Ever since its conception, experiential marketing has repeatedly proven to be a valuable strategy in bringing brands to life. Brand owners across all categories have built strong connections with consumers by creating physical experiences that encourage interaction and stimulate senses – something that traditional media can rarely manage to emulate, if at all. From driving trial of new products and services, to building brand imagery, experiential marketing is a diverse practice that can create deep consumer engagement and provide long lasting brand impressions. And with the Internet becoming the most relevant channel through which to create a dialogue with consumers, experiential marketers are now increasingly integrating digital elements with more ‘conventional’ physical experiences, and reaping a plethora of benefits in doing so. One of which is the Internet’s ingrained sociability and that that if managed correctly, can be very useful in making a physical experience, a more social experience.
Note – The purpose of this post is not to consider experiences where ‘being social’ is an outcome e.g. a sponsored festival that happens to attract a large volume of people. But rather where ‘being social’ is a strategic input and is grounded in the very essence of the execution, and could only have been possible with the integration of a digital element.
So what are the benefits of being a social experience?
Before outlining some recent examples of social experience, we need to be clear about what benefits there are. Firstly - and most importantly, I would stress - is that social experiences are authentic; people trust and relate to their peers far more than they do with companies and corporations. Secondly, social experiences are collaborative - conversations between people are inherently creative, one-way brand monologues are not. Thirdly, because social experiences are more creative, the plethora of web and mobile tools at consumers’ reach nowadays means that social experiences can be self-generative and subsequently have the potential to last a long time.
I have outlined below two campaigns that in my mind have managed to not only integrate the digital and physical brand experience in ways that make sense, but have also capitalised on the integration to create experiences that have a distinct social richness about them - and typify what we would call, a social experience.
With their global ‘Nightlife Exchange Project’, Smirnoff is a great example of a brand that understood how to deliver a social experience. The idea was relatively simple. Using Facebook’s inherent social infrastructure, consumers conversed with each other on the event’s Facebook page and debated and contributed ideas on what makes nightlife great in their respective countries around the world (DJ’s, bands, fashion etc.) The best of these ideas were ‘exchanged’ with another country, so partygoers around the world could sample a taste of another country’s nightlife scene at bespoke venues that reflected the conversations that took place on Facebook. 14 countries participated that included the UK, USA, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, Lebanon,Poland, South Africa, Thailand and Venezuela; a considerably expansive effort in nightlife exchange with all fourteen countries holding parties around the world, on the same evening.
Smirnoff clearly understood how social media could be pivotal in the creative process and in turn create an experience, which although large in scale, could remain personal, collaborative and entirely social at heart. For a thorough case study and all the impressive stats surrounding the event - check out the video below.
On a similar note (albeit with a far more niche audience) Wearesocial developed a campaign for Unilever’s Marmite that similarly made use of digital and physical integration to create a highly personalised experience for Marmite fans, culminating in the release of an extra strong flavoured variant, Marmite XO. A bit of history first though.
In 1996, research revealed that there were as many consumers that disliked Marmite as there were who liked it. This polarising insight was taken by ad agency DDB who remoulded the Marmite brand on the basis of this seemingly provocative idea. It paid off and the notion of Marmite being a ‘love-it-or hate-it’ brand remains to this day. The rebranding was so effective in driving the resurgence of one of the nation’s most recognisable brands that in 2002 DDB won silver in the IPA effectiveness awards. Polarisation, if leveraged correctly, can clearly be a winning strategy it seems. Polarisation is conducive to sharply contrasting beliefs and attitudes, so one artefact of being a polarising brand is that you are always going to be successful in creating a particularly die-hard fanbase.
And in digital land, fans rule OK.
Fast forward through the years since 1996 and with the maturation of social networking and blogs that allow people with shared interests to find each other and share their passions on any given subject, finding passionate fans is becoming increasingly useful in developing campaigns that are social at heart. Most importantly however, the Internet has enabled brand owners to reach and nurture a brand’s highest value consumer - the brand evangelist.
