Brand Marketers: Big Events and Big Celebrities are Key to Big Awareness

A key piece of strategy for the in-house marketing team of any major brand is implementing a specific image for the public to consume. By aligning the brand with public figures with certain key values, brand marketers can feel sure that their brand stays salient and is exposed to their desired audience. While the focus here is on fashion, the prevalence of pop culture allows all industries to benefit from celebrity and event association.

Steph Curry's partnership with Under Armour has led to an increase in the brand's sales

Brands should understand the power that celebrities hold over consumers, especially because this has increased exponentially with the advent of social media. The New York Times highlighted the “Marketing Power of Sports Stars” in a feature under their Fashion/Style category that focused on professional athletes and their style ambassadorships. In particular, the article mentioned Roger Federer’s failure to rip his Uniqlo shirt during Wimbledon as “an incredible moment where the athlete was trying to express himself and Uniqlo’s quality almost gets in the way,” said Justin Kerr, chief merchandising officer and co-marketing director of Uniqlo U.S.A. “We couldn’t have planned it.” This vignette shows the benefit of having celebrity relationships with brands. Brands receive organic, wide-reaching exposure that sends a loud and clear message to consumers.

Similarly, major events that draw hundreds of celebrity attendees have become prime opportunities for brand marketing efforts. Bethany Biron in Digiday discussed the implications of Coachella, one of the largest music festivals in the world, as an event with “critical mass...that fashion designers and retailers are clamoring to cash in” on. Marybeth Schmitt, North America communications director for H&M, described the meaning that brands can find in such events: “the festival’s roots may be in music but it has transcended into a full fashion and lifestyle experience.” Labels are able to make branded content for the show, seen in the H&M promotional photo above, as well as leverage celebrity “endorsements” during the event to gain exposure to the wide range of audiences that consume news on Coachella fashion.

The following are ways to use insights on your target market to align your brand with consumable and digestible media:

• Choose one key event that draws audience members that would align with the core brand values. Which types of experiences does your intended market value? What kinds of events do they care about? And of these, which draw the most media attention, particularly media that they can consume and digest?

• Utilize celebrity endorsements that again align with the core brand values; have them post on their social media channels. Celebrities can be seen as influencers for every aspect of a consumer’s life. Proving your product’s worth to a single celebrity will encourage many of their fans (who most likely attempt to live according to similar values as specific celebrities, even unknowingly) to regard the product highly. While this essentially is a form of advertising, it is more valuable than standard advertising because it gives the impression of a personal recommendation.

• Promote using an integrated approach (similar to native advertising on internet) with the event/figure involvement. While events and celebrities are a good way to help the brand reach its market and strengthen its equity, this approach can be construed as overly orchestrated. Don’t use excessive hashtags or repost the exact same thing on every social media channel, as today’s consumers, who are both social media savvy and value brand honesty, will perceive it as a heavy-handed advertising attempt and will therefore disregard it.
  
  
  
  

Battle for the Social Screen: The Future of Facebook, YouTube, and You

As our culture moves quickly to video content over print, brands must face the reality that choosing the wrong video platform could make or break their future. Video content isn’t just a plus for a consumers; it has now become a requirement. Brands are expected to have hours of online video content from witty commercials to product demonstrations to “about us” films. From my experience studying Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University and my time at a digital agency, I have seen the incredible results video content can produce. However, these results can vary drastically if the right content is in the wrong place. Your need to determine where the best place for your content is or your brand could be left in the dust. 

Right now there are two key players in video content: YouTube and Facebook. YouTube is the historically dominant platform. It is the second largest search engine in the world and completely revolutionized video content. For most brands, this is where their content is being shown and uploaded. Advertising prices are cheaper and with YouTube’s immense user base, they are likely to be seen by more people. While YouTube may cheaper and bigger now, Facebook is on the rise. Facebook is growing its video capabilities and has three times more videos with over 1 million views. While it isn’t the go-to video platform (yet) and has fewer videos, more videos tend to go viral. This is partly because Facebook has more advanced targeting technology. This is partly why advertising comes at a premium cost six times that of YouTube.

