AniBlurbs (Column)

Honda recently did a take-over on Vimeo.com which was much talked about by marketing insiders.

Instead of posting or explaining the concept here, I’d like to suggest you’d first take a look over on the site and experience it for yourself -especially if you’re a creative/interactive professional and haven’t seen it already.

[Performance warning: close down any other browser tabs/windows or any other application that has a direct net connection right now, I know I suffered from some serious lag the first time.]

Apart from the novelty(?) factor of this kind of creative content-integration, I’m not quite sure where the real added value for Honda and its customers lies in this particular case.

I’ll get back to that thought in a moment though; first I’d like to point to a section on the page that caught my attention. It clearly depicts how a viral starts spreading (see the 2 images below):

Honda Insight - Vimeo Take over Stats

The table contains the statistics of said video on a daily basis, i.e.: how many times it was watched, “liked” and how many comments were made on the page itself, all in relation to each other and non-cumulative (note that the numbers are displayed on a per day basis!).

Clearly, the usual exponential viral mechanisms are at work here, which is fascinating in of itself, yet I believe that despite these pretty impressive numbers this mini-campaign as is will not enjoy a widespread viewer base and live up to its true potential, mainly because of the following 4 reasons:

1. The content isn’t “spreadable”;
2. A lack of a clear call to action;
3. The quality of the content itself and
4. There’s no follow-up.

The content isn’t spreadable, technically speaking:
Notice how I didn’t embed the video right here as I usually would, instead referring you to Vimeo, because there was no other way you could undergo it the way it was meant to be experienced.

In other words: people will first have to go to the Vimeo page and have a true broadband internet connection(!) to experience it smoothly and in full effect; detach the video from the context of this page and it becomes just another (attempt at a) cool viral. Pure branding, zero capitalization of the ensuing conversations.

Nowadays it’s more effective to take a channel-neutral and/or federated content approach to reach out to your audience on the net, and part of that means making your content spreadable through widgets, embeddable video’s, etc.. The Vimeo video is embeddable of course, but the page -and thus the experience- is not.

There’s no call to action:
The concept itself doesn’t trigger the visitor to do anything: You just sit and watch, just like on TV…

The creative team apparently embraced the technological and creative possibilities that the internet offers in marrying video with a webpage, yet somehow failed to capitalize on the buzz that it generated and thus at the opportunity to generate leads.

Honda’s rich media take over is no interactive advertising but more akin to an online guerrilla advert, which could have been done offline, possibly generating more buzz and brand-awareness outside the digerati niche.

Then again, it was created by Wieden & Kennedy (Amsterdam), a traditional agency with it’s roots firmly grounded in offline advertising campaigns.

The quality of the content isn’t worth spreading:
If it’s aimed at the Marketing/Tech/Creative niche: they’re already accustomed to these “Breaking-The-4^th-Wall” take-over actions by now on YouTube or dedicated viral mini-sites, and this example isn’t remarkable.

If it’s not aimed at said niche, then one has to wonder why on earth it was posted on a niche social video site like Vimeo.com in the first place…

Adding all the numbers together from the stats image above, there are over a 1.750 likes, 300+ comments and 177.000 views generated in less than two weeks(!), pointing to a cult hit and/or people watching it more than once (it’s not clear whether Vimeo filters out non-unique views/cookies).

On the other hand, the numbers in the table don’t depict all mentions of the video across the Social Media space, and it was only posted a few days ago, so this is just merely the tip of the iceberg. Here’s hoping that Honda’s campaign team has access to social media monitoring tools from Radian6 or TrackUr and have activated their BackType Alerts to keep a clear overview.

All in all, in terms of buzz and people interacting with the page this is no bad example of content integration at all, it’s just a shame there’s no apparent follow-up or integration in, say, a 360˚campaign for maximum effect.

Now of course at this very moment we have no idea what Honda’s campaign objective was in the first place: It could be a proof of concept, trying it out for a small fee, with little risk, before scaling it up on YouTube allowing the numbers game to come into play, leading to massive exposure and off course more ways for the community and consumers/prospects to interact with the brand.

As I’m a firm believer in the merits of content-integration instead of plain display bannering, for me personally it will be very interesting to see how this plays out and if Honda will release an evaluation on their company blog or industry titles like Ad Age or ReadWriteWeb.

Two short interviews with Sol Sender, the Design Strategist behind the excellent adaptable and strong brand identity of the US President-Elect Barack Obama, wherein he shares the history, strategic branding process and key take-aways thereof.

As stipulated by Karl Long in the original referring post over at FUTURELAB.net, this could become the most iconic brand identity of our time -even more so when we consider the various ways in which it was deployed: the ultimate contemporary case of product quality (the candidate AND his message) first and marketing perfection second in a sweet marriage with The Crowds if we ever saw one.

Bonus: For the nitpickers out there:  In part 1, pause at 06:46 to see a screenshot of an Outdoor Dummy on a Dutch Public Transport Company bus stop , taken in the city of Amsterdam! [hometown of yours truly ;) ]

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 1 of 2

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 2 of 2

Here’s the teams blog post

Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/new-rules-implied-for-developing-brand-identity-for-social-media

Opvallend, lekker actueel, grappig, authentiek, direct, ik zou erop klikken.

(PS het gaat om de banner hierboven) Bonus: De kwinkslag naar “Wat vertel jij je vrienden?” als campagne insteek is een schot in de roos, want zeer herkenbaar.

Volgens een onderzoek gedaan door Metrix Lab in opdracht van Microsoft Advertising dien je voor een optimale online brand awareness tussen de 3 en 7 contactmomenten te hebben.

