Tag Archive for: social media

Like the rest of the world, we can’t wait for the Olympic flame to land in Rio on Friday and kick off of the 2016 Summer Games! In the spirit of the season, we’ve decided to pay homage to a few of the worldwide Olympic partners whose genius marketing strategies support this global event.

  1. Proctor & Gamble

P&G became one of our favorites when their “Thank You Mom” campaign launched in 2012. This year, it continues to build with their recent Rio “Stronger” video. Their team has partnered with athletes and moms on their journey to the Olympic games in more than 21 countries around the world.

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Source: Sheila Favretto

 

  1. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola never ceases to amaze with their marketing ploys! Their newest campaign, #ThatsGold, will feature not only the athletes but also the gold moments of the consumers of Coca-Cola. Their campaign will come to life through several, activations. Just look at some of these print ads already rolling out; we’ll stay tuned in to this one for any campaign engagement success. .

 

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  1. Visa

For this year’s Olympics, Visa launched its most ambitious integrated global campaign; the Carpool campaign. It will feature a group of 20 world-class Olympic and Paralympic athletes as they carpool their way to the games and, of course, pay for their adventures with Visa.

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  1. McDonald’s

McDonald’s has been an official sponsor on the Olympic games since 1976 and has a longstanding commitment to the Olympic movement. For this year, they will focus their marketing efforts on the future athletes of the Olympic games: kids.

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Their “Friends Win!” Campaign, will send 100 kids from around the world to participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympics through McDonald’s Olympics Kids Program. Unlike other campaigns in the Olympics, their product is not mentioned or shown once during the TV commercial.

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  1. Samsung

Samsung’s “The Anthem” campaign breaks down global barriers by singing the anthem of another country. Younghee Lee, executive VP of global marketing for Samsung, states, “By singing The Anthem, fans and athletes across the globe can fee a shared sense of pride and unity and together celebrate colligative progress, which is integral to the Spirit of the Olympic Games.”

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Sources: Vincent Rollandin, Mariana GC스티브 (Steve)

Slow clap for all of the brands involved in making the 2016 Olympic games a reality! It’s sure to be an exciting summer of sports.

Just off the coast of southern Massachusetts there is a 14-mile island with beautiful beaches, fresh local seafood, and of course, Nantucket Reds. One of the most popular New England tourist attractions, thousands of people come to see the all of the summer wonders that Nantucket Island has to offer.

For the nearly 30 media who attended CBC’s 11th annual Summer House, a trip to Nantucket translated to a coveted time to kick back, relax, and divulge in a weekend escape from everyday life.

Summer House, the flagship of our CBC House Programs, took place on June 14-16, 17-19, and 21-23 on Nantucket Island at the Heidi-Ho Property. Editors and bloggers from a variety of lifestyle publications including Men’s Health, Oprah Magazine, Family Circle, Self, and more spent the weekend enjoying organized activities set up by the CBC team.

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Some of the newest and hottest products were featured at the weekend getaway – from Wonderful Pistachios to Schwinn Bikes, from Mighty Squirrel to Buick. Editors and bloggers did what they do best: share their experiences of these products on their Instagram pages.

 

 

 

 

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lisaelaineh Life is good. #cbcsummerhouse #schwinn #nantucket

 

 

 

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The weekend was packed with activities that ranged from experiencing the products and brands firsthand to exploring the hidden gems of Nantucket. Upon the editors’ arrival, they enjoyed a Scwhinn Beach Bike Ride that led them to a Wonderful Pistachios Cocktail Hour. After their first day of activities, they enjoyed a dinner at Nantucket famous BYOB restaurant, Black Eyed Susan’s.

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Screen Shot 2016-06-30 at 2.52.30 PMThe following morning included a GM breakfast followed by a Buick Scavenger Hunt, during which the editors drove around Nantucket to complete the list of items on the hunt. After their scavenger hunt they indulged in a relaxing bike ride and picnic provided by Sabra. The editors spent the night with a Miraclesuit Boat Cruise and Clambake around Nantucket. The last day in Nantucket would finish off with a Vital Proteins Smoothie breakfast and a Barre workout at Studio Nantucket.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend for these editors and the CBC team. Scroll through all the images and experiences these bloggers shared on Instagram with #cbcsummerhouse.

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Your hair is a mess, you spilled coffee on your shirt, and the morning seems like an utter disaster. You’ve fallen victim to the clock and you’re not alone in your frantic run to the T. But once you are en route, you have space to take a breath, hopefully score a seat and enjoy the ride.

