KLM - performance art creates buzz (and smiles)

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I absolutely love guerilla marketing as a way to generate brand buzz and launch new products. Here is a new favourite from KLM to launch their new "Economy Comfort Zone" on intercontinental flights. The event takes place in Manchester Airport using the Dutch magician Ramana. Advertising that generates awareness and smiles is a powerful duo, combined with the viral effect this ad will generate, it's a very effective campaign indeed.

Hema - viral launch of an eCommerce site

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Sometimes examples of well-executed creative ideas take a while to cross the ocean. This is one from Holland that I thought was really fun and effective.

HEMA is a Dutch department store that opened it's first door in 1926 in Amsterdam. There are currently 150 stores all over Holland. In June 2008 they launched a campaign to promote their new online shop, but instead of a creating a typical digital ad, their agency turned the new website of HEMA itself into a viral hit, based on the simple message: "The products of HEMA can now be found online at hema.nl"

The website had 700.000 visitors the first week, and 1.500.000 after a month. It was featured on all major blogs in the Netherlands as well as worldwide blogs such as Gizmodo, BoingBoing, Wired. It got over 2.400 Diggs. Google blog search reports over 2.000 mentions of the site's name.

PARK(ing) Day - challenges assumptions and sparks new conversations

September 18 is PARK (ing) Day. In cities around the world parking spots were “reclaimed” and transformed into public parks and social spaces. The annual event is all about bringing awareness and starting a provocative conversation on how urban public space is allocated and used. Started in 2005 by Rebar, an art and design studio based in San Francisco - a city where up to 70% of the downtown’s outdoor space is dedicated to the vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm.

As the group says “PARK(ing) Day challenges people to rethink the way streets are used and reinforces the need for broad-based changes to urban infrastructure”. "In urban centers around the world, inexpensive curbside parking results in increased traffic, wasted fuel and more pollution," says Rebar's Matthew Passmore. "The strategies that generated these conditions are not sustainable, nor do they promote a healthy, vibrant urban human habitat. PARK(ing) Day is about re-imagining the possibilities of the metropolitan landscape."

This very same question was pondered in 100 cities over four continents yesterday as artists, activists and citizens transformed metered parking spaces into public parks for a day. Over the four years of PARK(ing) Day, the conversation has extended to broader urban issues from public parks to free health clinics, from art galleries to demonstration gardens. PARK(ing) Day participants have claimed the metered parking space as a rich new territory for creative experimentation, activism, socializing and play.

While participation is focused on not-for-profit organizations, there are some commercial enterprises that did participate - businesses driven by a mission to change the world by offering earth friendly alternatives to common needs. One of these common needs is transportation. In Seattle, a “coalition” of transport groups leveraged the event to make people aware of alternatives to owning a car and promoting a healthier lifestyle. Living in the Pacific Northwest is all about access to the mountains. Zipcar was on hand to promote, in a very low key way, their solution as an alternatives to car ownership.

A two year old non-profit undriving.org, was also out promoting the “undriver license”. Their goal is to reduce car use on the planet and saw the event as a way to playfully interrupt people’s assumptions and inspire them to think about other car-less options.

This is a great example of how genius can be found by re-imagining the obvious and challenging common assumptions. It’s also a wonderful example of guerilla marketing.

Whether you are a non profit or commercial venture, how can you rethink the commonplace into something that innovates or sparks conversations about your brand, mission or cause?

Social Video - engaging the online video audience

The traditional way of building brand awareness & affinity was to run a cool tv ad that people actually liked. Classic metrics for a broadcast ad campaign are reach, frequency and recall. In social media, success is measured by the social audience - number of viewers that voluntarily download your video. Now anyone with a camera phone can produce a video and post it on-line. There are twenty hours of video being uploaded every hour, every day and some user generated videos like The Evolution of Dance build audiences of over 172 million viewers. While barriers to broadcast are low in social media, the degree of difficulty to breakthrough the clutter is high. For a brand to be remembered, it becomes very difficult indeed.

