Mythology - The Meaning Behind the Marketing

Whopper Sacrifice: Monetizing Facebook and Other Social Networks

Facebook is one of the most powerful marketing tools developed to date on the Internet. The willingness of people to post their personal and career-related interests and activities and share them with both their network of friends and the Facebook advertising engine is quite amazing.

The ability to target not just on demographics but on psychographics is impressive. However, like many new marketing tools that arise quickly on the scene, the platform is ripe for misuse and disappointment.

Although plastering a well-targeted banner ad next to a targeted user's profile is certainly better than plastering one on an untargeted page, it's still not exactly enough to generate significant ROI. For example, whereas a pay-per-click link on Google's search engine is "double qualified" because the person is actively searching for your keyword, Facebook's targeting does not capture those "in market" users who are actively looking for your type of product or services.

Facebook users are there to socialize. What is more annoying than trying to be sold something while you're socializing?

That's why the most effective Facebook marketers know that in order to effectively market on Facebook and other social media sites, you must understand and commit to the concept of "community." What is community? While scientists and Wikipedia posters debate the exact definition, one thing is for sure about online communities: it's a group that has voluntarily come together around a common interest or affinity.

Sometimes that interest is buying stuff, but rarely. More commonly, a marketer must understand what common interests are worthing tapping into, and then decide how to add value to that community vs. distracting it with a pitch. You can add value through information, enabling people with common interests to find each other (a major benefit of any community) or humor, among others.

Unless you are a brand with inherent community-building appeal, or have established a cult-like following already, you may not want to start with a "fan page". Instead, think of a cause or topic related to your brand that you could build a community around. For example, if you're a hybrid car manufacturer, sponsor a "green motoring" group. You'll attract far more people while gaining credit in the community for building on this topic.

Another way to generate interest, buzz and action is to address the social network in terms that are relevant and contextual to the situation. Burger King's Whopper Sacrifice campaign is a good example in which they challenged users to delete ten of their friends in order to get a free Whopper. It was humorous as well as effective. In fact, perhaps it was too effective from Facebook's point of view, but Burger King is craftily keeping the buzz going by offering to help you send an angry-gram if you were de-friended over a hamburger.

Here is my steam-release angry gram to "Brandie."

Connecting Offline and Online Social Network Efforts

With the flurry of growth around social media, it's easy to forget a critical strategic rule of marketing: make all of your marketing channels work together to build a bigger impact.

Integrating media campaigns took quite a while back in the late 90's and early 00's as companies and agencies set up separate Internet advertising teams outside of their mainstream advertising/marketing groups. As social media campaigns ramp up, I hope we've learned to think about integration from the start.

We humans are social creatures, a trait that Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others are successfully exploiting. However, there is still a difference between a virtual connection and an in-person meeting. The more senses engaged, the more memorable and meaningful it is to our minds and emotions.

Here in Charleston, WV, where I reside, we have an active group of Tweeters who meet each other in Tweet Ups at the local coffee shop. The in-person meetings have really solidified who I'm interested in following and how closely and influence my ongoing conversations. It's always a blast to compare a person's "live" personality and vibe vs. what you derived from their Tweets.

We advise clients to consider the customer purchase funnel: What aspects of online social media can fill the top stages of the funnel, and how can offline social efforts (sports marketing, entertainment, conferences, seminars, etc.) activate the relationship towards the next step towards purchase?

Name Brands Beginning to Knock Off Store Brands?

I've noticed lately that some major national consumer brands such as Sierra Mist and Tropicana have switched their packaging lately. However, instead of setting them apart as premium "name" brands, they seem to be mimicking the store brands that have eaten up so much of their market share.

What do you think?

• Old Sierra Mist
• New Sierra Mist

• Old Tropicana
• New Tropicana

Several others seem to have noticed this direction. We'll see how the wisdom of this strategy plays out.

It's common knowledge that store brands have eaten up market share at rapid rates, putting name brands in a tough position. We blogged earlier about how name brands have to make a commitment to differentiation in order to compete and maintain their premium price levels.

However, are these major "brands" testing how a "ceding strategy" might stem their losses, or just simply trying to simplify their design?

Begin With PowerPoint in Mind

PowerPoint presentations have taken a lot of flack lately, but mostly because there are so many people who don't present well and abuse the concept of the presentation slide.

By the way, in case you haven't seen this hilarious and spot on video of how NOT to use PowerPoint:

But that doesn't take away the fact that a compelling presentation (yes even one that uses PowerPoint effectively) is a great indicator of whether you have a very strong value proposition and brand-building story.

I was thinking of the connection between great presentations and great brand-building this morning during a client presentation. Before we pitched our "stuff", we spent an appropriate amount of time really building up the need for our services. We talked about how the world of marketing has changed, how the consumer has changed. We talked about the shift from a megaphone-based approach to a conversation-based, community-building approach. And then we outlined how we could help the client get there.

It worked.

Then I got to thinking about how much our own web site needs to improve, and the rest of our marketing. And the reality is that the foundation of marketing our services is in the presentation that we gave today.

Here are some of the best presentations ever given. Think about how they could be foundations for building a brand around these ideas. And dust off your presentation slides to see if you're articulating a powerful value proposition.

What are the Marketing Implications for Microsoft's Tag Mini-App?

Good to see my old company Microsoft generating some buzz with their second iPhone app called Tag. It's also good to see my old company building code for competitive platforms.

Tag "transforms traditional offline media into live links to online information and entertainment" by rendering an image that can trigger an action, such as launching a web site, when it's read by the iPhone app. Check out a little video here for the concept.

The integration of offline with online has been the holy grail of advertising and marketing circles since the Internet took hold in the Nineties. Tag brings together mobile, the web and print in a unique way.

For a quick example of how it can be used, download the Tag app for your phone and snap our first Mythology tag:

 

At Mythology we're planning on piloting some viral marketing efforts using this technology. Give us a shout at [email protected] if you're interested in brainstorming some ideas for your organization.