But, like so many city-dwellers that rely on public transportation, the commute to work can get dull. What do you do to pass the time? Chances are, you get lost in your phone for the next 45-minutes.

If you want to see technology truly captivate an audience, glance around the next time you are on public mass transit during commuting hours. You will likely see a sea of people scrolling and tapping away over their to-go coffee. Why do we care? These highly receptive times of day offer an invaluable window for any marketer to take advantage of as a way to promote their brand.

It is very rare that you will run into an individual on their commute who is not glued to their phone. This was made even more obvious when the hashtag #guywithoutaphone first started trending – a hilarious ode to the one person at a train station without a cell phone ironically surrounded by people that are attached to their devices. These pictures show that in down time, people are interested in being either productive or entertained during their daily commute. Well … except for the #guywithoutaphone.

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The national average for commuting times is about 25.4 minutes. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 10.8 million people, or 8.1% of workers, commute an hour or more to work each way ­– when you think of all the ways you can harness this time to make conversation with your social scrolling consumers, the commute might just look a little bit sweeter.

So advertisers, marketers, and everyone in between, we have some words of wisdom for you: time is money … literally. The posters and signage within trains and busses are effective but realistically, where is everyone looking? Their phones. That’s the reason why this year, US advertisers will spend $40.24 billion to reach consumers on tablets and mobile phones.

Those tedious travel times are inevitable, so why not give your commuting consumers something to think about?

The average millennial’s attention span is… oh look, a text message! Thanks to technology and their addictive multi-tasking behavior, millennials’ attention span is about eight seconds, which is just one second less than that of your pet goldfish. Needless to say, it’s going to take a lot more than a catchy song and a flashy ad to connect with these consumers.

 

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If you are a marketer who is reading this right now—don’t fret.   Here are some inspiring tips and tactics from the pros to help you rock this target audience.

  • Millennials prefer quality over quantity

 

Due to their constant intake of knowledge and information, this generation is full of skeptics and cynics. They trust their ‘squad fam’ and respectable social media stars more than any prominent brand or company.

 

What does this mean for us as marketers? It means you should spend more money on higher-quality experiences that connect with fewer but more effective influencers.   These experiences will, in turn, create bigger opportunities for online influencer strategies. It’s kind of like the domino effect—start small by connecting with a few, and before you know it you’ll be influencing many.

 

  • Create unique brand experiences by fusing physical sensations with creative technology

 

Think 360-degree videos at events and virtual reality at home. These innovations help consumers become immersed in brands and their marketing strategies. They make the overall experience memorable and impactful by allowing individuals to interact with the brand before, during, and after the main event.

 

  • Keepin’ it real

 

Millennials are stubborn; chances are if you aggressively try to sell something to them, they ain’t buying it. As a marketer, it’s important that you complement, rather than try to change their lifestyles and habits. Let them experience your brand personality firsthand. Hey, if you’re really killin’ it they might even give you a shout out on one of their 9,652,567,234,820 social media handles.

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It’s almost time for spring-cleaning to commence, and that junk drawer in the corner of your kitchen isn’t the only thing that could use some sprucin’ up. The Internet is filled with clutter—from political rants on satirical news sites to therapeutic venting sessions in the comments section—sometimes meaningless commentary seems impossible to escape. But wait…there’s hope! Viacom recently launched a project that seeks to generate attention and incite change in regard to important social issues that are often ignored.

What’d they do?

Teaming up with Witness, a human rights organization co-founded by singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, Viacom released a series of PSAs titled, “Witness the Power of Story.” The subject matter of each PSA is catered to support each of Viacom’s networks (MTV, BET, Spike, VH1 and CMT) with a social good campaign. In order to have the most poignant impact, these campaigns resonate with each networks’ target audience:

  • MTV seeks to defy gender bias with their “Look Different” campaign
  • BET’s “What’s At Stake” campaign aims to inspire and empower African-American millennials
  • Spike raises awareness about veterans’ health issues with “Veterans Operation Wellness.”
  • Save the Music Foundation by VH1 is committed to keeping music education in public schools.
  • “Empowering Education” is CMT’s effort to improve rural education.

How’d they do it?

These aren’t your typical PSAs. You won’t see them on a poster, in a Facebook video, or the magazine in your doctor’s waiting room. Viacom has bigger plans. Instead, the media company is projecting astonishing and unbelievable (but unfortunately true) statistics, quotes and videos onto buildings in New York City.

