefers: writing, taking pictures, recording audios or videos. The participants are also encouraged to express their emotions and feelings at every stage in order to give a more detailed insight, but basically they are not forced to do anything, since the core value of the app is to preserve the spontaneity.

                                 Journey HQ app

When people log in and record their purchasing steps, data are immediately sent to a website enabling marketing researchers to follow their customers’ pattern step by step and to analyze it through a range of analytics tools. The potential of Journey HQ is now pretty evident. The quality of the gathered data will be incredibly improved with respect to the “old-fashioned methods”: marketers will be able to access to a wide range of information and to capture the real-time thinking of people, something which is just impossible to achieve by an ex-post question-based research.

Certainly the application is still at its first stage and the new methodology needs to be tested and adjusted. However, if experts keep working in this way, attempting to free marketing research from bias and external intrusions through a smart use of technology and social media, the benefits could be dramatic, not only for marketing and
ethnographic studies, but also for consumers.

Sources:
http://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/journey-hq-customer-journey-app
http://www.marketingtechnews.net/news/2014/oct/02/want-fully-understand-customer-journey-get-customer-do-it/

At the beginning of September Samsung announced that its new Galaxy Note 4, that will be released before the end of the year, will entail new powerful virtual reality features. This will be possible thanks to the revolutionary “Gear VR”: a headset powered by Oculus (acquired by Facebook for $2 billion last July) featuring an immersive three dimensional technology. It will provide the customers with the possibility of living a 360 degree adventure in a virtual world, being able to simulate a motion experience by reacting to eyes’ movements. The VR technology will be mainly used by Samsung for gaming purposes and it will surely turn the entire videogame world upside-down.

                      Looking through the new Samsung Gear VR

However, marketers can’t and won’t let this new incredible opportunity slip. To a watchful eye, the VR technology is a perfect mean to considerably improve the digital marketing efforts. Exploiting it, companies will be able to provide their target audience with virtual reality experiences of what they are advertising. Moreover, ads could become something exciting, enjoyable and desirable, rather than interruptive and annoying as it is now in most of the cases. The dream of marketing people of creating an advertising campaign perceived by the audience as something that truly meets their desires and needs could be finally fulfilled.

The marketing possibilities are infinite and the technology could be helpfully used in all the business sectors. By simply wearing a pair of virtual glasses, people could visit places far away to decide where to go on holiday, walk around a virtual store for some online shopping, take a look at hotel rooms before booking, try how it is to drive a new car and so on. Customers will be able to directly interact with products and services offered by a company, and this will stimulate their engagement and interaction in a way that traditional techniques could never do. Someone has already started to exploit this new technology, as it is the case of the Marriot Hotels chain, that has tried to supply even a 4D virtual travel experience to its customers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWxSOjfqMvI

In a close future, the way in which customers interact with brands will dramatically change, so be prepared to be part of this new thrilling (virtual) reality.

Sources:
http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/samsung-s-vr-technology-big-step-ad-revolution/295118/

http://blog.appnova.com/oculus-vr-future-digital-marketing/
http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gearvr/

Tonight one of the most popular and awarded TV shows of the last decade, namely Grey’s Anatomy, will return to the screen with the premiere of its 11^th season. The medical drama went on air for the first time in 2005 and since that day its fan base has been unrelentingly growing. How can TV series keep having success and survive through the years? If you are a passionate watcher, the answer will be displaying clearly in your mind: they create ADDICTION. But it is not only thanks to fascinating and surprising plots that a show manages to grip its fans, though. Moreover, nowadays the competition in the TV industry is continuously increasing, with content supply becoming everyday wider and more customized, thus retaining a good audience through time is more and more hard for a TV show. Producers cannot just rely on the fan’s interest in the complicated love stories of the main characters, so a key role is played by the capability of creating a constant fan base engagement. The flame of people’s interest should be continuously stoked up, especially during the long periods of waiting for the next season to come. The Seattle Grace surgeons’ show certainly succeeded in doing it. How? Easy, heavily leveraging on the web marketing of course.

Therefore, which better example than Grey’s Anatomy to illustrate all the requirements that a TV series needs to meet in order to implement a successful digital marketing campaign? These are the main strengths of its e-marketing promotion:

Grey’s Anatomy Facebook page trying to involve fans

1)      Develop an interactive Facebook page
Grey’s Anatomy Facebook page (http://https://www.facebook.com/GreysAnatomy?fref=ts), with more than 22.550.000 likes to this day, is regularly updated with posts, news and pictures. They try to keep the fan base interactive posting show-related questions and asking users to express their opinions regarding characters or actors.

2)      Create buzz through sneak peeks and leaks

Sometimes the information comes from official channels, sometimes from unofficial ones. What does really matter is the capability to reveal something, but without exceeding: it’s important to find the proper balance in order to turn on a discussion and increase the excitement in the fan base, without saying too much and spoil their curiosity.