The key difference between the two at the moment is the difference between YouTube’s skippable feature for advertisements and Facebook’s autoplay. Experts say while YouTube visitors are more likely to sit through an ad because they are there to watch videos, watching an ad on Facebook means they are signed into their account, which means you can learn a lot more about them. This means a view on Facebook gives far more information than one on YouTube. However, this information comes at a price. On Facebook you may end up paying for people who aren’t actively watching your ad, whereas on YouTube the skippable feature means you only pay for what people actually watch.

When it comes time to pick a platform you need to ask yourself these three questions:

• Which is more important to me, an accurate cost per view or accurate targeting?
•  What is the goal of this content? Just number of views or is there a call to action?
• Where is my audience now? Are they staying there or moving elsewhere?

If your organization is new to video and want to get the most bang for their buck, YouTube is the sensible choice. You can reach a big population of people and only have to pay for what they’re seeing. Because it is the more established video platform, more customers are more comfortable using it to interact with branded content. However, if your brand is has already conquered YouTube and is looking to create more dynamic content with greater results, Facebook is the way to go. With its elite targeting capabilities, its premium price will deliver premium results. The important thing is to keep experimenting. Not all campaigns will work for your go-to platform. Keep asking yourself those three questions and you will find the path to virality and video success.

           

I am film major turned advertising nerd who loves talking about life changing commercials and donuts. I am currently studying Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University and hope to pursue a career in advertising upon graduation. Follow me on Twitter @Emily_Ryles and see more of my work on my website. 

Attention Brand Managers & CMOs: 3 Tips on Leveraging Snapchat’s New Discover Feature for an Enhanced Customer Experience

As a Brand Manager, you know your high value markets are using social media and new messaging apps such as Snapchat to talk about you, your brands, and their experiences, all in real-time.
Snapchat’s new Discover feature that delivers curated content opens up new avenues for branded content. As a graduate student at Northwestern University in the IMC program and from my past work experience as a Marketing PR and Social Media strategist, I found two articles to support this topic, that I think you’ll find interesting.

The first article was one I found was Snapchat Adds News, Entertainment Content To Messaging Service on Business Insider, which originally appeared on Reuters. This talks about news from January 2015: Snapchat – the most actively growing social messaging service has partnered with CNN, ESPN, Yahoo, Warner Music and 7 other media companies to feature videos and articles on its cellular messaging service. The social messaging app views itself more as a blend between a media company and a messaging platform, and wants to position itself away from social media company by giving power to the editorial staff that chooses what public content the users see. This is interesting because the app is going the traditional route, choosing curated content over socially generated content, possibly lending itself more credibility by doing this.

Source: https://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/tag/tom-fishburne/

The second one I liked is an infographic followed by a write-up on The Shrinking Attention Spans of the humans by NBC News' Alexa Keyes (@alexa_keyes). Did you know that as humans, our average attention span is 8 seconds?! That of the average goldfish is 9 seconds! (National Center for Biotechnology Information: the U.S. National Library of Medicine)

This poses a great challenge to content producers and distributors. As marketers, we no longer have the luxury of time when it comes to making an impact!

Based on these two articles and on my grad-school learnings at Northwestern, here are 3 Action Items that all Brand Managers & CMOs should consider, given the volatile & dynamic media environment:

• Invest in Quality Content - Content is still King and customers will still invest their time if you give them a compelling enough reason to.

•  Provide An Experience - Let your audience take-away more than just a message.

• Leverage Celebrity Power - Get a celebrity to endorse your brand by taking over the Snapchat channel as a guest editor for a day. Offer sneak peaks & other exclusives!

Real-time engagement is the way to go, and with plummeting attention spans, marketers are not left with much time to make an impact. Leveraging Snapchat’s new feature may be the best way to reach out to primarily women, between the ages of 13-25, considering this demographic dominates Snapchat’s 100 million and growing user base.

Yashna Malhotra is a Masters student at Northwestern University’s Medill School, studying Integrated Marketing Communications. She is also pursuing a specialization in Media Management from Kellogg School of Business.

She is an experienced Social Media and Public Relations professional with three years of work experience with prestigious brands in the realms of hospitality, lifestyle, fashion and non-profit in Mumbai, India.