Wearesocial scoured the web for socially influential Marmite evangelists and invited them as honoured guests to a special one-off event where they were privy to a unique taste test that would determine the recipe for the upcoming XO variant. These fans (or ‘Marmarati’, as they were hence known as) were then set the task to go on and spread the Marmarati word across the social media landscape, recruiting new members to the Marmarati cause and invariably generating a lot of buzz for Marmite, capitalising on the fans’ existing social media cache. The Marmarati campaign was a thorough success that maximised the synergy of physical and digital experiences in creating a socially driven and very much consumer-centred campaign. Combining digital and experiential elements in a fluid and meaningful way and smartly leveraging evangelists to be the driving creative element to the campaign, the campaign ended up winning many shiny awards. For more details, check out the case study below.
So, are social experiences the future of brand engagement? Clearly, the combination of digital and physical experiences and the resulting social benefits from the pairing can work in strong favour for brand owners. However, just as fast as the models of brand engagement change, so too do the models of research that help us understand how successful we may have been in delivery. With increasing reliance on social experience comes an increasing need to develop evaluative solutions that have a consumer-centred focus and that facilitate comprehensive understanding of all the stages of an individual’s experience. A linear approach to research that relies on rigid measurement alone is not going to be sufficient in understanding a commercial world where brand activity is now being driven by complex individuals, not simplistic brands.
What do you think? Have you come across any interesting social brand experiences?
As the first year of the new decade has now ended, in-between the odd piece of Terry’s Chocolate Orange and bottle of festive grog I’ve been finding myself reminiscing over the highs and lows of the past 12 months.
‘What will I remember last year for?’
Catastrophic earthquakes in the Carribean? Iberian exuberance in South Africa? A cosy little relationship in Whitehall? Yes to all of the above, however me being me, and this blog being this blog, necessitates a more capitalistic slant.
I’ve outlined below my top 10 favourite pieces of brand work that I came across in 2010, some of which I had time to cover here in the months gone by, but some that are new. Channel-wise (if that even has any meaning anymore) we have three, what-I-would-call broadcast adverts, five executions that are digital at heart and two that are of the experiential/live ilk - so a little bit of something for everyone. In regard to my choices, you might nod in concurring approval, you might shudder in disgust and you might even stroke your chin in a wise and mysterious manner.
Regardless, it doesn’t matter because ‘this here be my land’ and what goes, goes. Savvy? Ok, let’s rock…first up…
10//Call of Duty : Black Ops - The Launch Trailer
Ooh cripes. I know what you’re thinking - a launch trailer for a ‘computer game’ with guns, explosions, gung-ho characters and….. well, that’s about it. But before you close your browser in shame, hear this man out. In the US alone, Avatar (on record as the biggest grossing Hollywood export of all time) made $76m dollars in its first weekend.
As you can see, gaming is big business and as such, video games brands near and far have begun to start pumping out some equally big comms work. The Black Ops launch trailer is everything a gamer would want and nothing that they wouldn’t - epic cut scenes, cliche seriousness and the Stones’ ‘Gimme Shelter’, all providing a colourful insight into an extremely cinematic game. So are games going to be next big thing in entertainment? Quite possibly. With interactive innovations such as Microsoft’s Kinect and developers investing increasingly more time and money in game development, it’s highly probable that we’ll be seeing ‘gaming’ occupy far broader cultural territory in future. As Seth Priebatsch from location based gaming start up SCVNGR says,
“While the last decade, was the decade of social and the decade of where the framework in which we connect with other people was built, this next decade willl bewhere the game framework is built”
Although his thinking is a little more sophisticated and tacit than deciding what type of lethal grenade to use in the next team deathmatch in Black Ops - I think you get my drift.
9//SNFC - A Flashmob at Gare De L’Est
T-Mobile recently recycled the flashmob idea again at Heathrow airport. It was ok…but it needed more. Whilst the Liverpool Street Station ad was fortunate to rely on novelty and sheer scale - the latest incarnation falls a bit flat. There’s only so many luvvies you can get to prance around singing Lulu. T-Mobile say life is for sharing but they haven’t really shared much about people’s lives with us here.
