Share a Photo – Donate a Dollar…

This is an interesting campaign coming out of the states for Johnson & Johnson. Purely due to the fact that by using an owned media asset (an iPhone App), Johnson & Johnson have been able to brand the UGC that they are generating from a CSR initiative they are undertaking.

The long and short of it is that by using the app, you either take a a photo or use an existing one, then posting donate that photo to a cause. The image and cause is shared across your Facebook feed along with the detail that Johnson & Johnson have donated a dollar to said charity, based on your contribution.

Not original but a nice way of generating brand equity around the activity and generating branded UGC rather than just user generated content that perhaps wouldn’t have the same commercial impact.

There has been 10, 000 entries so far. Which kind of demonstrates to us that people are sometimes not as altruistic as we would hope. Perhaps giving both a social and personal incentive would boost numbers.

Connected Shopping…

Image credit

The shopping experience has remained fairly stagnant for the last 50 years. Ever since Walmart Pioneered the super store, traditional retail has struggled to discover any true innovation in regards to format or experience. But when the pace of change is so extreme and consumers are looking for easier, convenient and engaging ways to shop. This is resulting in a shift from even the most traditional retail channels to deliver a variety of tools, services and interfaces to better engage and cater to an increasingly discerning and connected consumer.

There have been a number of interesting campaigns lately that try and tie the shopping experience closer to technology and provide consumers with unique, connected and predictive experiences. From helping people to shop without having to come in-store and at high footfall areas (Tesco Interactive Shopping, Airport), socially connecting the shopping experience (C&A’s Facebook Connected Hangers) or giving consumers inspiration about how they can best use the contents of their shopping cart (Hellmann’s Recipe Receipt).

it seems both brands and retailers alike are starting to sit-up and try and better understand the sort of information and utility that shoppers want from a 21st century grocery and retail experience.

The three latest executions trying to tie technology closer into the traditional shopping experience that we have seen are:

• Hellmmann’s connected shopping cart: A cart that senses where in a supermarket you are and the products in your proximity. Then projects onto an LCD screen attached to the shopping cart, recipes that use that particular grocery item and Hellmann’s mayonnaise. By a consumer adding a particular recipe to their list of favorites, they are then subsequently alerted to where in the supermarket the remaining ingredients are located in the store. Hellmann’s claim that this activity has caused a 68% uplift in sales. On the downside, you would expect that this would be cost prohibitive to roll out on a large scale. Furthermore, I am not sure how a supermarket’s other suppliers would feel about providing one product and brand such a monopoly on in-store exposure.
• E-Mart, Korea, the business behind the Sun Activated QR code, which helped to increase store traffic during the slowest period of day for the supermarket. Have now launched a new innovation that helps consumers connect to their store infrastructure. By plugging your smartphone into a specially built peripheral on your shopping cart. They have a found a way to use the lighting around the store, to allow the specially built system to feedback information on your smartphone about where certain sales are and also helping you to navigate yourself to the appropriate places within a store based on your shopping list. We feel this execution seems a little clunky though. But definitely something that might be useful for busy shoppers in a rush. Alternatively a cross sell opportunity, perhaps alerting someone close to the store to a price discount on a high frequency purchase of theirs. Then once in-store taking them on a specific route through the supermarket, exposing them to other deals and products that they have been inclined to purchase in the past. Increasing frequency, loyalty and basket size per visit. It is also handy that it uses the consumers hardware, rather than having like the former Hellmann’s example, to install expensive systems across your retail footprint: E-Mart Connected Cart
• Target and Facebook have just gotten serious about couponing by creating a proprietary social referral redemption and referral platform called Cartwheel. In a huge push by the social network and retailer to substantiate social investment by attributing that they can encourage consumer interaction and conversion through the social web. In essence what they have done is joined forces to create Cartwheel, Cartwheel allows shoppers to get coupons for “deals” on the retailer’s website, share them with their friends on Facebook, and redeem them in Target stores using their smartphones. The kicker being that once consumers purchase cartwheel deals, the purchased items will be shared to their friends via Facebook. In the instance that more than one item is purchased in a trip, the platform will intelligently aggregate the collective items into a single post. It will be interesting to see whether this pans out for both parties, or alternatively ends up being an annoyance for both consumers and their peers. We think it will actually be the former and really connect people to their social networks via true buying behavior. Click here for an overview of the functionality of Cartwheel from Business Insider Australia

Kleenex – Uses existing data to maximise ROI during Flu Season…

In the UK during flu season this year, Kleenex has combined existing data as well as Google’s Ad planning tool to create an adaptive planning platform to increase the effectiveness of their media buy. The tool has helped the business to anticipate, phenomenally accurately, the cities and regions that were suffering from or about to suffer from a flu outbreak.