If you have a question or would like to connect, feel free to reach out to me:
Email: yashnamalhotra2015@u.northwestern.edu, 
Twitter: @YashnaIMC
Professional: Linkedin

Social Marketers: Lacking Brand Personality is a Recipe for Disaster

While the general need for social media presence has become widely accepted, do you, as a social marketer, realize the importance of your brand’s personality shining through? Providing personality through social marketing reinforces brand essence and increases interaction with and engagement of consumers. As a graduate student at Northwestern University Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications Masters Program, I have researched two informative articles on the value of personality in social marketing and have three recommendations to quickly inject your brand’s social media presence with character.

A boring social media footprint will not only fail to differentiate your brand, but it will also turn off customers. Social accounts are an opportunity to reinforce brand essence, generate buzz and go beyond the facts and figures presented in more formal corporate communications. According to Scott Martin at the Daily Egg, there are a variety of ways to infuse personality into a brand’s social media presence, but the focus should be on authenticity and personality that aligns with your branding efforts. Options range from developing a character like Dos Equis’ Most Interesting Man in the World or hiring a celebrity spokesperson to humanizing your CEO or publishing consumer testimonials.

One of the key components to the Social Marketing Compass is emotion/sentiment that brands’ social accounts elicit from customers one of the easiest ways to bring forth those elements is through a social-driven conversation using the brand’s distinct voice. (Graphic Source: Tier 10 Lab: Social Marketing Compass)

Simply utilizing social media as a way to recycle existing content is not doing anyone any favors. The content posted on social media should have a slightly different angle, appeal to a different audience and create a voice for the brand. Rather than simply posting links to existing website content, social media is an opportunity to integrate more creativity and humanize the brand. Jessica Doudrick from PA Media Group cites audience familiarity and quality content as key factors for integrating personality. Understanding who you are targeting, what they want to see and how they want to consume it are all crucial. Another tip Doudrick offers for audience engagement is to post content with questions to encourage conversation with consumers.

After reviewing Martin and Doudrick’s perspective, here are three actionable items that can be implemented quickly for effective social marketing, filled with personality and voice.

1.      Interact Regularly: Frequent interaction with consumers is key, as social media is a dialogue, not a monologue. Consider social presence to be instant and honest feedback from customers about what you’re doing well and where you have opportunities for improvement.

2.      Create Social-Specific Content:  Recycling and linking to existing content is nothing new and gives consumers no reason to follow your social accounts. Provide consumers with information they can’t get elsewhere on your platforms to grab their interest.

3.      Inject Humor and Creativity: No matter the product or services you’re selling, consumers appreciate creative content that makes them laugh, think, or scratch their heads. Don’t underestimate how smart your audience is; they’ll appreciate you keeping them on their toes.

As a social marketer, brand personality is crucial to set your brand apart. It reinforces the brand essence you strive for, gives consumers a reason to keep coming back and can help “create awesome.” In this media landscape, it is undoubtedly important to have a social media presence, but taking that one step further shows that having a distinct personality within that social media space is even more important.

Elizabeth Paige Fierman is a Master of Science Candidate in the Medill School’s Integrated Marketing & Communications program at Northwestern University. A New England native, Elizabeth has experience in collegiate and professional athletics, as well as sports media. She loves hockey, avocados and bright nail polish and can be found on Twitter (@EPFonIMC) and LinkedIn.

A beginners guide to Content marketing!

Content marketing is no longer a buzz word or a passing fad. Statistics show that 82% of the marketers who blog daily acquire customers from their blogs and that consumers feel more positive about about a company after reading custom content on its website. As an IMC student at Northwestern university, I have studied various aspects of content marketing and want to share with you 2 articles that I think do a great job of explaining the 'how' and 'why' of content marketing.

Pam Dayer in an article on socialmediatoday.com, does a great job of breaking down the steps involved in creating engaging content.