Flashmobs are a form of street performance, and with any story telling medium you have to have good characters to keep people interested. Far more evolved, far more fresh (and most importantly) far more characterised was this gem from over the channel from SNFC
8// Arcade Fire - The Wilderness Down Town Chrome Experiment
Let me get this off my chest - I don’t like Arcade Fire. But they shouldn’t take it personally; colleagues, girflriends and family members all know about my rather weird taste in music. So despite being a non fan, I have to send a virtual pat-on-the-back to the team who conceived and executed this Chrome Experiment for the band. It’s super clever.
I think it’s one of the few ‘digicool’ things in 2010 that captured the attention of a lot my friends and clogged up my Facebook newsfeed for at least a week or so. It’s very rare that happens (most of them don’t work in this industry) so something must be working here.
Brands need to be able to successfully navigate the array of digital touch-points people are using nowadays, this is a given. But with so many choices, what platforms offer the best opportunities to connect and develop dialogue with Joe Public for your new campaign? Facebook - yes, we know this can work. Twitter, yes - we also know this works. But Chatroulette ? Hmm…
I’ve only used Chatroulette properly once. This was at work and in hindsight, an absolutely terrible idea. Other than flashing your tits or chatting to random spotty teenagers about flashing your tits, what usefulness can Chatroulette offer to brands? Initially, you might think not much perhaps. After all, it’s not the most socially sophisticated things on the Internet. But some clever minds who were promoting horror film The Last Exorcism, took all that is usable and good about Chatroulette and came up with some very entertaining stuff.
6//Adidas Originals - The Street Where Originality Lives
I first fell in love with this long running ‘campaign-of-cool’ at the cinema a few years ago. Then, it was the Adidas Originals house party and in the midst of munching my popcorn I was dazzled by Estelle, aroused by Katy Perry and suitably underwhelmed by David Beckham. Sure, sport brands have always used celebrity endorsement as a tactic to build brands but I don’t know of many brands that have squeezed THAT many (and from so many schools of fame) in the space of a minute. AdRants suggested that it totals 18. They also didn’t like that.
Fast forward and this years embodiment of the big ‘Adidas Originals Advert’ swaps house for street, swaps (or at least attenuates) flagrant celeb flashing for hip youngsters and yet again gets some awesome tuneage treatment from Pilooski. Too cool.
5//Nike Football - Write the Future
Football fans are so quick to chastise this World Cup ad because despite its extremely slick production and unusually comedic story, none of the key Nike footballers in the advert had a particularly successful tournament. Meh. Get over yourselves. If adverts were supposed to be ‘accurate’ then you wouldn’t find Gorllias playing percussion would you?
Riding on the buzz and trepidation that football fans get every four years, Nike have delivered a sliding-doors style visual narrative of each players rise and fall in the World Cup : What will happen? Who will know?
But at least by doing it in a pair of Nike’s they can be confident that they can ‘Write The Future’. An across the board all-star Nike cast (fellow endorsers, Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer also get a glimpse) and a great narrative make to be what I consider the best World Cup advert ever made.
4//Tippex - Shoot The Bear?
When was the last time you used Tippex? For me it was when I was at school, before laptops and smartphones were the norm and before typing became my primary way of communicating. So to see such an innovative YouTube takeover from a brand with such a heavy pre-digital legacy was a great surprise to see last year.
YouTube takeovers happen here and there. The first I saw was from Nintendo a few years ago and more recently one for the promotion of Stallone’s all-star action film, the Expendables. Both fun but once you’ve watched them a few times they can lose appeal as they are very linear. Tippex took all the best elements of a takeover (novelty, primarily) but importantly made it interactive rather than passive, which after all is what this Internet thing is all about, no? As with Nintendo they’ve also managed to integrate the product message within the execution rather than just make something random and quirky. So fun and relevant then. Cor, this digital stuff really can work..