 To all the ladies out there—have you ever been old “you’re too sensitive” or “you’d look prettier if you smiled?” MTV’s PSA is working to raise awareness of these stereotypes by projecting them around Manhattan. For BET’s PSA, a video is shown with the following statistic: “Stereotype: More black men are in prison than in college. Reality: Fifty-nine percent more black men are in postsecondary education than in jail.” Spike kept it short, but incredibly eye-opening with the statistic, “Twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day.”

All PSAs were strategically placed in order to increase their impact and relevance, such as VH1’s stats, which were shown on the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Similarly, Spike’s video about veterans’ health can be seen on an armory in Washington Heights. All the feels, am I right?

Why’s it matter?

Viacom’s ultimate goal is to generate awareness and make an impact; thus, feedback is fundamental to this project. At the end of each PSA, viewers are encouraged to visit the Witness.Viacom.com website to explore each networks’ initiative and upload their own photos, videos or stories using #story4change.

People have become blinded to the abundance of clutter we see on the Internet and social media every day. Score one for Viacom for the taking the initiative to put real problems in perspective for people every day with this engaging campaign.

 

SOURCE: http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/viacom-turning-nyc-buildings-billboards-combat-gender-and-racial-bias-170206

 

By now, we all know how essential social media is to a company’s success. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have been utilized in almost every way imaginable. In addition to these big three, numerous other different social media outlets are used for more specific uses and for different target audiences. In the past, Snapchat has had a reputation of being too casual of a platform for social media. But with more than 26 million users, companies are starting to realize that they should tap into the potential of Snapchat by embracing its unique qualities and its marketing potential.

The casual communication through pictures and videos that Snapchat promotes is something that marketers are learning to embrace. In fact, there are many benefits to using Snapchat as a creative way to reach target audiences.

PERSONALITY

Through Snapchat, companies can show their own personality and convey their identity through the photos and videos they share. Take, for example, the Food Network. Their Snapchat consists of short demonstrations of how to make food, articles on food news, recipe inspiration, and frequently features TV personalities who have their own shows on the network, like Katie Lee and Giada De Laurentiis.

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LIVE CONTENT

Snapchat also allows a personal component of the identities of these companies to shine through, offering behind the scenes footage for followers to view. MLS and NBA take part in this, just to name a couple. Sports have not just become a love for the game, but also for the players and associations involved, and through Snapchat, fans can engage more with the players and teams by watching live footage of their moments leading up to the big game.

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GEO-FEATURES

Snapchat offers a geo-feature that brands can take advantage of. The most recent to do this is IHOP, offering branded filters to use on pictures taken at the restaurant. IHOP’s VP of marketing explained their choice to do this, saying, “IHOP receives Snapchats from users every day, a lot of them taken while in our restaurant. Introducing customized filters was a great way to further engage with our guests and at the same time extend our brand message when they share that content with their friends.”

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Just like many of the popular social media outlets out there, Snapchat has become a part of life (millennial life, at least). In order for brands to be recognized, they are starting to realize they need to get creative and integrate themselves into the phenomena any way they can. And as users, we have to admit: (ba da ba da ba) we’re lovin’ it.

 

The topic of ad blocking has hit the main stream after a recent Apple iOS update began supporting it. As users embrace the option of skipping over advertisements and blocking them from their view, marketers are prompted to step up to the challenge.

 

Ad blocking has grown to cost the industry roughly $781 million a year – yikes. Big numbers. Luckily for some advertisers, they have found a way to use it to their advantage. Utilizing the feature on YouTube that allows users to skip an ad after 5 seconds, GEICO created a simple ad that only lasted this long. The campaign behind the ad: “You can’t skip this GEICO ad, because it’s already over.”

 

 

The Facebook advertising world also has a unique feature—auto play for videos. Hotels.com incorporated this into an ad and specifically designed it to run without sound, allowing user experiences to remain uninterrupted (for the most part).

 


As these pesky ad blockers continue to make their mark, marketers need to create ads that, as this Forbes article so aptly put it, “match the context of the site or app in which they appear.” Consumers don’t like to be interrupted, and ad blockers were created as a way out. That being said, there are ways that marketers can adapt to this new landscape in order to keep their ads from being blocked. Here’s our advice:

 

Be simple

The main reason that consumers dislike online advertisements is that they don’t like being interrupted. Pop-up ads block content and follow users through their web surfing experience. Marketers can avoid this by creating content that is simple and relevant to the user experience, limiting the disruptions and the all-too-frequent irrelevance.