The pay-off for brands in social media can be huge. A viral hit can reignite a brand’s cache like it did for both Cadbury and Evian in a way that advertising cannot.


On-line, the consumer becomes part of the brand’s storytelling by tapping into the social tendency to share things - sharing the video, sharing comments with friends who pass it on to other friends. A great viral video can create immense separation from competition as did T-Mobile UK Dance and the Samsung HD camera phone. Viewership for a successful viral hit can be stunning, reaching over 10 million views each week for over a 14 week period. Others on the other hand, may reach 1 million viewers and then stall out. Why is that?

What is working?
According to Visible Measures, key success factors for the top viral videos are:

1. they are whimsical, fun, don’t take themselves too seriously
2. they challenge the audience and make room for conversations to happen amongst viewers (how did they do that??)
3. the first week is critical – they need to burst on the scene and get at least a million viewers
   
4. they are supported by a broader awareness campaign - offline & on-line - PR, purchased media, social outreach, etc
5. after the initial burst, they have a sustained marketing effort

What trends are we seeing?

1. music-video/video-tainment (i.e. Smirnoff Partay, BK Spongebob)
2. interactive video/how did they do that (T-Mobile Dance, Samsung HD camera trick)
3. stunts (Nike hyper-dunk , Microsoft's megawoosh )
4. darn good storytelling (Samsung LED -sheep - my favorite!! Johnnie Walker's Walk)

Do they work?
Ultimately, the question for brands is – can you link these viral hits to business results. According to Visible Measures, the seminal piece of research still needs to be published but brands that do participate in this medium believe viral ads can create greater value because it feels more authentic if their product is promoted by fans.

Optimizing your marketing spend to leverage the Empowered Consumer

The internet has forever changed consumer behavior and the resulting paradigm shift on marketing strategy is both daunting and liberating. There's an explosion of places consumers can assess your brand, compare products and pricing versus your competitors, rate responsiveness to your customer service or judge you by your company's values or actions. The internet also gives brands an incredible number of touch-points and tools to reach out and engage the consumer in very real and meaningful ways. The key for marketers today is to ensure the optimal investment is made at each of the four key touch-points along the consumer purchase decision cycle.

1. Get your brand into the consideration set - building brand awareness
2. Get "found" during the consumer research stage - SEO/SEM, product reviews, blogs, etc
3. Close the sale at the purchase point - conversion online or in the store
4. Post purchase management - customer service, product reviews, loyalty, Facebook page, etc

I came across this video on the Geary Interactive blog (produced by Twenty-two Squared). It's a great demonstration of the new purchase decision cycle and today's empowered consumer. The savvy marketer will ask: has my marketing mix changed to adapt to the new consumer purchase decision journey? Am I engaging current and potential customers at the right moments to influence their purchase decisions? Are all my customer facing activities integrated - marketing, PR, CRM? Do I know what drives loyalty and have I harnessed it with word of mouth programs? This shift in consumer behavior provides a great opportunity for marketers to be smarter about their investments by giving the consumer the information he or she needs to make a purchase decision, at the right place and at the right time.

when life imitates advertising

T-Mobile's "Dance", the flashmob hit engineered as part of the "Life is for Sharing" campaign running in the U.K. was produced in January and has had over 11 million hits on YouTube. (You can also see it in my post in January). In fact, "Dance" has been so popular that fans, using Facebook, tried to stage a re-enactment as a silent disco using music piped in through headphones. But when over 12,000 people showed up at Liverpool Station, police shut them down for safety reasons.

How does T-mobile top this viral hit?

Well, they staged "Sing", a mass karaoke held in London's Trafalgar Square. Over 13,000 responded to the flyers inviting people to gather. Instead of dancing they sang a number of songs including the Beattle classic "Hey Jude". The event was captured on a huge screen and was recorded by 24 cameras. There were many mobile phone moments including a surprise appearance by Pink.



What next?

Selling Switzerland

YouTube is such a wonderful medium to sell a destination. Marketers are having fun creating interactive promotions that aren't just pretty pictures, but have the legs to go viral integrating their message and building communitites in Facebook and Twitter.