3//Smirnoff - The Nightlife Exchange Project
Booze has a natural parity with nightlife. Millions of people, every second, in pretty much every country around the world are 1) partying hard and 2) drinking hard. It never stops, and more often than not it’s done together. So one might argue that building your booze brand around nightlife is a no-brainer? Indeed, for decades booze brands have worked so closely with nightlife culture that the two are entwined to such an extent, that it’s often hard to see where ‘brand’ ends and ‘culture’ starts. But it is a double edged sword; on the one hand a potentially easy win, but on the other hand a well worn territory where many a brand has settled up camp. How do you create distinctiveness?
Regardless of category, the best brands will always be those brands that truly ‘get’ their market’s culture, embrace its nuances and execute smart, relevant and hopefully original ideas. Cue Smirnoff and their Nightlife Exchange project - a bold global music event that successfully ticks all of those boxes. The video below outlines a case study on this international project but in broad terms the idea was to take 14 countries across 6 continents to create one massive party.
Smirnoff is creating a global event that enlists consumers to assemble the best of quintessentially local, but unexpected night life ingredients from their city. These ingredients are boxed up and then shared with sister cities around the globe. On one given date the nightlife exchange will enable one city to experience the best of what another city has to offer. London may experience the nightlife of Cape Town, Berlin may receive the experiences of Miami, and Buenos Aires nights may land in Sydney!
In general, whilst online might now be the best way to reach and garner interest for the modern consumer, nothing will ever trump the experience one gets from something tangible that is experienced physically. We are humans after all and despite our social media addictions, we have five senses that exist to be stimulated. This is the underlying principle of experiential marketing which has long been used as a very effective way to bring brands to life. Its only drawback is that it can have limited reach - which never goes down well for the marketers who have a hard-on for ROI. What the Smirnoff nightlife exchange has done has managed to combine both digital and physical experiences, taking the inherent benefits from each platform to create a powerful experience, that lasts.
When was the last time you clicked on a banner ad? Hell, when was the last you even paid attention to a banner ad? Relative to the sheer volume we experience every day, the click-through-rates for banner adverts are extremely low; if a campaign even manages to get a rate of 0.5-1%, that would be an unusually good response. So what’s going on here with a very significant majority?
Eye-tracking research has shown that in many instances, people simply do not look at banner adverts when browsing webpages. With all five senses at our diposal and with many hundreds of thousands of years spent on a planet that offers constant stimulation of those senses, we have evolved to be very efficient at filtering out information that we deem un-neccessary or unimportant. It makes our lives easier and makes it easier to focus attention on the things that matter to us. In the comparatively minuscule time the Internet has become a standard part of everyday living, it seems we have also developed similarly efficient behavioural habits, that in turn make our web-browsing lives easier and more conducive. So in short, we are in a situation where in general, banner adverts rarely manage to capture our attention and even more rarely are they compelling enough to motivate us to click through. So when Japanese ad agency Dentsu managed to completely disrupt this conception with their HTML hi-jacking, ‘Lucky Switch’ widget for Uniqlo, it made many blogger heads turn, but more importantly many mice click.
At heart it was a widget that when embedded into a blog, displayed an innocuous looking Uniqlo branded button. However, upon being pressed by any visitor to the blog, the widget cheekily changed any other banner ad on that blog/website into a Uniqlo Lucky Ticket that could be used in an online competition to win items from their 2009 end of year sale. Clever? That’s not all though, Lucky Tickets that weren’t winning tickets remained on each site as banner ads. The campaign was a viral smash. In the space of one month, apx 4,500 bloggers embedded the widget on their blogs and as a result the Uniqlo website pulled in massive amounts of traffic. They also report that their online sales increased by over 100% in this period which they claim be directly attribute to the campaign.
So not only did the campaign usurp the pre-conception that embedded website advertising can be boring, largely ignored - and in the scheme of things - quite ineffective, there was also a underlying collaborative layer to the idea. Bloggers who embedded the code also automatically benefit with the chance of winning stuff too; the viral nature of the execution heavily relied on incentivisation and on the relationship between blogger and blog reader.
Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.”
— George Kneller
1//Old Spice - The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
The interactive revolution the Internet has endowed on us, has allowed brands far and wide to explore many new and interesting ways of reaching consumers. Through the new (largely) socially driven technologies that the Internet has bequeathed us, a sophisticated mixture of technology and creativity can lead to extremely innovative thinking (see Uniqlo above). But despite the enormity of opportunity that there is for reaching people in fresh ways, engaging with them still requires some basic rules. You need to be interesting. Purposeful. Involving. Entertaining even.
When I graduated I landed my first job at a market research agency working in a team that had a specific focus on brand communications research and at the time there were a few ‘models’ used to help our clients understand how people were responding to their advertising, after all - ads are all quite different. Does the advert tell you something new? Does it make you want to find out more? Does it irritate you? Do you enjoy watching it? Of all the campaigns we worked on I always found that the ads that scored highest on ‘enjoyability’ were the ads I liked best. The ads that made me smile. The ads that made me laugh. The ads that I would talk to friends about ..
And fast-forward, in the open graph - ‘I like this’ - world we live in, the potent mixture of enjoying content and wanting to share that experience can lead to insane amounts of virality. With almost 24/7 access to the Internet, the modern consumer is no longer passively consuming stuff, they are also actively distributing stuff. So the great thing about digital, is that if people love something - they will more than often share it. These principles are exactly what made the Old Spice ads from last year, so tremendously effective and so worthy of the top spot in my 2010 review.
Born from the insight that in the US women often purchase their partners shower-gel, Wieden and Kennedy focussed the ad’s message to women. At its basic level, it’s an oration from the Old Spice Man to your girlfriend or wife - an acknowledgement that you could smell like a real man (i.e him) if you used Old Spice shower-gel. In all fairness, the communication in the advert isn’t particularly ground-breaking or inspiring. But this is shower gel after all and anyway, what territory is there left to own? Lynx (or Axe depending where you are in the world) own sex. Sure own reliability. Right Guard own something a bit like Sure (?).
The brilliance comes to life in the hilarity of the execution of which there were two main ones over a period of six months or so
First there was this..
..then the follow-up
But it didn’t stop there. Those clever clever bods at Wieden and Kennedy took their very popular concept and in the space of 48 or so hours, made the campaign ‘live’ by scouring the web for comments people had made online about the Old Spice Man. In total they made 186 personalised messages to fans and celebrities which were uploaded to their YouTube channel. As you can imagine, this veritable social media ‘A-Bomb’ ignited the web and the statistics are completely insane. For a more comprehensive overview of this campaign, below is an agency case study :
Whilst the genius of the campaign’s social media strategy have won it awards and a place in the heart of many a social media fan-boy (and also consummately fundamental in its virality), it’s my number one because it is the only thing that I have found genuinely enjoyable this year. You see, the more complex media choices become for consumers and the more fluid brands are amongst those choices, I really find it harder to generate clarity with so many things to think about. Attention really is the currency in this decade and something simple will always be conducive to clarity. What’s more simple than having a giggle?
Phew. That’s it for this year - thanks for reading It’s become far longer than I had initially anticipated so if you’ve got this far then good job you. I would like to thank you ever so much for your time and warmly welcome any comments and discussion.
Take one measure of very enthusiastic blogger, a splash of voyeurism and pour liberally into glass rimmed with the frosting of Social Media du jour and voila, Dan 3.0′s latest “crowd-sourced social project”.
In case you don’t know, Dan 3.0 is a videoblogger from some off-the-map town in the States. Scruffy hair, witty retort and it seems, a significant number of followers on his YouTube channel. Now, there are many videobloggers out there, some are producing interesting content and others are just one of many annoying and pointless entities in the Social Media universe. I find Dan 3.0 both interesting and annoying. Watch the vid above to hear it straight from the horses mouth.
Got it?
