When Viral Media Backfires

Viral marketing and social media are two phenomenons that we extensively talk about utilizing in class. The prospect of having these two mediums work together to potentially reach thousands, even millions, of people fast by just sending out one viral ad has began has been used to market everything from Doritos to movies. So it should come to no surprise that politicians also try to utilize this revolutionary combination to reach potential voters. So when Rick Perry's latest ad went viral and reached more than 3 million views in less than 5 days you would think he would be ecstatic. However, in this case viral media may have come back to bite him.

    His latest ad seems honest enough, Perry is shown walking through what seems like a wooded area wear a jacket to seem like a down to earth guy. However, when he utters the phrase: 

"I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school."

It's not hard to see why things could go very bad, very fast. On YouTube, Perry's ad has only 13,000 likes and over 500,000 dislikes.Worst of all, Perry's ad has become the launching ad for several scathing parodies that have become just as viral. Using the same background and format as Perry's ad these parodies range from a fake Perry describing his more explicit reason for disapproving of homosexuals (160,000), an atheist slamming Rick Perry running on a Christian  platform (1,500,000 views), and even Jesus himself refuting any connection to Rick Perry (150,000 views). So the question remains: What the hell was Perry thinking? With all the advisors are individuals on his staff, wouldn't you think one person would step up and say, "Hey Rick, you know this could make a lot of people mad and ruin everything you worked for right?" Ask Howard Dean. All it took was the simple exclamation "BYAAAH" during an event to go from top of the back to bottom of the polls thanks to Dave Chappelle turning it into a skit on his show. So will this ruin Rick Perry's entire campaign? My guess is yes, but only time will tell.

Attacking Ads

After reading this article I was confused about why it was considered crude and offensive. I would think a company would do some research before placing an advertisement that could possible offend others. Although, we see this attack almost every day with politicians amongst themselves, it is considered politically incorrect.

Clicking on several links I finally found the answer to my question, why is this offensive? Seems this company put up a billboard, which, if you can’t make it out, reads: Christmas Quality, Hanukkah Pricing. Although the company that placed the ad was only looking for it to be perceived as funny, it has offended the Jewish community.

While the Jewdars all found it pretty amusing, the ADL had this to say: “In a crude and offensive way of trying to make a point that their vodka is high quality and inexpensive, the billboards evoke a Jewish holiday to imply something that is cheap and of lesser value when compared to the higher value of a Christian holiday. Particularly with the long history of anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews and money, with the age-old notion that Jews are cheap, to use the Jewish holiday in dealing with issues of money is clearly insensitive and inappropriate.”
The ADL is an Anti-Defamation League for Jewish people. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/ASUS_12/6176_12.htm

http://www.talentzoo.com/beyond-madison-ave/blog_news.php?articleID=12343

Apple Inc. is taking over the world one ipad at a time

Personally, I have never been a huge Apple user. I have an ipod and that's as far as it gets. The people I know who have Apple computers, iphone's, ipod's, and ipad's live and breathe Apple products, they think they are amazing and would never consider getting anything different. In their opinion Apple is the only way to go. Apple has portrayed themselves very business like, they target people that are business oriented. Even their webiste is very clean and not much color, colors are gray, silver and white. I have a professor that lives by Apple products, they bring up their love of their iphone and mac computer every other class period. Apple Inc. keeps coming out with new products, soon their technology will take over the worl I am pretty sure.

The Power of Search

The Twilight Series, there is a piece of useful information in the first movie. Edward Cullen says, “If you don’t believe me, Google it.” The power of the internet just keeps growing, which gives an opportunity to marketers to make more effective and personal marketing campaigns.

  

How many times a week do you think you use a search engine? Today, alone I used a search engine 12 times.

“The most recent findings from Pew Internet & American Life tracking surveys and consumer behavior trends from the comScore Media Metrix consumer panel show that about 60 million American adults are using search engines on a typical day.” – Marketing Today http://bit.ly/ee8Zcb

A market research group that is 60 million strong, which is a wealth of information at a marketer’s finger tips. The ability to find out more information and quickly will allow marketers to adapt marketing campaigns and market segmenting, even faster. Marketers would also be able to link products from a company’s product line through other interests that consumers have and see if there is a possibility of another sale for that company. The possibilities are endless with the search engines! Consumers can find a large amount of information about a company they want to do business with and the company can find out about its consumers, to market to them in a personal and effective way.