They built the model by bidding against flu related keywords in the lead up to flu season to generate some real time search data about where people were searching flu related terms. They were then able to map out the relative, real time search volume and establish what sorts of thresholds then resulted into full breakouts by cross referencing this data against subsequent GP Visits and NHS Direct Calls. Through this they were able to build in triggers in an adaptive planning model that allowed them to create a responsive media plan which increased the relevance of their search, digital and above the line advertising.

Vicks also implemented a similar campaign based on historical data using the Google Flu trends platform. Essentially Google for the last six years has correlated flu and symptom related search terms via their engine against ‘traditional flu surveillance systems’ to get a real time as well as historical archive that studies the effects and spread of disease. In 2012, Vicks in the US used this data to target mobile media in proximity of pharmacists that stocked its new behind ear thermometer with a CTA citing the high risk of flu in the area.

http://www.google.org/flutrends/au

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/business/media/using-googles-data-to-sell-thermometers-to-mothers.html?_r=0

Although the two campaigns are similar, the Kleenex campaign is the first instance we have seen in which someone has taken Google data and mapped it against local health system intelligence to create a real time, adaptive model. In the case of Kleenex, they were able to target areas at a 96% accuracy by region and city, that were in the infancy of a flu epidemic. This resulted in a Year on Year increase in sales of tissues by 40%.

It is great to see some creative, intelligent uses of data, to increase the relevancy of messaging. Rather than a shot-gun approach over a given time frame across a broad geographic region.

Why people share – Content Marketing…

A recent report published by the New York times, Consumer Insight Division has attempted to dissect and contextualise the reasons people share content and the types of behaviours and personality traits they exhibit. The report delves into the channels and digital platforms that different archetypes will be drawn to, to share content with their friends and peers. They have broken down the report into 2 key sections, one covering the drivers that influence people to share and then categorising different groups, the kinds of content they are more likely to share and the channels they will be drawn to share across. Here is a breakdown of the reports findings on the key reasons that people share content with their networks:

• To disseminate valuable and entertaining content
• Content that fuels and projects our identity
• To make us feel connected
• Self fulfillment and social reassurance
• To project brands and causes people are attached to

To distil that down, peoples disposition to share comes down to their relationships with the people and peers around them. Essentially the reason people share is it allows them to project and share content that reflects their personality, generates social kudos, could be valuable to friends and peers and helps inform those around them about who they are and who they want to be. So, this is nothing new, but it brings us back to the point that what we need to do is interrogate our executions to ensure that we are producing interactions that are useful, relevant and entertaining as well as ensuring the outputs of those interactions meet the same criteria. This will ensure that we generate a disproportionate share of voice within our consumer’s online conversations.

As aforementioned the report also identified a number of persona’s, six to be exact, and the type of content as well as the mediums that they would be most likely to share across. The personas themselves are:

1. Altruists – HELPFUL, RELIABLE, E-MAIL, THOUGHTFUL, CONNECTED
2. Careerists – LINKEDIN, VALUABLE, INTELLIGENT, NETWORK
3. Hipsters – LESS LIKELY TO E-MAIL, CUTTING EDGE CREATIVE, IDENTITY,
   YOUNG, POPULAR
4. Boomerangs – REACTION, VALIDATION, EMPOWERED, TWITTER, FACEBOOK
5. Connectors – CREATIVE, RELAXED, THOUGHTFUL, MAKING PLANS, E-MAIL, FACEBOOK
6. Selectives – RESOURCEFUL, CAREFUL, THOUGHTFUL, INFORMATIVE, E-MAIL

We feel the above segmentation is particularly helpful as a guide to align against (albeit based on American research) existing segmentation studies. It will invariably help to identify the types of content that a particular consumer will react to and the types of channels that should be prioritised for both delivery, response and sharing. Ensuring we increase our chance of generating social buzz by reducing the friction of sharing for a particular persona, using their preferred communications medium.