So.. he’s planning to let the Internet browsing public determine what he is to do in his day-to-day life, for a whole year. And whilst there’s some ground rules (he won’t do anything illegal or morally reprehensible) the public are supposedly to have total authority on his everyday actions. He is essentially, relinquishing his free-will and crowdsourcing his own life . Exciting as this seems, this is nothing new - this has been happening in marriages since time incarnate. But with Dan 3.0 this is more fascinating than predictable.
Dan 3.0 makes some valid points about the Internet which I find comfortable acquiescence with. One thing the Internet has managed to do incredibly convincingly has drastically altered how information between communities is created, organised and transferred. The Internet has become a very productive environment where collaboration has driven major changes in productivity. For a great view on things like this I highly recommend reading anything by Clay Shirky and if you’re feeling averse to paper - watch his TED talk. He’s got some wonderfully elegant and optimistic techno-social ideas about the future of society in a connected age; the Internet connects people, people are social, so in essence the Internet IS social. This sociability coupled with an assumption that humans are fundamentally altruistic is cited by Clay as precursors to how we can make the world a better place by using the technology that the digital revolution has precipitated. It sounds extremely fluffy and before I go and admire my iPad over a latté trust me - it’s a nice concept. Go read it. Anyway, we digress..
So, Dan 3.0 and his crowdsourced life. Yes, crowd-sourcing in a digital age has worked before, and continues to do so. And better than working, we could argue that it has in some ways made the world a better place. Some points in case? Wikipedia - created by knowledgeable people, for knowledge seeking people. Linux - created by techy minded people for, techy seeking people etc… the list goes on.
So what is this crowdsourced social experiment from Dan 3.0? Is this for his followers, for a greater good or even heaven forbid… for himself?
Remember what happened to David Blaine when he decided to make a perspex box his home by Tower Bridge? He was baited, teased with burgers and even had golf balls pitched at him. More often than not, anyone that indulges in wild and public gestures of ‘self’ deprivation, will often find themselves subject to backlash. Or maybe this is just a British tendency?
Anyway, I’m trying hard to see what will come of Dan’s latest adventure in Social Media. He mentions ‘cool’ a lot. This is fine, but I can’t help but feel that the ‘coolness’ of it all and its veneer of ‘social exploration’ is a rather unsubtle attempt to disguise an elaborate attention seeking campaign - and with this number of potential viewers - commercial attention is more actual than probable. If we do end up seeing him engage in something out of the ordinary or socially constructive then this might become a successful and potentially insightful excerise both in terms of social media and in terms of what it is to be human. However, all I can fathom is that we ‘ll be seeing him fry some more eggs on his hob.
Am I going to watch him time to time?
Maybe.
Am I going to submit a wildly outlandish suggestion that involves pliers and his genitals?
One week on and its been a busy week of argumentation and exposition over England’s doomed journey in South Africa, culminating in our comprehensive spanking from Germany. For a read, check out the Guardian‘s article on the travesty.
Of course, I’m absolutely gutted (as always). I’ve experienced England’s failure for most of my formative years but I find this year to be particularly interesting. Whilst no football statistician, I do know that on paper we have some pretty good players - but as a team something just didn’t work together. The performance as a whole didn’t tally up with the performance of the individuals and in some sadly perverse way, they played even worse. What we would have wanted was to see some teamwork, some play that was greater than the sum of its parts…in other words, some magic. But magical play isn’t something you can conjure at will unfortunately, it’s somewhat more elusive than that. But some thinking about networks might provide some insight..
Undercurrent strategist Mike Arauz discusses how the success of advertising agencies depends on both their ability to tell stories AND their ability to be create tricks, making a great analogy to magic - read here. In short, you can be an agency that does great tricks or you could be an agency that is particularly adept at story telling but those elements alone will not precipitate a good (and ultimately successful) advertising agency. I really like this idea that a central outcome can only ever be created by two seperate processes and it’s something we can use as a framework on pretty much everything.
