The fast food giant who has been competing in the same industry as McDonald and Wendys, among others, has just recently launched a new campaign in an effort to drive brand awareness and sales. However, not staying true to their name, they have introduced to us their Gratifries and based their campaign on this product. In Canada they are know as Gratifries and in the US they are Satisfries. It seems odd for the fast food chain who prides itself on the Whopper to be promoting french fries instead of burgers, their name has Burger in it… what are they thinking! They are also going the lower calorie option trying to attract consumers because they are french fries that are also supposed to be good for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajesfE2ZGDY

Not only have they rolled out commercials but they have launched a large scale sampling effort where you can sample gratifries for free every friday between noon and 2pm until Nov. 1. They have also been seen changing their name to Fries King at certain locations.

My big question about his campaign is why fries? Why go away from what you are known for doing and try to promote something completely different?

When I look at this campaign I can see the company trying to spark some talk. I see them attempting to create some word of mouth promotion from people talking about what they are doing and why they are putting so much emphasis on their fries. I think it is a very risky move for them to be making and I am very interested to see the consumer response.

The inspiration for my blog today is something that was mentioned in class and I reallly wanted to build on the idea. Jamie McDougall found an article about a guy who sent a short video to a girl he met in Starbucks in an attempt to seduce her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdS9pdiYF4o

Instead he became a social media sensation that adopted the hashtag #starbucksdrakehands. This simple video created a fire storm on social media with people quickly creating parodies of the video and using the #starbucksdrakehands tag. After seeing the video a question was posed to the class. Should Starbucks leverage this social media sensation and if so, how should they leverage it? This question about how the company should leverage this viral social media trend is what leads me to where I want to expand. I am curious as to how companies decide to leverage viral videos and social media trends in order to increase their own brand awareness. The one company that sticks out most in my mind as being a prime example of how to do this well is Wonderful Pistachios. This company took viral youtube videos and created their Get Crackin campaign which went “viral” in itself.

The first one launched leveraged the YouTube sensation Keyboard Cat who has over 32 million views. After its success they went on to create more and basically made their get cracking campaign a success.

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

And launched the Gagnam style ad during the superbowl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6iiiDdTNY

This campaign must have seemed farfetched when first presented as an idea but I think that it is an excellent example of how social media and viral videos were leveraged to help a brand. I wonder how they decided to use the campaign it would be interesting to hear their process. Visit their Get Crackin Website to see more of their ads starring The Harlem Globe Trotters, Snoop, and others.

All in all, I am interested to see what Starbucks does with this trend, but as agreed upon in class, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do nothing.

Any other examples you guys can think of?

Thanks for reading!

Before it’s invention in 2007, the # stood for a number sign, something to use in order to abbreviate and shorten numbers. But Chris Messina decided in 2007, being an avid Twitter user, that he was going to change the meaning of the # completely.

He explains why he invented the hashtag in this short Bloomberg Video above but it can be summed up in a few words. Twitter is the online social platform for streamlined and short and sweet messages since users are restricted to the 140 character limit. Messina felt that there was no real way for people to connect their conversations through common trends. Twitter originally had it that common key words could be searched but Messina thought there was a better way and so invented the #hashtag. He effectively created a way for people to create and follow trends that could be organized and easy to find. The hashtag is a great tool for brands to keep conversations going among their consumers about their products and their brands. It allows people to follow the latest news on a what is happening somewhere in the world. It also provides a way for people have conversations about social trends and social issues.  Little did he know that his creation would eventually take on a whole new direction.

Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake illustrate it best in their skit #hashtags. The tool for users to create trends to build a community, in addition to building a brand, has morphed into a weird way of speaking and has become over used in all the wrong ways. It brings about the concern that hashtags may not be useful anymore because they will be so watered down with all these random made up trends. This article by NYMag goes on to describe The 7 Types of Hashtag Abusers and I know all of us have been guilty of one of these at some point.

At the end of the day, I wonder how hashtags are going to continue to morph and whether they will die out a slow death, or if they will come back and provide a whole new set of opportunities. I will leave you with this thought, what if hashtags were used for your own personal brand… I read an article on the Elite Daily where the writer goes on about creating a personal hashtag campaign and attaching your name as a hashtag to resumes and job applications. Say whattt!? He goes on to explain how you can bring all of your social media platforms together, and pool all your ideas into one place. Who knows, this could be the next trend with the hashtag since it seems to be changing by the day but using it for job applications? I can’t decide if this idea is genius or just plain stupid. What are your thoughts?

#thanksforreading #peaceout