Shonda Rhimes releases a video about the Season 11

3)      Rumors from the producers
The role of the producer, Shonda Rhymes, and her team has always been vital for Grey’s Anatomy. She often uses Twitter as a mean to reveal some details about the upcoming events or to express her point of view on the plot, but she also shares videos or interviews through the net. This makes people feel a deeper connection with the show.

Actors sharing pictures from the backstage on Instagram

4)      Active participation of the cast
The stars working in the drama are essential for web-marketing: they should interact with their fans as much as they can, post show-related pictures with official or new hashtags on Instagram, promote the new seasons on their official web pages or profiles, share pictures with other members of the cast, especially during the shooting of new episodes. People love to see that their favorite actors are genuinely involved in the tv series and to peek what happens in the backstage.

5)      Creation of a distinctive way of saying.
One of the most successful operations implemented by the Grey’s Anatomy team has been the one of creating some signature sentences (like the use of “Mc” in front of doctor’s nicknames or the sentence “you are my person”). Even though these ways of saying are not really used very frequently in the episodes, they have become part of the American common language thanks to an intense promotion carried on through digital channels.

Basically, the whole game is oriented to create communities and keep the audience always actively engaged. A great season finale is nothing if people don’t keep talking about it, wondering what will actually happen in the future of their beloved characters, as well as a new season cannot start at its top if not introduced by a proper countdown.

And now everybody… run to put your popcorn in the microwave and place yourfavorite armchairin front of theTV, Meredith Grey and all the other Seattle Grace surgeons are coming back tonight.

Sources:

http://www.threegirlsmedia.com/2014/02/28/greys-anatomy-social-media-tips-seattle-grace/

http://www.thepulsenetwork.com/content-marketing-post/how-tv-networks-use-content-marketing-to-promote-their-shows-year-round/

The increasingly relevant impact that the social medias have on the customer behavior and their fundamental role as a marketing tool for companies is now apparent to everybody, especially for the students of this Digital Marketing course. However, there’s another e-marketing trend that is catching on lately and moves exactly in the opposite direction. In fact, not only do the companies influence their target consumers by social media campaigns, but it also works on the other way round.

The Surge Movement Fb campaign

 

Coca-Cola, the international giant of the beverage industry, has just announced that the production of its 90s high-caffeine drink Surge will start again after 12 years since it has been withdrawn from the market. Surge, launched on the market in 1997 with a massive $50 million marketing campaign, failed to defeat its direct competitor (Pepsi’s Mountain Dew) and in a few years it completely disappeared from the market. Nevertheless, the most loyal consumers have never given up: a Facebook group named “the Surge Movement” (https://www.facebook.com/surgemovement), which today proudly shows more than 144.000 likes, was founded in 2011 and in 2013 managed to crowdfund $3.800 with the aim of posting a billboard not far from Coca-Cola’s headquarters asking them to get the beloved drink back. What is really surprising is that not only Coca-Cola decided to satisfy the request of the fans, but it also pleased them citing the Surge Movement in its official press release, addressing them great part of the credit for the Surge comeback.

Surge case is not just an isolate and meaningless one, since the pressure exerted by the customers on the companies through the digital means boasts of other relevant successes. In Italy, for instance, Unilever has just became the protagonist of a very similar story. After three years from the creation of the Facebook page “give us the Winner Taco back” (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ridateci-il-Winner-Taco/204841769536569?fref=ts), which to date has more than 13.000 likes, Unilever has decided to please all the nostalgics reintroducing the very popular 90s ice cream to the market. 13 years had passed since the Winner Taco’s production was stopped and, again, Unilever paid much attention in flattering the fans with public recognition to their efforts in this glorious endeavor.

               Winner Taco is back in Italy

There’s one significant difference between these two instances: on the one hand Unilever evaluated that it worth it to spend millions on a national marketing campaign for the Winner Taco, on the other hand Coca-Cola is reaching the diehards in a more cost-effective way through a digital channel (Amazon). This could be an interesting example of how the Anderson’s Long Tail concept applies and how simple is it today to reach all the niches through the e-commerce.

It truly seems that a new digital trend is actually spreading in the marketing world and that the connections linking companies and customers are becoming everyday more tight. Quoting the words of Vitali, the Brand Building Manager Ice Cream at Unilever Italia, marketing managers “learned to listen and carefully analyze the messages that people, and especially the fans of our products can communicate through the internet channels. It’s the only way to understand the real market trends and respond correctly with products”.
So guys, internet has really given us the power!

Sources: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-15/how-a-facebook-group-convinced-coca-cola-to-re-release-surge
http://www.unilever.it/aboutus/newsemedia/comunicatistampa/ritrna-winner-taco.aspx