Take music for example. I’m a music producer. I use computers and synthesisers to produce music and it is often a very technical process. But after a while of producing something happens that is kind of hard to describe. After a while I no longer hear the musical elements, I no longer hear the percussion, I no longer hear a vocal line…I hear a song. The elements combined in the right way create something that is both unexpected, quite random and entirely dependant on its component processes - it is in essence, magical. The third element if you’d call it that. And something sadly we didn’t get to see in England’s performance.
I read a great book recently - Connected : Amazing power of social networks and how they shape our lives. If you find networks interesting then you should definitely have a read. It’s not entirely popular science tripe - they’ve gone in great depth to scientifically model how networks are structured, how they transfer ‘contagion’ and what the implications are for small groups and larger societies. I need to dig back into it a little more but it’s fascinating - essentially a large part of who you are is not mutually because of you and your actions, you are who you are because of everyone else in your network. Strikes a very similar chord with a campaign for Orange I worked on a few years ago - they were quite ahead of the game it seems.
Nicholas Christakis spoke earlier this year at a TED conference - he covers some of the major points in his book so if you don’t have time to read, have a listen here
Here’s a very powerful ‘interactive’ campaign from Denmark - http://www.hitthebitch.dk/. Although the idea is clear as day, I’d love to know what she/it exactly says - anyone Danish out there, do get in touch if you feel like doing some translating. Courtesy of Adverblog
With what seems to be some solid social media integration, something as novel as this should get around - and rightly so.
Here’s something else that we had in the UK quite recently that starred Keira Knightley. Different approach, equally memorable.
Stefana Broadbent is a visiting researcher at the Department of Anthropology at UCL. Between 2004 and 2008 she was responsible for the development of the User Observatory at Swisscom. The Observatory runs ethnographic studies on the evolution of users? practices with information and communication technologies in Switzerland. Previously, she was in the Management Team of IconMedialab a multinational digital consultancy listed in Stockholm and was in charge of the hu-man computer interaction competence. In 1993 she founded CB&J, a company specialized in hu-man factors and user research that was acquired by IconMedialab in 1999.
In the last 15 years of applied research, there have been two main areas of investigation: the evolution of digital activities at home (information, leisure, communication and self expression) and the analysis of complex and highly automated work environments in aviation and process control. All of these projects had in common an ethnographic approach to capture evolving social practices and a design intent to inform and support the conception of new tools and services
Found this really cool slideshow from a company called Socialbees – here’s their blurb:
Socialbees was founded in November 2008 with the mission to provide brilliant and affordable Facebook Fan Pages, social ads and engagement strategy for small to medium sized businesses.
The slideshow from Social bees below outlines some things to think about.
I’ll be honest, I’m yet to really bite at the idea of Facebook Fan pages being a truly useable tactic in consumer/brand social engagement. Although branded content is quite prominent on Facebook (I see people share videos, share experiences, share websites – all the time), I have doubts about the degree of engagement that specific Fan Pages can nurture. My personal experience of joining such pages and groups is that at first – I’m all over it… loving it. But then it all slips by the way side and on my monthly ‘clean out’ (I’m pretty anal with Facebook) I tend to remove myself from groups/pages that have done little to involve or interest me.
There’s a definite challenge for brands with Facebook pages to :
keep people interested
keep peole engaged
keep the likelihood of ‘share this’ / ‘invite a person to join’ – UP.
Furthermore, there’s a need to think about the long term useability of such tactics – granted, people are all over Facebook now, but is this going to be the case in a few years? In a wickedly fast flowing attention economy such as social media – it’s paramount to keep your brand on the radar in up to date, interesting and relevant ways.
I stumbled across this fun presentation from Olivier Blanchard – a brand/business strategist with a sharp eye for interesting visuals. In the slide show below he tackles the sticky ground of social media impact on hard business measures, yet seemingly illuminating the relationship as actually quite simple and workable…
My openess to Social Media as a relevant and powerful force in driving business somewhat leaves me reticent to disagree with this, but the quantitative side of my brain is screaming to see some proven case studies which cover this framework. What do you think?
It’s become far longer than I had initially anticipated so if you’ve got this far then good job you. I would like to thank you ever so much for your time and warmly welcome any comments and discussion.
