via slideshare.net
via slideshare.net
The one thing that Facebook seems to understand and do extremely well is identify real-life experiences that are social, as in we tend to do them with others, and figure out how to translate that into an online experience.
Do you go parties with friends? Ok – here’s “Facebook events” where you can set up parties with friends.
Do you take pictures with friends and then want to share them? Ok – let’s allow you to digitally connect your pictures with all the people who are in them.
Do you like talking to your friends? Ok – let’s make it so you can talk publicly (the online version of the whiteboard on the dorm door), privately (like sending notes in class) and in real-time with chat.
And that’s just the beginning. Over it’s entire history Facebook has strategically added to it’s core applications and functions things that mimic our real life relationships and how we interact with each other. Making it extremely addictive and hard to quit.
And now that they’ve covered the basics, they’re branching into more specialized territory – people love to shop with other people. You may want an opinion on your outfit, or suggestions on what to buy. And with the Amazon-Facebook integration it’s going to be that much easier to achieve the digital version of a shopping trip with friends.
It’s updates like these that make me think Facebook is here to stay, despite any issues they may have along the road. It won’t be as easy for a new-comer site to achieve the level of integration that Facebook has in all our lives. Remember MySpace? It doesn’t compare anymore, MySpace never had this kind of omnipresence in our lives. To be completely frank – neither does Twitter (yes, I said it – want to debate it? leave a comment).
“Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” – I think they’re well on their way to achieving that and this Amazon move is completely in line with that mission. What do you think?
The on-pack call-to-action from Coca-Cola and RogersThe Coca-Cola Co. is ramping up its mobile loyalty initiatives in North America by partnering with a Canadian wireless carrier to drive participation in its “Twist TXT Save” program.
In conjunction with Toronto-based Rogers Wireless, the beverage giant issued mobile calls-to-action via email, its Web site, the carrier’s site and on-package. The partners are running an under-the-cap SMS promotion along with the “Summer’s Sweetest Moments” MMS sweepstakes.
“Coke has been doing this for years—you can go online to enter the codes or do so from your cell phone by texting them in,” said Julie Ask, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, Boston. “You have to sign up online for the program—name, address and carrier.
“You opt-in to have promotions—mostly their sweepstakes—pushed out to you occasionally,” she said. “What is interesting to me here is Rogers’ involvement.”
The mobile medium is a key component of Coca-Cola’s loyalty and customer relationship management initiatives (see story).
Twist TXT Save, AirBonus
Coca-Cola has successfully turned its classic Coke bottle into a mini-retail environment to run direct-to-consumer affinity programs.Coke prints a unique PIN under the bottle cap which acts as a proof of purchase.
Rogers subscribers who text the under-the-cap PIN number to the short code 42653 get $0.75 off their mobile phone bill or $1,000 iCoke points.
Coca-Cola single-serve bottles in stores across Canada carry the following mobile call-to-action:
“This bottle gets you $0.75 off your Rogers Wireless bill. Get PIN under cap & text to 42653 to redeem or get 1,000 iCoke Points @ iCoke.ca. Max 10 discounts/customer/week.”
Here is a screengrab of the call-to-action on the Web site:
Coca Cola has taken this in-store strategy to the next level in Britain (see story).
In Britain and Canada, Coke Points can be instantly redeemed on O2 and Rogers Wireless networks for an instant credit on wireless minutes.
It is only a matter of time before United States carriers take advantage of similar opportunities.
“Airbonus is an exciting opportunity for brands as it offers a new way of driving a sale without discounting the product,” said Gary Schwartz, CEO of mobile aggregator Impact Mobile, Toronto.
“Airbonus is an exciting opportunity for brands as it offers a new way of driving a sale without discounting the product,” he said. “Airbonus eliminates the need for clearing houses and offers a mobile CRM channel.”
Coke’s program works as an affinity channel in any store allowing the consumer to text message the PINs to collect Coke Points.
Promotional PINs are alphanumeric codes found on specially marked Coca-Cola products and on special promotion materials that can be redeemed on both via mobile and online.
These PIN codes give registered MyCokeRewards Members in the U.S. and iCoke in Canada of the chance to collect iCoke Points and instantly win prizes. Everyone who enters a PIN code receives the number of iCoke Points.
Consumers work to accumulate points to redeem against tickets and other valued swag.
“What I like about this new campaign is that it leverages immediacy,” Ms. Ask said. “People are more likely to redeem these points if they don’t need to carry them around in their pocket until they get in front of a computer.
“And, Coke gets to know when and where people are buying and consuming drinks,” she said. “It offers all the benefits of sweepstakes—lots of excitement and people buy more cokes, but it doesn’t deliver qualified leads.”
In addition to the service providing a revenue stream for the carriers that have increasingly become disenfranchised from the mobile marketing and advertising value chain, the service, called AirBonus, could revitalize a dying rebate business, as there is no need for clearing houses and the shopper does all the work.
Most importantly, there is an instant rebate: Cash in hand for the mobile consumer.
This provides a compelling value exchange for consumers: Redeem loyalty points on a handset and the brand will top up minutes on the same redemption device.
Coke is using the phone as retailers use a plastic loyalty card.
The value exchange can be moved seamless on and off the card, or in this case, the mobile phone.
Ideally, the mobile program would eliminate the need for a rebate or coupon clearing houses, cutting out time delays or intermediaries between the brand and the shopper.
Summer’s Sweetest Moments via MMS
Coca-Cola is also running a mobile sweepstakes in partnership with Rogers called Summer’s Sweetest Moments, which has the tagline “Celebrating Canada’s Freshest Summer Pics!”The call-to-action appears on the iCoke.ca Web portal:
“Want to win a BlackBerry Pearl 9100 smartphone plus a $100 Rogers Gift Card? Enter the Summer’s Sweetest Moments Contest! Click here!”
