I recently had one very refreshing conversation with a marketing director in the FMCG industry. This particular individual was very clear about the role of social media in their marketing plan – it had one core purpose: to communicate their brand to a younger audience (future customers) by exploiting their traditional marketing material through social networks.
They gave one fantastic example of how this worked! They had created and aired a TV advert for a product range in 2010. Not entirely happy with the production, they returned to the drawing board.
Here’s the brainchild that was born:
– Use the same footage from the advert that was aired in 2010 but change the soundtrack from the current one. This would ‘liven’ things up and try to make the advert more Irish.
– They created a Facebook competition where upcoming Irish bands could submit original tracks for the competition.
– The winning piece would be used in the advert; the individual would get paid and then the rights would also go to the artist.
After all of the hullabaloo, the advert was first released on Youtube getting almost 40,000 hits before making it to TV. This worked so well when you think about it: they were getting thousands of views on their old TV advert because people wanted to see what it was originally like.
They were creating brand advocates who now associated this brand with Irish music; it was a fantastic CSR activity and they were getting 100,000s of Euros of free PR as a result of excitement about the competition.
Here’s a few more basic ideas perhaps for you on how to stretch your traditional spend:
Crowdsource Creativity:
Very simply: ask, don’t tell! Telling people about how you’re the greatest and cheapest out there is boring and pushy. Ask your network for what they like/don’t like or for ideas e.g. why not post up an image of a draft press advert.
Rather than saying, “here’s our latest deal” simply give a prize for writing the best tagline for the advert and include it in the final version when it gets printed in the paper– this means you’ve already got views and you’re building the level of engagement.
Pairing Up with non-competitors:
Could you link up with a company that’s not a competitor and ask them to indirectly promote your material e.g. get the company to post that they love your range of products and vice versa. It has more credibility if you both ensure that you state you have no commercial link to the products/services.
A way to stretch your traditional spend would be to get the company to refer to an advert etc. and state, for example, “Loving the office chairs that this company has in the paper today. We could do with some of those down here” and so on. Far more effective than personally posting with a real sales message and a good way of B2B networking.
Brands with Character:
I think there is one Irish company in particular who have used social media to bring their brand’s character to life: Tayto. When you think back, even to the days of Bebo, the campaign to find Mr. Tayto a ‘missus’ was incredibly effective.
It’s a great way of pushing a brand without pushing the product down someone’s neck. Referring to billboards, events etc. using the character’s ‘voice’ to engage people with the brand is clever, funny, interesting, engaging and stimulating.
Social networks are not just another channel if used correctly. Do you try to stretch your traditional spend using social media? Any examples/suggestions for me?
“Image from 3DSguru/Shutterstock.”