In essence It all comes back to content marketing in the end and the ability that content has to really tap into the needs, behaviours and personalities of our target markets. Which is by no means a new phenomena. Just exacerbated by the increasing access people have to the web and the ability this provides consumers to share ‘more content, from more sources, with more people, more often, more quickly’.

We often talk here at Holler about the ability good creative, or well interrogated outputs can enhance the effectiveness and social credibility of a campaign. I suppose the study that the New York Times has done helps to support that argument. Give people things of value, that is relevant to people like them and their networks and they will invariably be compelled to share.

Definitely worth a read: http://nytmarketing.whsites.net/mediakit/pos/

Dove – Real Beauty Sketches…

A really simple well executed idea from Dove that is another iteration of their Real Beauty Campaign. In this installment they enlist the help of a sketch artist. Who draws a portrait based on a woman describing themselves and then a stranger that they have just met describing them. The end result provides us all  with an arresting piece of content that dramatically articulates the stark and destructive difference between a woman self image and how the rest of the world sees them. Reaffirming the notion that woman are undeservedly their own harshest critics.

Lovely idea, well executed and emotional. I can smell a branded content Cannes Lion on the horizon for this one, as long as it generate enough viral traction.

http://realbeautysketches.mydove.com.au/

Güd Morning – Pinterest Competition…

Güd a US Personal Care brand has released perhaps one of the more comprehensive Pinterest campaigns we have seen to date. With Pinterest commanding an incredibly female skewed audience with an increasing user-base (albeit slowing in growth). It has for example 650,000 (growing at roughly 2% per month) Australian users and counting.

It seems to be the perfect platform to activate against aesthetically arresting, aspirational, indulgent, female focused products.

Güd scoured the platform for a board that had been posted relating to inspirational mornings. Hoping to match the essence of their new body wash Red Ruby Groovy, which promises to wake you up and refresh you in the early hours. The board they inevitably chose was Keri Pfeiffer’s, a board she created and posted images representative of her perfect morning. Güd got it touch and eventually flew her to Mexico, and recreated her board in real life. The results of which are below:

This was subsequently launched as an online video with a CTA that asked other users to create their own board portraying their interpretation of “My Perfect Gud Morning”. Each entrants has to also pin an image that featured the product and the details of the promotion.

The campaign has had some interesting results. We like it because it gives the overall campaign social credibility and leverages some of the native features of Pinterest. One of the success’ of the campaign thus far being is the entrant from a blogger (unsure of whether she was paid) called Joy, who has over 14million Pinterest Followers. With entry board itself already receiving over 700, 000 followers.

In saying that, as far as we can see the competition has only had 175 entries thus far. But due to the nature of Pinterest, each board would have been promoted across each entrants follower network feed and the each pin posted to the board would have also appeared. Which means that the impressions they would have received would far surpass just this figure.

It is a valiant effort, but it seems that no brand has really been able to crack a competition mechanic that goes over an above just a pin to win, entry system. Which, unlike this Gud campaign has a major downfall in the fact that you do not capture any data from the execution. Just impressions from people that interact.

Despite the lack of scalable campaigns and CRM derivatives that advertisers can reap from Pinterest. We think a platform with such a well defined value proposition and skew toward woman, that Pinterest still has huge potential for those brands willing to stick it out and find the magic formula.

OMO – Mobile and Loyalty…

This is a lovely campaign from Unilever in South Africa, which boosted sales of OMO 2kg bags by 20%.