Queensland Australia just closed their contest for "The Best Job Ever"., a chance to visit, photograpgh and write a travelog about your trip.

I love the promotion that MySwitzerland.com is currently running. It's tapping into the obsessive compulsive Swiss stereotype with some great self-deprecating humour.

Check it out and take the test to see if you have what it takes to become a Swiss mountain-cleaner (and win a trip to Switzerland!).

Orange Equity

As “The Essential Orange”, I watched the groundswell around the Tropicana packaging controversy with great interest. There are over 5000 blog entries, not to mention hundreds of tweets and a Facebook group all whinging about the package change. My conclusion – I wouldn’t want to be the Tropicana brand manager right now. Run!!! Change your profile on Linkedin!!

Kidding aside, here are my thoughts:

• Don’t be arrogant - – when you have an iconic brand, your customers’ “own” it. You have to involve them in a more meaningful way. You ignore them at your own peril.

• Baby boomers wear glasses – you have to help them find you on the shelf. Don’t confuse and frustrate them. The big orange on the old packaging stood out and the caps helped you differentiate between varieties quickly and easily

• Baby boomers have discovered blogging – be creative in getting consumer insights. Look at what Eight O’Clock Coffee and Nestle are doing to involve their customers.

• Be relevant – the package design project probably started over 18 months ago. Consumer sentiment has changed. The consumer in 2009 is …. “seeking comfort and security rather than status. Brands that hearken back to simpler, better times will do well. Nostalgic branding that speaks to old-world sensibilities will encourage consumers to do more with less”. Richard Brandt, Executive Creative Director, Landor New York.

• Don’t mess with the orange – they did well here. The product and the carton sizing remain the same.

Curiously, no one gave Tropicana any credit for supporting "Save the Rainforest" or their efforts on reducing their environmental footprint, both of which are featured on their website with the new packaging.

Here’s an idea they could have pursued to involve loyal fans and receive recognition for doing good - let folks comment/vote on the new/old packaging and for their involvement, reward them by buying a piece of the rainforest in their name.

Sales Sour - update on impact of packaging change - update 4/3/09

After its package redesign, sales of the Tropicana Pure Premium line plummeted 20% between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22, costing the brand tens of millions of dollars. Now that the numbers are out, it's clear why PepsiCo's Tropicana moved as fast as it did. According to Information Resources Inc., unit sales dropped 20%, while dollar sales decreased 19%, or roughly $33 million, to $137 million between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22.

Several of Tropicana's competitors appear to have benefited from the misstep, notably Minute Maid, Florida's Natural and Tree Ripe. Varieties within each of those brands posted double-digit unit sales increases during the period. Private-label products also saw an increase during the period, in keeping with broader trends in the food and beverage space.

For posterity, I'm including a link to the interview with Peter Arnell, the head of the design firm that came up with the new look, with their rationale.

tropicana

Yes........Life is For Sharing

Today I received an email from my 82 year old dad. He sent a link to a video on YouTube which his good friend Hans (also in his 80’s) had forwarded to him. I clicked on the video, and it was the t-Mobile UK’s Dance (Life is For Sharing) at Liverpool Train station that has been a viral sensation since it aired on January 16^th .

If you haven't seen the video: here it is!

Let’s look at some of the stats

• there have been over 2.9 million impressions on YouTube and some 6500+ viewers cared enough to leave a comment
• the video has ranked amongst the top 10 videos seen – on Feb 3 it was #3 – and this for an ad
• the video has also been mentioned on over 26,900 blogs around the world

And the commentary has been incredibly positive, using words like “heartwarming”, “Restores your spirit” and “OPA! Meu primmeiro post”

All this for an ad by a phone company. Brilliant.

The ad broke through the clutter, taking “flash-mobbing” from guerilla to mainstream. Flash-mobs are not new (see history below), but t-Mobile is the first big brand to use the medium effectively. Interestingly, Home Depot and Best Buy have been flash-mobbed by “Improv Everywhere” (http://improveverywhere.com) back in 2006 in their stores, but the videos did not generate the viral impact that t-Mobile’s Dance has. And the brand & marketing folks from those big box stores did not see the potential to take the idea into the social and viral media the way t-Mobile's agency did.