Boost ads through social media

While ad blockers are designed to remove ads from the online experience, most social media channels remain peppered with ads. Ads displayed via Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter fit effortlessly into the platforms and are made an innocuous – though present – part of the user’s experience.

 

As ad blocking is relatively new, it is also relatively unrefined. To date, the feature is used to block out any and all advertising content. However, as the story goes, there is always room for improvement. And fingers crossed there’s room for us as ad-people, too.

‘Tis the season for giving and, on Giving Tuesday, Snapchat teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to donate up to $3 million dollars to (RED). Three “World AIDS Day” geofilters were created and for every picture that was taken with one, $3 was donated. On top of that, $1 million would be donated if a specific (RED) YouTube video were shared more than 330,000 times.


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[SOURCE]

 

“It feels good to put a cause-supporting filter on a social media post, but wouldn’t it be nice if those little tokens of support actually counted in real money?”-Mashable

 

This question made us think—WOAH. Promotion for charities has completely evolved with the help of social media. What used to be a very personal and voluntary act is now much more easily accessible, with just a simple click of a button.

 

This type of campaign is a two-way street, and that’s why brands love it. While the charity is gaining funds and exposure, the brand is self-promoting and supporting user interaction. In this way, the charity and the brand are both kept in the consumer’s mind.

 

Some of our clients have used this tactic and we think it’s great:

From November 3rd to December 25th, Garnet Hill is donating up to $15,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by giving $5 for every PJ party photo that is uploaded to Instagram with the hashtag #StJudePJParty.

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In October, Rockport Shoes donated $5 to Dress For Success for every post using #MyDailyAdventure and tagging @DressforSuccess, and the campaign raised $10,000 for the philanthropic organization, which provides interview suits and career development support to low-income women.

 

 

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The bottom line is that social media has helped charities become more accessible to consumers, and we can all be thankful for that. So, if you see campaigns like these, engage! It’s an easy way to do your part in giving during this holiday season.

Take a picture, edit it with a cool filter, and post it for all your friends to see your retro, high fidelity lifestyle. AdWeek has dubbed this the “Instagram Effect:” the filtered, structured, “Valencia” way of seeing life through Instagram’s oh-so deliberate lens. The impact has not only affected Instagram’s laymen users, it’s also had the same effect on brands.

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Brands are starting to realize the benefits of moving away from their more traditional, “perfect” photography for campaigns. Instead, they choose the more candid Instagram platform (however “filtered” it may be), which allows consumers to relate to the not-so-perfect portrayal of their product.

As industry veterans take cues from the contemporary social media landscape and its rampant transparency, they’re realizing that consumers are hyper-conscious of overly staged photography. The days of fake smiles and meticulously posed quasi-families eating cereal covered in Elmer’s Glue “milk” are perhaps over…

One of the many brands hopping on the bandwagon is Taco Bell. Their creative team, as of late, has focused more on realistic moments in time—such as friends eating tacos at the beach together—rather than overproduced, heavily styled food-tography. This tactic has great potential to ignite ethnographic relatability in Instagram-using consumers and, likewise, a touch of lifestyle envy and aspiration.

This sort of authenticity in advertising has become a very big part of the evolution of the new ad and marketing world. And as a social media platform, Instagram has become one of the top sites for major brands looking to capitalize upon this trend, allowing agencies to move away from traditional designs in favor of the very interface(s) their consumers use most.

So what makes an effective marketing photo in today’s Instagram world? Perhaps a simple shot of your food, edited with the Hudson filter, sharpened, brightened, structured and cropped. Just like the normal, consumer Instagram-er. Simple, on-brand, honest, and natural.

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In a gutsy move, Amazon.com recently attempted to tackle the beast of Black Friday with its highly touted “Prime Day”. This step in Amazon’s attempt for online domination convinced consumers to sign up for Amazon Prime, the company’s online-subscription shopping service. Subscribers were granted access to one-day deals on July 15th covering everything from designer clothing to in-demand electronics. So was Amazon Prime Day Christmas in July?

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Well… apparently not. Despite a 93% increase in U.S. sales, only 42% of social media mentions were positive. And we’re not talking about one or two tweets, people. CNN reports that Prime Day generated about 200,000 social mentions. People took to social media to display their frustrations about how all of the good deals sold out within seconds and what remained left a lot to be desired. (I mean, who doesn’t love waking up at 3:00 am for 15% off a VCR rewinder and dishwasher detergent?)

