Rule # 2: Don’t Repurpose, Reimagine

Why do some marketing ideas fail and some seem to explode going viral? Rick Mathieson sheds light on this by pointing out in this chapter that old marketing tactics of one-way communication are simply not enough to be effective with today’s technology. In order to become an online sensation, companies need to create campaigns that can be customizable, own-able and interact with the target consumer. Additionally, it is imperative that the marketing campaigns continually inventive as to keep consumers actively engaged. Advertising must now be as unconventional as ever. As you can see from last year’s Superbowl Compilation, advertising takes many different routes to grab their customers’ attention.

Several examples were given in the book that directly adds value to the product. One excellent example was Ray-Ban’s use of an online application that allowed customers to try out the sun glasses. This obviously added value to the consumer being that he/she could try on all of the sunglasses offered without having to leave the comfort of home. Another type of marketing was raising brand awareness through interesting experiences that was familiar to the product. A&E’s show Paranormal State used targeted audio to advertise for the television series. This creepy experience associated with the television show caused a very memorable moment. Furthermore, the experience was very relatable to the product that was being advertised (a creepy show). This kind of advertisement would be easily identifiable to why viewers decided to tune in and watch the show. A few of the other advertisements that we thought were interesting were the “When I Grow Up” commercial by Monster.com and “Beauty is Nothing without Brains” by Mercedes. They both give the consumer something they can relate to that force them to relate to the brand itself.

Some companies have created advertisements that attempt to simply raise brand awareness. A great example would be the OfficeMax “Elf Yourself” annual advertisement on www.elfyourself.com. This seasonal page allows users to upload facial photos on to elves that dance to music. Even though this advertisement has nothing to do with OfficeMax or office supplies, I have received multiple emails from family and friends of their elf likeness dancing to Christmas carols. By now I have OfficeMax associated with the Holidays burned into my head. I understand how this would raise brand awareness by sponsoring a site that is highly trafficked, but how do you communicate the value (quantify it) to your boss or the shareholders? Other commercials that have the same focus, on brand awareness are from Honda. “The Civic Project” and “The Cog” both raise awareness of Honda spending money to grab customer awareness of either their engineering abilities or their product from the inside out. Something of this magnitude would have an effect on the bottom-line, but how can you communicate that dancing personalized elves are causing people to buy more office supplies?

Does anyone else have any loosely associated marketing campaigns that are similar? We have seen advertisers do this and it does have an effect, but how do you communicate that to the CFO in a quantitative report?

In the Alex Bogusky interview, we learned that as the cochairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, he has led his team to breakthrough branding for several companies such as:

Microsoft – I’m a PC

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese –KraftMacNCheeseChannel on YouTube and the Mac N Cheese Cam

Burger King – Tony Stewart

Old Navy – Madame Eva reveals your best booty

Best Buy - Despicable Me translator

Volkswagen – Unpimp your auto

Dominos Pizza – Show us your pizza and Pizza Proverbs

Baby Carrots – Taking on junk food as a snack

The biggest thing for Bogusky is making sure that the consumer is part of the advertisement, something interactive. So as he says, “the consumer is involved in the creation of your brand. So they’re active participants – not just when you invite them to create content, but even if you just make something interesting – they just start to make content [around it].” Looking at his interview, it seems that the hardest part is getting his clients to buy into something different.