The campaign is about getting people to engage in conversations and share stories by encouraging viewers to post camera videos on a YouTub website accompanying the ad. It hit the brand's bull'eye, "life is for sharing" spot-on.

When I asked my Dad why he liked the ad, he said “it makes you feel good and lets you still enjoy a moment where you can forget about the misery and chaos in the world today”. And it wasn’t just one person enjoying a moment, but it was the spontaneous combustion of joy that erupted over music and dance. The medium was viral so friends are sharing with friends.

No animals were used to create the dance – it was cruelty free and organic.

And finally, the ad is engaging – it lifts the spirit, it is both modern and nostalgic, appealing to universal youth – (80 year olds are in reality 20 year olds trapped in older bodies - or at least my parents are!). It has managed to connect with a variety of audiences in a fragmented media market.

It is refreshing to see how T-Mobile is tapping into the culture of today not by rehashing the Depression (like Allstate – and yah, I know it’s all about the values) but by bringing us a pure moment of joy. While brilliantly choreographed, it was the implied simplicity of song and dance, all very human and inspirational, that touched us.

So like any effective ad, it will be interesting to see how this campaign translates into additional users/sales for T-Mobile. With all the millions of impressions, did the brand name stick or was it purely “advertainment? (My Dad, for example, did not know it was a t-Mobile ad).

And what's next? It looks like there is huge upside for the brand to use spontaneity and video sharing as a viral platform to build phone usage (especially upsell to new/better/faster/richer media models).

Who knows - perhaps t-Mobile's "Dance" will inspire people to create their own flashmobs or random acts of joyful spontaneity.

Yes……life is for sharing.

Pure potential!

Background notes:

From Wikipedia:

A flash mob is a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse

Notable flash mobs:

Worldwide Pillow Fight Day

Worldwide Pillow Fight Day (or International Pillow Fight Day) was a pillow fight flash mob that took place on March 22, 2008. Over 25 cities around the globe participated in the first "international flash mob", which was the world's largest flash mob to date.^[13] According to The Wall Street Journal, over 5,000 participated in New York City, Word spread via social networking sites, including Facebook, Myspace, private blogs, public forums, personal websites, as well as by word of mouth, text messaging, and email. Participating cities included Basel, Beirut, Boston, Budapest, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dublin, Houston, Innsbruck, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Monterrey, New York City, Paris, Pécs, Shanghai, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., Zurich.

Silent disco

Another example of a well known flash mob was the April 2006 silent disco in London. At various underground stations around London, people gathered with their portable music devices and at a set time all started dancing to their music. At the time this was by far the largest flash mob gathering by a considerable amount. It was reported at Victoria Station more than 4,000 people were in attendance. This impacted the regular service of the London underground system enough for the city's police to begin crowd control and slowly clear people. Though no one was arrested it was reported that the City of London pledged to counter future disruption of the underground system. Since 2006, there have been several flash mobs including subsequent silent discos, comparable in size, in the London underground.

t-Mobile “Dance” info

- Secretly filmed at Liverpool Street commuter Station at 11am

- 350 dancers

- Celeb Choreographer Ashley Wallen took the dancers through an intensive 80 hour rehearsal to ensure they nailed the performance as they could only film a single take.

- Commuters stand and watch in amazement as the routine gets going and many can be seen taking pictures on their phones still unaware of what is happening around them.

- The stunt happened at 11am and the crew had 36 hours to film, edit and get the piece to air which was premiered as a full ad break during Celeb Big Brother.

- Music played: LuLu's 1965 hit Shout, 'The Only Way Is Up' by Yazz, 'Don't Cha', Pussycat Dolls, 'The Blue Danube Waltz' by Strauss, Kool & The Gang's 'Get Down On It' , 'Since You've Been Gone' by Rainbow, 'My Boy Lollipop', Millie Small and 'Do You Love Me' by The Contours.