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What started out as a great plan to build Amazon Prime’s subscription base turned into a public relations nightmare and campaign mockery as people compared Prime Day to the futile Lady Edith from Downtown Abbey. The hike in sales was offset by people’s disappointment; it is safe to say that the motivation to get up for Prime Day 2016 will be frighteningly low. While the failure of Prime Day won’t be encouraging Amazon to close the program’s doors any time soon (Prime reportedly has millions of subscribers already), it sounds like they need some PR professionals to clean up their social media mess and build up some better hype for next year. I know of a certain public relations firm in Boston that could do the job…

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In 2008, Barack Obama won what came to be known as the “Facebook Election,” partly due to his campaign’s innovative use of social media. His opponent, John McCain, opted to stay off Facebook, Twitter, and other social channels, which may come to mark the last time in U.S. History that a presidential candidate decides against using social media.

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In the upcoming 2016 election, presidential candidates are focusing on social media more than ever before. Campaigns are even breaking ground on new platforms like Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Vine. Hillary Clinton, for example, is a front-runner in the democratic primary polls as well as in social media statistics. The Clinton Camp is extremely active online, and they have employed creative tactics to gain publicity and promote Hillary in a benevolent light.

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Recently, Humans of New York, a Facebook account followed by 14 million people posted a photo of a young, teary-eyed boy. The caption quoted the roughly nine-year-old boy expressing his fear of being disliked and rejected growing up as a homosexual. Within a couple hours, in an exemplary move to engage her social following on the basis of her campaign-relevant ideals, Hillary Clinton’s Facebook page had left a comment on the picture offering powerful words of encouragement for the boy:

“Prediction from a grown-up: Your future is going to be amazing. You will surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and the incredible things you go on to do. Find the people who love and believe in you – there will be lots of them. -H”

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Consider Donald Trump as another example. He has faced criticism for his unfiltered comments on Mexican immigrants and on John McCain’s military service. It is perplexing that Trump chooses to be so outspokenly opinionated when some of his unconventional views generate animosity. However, it is exactly this trait, the stark candidness of Donald Trump, which makes him dominant as a presidential candidate on social media.

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Trump is a powerhouse on Twitter, because he uses the website as it is intended; he tweets what he thinks exactly when he thinks it. Donald maximizes user engagement by avoiding glossy, carefully worded posts and instead tweeting jaw-dropping proclamations. Trump unapologetically broadcasts his passionate and controversial opinions, generating publicity with a style never before seen from a leading presidential candidate.

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Social media has transformed the way Americans can interact with politicians. Voters now have the opportunity to examine presidential candidates from more platforms than ever before. Hopefully, these new perspectives will help us decide whose leadership we truly believe in before it comes time to cast our vote.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” – President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 1962

In the 53 years since Kennedy’s legendary speech, NASA did indeed send men to the moon and completed various other missions, from Hubble to the ISS. However, public engagement with NASA has waxed and waned since the glory days of 60s space exploration, what with the agency’s Congressional budgeting debates, occasional but detrimental disappointments, and even questions of its fundamental merit and benefit to the nation.

NASA took a great leap in 2007, however, and forayed into another kind of dark unknown: social media. It joined Twitter that year as @NASA and Instagram somewhat later in 2013 with the same handle. The photos on all accounts are so stunning and the captions so detailed, that there is something for people with all levels of space enthusiasm, from scientist, to enthusiast, to photography fan.

Yesterday, July 14, 2015, at 7:49 AM, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully executed a Flyby of Pluto. This is, by all accounts, a milestone for the U.S., NASA, humanity, and is certainly an “other thing” that President Kennedy mentioned: New Horizons flew more than 3 billion miles and 9 years with the mission of snapping photos of dwarf-planet Pluto.

NASA stepped up their social media involvement in accordance with the event, sharing various photos, stats, videos, and quotes: the spacecraft has its own Twitter account, @NASANewHorizons, and the event has its own trending hashtag, #PlutoFlyby. Instagram and NASA even partnered up to ensure that the first publicly-viewed photo from the Flyby was shared on NASA’s account an hour before it was released on the agency website.

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This mission, more than any other, exemplifies NASA as a public fascination once again—complete with a refreshing and conversational personality, far removed from any stuffy impression it gave off in the past.