Het staat mij nog helder voor de geest dat ik een aantal weken geleden in een korte periode echt doodgegooid werd met AMC banners van, ik meen, Rabobank Connect.

Dit kwam overigens niet door het ontbreken van een frequency cap, maar gewoon doordat er in het mediaplan goede overlap was met het inzetten van de creative. Zelf ben ik overigens net als het overgrote deel van de internetpopulatie bannerblind, al moet ik toegeven dat ik -door beroepsdeformatie- nog wel eens een banner de volle aandacht geef, zoals dus in dit geval.

I had no choice: Het maakte werkelijk waar totaal niet uit op welke Nederlandse ICT/Online Marketing gerelateerde vaksite of blog ik keek, ik ontkwam gewoon niet aan de banner, vraag me alleen niet wat de precieze strekking was. Uiteraard speelt voor het resultaat van een degelijke display advertising campagne niet alleen het aantal contactmomenten zelf een rol, maar vooral ook de creative zelf en of deze in lijn is met je corporate communicatie en het umfelt.

Destijds was de betreffende rectangle echter niet zo sterk als deze, maar wel onvermijdelijk, dus als men weer een beetje kien heeft ingekocht op alle relevante online kanalen, dan zou dit wel eens een zeer effectieve AMC display-campagne kunnen worden. Of toch niet?

Want wat dan weer wel jammer is, is dat er niet direct een Adwords-campagne bij opgestart is,  zodat de displayadvertising- en de CPC-campagnes, tezamen met een goed gesegmenteerde e-mailing en RSS-vertising, elkaar ondersteunen in het genereren van kwalitatief bezoek naar de werkenbij website, temeer daar de praktijk uitwijst dat het gecombineerd inzetten van diverse uitingen in de communicatiemix conversie verhogend werkt en de (Employer)Brand Awareness kan versterken (Tip: in de organische resultaten bij watverteljijjevrienden.nl word geen juiste content omschrijving weergegeven, maar de gebruikte webanalyse tool: “OneStat.com Web Analytics”).

Dit gaat al helemaal op voor de ICT-doelgroep die de Rabobank hiermee wenst te bereiken, want die gebruiken over het algemeen Firefox als internetbrowser, hebben -net als ik- grotendeels Adblock Plus en No Script aanstaan en zien dus los van bannerblindheid zelfs een prachtige banner als deze helaas sowieso niet staan…

[Disclosure:
Begin dit jaar ben ik via ACA/JES Communicatie (zijdelings) betrokken geweest bij online AMC projecten/advies voor de Rabobank Nederland, ik ben enige tijd geleden vertrokken bij ACA/JES en momenteel heb ik geen betrokkenheid bij deze of andere projecten van de Rabobank Groep of haar (in)directe concurrenten. Los daarvan: zoals aangegeven in de disclaimer rechtsonder in de Navigation Bay^TM: deze Online Column is volledig onafhankelijk; de hier door mij weergegeven persoonlijke visie, opinie of snelle gedachtespinsels zijn derhalve niet die van de genoemde organisaties en/of aan hen gelieerde partijen en dus ook niet noodzakelijkerwijs vooraf door hen ingezien, dan wel beïnvloed. Amen. Verdorie, mooie banner ;)]

Martijn Ros (Brandmerck) did an interview with Andy Beal for his Graduation Thesis on Online Reputation Management in The Netherlands, though the core message is universal.

Andy -a speaker and consultant specializing in Online Reputation Management (ORM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing- is considered one of the world’s most respected Reputation Management experts, and has worked with many brand-leaders, such as Motorola, NBC, GlaxoSmithKline and SAS.

Beal’s current projects include his new book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, his blog Marketing Pilgrim and Trackur -an online Reputation Monitoring tool.

Two interesting outtakes, highlighting the arguments that every CEO/Marketer should keep in mind when conjuring up a business plan or marketing strategy:

“Martijn Ros: I am convinced that companies that have a so-called ‘interactive online profile’, and are known for their online presence through blogs and social networks, have a head start  when it comes to any unforeseen online reputation crisis. Could you tell something about the way you advise your clients when they want to create an interactive online profile?

Andy Beal: I absolutely agree with you. When a company creates an interactive online profile, it’s effectively telling its stakeholders -customers, investors, employees, etc- that it cares about the community and wants to be a part of the conversation. When an online reputation crisis hits, companies that have an social media profile are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and more likely to be able to respond quickly, within that channel.

I advise my clients to look for the “centres of influence.” Where are their stakeholders hanging-out online? When you understand the types of social media your stakeholders are using -maybe they prefer blogs over forums -you’ll increase your chances of successfully engaging them.

Martijn Ros: Do you advise organizations when they already have problems with their online reputation? Can you give an example of a case, and your approach in that matter (the name of the company can of course remain anonymous)?

Andy Beal: Right now, most companies only react to an online reputation crisis when they see it having an adverse effect on their Google reputation. When a negative blog post is on the first page of Google’s results, for your brand name, you tend to take notice. In these cases, I simply work with clients to help create and optimize positive web content. Our goal is to try and provide Google with positive web content that is more relevant, thus suppressing the negative pages.

The very smart companies are realizing that simply managing their Google reputation is akin to placing make-up over a cancerous mole. You have to treat the underlying cause -not just the symptoms. It’s with these companies that I work to help them address and fix the actual complaints their stakeholders have with their business.”

Read the whole interview over at Brandmerck.nl

Artikel met een uiterst originele invalshoek op linkbuilding op Frankwatching.com geplaatst door Wiep Knol van Tribal.