Social Media Experiments That Work

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Social media has huge potential for marketers, as consumers help make most of the value themselves. The Army is a perfect example, both allowing soldiers to maintain their own sites, and by having a site called Army Strong Stories with over 150 bloggers that provide anecdotes about what it’s like to be in the service.

“The site has garnered a highly positive response since its launch and showed consistent growth by increasing its total blogger count each month,” writes Larry Weintraub. “Proving how personal many of the entries are, the word cloud that pulls terms from all of the blogs shows ‘family’ as the most popular term. Others like ‘deployment’ and ‘active-duty’ are also mentioned by bloggers as topics at the forefront of their minds. A corresponding Twitter feed (@armystories) extends the Army Strong Stories message and pushes out new blog entries as they are posted.”

Another example is Vitamin Water, which has actually made their Facbook page their new homepage. To complement this, they also launched a contest where fans were able to vote on flavor, ingredients, packaging, and naming for the new drink, with the winner receiving $5,000.

“The flavor creator app was a huge success, as it grew the vitaminwater Facebook fan base from 400,000 to 981,000 in just one month — and now stands at more than 1.3 million fans,” notes Weintraub. “Participation was tremendous, with nearly 10 percent (116,000) of its fans taking part and showcasing the enormous power of crowd-sourcing actual customer market research. To cap off the flavor’s launch in March, vitaminwater gave away 100,000 free bottles of Connect to the first 100,000 fans who signed up for the coupon.”

“The opportunities created by social media and the size of the online audience are increasing every day,” concludes Weintraub. “Brands that have acknowledged this are immediately realizing the customer engagement benefits that a social campaign delivers. They are reaching out directly to the consumer and asking them exactly what they want. They are forgoing traditional websites and banner ads in favor of fan pages and exclusive content. They are using social media to improve their marketing, PR, market research, and customer service efforts simultaneously. In the ongoing battle for attention, social media gives any brand the tools to stand out.”

Source: iMediaConnection

Online TV Watching Doubled Over Last Year, Says Study

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Parks Associates today released their Online Video and Broadband Provider Strategies study. The report states that the number of U.S. broadband households watching premium online content doubled in the last year, with over 25 million U.S. broadband households regularly watching full-length TV shows online, and over 20 million watching movies online.

“Connected CE devices are affecting the competitive ecosystem of the television industry, and while the current number of cord cutters isn’t substantial, service providers are concerned about these developments,” said Jayant Dasari, research analyst, Parks Associates. “Pay-TV providers are working to head off a possible shift that might devalue their services by offering TV Everywhere. These services supplement their traditional offerings, which might not dissuade anyone determined to cut the cord, but providers could use them as models for future business strategies.”

The report also says that consumers feel no strong preference for sites like Hulu or broadband service providers, giving the latter an opening to better establish themselves. Regardless, brand marketers should be aware that more and more people are watching online instead of on traditional TV, and should plan marketing spends accordingly.

Facebook Ads See Impressive Results, Says Nielsen

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Nielsen today released the results of a study of over 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands. The results showed greater ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when it’s shown that friends are fans of the brand on Facebook.

Ads on the Facebook home page had a 10 percent increase in ad recall, a four percent increase in brand awareness and a two percent increase in purchase intent compared to a control group that didn’t. The increase in recall jumped to 16 percent when ads mentioned fans who are friends, and 30 percent when the ads coincided with a mention in users’ news feeds.

“The market has been talking very much about how to buy paid media and earn earned media, but there’s been very little attention to the types of hybrid impressions and hybrid experience that blends these two,” said Jon Gibbs, VP-media analytics at Nielsen. “What we’ve seen in both social ads and organic [mentions] are much higher than we’ve seen in other campaigns along these lines.”

Source: Ad Age {link no longer active}

LinkedIn Launching Sponsored Groups Programming

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LinkedIn has unveiled its new ad program, and it will involve sponsored groups. The social network has teamed up with Qwest Communications, Hewlett-Packard and Intel for a system that combines networking, editorial content and customer relationship management.

“Qwest has launched a LinkedIn group for small- and medium-size business owners to discuss IT issues. It s hard to drive people to your site, and we wanted to be upfront about our involvement,” said Cindy Humphrey, VP of business marketing for Qwest’s Business Markets Group. “Most small business people find information on different topics via peers from word of mouth. Those are difficult discussions to get into.”

Steve Patrizi, VP of marketing solutions for LinkedIn, said that sponsored groups are good for long-term sponsorships rather than temporary sales campaigns. “The trick is to establish a community that’s not all about [the sponsor],” he said.

Source: Ad Week  {link no longer active}

iPhone Prototype Claimed By Apple

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Yesterday, what appeared to be a prototype of a new iPhone was found in a bar and given to Brian Lam, a member of the press. This device featured a front facing camera for video chat, a camera flash and an improved display. All Apple needed to do to secure a return of the device was a formal confirmation that it was indeed theirs… and they have now provided that. Apple might not like the fact that details on the new iPhone were leaked out, but the incident definitely helped build further iPhone buzz; people can’t wait to see the next official version of the ubiquitous phone.

“It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is currently in possession of a device that belongs to Apple, read the letter sent by Apple. This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple.”

“I’m sad to see it go,” noted Lam. “We reasoned this pretty little piece of hardware is probably something we’ll see again some time soon, but who knows exactly when. For some of us, that date can’t come soon enough.”