Some highlights of @NASA’s #PlutoFlyby social media strategy:

With #PlutoFlyby, NASA took a monumental and highly technical event, and molded it into something interesting, entertaining, and enjoyable for the entire world. In a time when celebrities and tabloid obsessions draw the public into their phones, NASA took digital and managed to not only engage us, but make us look out and back up towards the stars, just as we did in 1962.

That’s what I’d call social media savvy.

Be sure to click here for an infographic on #PlutoFlyby, and here or here for more detailed summaries on what the mission means for us.

More images just arrived yesterday from New Horizons; stay tuned to all NASA accounts for updates.

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Have you ever stood in the long line at Chipotle, breathing in the smell of freshly cooked meats and fajita veggies, as you eagerly await your chance to order? Maybe you discussed with a friend whether you planned to order a bowl, burrito, tacos or a salad, and which of the colorful ingredients you would add to your personalized meal. If you have done this, then you are a part of the incredibly successful word-of-mouth marketing web of Chipotle.

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Chipotle, the simple, fast-casual restaurant chain has experienced explosive growth over the last ten years. The company’s annual advertising budget has remained under $10 million, while Chipotle has outperformed the fast food giants that drop hundreds of millions on ads.

In its annual report, Chipotle describes how the focus of its marketing strategy is on consumer experience:

“[Our collective efforts] have helped us create considerable word-of-mouth publicity, with our customers learning about us and telling others, allowing us to build awareness with relatively low advertising expenditures, even in a competitive category, and to differentiate Chipotle as a company that is committed to doing the right things in every facet of our business.” [Source]

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Chipotle has achieved phenomenal publicity from its consumers up, with a few crucial ingredients:

  • Identifying young adults as the target market segment and crafting the image and culture of Chipotle around millenials’ values and dining preferences.
  • Offering an outstanding product that motivates consumers to share their positive experience and recommend the brand to peers.
  • Acknowledging evolving media, and focusing on modern marketing channels such as mobile and social, which have been more effective in reaching Chipotle’s target demographic.

Next time you find yourself recommending Chipotle to a friend, remember that its marketers owe you a ‘thank you’. Maybe on your next burrito the guacamole won’t cost extra.

[Source site]

 

 

If you are an avid Twitter user, then you already know that President Barack Obama has officially signed up under his own Twitter handle. It’s no surprise that his account, @POTUS, has already gained close to 2 million followers. His spontaneous jump to a personalized social media account has us questioning: Why now? What is there to gain from this? And of course: Is it really him?

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Obama took to Twitter on Monday to announce that the White House finally gave him his own account. Unlike the @BarackObama account, which is run by the Organizing for Action staff, Obama will be directly communicating under the @POTUS handle. Previously, Obama would sign his tweets that were released from @BarackObama and @WhiteHouse as “-BO”. Of course, both of those accounts took to Twitter to welcome Obama’s “irl” social presence.

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Although the President has immense resources for connecting to journalists and the media, using Twitter could serve as a platform to express his personal views to a new public audience. It also broadens both the public’s and the media’s engagement with his presence, allowing them to re-tweet him and to initiate digital conversations.

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Good or bad, President Obama is Twitter verified. And we can’t wait to read what witticisms he’ll come up with next.

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Every April, music lovers and fashionistas across the country have serious FOMO. Why? Coachella, of course! The two-week long music festival in the desert has become the place to be to experience music and amazing street style.

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Besides its great line-up, Coachella has also set the bar for event social media use.

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The festival has taken advantage of every channel possible to gain coverage and generate interest. Event wristbands link to guests’ Facebook accounts. As they check in at the various stages, their Facebook page will update with their location as well as which band they are seeing.

Snapchat has a continuous live stream of crazy videos and photos from concertgoers. Coachella even has photo booths around the property and, once a guest takes a photo, they can immediately upload it to their Facebook page with Coachella’s custom hashtags: #Coachella and #Coachellalive.

But the ultimate social outreach for music lovers that couldn’t make the trek to Cali? A live stream of every performance, free, on YouTube.

Besides Instagram and Facebook, the buzz that Coachella creates every year has permeated into other media outlets and brands. Blogs and fashion websites can’t wait to post photos of celebrity street style. In addition, clothing retailers have created full, festival-themed lines just for the occasion.

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Brands potentially have a lot to learn from Coachella’s massive media effort. If people love your event, a lot of the work will be done for you. There is no better coverage than what your guests create.