1-Define the audience and business goals. The first step in creating a content strategy is defining the desired outcomes and understanding the target customer. This step answers questions like- the need for content marketing, buyer personas, key motivators, the social media platforms they are on, etc
2- Plan the content marketing strategy. This includes managing the work flow - who would be responsible for content creating, and the content marketing calendar - when does the content need to be published.
3- Create, Publish, Promote. Content should be created in different formats, for each stage in the buying cycle and should be optimized for SEO and Keywords. The next step would be to publish the content through the company website, blog, you tube, social media like Facebook, twitter, Pintrest, etc. Finally we need to promote the content via- social media, social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, internal links, by managing comments and feedback and maybe through mass media too.
4- Analyze. It is very important to understand whether the published content is engaging customers and is helping us achieve the goals that were developed in step 1. Various media analytic tools can be used for this process. Performance can also be monitored using KPIs

Now that we know the steps involved in content marketing, lets look at a company that is doing a great job of reaching its customers through great content.
In 2013, as a part of its content marketing plan, Chipotle released a 3 min video called ‘The scarecrow’, which was a follow up to its immensely popular video, ’Back to the start’. As explained by Karlene Lukovitz of Mediapost.com, the video tells the story of a dystopian world in which a scarecrow is forced to work in an industrial food factory, the message being, ’cultivate a better world’. The Scarecrow” was also designed to serve as the trailer for a free iOS game that let players earn buy-one-get-one free (BOGO) deals from
Chipotle. Supported by a small online and mobile ad campaign, plus PR outreach that generated more than half a billion media impressions, the game — which delivers sustainability messages in a fun way — was downloaded 500,000-plus times by mid-October. The Scare crow video has had over 12.5 million Youtube views to date.

Link

Every aspect of Chipotle’s brands strategy, including content marketing is deeply focused on reinforcing and building awareness of the “Food with Integrity” brand mission that supports its core differentiation— its promise to deliver “fast” food that’s not only fresh, but from sustainable sources wherever possible. Chipotle continues to be the envy of much-larger chains and brands because of the massive exposure it enjoys, despite its super-lean measured-media budgets.’ While it increased ad spending a little in 2013, its marketing costs as a percentage of sales is only about 1.6%. Chipotle has also taken an unconventional approach to its first loyalty program- The Farm Team. Instead of the typical frequency-based BOGO rewards system, this invitation-only program builds engagement by using a gamification strategy, and rewarding members for learning about food sourcing by taking online quizzes, and for sharing the knowledge via social media. One of Chipotle’s latest content marketing initiatives is a sponsored-content, “Food for Thought” area, within The Huffington Post site, dedicated to “creating awareness about how food is grown, raised and prepared and the effects this system has on us.” The platform offers posts and articles from experts and knowledgeable consumers — along with links to Chipotle’s videos and apps.

So how can you, as a marketer, learn from Chipotle's success and create a successful content marketing plan? Here are 3 action items to get you started-

• Create content marketing goals and KPI. The goals should look at content marketing as a strategy and not as a short term tactic.

• Get the buy in. Content marketing cannot be a success unless it resonates as a strategy throughout the organization. Make sure that the decision makers agree with your plan. 

• Create a content publishing calendar: Plan your content marketing strategy to reflect who will be working on content creation and when. 

As evident by Chipotle’s marketing success, content marketing is a great way to engage with customers in the long run. A well thought out content marketing plan can be as effective, if not more, than advertising, in moving customers through the purchase funnel and in helping them build a lasting relationship with a company.

Kavita Jain is currently working on her Masters in Integrated marketing communications at Northwestern university. With a keen interest in Digital marketing and Analytics, she is constant trying to make sense of the ever changing world of Digital marketing. You can follow her on twitter at @jainkavita and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/kavitajain/.

Why Vine could be the next big thing for brands

For CMOs, new social technologies present an opportunity to gain unique strategic advantages in their market. As a master’s student in the Northwestern Medill IMC program, we study new social media and have found Twitter’s short form video application, Vine, to have interesting marketing capabilities. In spite of the app’s January porn snafu, Vine became the #1 free app on the U.S. App Store within three months of its launch. With Twitter’s advertising capabilities gaining credibility and Vine developing momentum, Vine is positioned to become a valuable branding tool.

Across the web, mobile video and content marketing are on the rise, and AllTwitter’s Shea Bennett argues that these trends bode well for the future of Vine marketing. Bennett notes that mobile video is expected to represent 66% of global mobile traffic by 2017, up from 51% in 2012. For marketers, this growth category presents a great opportunity. In fact, 87% of advertisers already use video for content marketing.