Basically it was a loyalty program that leveraged the power of mobile penetration (feature phones) in Africa to drive sales of its product and reduce price sensitivity at shelf. Consumers were directed to purchase a 2kg bag of OMO and punch in a unique code on pack via SMS. They were called back by an automated voice system that asked the consumer a variety of questions and registered their details against their broader CRM Platform. The initial loyalty scheme consisted of 5 tiers that corresponded with the frequency that the consumer purchased the specially marked 2KG OMO packs.  The loyalty rewards that they could then redeem as they cycle through the programs were as follows:

1. Go in the running for a 1mil R education scholarship
2. Got 5 R of mobile credit
3. Got 8 R of mobile credit
4. Voucher for school socks
5. Voucher for a school shirt

The results were phenomenal:

• 2.7 mil entries
• Re-interception through CRM program resulted in 60% return custom
• 20% increase in sales over 8mth period the program ran

You can see the case study video below;

The reason that we really like this execution here at Holler is it demonstrates the power of OWNED loyalty programs, which we feel is a fundamental way of wrestling some of the power back from the duopoly of supermarket retail in Australia. It also hammers home the effectiveness of using mobile as a channel to engage with and remain connected to a consumer base. We also love the fact that it increases frequency whilst reducing price sensitivity at shelf.

Overall it gives consumers a tangible reason to stay connected with a brand and to talk about it to their networks. Mum’s are starting to see savvy shopping as a mantle to brag about. Shopping is becoming competitive, with people seeing who can get the best bargain. If you can offer this by increasing the return for each consumer across ALL RB products by cutting out the middle man and building direct relationships. It could be a real turning point for the business.

Ads that talk to you and Shazamable images…

Ad formats and response mechanics are getting more and more intelligent and user friendly. Soon we will see the end of the days that you need to rely on a lengthy URL on a TVC or QR Code on your OOH Media to generate direct response.

Sometimes trying to to push consumers online is harder than originally thought. A QR Code on the side of a bus, is the antithesis of reducing barriers to participation and interaction.

There has been two relatively exciting developments in the tech space relating to potentially new ways of interacting with digital ad units or adding a layer of digital content and information to a product or ad.

1: Shazamable Images:

Shazam is becoming a force to be reckoned with in the digital, direct response arena. From its humble beginnings as a call in music recognition service, it has diversified to taking the same tech to handsets in the form of mobile apps as well as integrating their offering across TV ads to allow consumers to gain access to an extra layer of digital content by activating the app whilst watching the TVC. Shazam controls considerable penetration in DR for TVC using mobile, with over a third of 2013 Superbowl spots encouraging users to use the technology.

They have recently announced another exciting development, which is integrating image recognition into their app. What are the implications of this? Well you can now have consistent image signatures across an entire campaign and encourage DR and interaction through the one app. Think Airwick Multicolour and being able to scan a poster, the product, an OOH poster or a TVC to redeem a voucher. No clunky typing in URL’s or having to remember CTA’s. Even being able to scan the product at a dinner party after asking your friend about it. Having consistent interaction mechanics through every media and touch-point. Also, think fashion retailing. You like someone’s dress but don’t have the guts to ask them where they got it from. Take a picture and off you go. This could actually be quite a revolution in mobile commerce and DR across a variety of media in Australia and the world.

2: Nuance – Talking Ads

Secondly talking ads. So this one we are a little more skeptical about, but it seems to have some fairly large propellants, both from brand and agency. In short Nuance, the company originally behind Siri, say that people are becoming more and more comfortable with talking to their technology. With the proliferation of platforms such as Siri and Google Now. This has led them to the hypothesis that people would find it useful in certain circumstances to talk to their ads rather than consume them either passively or actively. We can perhaps see some application in voice DR with the proliferation of connected cars. So you can inquire more about an ad you jut heard on your digital radio, asking question about the product, the promotion in question and local stockists. Also, perhaps in front of the TV, you don’t want to pick up your laptop or tablet to interact with a CTA, so you just start asking the ad questions. With Esquire already using similar response mechanics across its tablet and smartphone properties. In which people can interact with, via voice, video relating to specific ads.

It will be interesting to see how interactivity with ads and the available DR mechanics will transform in the future. Making it easier and more intuitive for people to interact with and find out more about the advertising the is dispersed throughout their daily travels.

Should consumers be able to vote on our advertising…

In a world where social credibility is proven to increase the effectiveness of advertising (Neilsen Trust in Advertising Report), should the next logical iteration in the social web be that consumers can start to judge (other than just buy our products) the value and worth of the messages they are being served?

