If you have ever watched a movie, played a video game, seen Viral videos, you have witnessed the use of Branded Marketing. With the ongoing shift in media from television and print to IPods and Mobile Phones, marketers must change their thinking when targeting a specific market. By strategically aligning a good or service with another form of media, one can create a tremendous bond between customer and corporation. Mathieson introduces the concept of building a community around an organization’s brand. www.Scion.com/broadband
Establishing a target market, and reaching that market is essential for branded entertainment. Focusing on the “P-O-S-itive” a brand can create a memorable branded experience.
P- Personalizable – can customer preferences alter the content that is presented
Ex. Head Case
O- Ownable - The ability for a marketing campaign to vary based on customer inputs
Ex. Hotel 626
S- Sharable – Is the customer able to share his/her experience with others
Ex. Band Of Buds
These are three examples of different methods of branded marketing that all use the internet to target the users of each product. Are there any other ideas that focusing on might benefit branded marketers?
Townsend introduces four key elements that maximize an organization’s probability of conducting a successful Viral Internet campaign. These four elements are as follows:
1. Star quality: Getting a celebrity attached to the project
2. Preexisting tie-ins: Campaigns centered around previous successful medias
3. Cross-platform promotions: Multiple media and targeted audiences
4. Community Building: Targeting the core user group, users can directly influence
the brand, users become advocates for the brand
Do you think that any fundamental elements are missing? Do you personally believe that these elements need to work in correlation with one another? Or can each be performed on their own?
We believe that one key element is missing from Townsend’s list, the number one element must be “Understand your Audience” As depicted in the Anheuser-Busch and the www.Bud.tv
example. Anheuser-Busch utilized all four of Townsend’s suggested elements, however the company did not truly understand the core market that they were targeting. Anheuser-Busch attempted to build the wrong type of community around the right kind of campaign. An example of a successfully built community is Candystand.com. http://www.candystand.com/play/sour-patch-battle-karts Candystand.com built their community around its core targeted customers. The sites community is based upon what they enjoy, keeps them involved and is continuously updated.
“Branded entertainment in its truest form really gives the brand a platform to elevate itself outside of the traditional sale of a product into a culture-giving it relevance with ownership of entertainment that is really multipurpose, and played out in a lot of different media to create an ongoing relationship with its customers.”-Doug Scott, President of Ogilvy Entertainment
Do you agree with this quote? Is this really the best way to connect to a customer?
A few thoughts:
ReplyDelete- I think your fifth add to Townsend's list is implied in the fourth (Community building)
- Bud.tv's major failing was in its excessive costs/ambitions - 50-year-old television networks can't sustain the kind of audience they needed/wanted to attract. Another failing was in the age-verification requirement (stiff arms a lot of teenage online video watchers).
- The Scion piece (especially the interview) was the highlight here. They're very clear in who they are, what they're about and what they're trying to do. Really inspiring.
- This whole space (branded entertainment) is very interesting for the way it turns tradition on its head. Now the advertiser is the content producer/programmer (when it works). It's very similar to trends in PR right now.
Regardless of whether or not consumer insight was implied on the Townsend list, the author was quick to point out that you must "have consumer insights that indicate that this is a powerful way to reach your brand's core customers and prospects."
ReplyDeleteI really like Townsend's quote and client sniff test. They really helps define the reality of an attempted viral campaign.
"You can't make a viral video you can end up with one."
"'Oh, we want a viral video' [we answer], 'Yeah, well, everyone wants a viral video-it doesn't mean you're going to get one.'"
I liked the way RM stated that your brand is a story and you need to tell that to your audience. To me, this means I need to create a culture around my brand that involves my target market. Whether I am trying to sell beer or clothes I need to associate that that product to a certain culture that can feel a part of the brand.
ReplyDeleteBy creating a story for a brand, it becomes linked to the target market and consumer begin to associate with the brand as theirs. Some people see others lives lived out and take note of their fashion. AE has done a great job at creating this culture or lifestyle around their brand.
Before you can begin to focus on P-O-S-tive you must define your target market and decide what is the best way to relate to them.
I have a thought on Townsend's four key elements that maximize an organization’s probability of conducting a successful Viral Internet campaign.
ReplyDelete1. Star quality: Getting a celebrity attached to the project
I always wonder how that translates into the B2B world? Maybe "celebrity" does not neccessarily mean "Hollywood type of celebrity", but rather any "credible expert or champion" in the specific industry. Would you agree?
I think credibility is more important that star power. Bellawood floors uses Bob Vila as a spokesman. He makes sense, he probably knows what he is doing. But if Stephen Colbert advertises them, I don't think I'll believe it as much.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like we are looking at "show business" almost exclusively as entertainment and I am not completely sure if I agree with that. That type of definition seems a little exclusionary to me, or maybe I am just lacking a good classification for some of the things that we do at my company. One of our goals at NCH Software is to get the user into and actually using the software as soon as possible. To help users we use our YouTube channel to post video tutorials or quick start guides to our applications. Which I think is a good use of that medium, but I am wondering how something like that fits into this definition. I guess that it isn't as "sharable" or likely to go viral since it is more educational than entertaining, but I guess I'm not sure if that takes it out of this category completely or if the definition we are using is lacking something and I don't know if I have an answer to that.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm not a fan of soft drinks, I've often admired Mountain Dew's approach to cross-platform promotion and community building. In fact, their marketing approach seems to embody all four of Townsend's key elements. One only needs to take a quick peek at their website to see that they truly understand their audience, and are utilizing multiple platforms to develop their brand.
ReplyDeleteGood Star Power selection does not mean purely a Celebrity, but a Celebrity that has some tie to the brand or its image. I agree with Spencer, Mountain Dew has gone so far as to start it's own sporting competition, "the Dew Tour."
ReplyDeleteCould the "story until now" show be a strong spot to tie in a new product to a show for the upcoming seasons episodes?
Would a site such as the Scion site work with other auto manufacturers, if so, which?
I also think credibility is more important that star power. At least in situations where a product or brand is very targeted for a specific market.
ReplyDeletePerhaps with a younger audience, pop star power may be a much more powerful tool. But as we get older and more independent, we are desensitized to all of the typical media saturation, and we become much more immune and oblivious to it in our day to day lives. In other cases we become critical of it, and are actually turned off or annoyed by these types of ad placements and obvious endorsements.
Finding a way to be impact-full while also being more savvy and natural is the key. Paying keen attention to the eccentricities of the various markets and art form or medium, as well as finding a way to connect on their level is the key. Instead of marketing to a larger popular group or market, more targeted efforts and precision are needed.
This is where I believe social media really gives a concrete grasp of different cultural and social groups and the things and concepts that they value in relation to the the standard pop cultureIt really depends on the brand and product being marketed, and they target audience they wish to appeal to.
When a leader or innovator (person or group) in one of these groups embraces something it will be much more readily accepted by other similar people with these tastes. It comes down to creditability and "street cred." Expertise in a ideal or concept. Much like a digital hipster movement...