Infographic Source: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/vine-marketing_b39141

VP of Marketing at Skyword, Patricia Travaline, makes the case for content marketing, noting that consumers today are exposed to around 3,000 brand impressions each day and their average attention span is 8 seconds. Travaline’s “Three S Model” for content marketing dictates that marketers need to create searchable, snackable, and shareable branded content if they want to actually impact consumers. In other words, successful content marketing must speak to relevant trends, make an impression quickly, and compel consumers to spread the content.

With mobile video and content marketing on the rise, six-second videos may be the ideal vehicle for attention grabbing, entertaining brand messaging. Some fearless brands have already made good use of the platform and are developing ‘best practices’ for future Vine marketers (see the "Tweaser" and the “#ComedyFest”). From my examination of these articles and my studies at Northwestern, there are three action items you should implement if you venture into Vine branding. They are:

1) Tell a relevant story - If your Vine doesn’t have an arc, then it’s simply a moving Instagram. If your arc doesn’t matter to your target consumer, then you’re wasting your efforts.

2) Engage in a conversation - Use a Vine hashtag. Allow users to upload their own Vines. Create branded Vines to respond to your followers.

3) Share and Track - Don’t expect all of your fans to find your post on Vine. It is still very new. Vine’s can be embedded onto any website, so share it elsewhere to increase viewership, and track across all platforms to determine what content sticks.

Melissa Channick is a recent Northwestern graduate and current master’s student in Northwestern’s Medill School studying Integrated Marketing Communications. She is passionate about discovering consumer insights and is looking forward to starting a career in digital marketing strategy upon graduation in August 2013. Follow her @Mchannick

What Chief Content Creators can learn from TV Development

Creating captivating content for a brand isn't as hard as it looks - just flip on your television sets and watch some factual programming. As a television development manager, I've always found that what's true is what rates, and brands can use this knowledge to leverage compelling content for all their channels. By putting aside traditional marketing scripts and finding the truth behind your brand, content will drive value.

In a recent Fast Company article, “How Chief Content Officers Can Resurrect Marketing Communications, the idea of creating “not boring” content was hailed as a revolutionary idea. As with most flashy new buzzwords in marketing, the article focused a lot on the “why” and very little on the enigma that is the “how-to.” So, if you’re one of those C-suites that they were talking about in the article and are still scratching your head – I’m here to fill in the gaps.

As a television and film development manager I have often found myself on corporate websites/social media for products and brands thinking how they missed the mark with corny or cliché content yet again. To better understand content creation and how to apply this mindset, the basic tenants of my own job should be explained; it’s one part journalist, one part subculture interloper, and one major part storyteller. If you can encourage those on your content team to think in this mindset, you will captivate your audience.

• Journalist: Scripted is unbearable if done badly, and that happens more often than not. If there is an opportunity for your company/brand to tell a real story with real characters and real drama, conflict, and story arc, tell that story! The kind of content that touches the most emotional side of an audience does not come with airbrushing and professional lighting.

• Subculture Interloper: I’m not talking tattoos and anarchists – what I mean is the sub-communities and pre-existing cultures that are worth exploring. Your team can find these by exercising a healthy sense of curiosity, meeting as many new and different people as possible, and even asking friends and family about their lives. Content about subculture isn’t limiting the audience to that particular group – quite the opposite, the most powerful content transcends demographics, and can speak to any viewer.

• Storyteller: At the end of the day, you have to remember your content is only as powerful as the story behind it. This content shouldn’t sell the consumer on a product; it should act as a conduit that pushes a consumer into a mindset, whether that’s inspired or infuriated - that is up to you as the storyteller to convey. Once you’ve primed your customer, bring in the marketing side and give them a way to take action based on that story.

Don’t just try to be “not boring,” try to be authentic, true, and daring in your content. Don’t hire just marketing professionals, look to journalists, writers, and film people to add to your mix. If you follow those steps, real content can turn into real business. 

Meghan Cassin is a part-time graduate student pursuing a M.S. in Integrated Marketing & Communications  at Northwestern University. Meghan began her career in television development for National Geographic Channel and is currently at Siskel/Jacobs Productions.

Follow Meghan on Twitter or LinkedIn