Andiamo! - Social Media Marketing Blog

McDonald's UGM 'Oops' - Lesson to be Learned

Recently, McDonald’s teamed up with MySpace to create a new jingle for the 40th anniversary of the Big Mac. The promotion is called the 'McDonald's Big Mac Chant-off', a great way to leverage User-Generated Media (UGM) to help build a brand. Ordinary folks are welcome to submit their jingle to replace the original jingle (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce…) that was launched over 30 years ago.

Over 1,000 user created songs and videos were submitted - the winner’s jingle becomes the official Big Mac song and will be featured in a McDonald’s Big Mac TV commercial.

Sounds good, right? Well, McD didn't plan on one of the 5 finalists being none other than Tamien Bain. See, Mr. Bain was arrested 15 years ago for holding up a McDonald’s at gunpoint and spent 12 years in prison! 

Looks like no one did any type of background checks on the finalists, so this has turned out to be a little of a PR issue for McDonald's as they can't take it away from him now. Most blogs and boards buzzed that due to the publicity, this criminal would be the voted in as the face and voice of the new Big Mac commercial, but it didn't happen - Jason Harper pulled an upset and will have his jingle featured.

So McD's saved face by not having to step in and potentially strip Tamien of his title. But use this as a quick lesson when leveraging User Generated Media in your promotions - at least Google them check the validity and reputation (and even criminal records if it is high-profile enough) of your users prior to actually using it!

Zappos gets it

Maybe I'm the only one who had not yet purchased shoes from Zappos. But after seeing a great pair of Mark Nason kicks at a local store the other day, but none in my size I Googled 'Mark Nason' as soon as I got home. First, Zappos had the top search result. Second, when I clicked on the link, I was directed to the Mark Nason brand landing page, not just the home page as many companies still do. Third, they had the shoe in my size. Fourth, the price was $5 less than my local store. Fifth, after I purchased (and selected free/slow boat shipping), I received an email stating that my order had been upgraded to Priority shipping. Nice!

Last, when I got to work the next morning, the shoes had already been delivered! Now that's about as close to 'immediate gratification' as you can get without actually being able to download the shoes! Awesome job Zappos, I've been talking you up ever since.

And a big P.S. Zappos - they get you right into social networking on the order confirmation page with links to share your purchase on Facebook, to their company blog and the CEO's Twitter page (screen shot to the right).

THAT is how to build incredible word of mouth marketing.

Great example of listening & responding to blogs

As many of you know, especially you wine afficiandos out there, Robert Mondavi passed away a couple weeks ago on May 16. he was a revered man and truly left a lasting legacy in the wine industry.

Not surprisingly, there were hundreds of posts on message boards, forums and blogs from people lamenting the loss and offering best wishes to the family. But the next part is surprising:

The Robert Mondavi Family actually sent an email to everyone who had published or posted about Robert, thanking them for their thoughts and wishes.

How'd they do it? They monitored everyone that talked about them (using Andiamo Systems, but that's not the point of this article), recorded the information and email addresses and sent it out.

Why'd they do it? Out of sheer gratitude for the outpouring of emotions and kind wishes. But an unplanned side benefit of the family's response to all the well-wishers has been brand equity-building as many of the posters were shocked and thrilled that they took the time to read and respond in such a timely, kind way. This post is from the blog WINExpression:                                                                                                                                             
The lesson, even as it pertains to this very sad event: 1) Listen to what your customers are discussing in social media 2) Always learn from it 3) And when appropriate, respond. Whether it is in response to a product or service issue, or as in this case thanking them for a kind gesture. It puts a human face to a corporate entity. And people like that!

Use Social Media in a Tough Economy

Whether the US economy is actually in a recession or not, no one can argue that we're facing some tough times, and as marketers we should all be concerned about consumer spending. And when there are worries about spending, advertising budgets typically shrink. Sure, overall ad spending may show some strength with the 2008 Olympics and that other event...what is it...oh yeah, the election.

But if you are faced with this shrinking budget dilemma, it's time for you to consider using social media to get a great bang for the buck. Here's a couple things you should consider:

• Start blogging! If you have been waiting for a good reason to start, here it is! It's cheap!
• Participate on other targeted, popular blogs in your industry. Become known as a credible source or even an expert!
• Set up a Facebook page or start a Facebook group for your business
• And if you are feeling particlularly energetic, shoot a video for your business and put it on YouTube

Now, I am not recommending that social media marketing is the panacea for all your marketing challenges. There are no silver bullets (dang it!). You have to contact and communicate with your target customers throughout the purchase cycle.

Tablet Hotels - Great Social Media Ideas

If you haven't used Tablet Hotels to find and book a hotel room yet, give 'em a try! I got hooked on these guys several years ago after finding them on Google. They are a broker of sorts and and only suggest hotels that really believe in. They have a good (and growing) global coverage, great write-ups and photo galleries and helpful categories, for instance: Style: 'Cutting Edge' Atmosphere: Lively, and so on. Really helps you pinpoint a great place for your stay.

Their service is excellent, but what I like best about them is their social media marketing.

• They always follow-up with a survey after your stay,
• Invite you to share your opinions
• Include a 'Share with a Friend' on each email they send
• They Twitter, and do a pretty good job of having relevant information posted (see an upcoming post for good/bad uses of Twitter)
• and they just launched a Facebook application called the "Global Nomad Challenge"

This is a clever little contest where you guess the location of a hotel based on a photo. Participants have a chance to win free stays in hotels and other prizes. It's still early-on, but they are generating consumer engagement, brand-building and awareness and pretty much kicking Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity's butt in terms of interactive, social media marketing. And it's gonna win them business. None of these tactics is particularly difficult to execute, so pick an opportunity that makes most sense for your business and go for it!