It is an interesting concept and one that could pay huge dividends to those that are producing advertising that truly appeals to their target audience, but also competes with the broadcasting and content that it intersperses.

Correlation between top advertiser accolade at Cannes Lions and SharePrice. Source: Jonathan Mildenhall: Why Winning at Cannes is Good for Our Business.

There are some rudimentary versions of this that are becoming more widespread through digital media. But the original incarnation of this empowerment of consumer choice as recipients of commercial messaging that I can think of is Soap Opera’s. In which brands were forced, due to the lack of adverting inventory to create their own content. The challenge being that they also had to generate content that actually appealed to their target audience. A challenge that has been more recently presented in the form of a fragmenting media landscape. In which, it is not the lack of inventory that is the issue, it is the overload of it.Therefore, we have a lack of cognitive attention from consumers, due to their shear choice in media and content as well as access to technologies and software that can assist in them averting advertising pollution.

In saying that the power to influence through good creativity and strong strategy has never had the same potential as any time before this. We as communicators have a wealth of learning’s and knowledge, as well as a multitude of channels and platforms to change consumer opinion and perception. To be able to influence and spread our messages through the consumer stratosphere and create positive valence, as long as our communications tick the right boxes, for the right people.

Alright to the point. Should the media and advertising industry come to terms with the fact that in the future (the very near future), we should  expect most media platforms to give consumers the ability to chose the advertising experience and even the specific messages and brands that they want to see. Perhaps even more importantly allow consumers to judge our advertising on the basis of its relevancy, usefulness or entertaining qualities. So, let’s take the first two parts in this equation, which is incidentally already happening in the form of both consumer choice to decide what advertising messages they see and the ability to avert irrelevant or poor quality advertising:

• Think Hulu, chose you own ad experience or Google, that only serves you advertising it thinks might be relevant at relevant times.
• Think YouTube, skip this ad, pre-rolls, iPad on lap whilst watching the television.

Now take that a step further, such as Reddit, and now users can either vote up or down (much like content in the actual platform itself), advertisements that they are being exposed to.

Where can we see this going. Well it puts the onus on advertisers to create content that as in the 40’s would compete and offer value to the consumer over and above the broadcasting that it is set within. Furthermore, for a media owner, think Facebook and their protectionist stance to preserve the consumer experience, in being able to identify advertisers that either diminish consumer experiences or detract form the overall environment the media owner is trying to create. In turn, gives them the ability, through social mechanics to decide, perhaps, whether an advertiser or advertisement should pay a premium for their inventory. Vice-versa, ads that ad value, are relevant and entertaining, pay a lower cost for inventory. As they almost act as a value ad to the media channel that a consumer happens to be on when interrupted.

Would creativity and messaging be taken more seriously if an advertiser could save 30% on their media spends. Perhaps, but then that begs the question, why isn’t it taken more seriously already. Increasing the creative prowess of brands rather than JUST buying space to disseminate disruptive messages. Case in point, this article I recently read in Harvard Business Review, about advertising which is deemed creative, using seriously scientific and academic assessment was found to be a third more effective than advertising that was found to be creatively deficient.

E-on – branded paternalism….

E-on, an energy provider in Sweden has kicked off a project where they provide consumers with digital resources to be able to track and manage their energy consumption. Adding a dash of gamification and experimenting with different user interfaces and triggers to assess how to best facilitate societal change. By giving consumers access to tools that help them understand and reduce their energy consumption and concurrently allowing them to compete with people across the country to be the most efficient consumers of energy resources. E-on have been able to create positive behavioural change. We expect to see a proliferation of this sort of marketing exercise, which not only adds value to the consumer, but locks users into an ecosystem that adds value to a brand’s products and services. The overall campaign ran for 12 mths and E-on tested different iterations of delivering the information consumers needed to reduce their energy consumption, via smartphone and website. Overall the campaign was a huge success. Reducing the sample audiences energy consumption overall by 12%.

It is interesting to see companies outside the tech and online space investing and implementing ecosystem style services. By offering these additional services through technology and giving consumers a unique, positive and valuable brand experience that helps them to understand the impacts of their behaviour along with the utilities they need to change their actions for the better.

We certainly looking forward to seeing more of this type of work from other service providers.