Consumers are asked to text in pictures from their Rogers mobile phone to the short code 42653 to win a BlackBerry Pearl 9100 smartphone plus a $100 Rogers gift card.
“The photo contest is fun—it’s social,” Ms. Ask said. “Obviously, it is a lot more fun if my friends or people I know are a participating and posting—most will post on Facebook.
“The ability to post more than one place at once would be cool, both to their promotion and your own accounts on Facebook [and other social networks],” she said. “Participation here will be driven more by size of prizes than engagement with social media aspects.”
Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer
Have you noticed that there appears to be a growing number of weird and wonderful campaigns coming out of various agencies across the world?
There is certainly an increasing opportunity for brands to break out of the constraints of paid media spaces and engage directly with people, via ideas that are constrained only by our imaginations.It feels as if ideas are being liberated and experimentation is the order of the day. Agencies from different backgrounds are getting in on the act, each putting their own distinct spin on what constitutes a great social idea.In an attempt to decipher the code of great social ideas, I have identified various areas to be considered when either brainstorming social ideas or critiquing them. So let’s take a look.
1. Value. At the core is identifying which of the 5 types of social currency does the idea deliver to people; utility, entertaining, monetary, information or personal.
2. Engagement. Will people be able to engage with the idea? Does the idea tell or build on a wider story? Does it employ any gaming mechanics? Can people participate through interacting or co-creating? Will people be able to easily share it?
3. Channels. Which social channels does it exist in; web, mobile or experiential?
4. Data. Does the idea take advantage of data from social graphs, back office or 3rd parties such as Google maps?
5. Time. Does the idea exist in real-time or does it have any time sensitivity around it? Does the idea contribute to an existing conversation or is it starting a new one?
6. Location. Does the idea utilise geo-location? Are we asking people to visit our space and if so can we realistically create a social destination without expensive advertising?
Obviously, the overriding questions are; does the idea conform to the brands social principles, does it contribute to the brand ideal and will it deliver on the business objective.
Steve continually delivers with pieces like this. The visual is spot on.
Everything we do has to in some way, shape or form display value and the visual above is a great way of showing how to do just that.
An affective Social Media Marketing Balanced Scorecard considers metrics from four different perspectives:
- Financial: Has revenue or profit increased or costs decreased?
- Brand: Have consumer attitudes about the brand improved?
- Risk Management: Is the organization better prepared to note and respond to attacks or problems that affect reputation?
- Digital: Has the company enhanced its owned and earned digital assets?
“Ideas having sex with each other drives human progress.” Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist
“We spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t care about.” Tim Jackson, Economist
“We’d like to see the elimination of the transmission of the virus from mother to child by 2015.” Annie Lennox, Musician and HIV/Aids Activist
“The value of choice is in our ability to perceive differences between the options.” Sheena Iyengar, Psycho-economist
“The central moral challenge of the 21st century is gender inequity. 19th century was slavery. 20th century was totalitarianism.” Sheryl WuDunn, Woman’s Rights Advocate
“There are too many possibilities and too little human time to do the experiments.” Dimitar Sasselov, Astronomer
“Human Rights Principles are universal – but the way they play out is local.” Auret van Heerden, Labour Rights Activist
“The problem with today’s cultural ghettos is not lack of knowledge – it is lack of knowledge of ourselves.” Elif Shafak, Novelist
“There are 6 million species on the planet, and 80% walk on 6 legs.” Marcel Dicke, Ecological Entomologist
“Is the Middle East all Bombers, Billionaires and Belly Dancers — not true, we don’t all want to kill the Infidel.” Jamil Abu-Wardeh, Producer
“We had our first carbon neutral volcano (with grounded planes).” David McCandless, Data Journalist
“We can make a judgement about a person on a person’s face in 1/10 th of a second.” Ian Hutchison, Facial Surgeon
“The American heartland gets a bad rap, but it’s given us some fantastic music.” Thomas Dolby, Musician
“The Human Species is very smart …. but we can be incredibly dumb when it comes to our decision making.” Laurie Santos, Cognitive Psychologist
“Plants exhibit such a complex behaviour that it can only be described as intelligence.” Stefano Mancuso, Plant Neurobiologist
“I don’t mind playing bad guys, but I’d like to rob a bank with a gun instead of a bomb strapped around me.” Maz Jobrani, Comedian
“Now it is the story and narrative that wins. Great Powers have great stories.” Joseph Nye, Diplomat
“They are not weeds, they are bio-diversity.” Adrian Dolby, Organic Farmer
“We can never loose faith in humanity as long as we are in the company of other species.” Toni Frohoff, Wildlife Biologist
“We should be called coctivors – animals that eat cooked food.” Heribert Watzke, Food Scientist
“There are three keys to reduce conflict in the world: Leadership, diplomacy and institutional design.” Stefan Wolff, Ethnic Conflict Scholar
“Genes have awesome power over us – but I are more than my genes – I am my connectnome.” Sebastian Seung, Computational Neuroscientist
“Information that organizations spend effort to conceal is a signal that it’s information that could do good.” Julian Assange, wikileaks
“The paradigm of governance based on nation-states does not work any more. The economy is global.” Peter Eigen, Transparency International
via leadervalues.com
So its the first car calendar without cars. A bold idea. To see the cars you have to download an iPhone app and view them through that via AR. Which is really clever but how many Audi drivers have iPhones? Its so limiting. Hats off to them for an innovative blending together of print, mobile and technology.