Oh Nuts - Marketing That May Have Missed Its Mark

I laughed when I saw the tennis ball smack Wee Man in the forehead, breaking open his Wonderful Pistachio. I chuckled at the Winklevoss twin, the Keyboard Cat, and the Honey Badger cracked open their pistachios. However, even though these commercials may be humorous, what are they doing to build the brand image of Wonder Pistachios?

As reported by Todd Wasserman of Mashable.com, Wonderful Pistachios have launched a very successful ad campaign. The use of C and D list celebrities and the incorporation of internet “memes” into television commercials has led to a three digit growth in sales over the past year.

However, as Rob Frankel, a LA-based branding expert, pointed out, these commercials do little to build the brand image of Wonderful Pistachios. These commercials give no information to consumers that tell them why they should purchase a $5 bag of Wonderful Pistachio’s over a $2 competitor’s bag. All these commercials are doing is pushing the sales of pistachios…any pistachios, regardless of the brand.

On a personal note, these commercials do not make me want to purchase this product. While I found some of the commercials humorous, I can barely stand the image of Snooki breaking her pistachio open on her tanning bed. This leads an important question: “What value do these celebrities and internet memes contribute to the brand image of Wonderful Pistachios?

Little, it seems.

However, Wasserman points out that Wonderful Pistachios may be using a different sort of tactic. One similar to the marketing campaign launched by the California Milk Processor Board in the early ‘90s. The goal being to increase the consumption of the general product, and not necessarily the consumption of a specific brand. Wasserman paraphrases JFK – the hope is that a rising tide will lift all boats.

Will the use of these sometime tacky celebrities lead to consumers saying, “Got Pistachios?”

Image compliments of infobarrel.com.

Word of Mouth Marketing, It still Exists!

In the digital age, it sometimes seems that the more old-fashioned way of advertising, word of mouth, is as extinct as the dinosaurs. However, it is quite the contrary. Although "word of mouth" has evolved slightly into "share through a click," the idea and foundation is still the same: sharing what you like with others in your circle and it is the cycle's repetition that can grow into a massive, free campaign.

Dave Williams, CEO of Blinq Media, recently dissected the age-old marketing tool of word of mouth in his digital contribution post to Ad Age. Williams describes the current necessity for marketers and advertisers to "maximize consumer social influence." Basically, companies must get a buy in of sorts from their consumers. This means they must enjoy the product so much, or feel so compelled by peers, that they are willing to "like," "tweet" and/or "+1" about the product for all the world to see, more importantly their portion of the social world.

The reason this whole word of mouth marketing method works is actually rooted in psychology. Contagion theories explain social construction and help us to understand why word of mouth and peer influence in marketing can be so successful. "Birds of a feather flock together," at least that's how the old adage goes, but as it turns out, it is actually holds merit. People with similar demographic and psychographic characteristics tend to "flock" to one another. Because social circles often share similar lifestyles, interests and backgrounds, they are a prime target for ad and marketing firms when it comes time to begin promoting a product.

Williams also touches specifically on Facebook, and describes some of the challenges for marketers with the new format as it relates to word of mouth. He states that information directly from the companies on Facebook is not as common with the new platform and will often be left off many news feeds, so the importance of viewing what friends "like" in news feed updates is even more imperative. It is when one person sees a friend's comment on an item, product or company, and then proceeds to comment as well, that "contagion" begins, most likely along with some celebrating among executives.

With social media showing no signs of deteriorating or disappearing, it appears as if word of mouth will continue to reign as the top goal for companies when it comes to promoting their products. And remember, 'tis the season, so don't forget to "share" with all of your friends and family and you'll be sure to end up on the marketers nice list.

Social Media Certificates?

Well this blog post by Beth Harte was definitely something that I found odd. http://www.theharteofmarketing.com/2009/01/social-media-certification-for-the-low-low-price-of%E2%80%A6.html She goes on to discuss how she has been offered Social Media Marketing certificate courses for around $1500 to become certified in social media marketing. Now here is where even someone with my limited knowledge of the subject see the total scam. Being taught how to use Facebook and Twitter in a crash course for that money does not seem like a wise career move. The real social media experts are practicing and using blogs and other medias on a daily basis. Now as she discusses how many companies will see this certificate as actually valid and bypass real marketers in social media. To me this is the real issue and not just the scam of the certificate. Somewhere someone got a great job because they wrote a $1500 check and spend 2 hours online learning to post on Twitter and Blogger.