And please share any experiences you have!

Stats on the Power of Social Media

I just spoke at the VerticalResponse Spring Marketing Conference, about the power of social media and word of mouth marketing in affecting brand perception and purchase intent. Afterward, lots of people approached me and asked me to email them some of the statistics I discussed. They wanted to use these as ammunition to help get budgets for social media marketing. They really are powerful, so here's some of the most compelling:

• "59% of consumers consider customer reviews to be more valuable than 'expert' reviews." - BizRate
• "The are over 75,000 new blogs created each day, updated to the tune of over 1.2 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second." - Technorati
• "3/4 of consumers rate Word of Mouth as the #1 influencer of purchase intent." - Nielsen
• Facebook has 35 million uniques per month, and growing.
• MySpace has 69 million unique users per month
• More than 35 million US adults regularly share their opinions online about products and services. And that doesn't even count people who passively read these opinions without commenting.
• P&G recently stated that a social media campaign on Beinggirl.com was 4x as effective as TV ads.

So embrace social media and word of mouth marketing! I hope these help. Start your own blog, forum or Facebook group and participate on other social media venues. And most importantly do something positive that gets people talking about you on other blogs, forums, message boards and social networks.

How are you using social media in a clever or cost-effective way to reach your customers? Let us know!

WoM: a Billion dollar industry?

PQ Media announced that and further states that Word-of-Mouth (WoM) Marketing is the fastest-growing segment of the $254 billion marketing services sector of the media industry, which includes among others, branded entertainment, direct marketing and public relations. WoM marketing grew almost five times faster than the overall marketing services sector in 2006 and more than six times faster than the overall media industry and nominal GDP.

While a Billion dollars is significant and represents awesome, it far undervalues the true investment size in WoM, as a good percentage of initiatives are grassroots efforts or otherwise unreported. I'd estimate the true investment in WoM, counting soft and other uncaptured and internal costs is probably twice the PQ figure.

The real metric that is missing, is how much revenue is generated via WoM efforts. We're a ways off on capturing that, and we all need to drive to that goal in order for the WoM segment to accelerate its growth and prove its ROI. Anyone have a case study?

See the PQ Media press release here

NY ad:tech and the growth of WOM

So once again, I made the annual trek to NYC for the ad:tech show. The exhibit hall is still dominated by affiliate network and search marketing firms, as in previous years. We didn’t exhibit, which I confirmed as a great savings of time and money as the exhibit hall is an absolute zoo. But, there were some good sessions this year and it showed that word of mouth is gaining a lot of attention in the industry.

Although word of mouth was a major topic at the sessions, the measurement of WOM is a bit more nascent. But it’s natural that brand and marketing folks, and their agencies, need to feel comfortable about just what WOM is and how to make it effective for them, before they get too concerned about tracking it. For starters, there’s still a fair amount of confusion over whose responsibility word of mouth marketing is.

I don’t see much consistency coming in where this role lies, but consistency is less important than businesses assigning the responsibility to anyone/someone within the organization – brand marketing will make sense in some companies, CRM and direct marketing in others, general marketing yet in others. And yet others will put the responsibility directly in their agency's hands.  This will shake out over time and many organizations will begin creating a WOM-specific role, or roles to manage and measure social media around their brands.

Who within your business holds responsibility for word of mouth? And should it only be one person? And do agencies play the central role, at least for now?

Bird-of-Mouth Marketing

So check out this post about a seagull that walks into a neighborhood store in Scotland each day, and shoplifts a bag of Doritos. He (or she, I can't really tell) then takes the bag outside, rips it open and shares with its other seagull friends. Two items of note here:
1) I've never seen a seagull that would share its food, have you? Nasty little suckers, actually.
2) This bird doesn't steal just any  'ol type of chips, no sirree. This seagull has the discriminating taste to snack only on Doritos brand chips!

So who cares? "Having a slow day, John?" you ask? Well, no actually. What makes this interesting is that this little video is getting passed around like crazy, and Doritos is getting some great viral play! It's interesting how,  usually the most unplanned, spontaneous situations can provide the most wom-worthy news. So always keep your phone camera or video cam handy, you never know when you might be able to catch something you can use to build wom for your brand.

How did we find it? Because Andiamo tracks the Doritos brand, naturally!

Heinz 57 - Great UGM

So I was at my favorite bar in Tahoe last week, they make a great burger (and a better margarita). Scott served me the burger and fries and put down a bottle of Heinz 57 in front of me. Something on the back label caught my eye - something about a ketchup challenge.

So as I'm digging into the burger I read on, and think this is a great idea from an old-school marketer. It's easy - create a video commercial for Heinz 57, and if your video is selected as the winner you win $57,000 and get it aired during the Primetime Emmy  Awards on Fox.

Simple and smart - Invite ordinary people to spend their own time - for free - creating videos that tell the world how much they like H57. So Heinz gets thousands of consumers engaged with their brand, and get a commercial made for them that will air on TV. All for $57K! Actually closer to $80,000 as 4 runners-up each get $5,700. Still the cheapest campaign Heinz 57 has ever run.

Almost 4,000 people have submitted 30-second spots, and most have been viewed 500-1000 times. And since they are on YouTube they will live on forever. Plus, even though these spots were motivated at least in part by the chance to win some dough and gain notoriety, these User Generated Media spots will prove more believable then ordinary CPG ads.

So, you don't have to do a major call for UGM, but you can always make it easy for your customers to show the love - add community areas to your website for instance where consumers can upload photos, stories and videos. Add customer comments to your website. Add 'email this web page to a friend' links. All easy ways to leverage the power of UGM, and you don't have to pay a dime!