Video
Love + Soccer = Beautiful Viral Video
Let’s look beyond the fact that I love soccer and the fact that I am filled with deep, deep anticipatory joy for this summer’s World Cup action. The juxtaposition in this Puma video of rough UK football hooligans singing some harmonizing a cappella is simply magnetic. It pulls you in from the first moment and holds you there until you beg them to show you their logo. Great stuff. I watched it a few times.
For those of you who hate soccer, move along, there is nothing for you here. You cannot be helped.
Cottonelle Almost Gets Social
I really enjoyed the Cottonelle “How do you roll?” commercial when I first saw it last week, asking people how they prefer to present their paper, over or under (apparently the answer is over).
But, for a campaign that can get people to the internet pretty easily, their integrated social media, if you can call it that, reminds me more of any empty roll that needs to be replaced.
Yes they have two of their commercial’s characters on Twitter, and a Facebook page, and the poll itself with a nice map of results. But these small efforts are social for social’s sake with very little thought toward tying it all together. They even went out and interviewed folks on the street to add to their actor interviews and put all of it on Youtube, but check out the views on those videos. There is obviously nothing being done to promote them.
It smacks of a brand or agency that thinks social media is suppose to be cheap and easy. I see a multi-million dollar traditional ad campaign and a dollar store social media effort.
There is no effort to engage the consumers, whose attention they are buying with some major TV spots, in a long term way. I am sure the media buys will produce a short bump in sales and if that is all Cottonelle wants, then fine, good show.
But in 2010, pointing people to a micro-site that does not extend the relationship beyond the length of a media buy, is traditional advertising and less effective. The opportunity is to build a community, to engage the consumer in a way that creates a longer term relationship (meaning more money), to ask questions of consumers, to answer questions, to get the people they are pulling in with a clever, simple question, and convert them into spending more time with their brand. Consumers want dialogue.
It is a cute campaign Cottonelle, but perhaps you should consider building consumer relationships with a longer shelf life than say, I don’t know, a roll of toilet paper?
Social Media is Just a Hobby
Jason Falls delivers a little Gary Vaynerchuk impersonation at Social Fresh Nashville, a social media conference for marketers.
A good portion of Social Fresh spoke to what social media can really do for business, including Jason’s talk on “Moving the Needle, Social Media for the Bottom Line”.
In the quick video above, taken at the Social Fresh photo opp zone, Jason recaps why the social media purists (dirty hippies and treehuggers) do not get that if social media is not making you money, it is just a hobby.
Chipotle’s Organic Social Strategy
While I was in Florida preparing for Social Fresh Tampa on Feb 8th, I got the chance to meet and speak with Chris Arnold, Director of Communications for Chipotle Mexican Grill, and we discussed their slow, but deliberate, adoption of social media as a corporate controlled marketing channel.
From taking over a customer created 500,000 fan Facebook page to supporting consumer driven blogging, Chipotle is focused on staying true to their word or mouth and earned media roots while evolving their social media efforts.
Not everyone has the good fortune of a massive and committed fan base, like Chipotle. But for them, their decision to allow their social presence to happen organically is sound. It reminds me of Apple’s no social media policy and Ford’s no blogging decision. When a business generates online communities with their brand loyalty alone, they can definitely skip some steps.
Superbowl Commercials and Youtube with Bridgestone
Bridgestone has had several top ranking Superbowl commercials over the last few years and has seen great return from them. From this, they have begun to see the value in sharing that media through social sites like Youtube and are beginning to actively invest in these tools and social media as a whole. Michael Fluck, Director of Brand and Retail Marketing, had a quick talk with us about this and more.
Bridgestone will be attending Social Fresh Nashville, a one day social media conference for marketers, on Jan 11, 2010