Source: Gizmodo

Will Wright Talks Toys

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Will Wright is one of the luminaries of the gaming industry, but right now many of his projects for Stupid Fun Club are more like toys than games. That said, many of these toys have online interactive components, and Wright thinks this is just a natural evolution.

“Well, I think that a lot of the video game industry came in and took a big chunk of what used to be known as the toy market and kids are getting very comfortable with play experiences and virtual online environments, or even offline,” said Wright. “But for kids, when it comes to play, they don t make a big distinction between playing with a physical toy and playing with a virtual environment; and so I think the fact that these things want to blend and mix in the same way that people are investing more and more time in their Facebook stuff and friends and profiles, but it intersects the real world and so they see a very smooth blending between the virtual and the real and they’re in some sense self supportive; they re not exclusive of each other. I think a lot of parents only see their kids playing with video games, like ‘Oh, why don t you play with your toys instead of playing with video games ‘ For them, they re very different experiences. They put a wall up between them.”

“But you look at younger people, at adults having kids, and I think they grew up in an environment where the virtual it was in bits instead of atoms but it was still very meaningful, and they had friends online and online communities and they had real communities and real friends and real experiences. So I think we have a generation growing up that doesn’t make a huge distinction between those two and I think it’s pretty natural that the play experiences that they consider, whether they’re toys or games, consist of a blending of the two. And I see games going the other way in a sense; I see games involving more and more of the real world.”

When asked about the impact of social games on the industry, Wright responded, “I think it s going to be an established area of games; I don’t think it’ going to take over the world. People were saying that about online games before that and they were saying that about portable games before that. There s always, when a new platform or a new niche emerges, there s explosive growth in that niche; it s like this void that s being filled very rapidly, where there was a vacuum. So right now we re at the steep of that curve. If you extrapolate that out, it looks like ‘Oh, that s gonna be the whole market in five years,’ but of course the curve never stays that steep. It s kind of like the ecosystems are in this gigantic disruptive phase. Whole new niches are opening and other ones are shrinking and so we re seeing some very steep deltas in different directions right now. I get the sense that in a year from now we’ll start seeing these things plateau towards what their natural equilibrium is.”

Wright was also questioned about Project Natal and PlayStation Move and the significance of those platforms. He responded, “I doubt they ll have the same impact the Wii had. In some sense, they feel like evolutions, or evolutionary technologies. I think Natal feels like a better EyeToy, which is going to have some interesting applications. I don t think it s going to change the face of gaming or anything. I think that having motion control, like in a Wii controller, is something that both Microsoft and Sony are catching up to, but again it almost suggests certain toy-like applications. I m not sure I d want to use a Wii controller for a first-person shooter. Even as obvious as this might sound to you, you want to point something at the screen when you re shooting, but just the precision of the technology is below the precision I would get with a mouse on a PC, for instance. That’s something that Nintendo has always been very, very good at… in some sense when they design something, they work from the controller outwards and they may show the kinesthetic second to second experience with the control scheme is first and foremost when they work on a new game. The feel of Mario jumping has to be just right, and then they base the rest of the game around that.”

Source: IndustryGamers {link no longer active}

EA Sports MMA Trailer Shows Match-Ups

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Right now, UFC Undisputed has established itself as the mixed-martial arts game to beat, but Electronic Arts is throwing its hat in the ring (or perhaps we should say octagon) with EA Sports MMA. Planed for release in August 2010, the company released a trailer today that shows off some of the contenders in action.

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Sony Bravia Ad Truly About Make Believe

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Ads for televisions often focus on kids and families because of the shared experience TV manufacturers want to portray. The latest European Sony Bravia ad takes this a step further, mixing archival footage of AC/DC with little girls jamming out. It’s a decent-looking  spot, but you’re not even made aware of the Sony brand for TVs until the last few seconds. Will this really help sell product for Sony

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Source: Ad Week

Modern Warfare 2 DLC Pricing A Mistake?

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The recent DLC has caused a great deal of consternation for fans of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, with many arguing that charging $15 for five maps (of which some are rehashes from the first Modern Warfare) was too much. While 25 percent of the game’s owners purchased the maps, EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich thinks there could be some push back down the line.

“It reminds me a lot of oil prices over the last five years,” writes Divnich. “When the oil shortage hit, prices skyrocketed, and most consumers had no choice but to pay the market price. After all, it wouldn’t be economically feasible to trade in your gas guzzling SUV on such short notice, nor feasible to search for a new job with a shorter commute. However, over the long-term consumers changed their behaviors, and they began to purchase more hybrids, they bought smaller cars, found jobs closer to home, or began to telecommute.  At the same time, companies such as Exxon Mobil were posting record profits measured in the billions and by no coincidence they quickly reached the top of many ‘Most Disliked Companies’ lists.”

“The long-term implications with Activision and the Call of Duty brand may be similar, in that the cost to continue to be a part of the Modern Warfare 2 circle is now much higher than what consumers anticipated, he continues. Sure, in the short-term it doesn’t seem like the higher priced DLC negatively impacted sales, but it could in the long-term. Future Modern Warfare 2 content could actually under-perform, washing away all the financial upside from the Stimulus Package. Activision could have very well sold 2.5 million map packs at $15, at the cost of selling two map packs at $10 each at 2.5 million units.”

Source: IndustryGamers {link no longer active}