Why is a strategy more important than a tactic?

The fizzy soft drink with mixed fruits; Vimto, changed from cordial to carbonated in recent years- probably the reason for them undergoing this new crazy and fun brand personality. Well it definitely suits them. Everything about the brand has improved including their social interaction.

Customers can now play games on their website, tweet Vimto consumption in real time, and have Vimto’s humorous jokes updated on their Facebook news feed. All of which help engage their audience into liking the brand, and once a person likes Vimto, they become more assertive and more likely to say ‘yes’ to the products. 

For example, Vimto’s latest Facebook update is likely to make consumers laugh. By doing just that they are thinking good thoughts about Vimto, and when they think drink, they are likely to associate it with Vimto. It really does depend on how persuasive a brand is with their social content.

However, after returning home from work this evening I was surprised to find a new approach from Vimto. Direct mail with the print ‘Get your FREE squash’ and all you have to do is leave the bag outside your door with your house number on it’. Is this persuasive communication?

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for promotional giveaways, in fact I recently blogged about Starbucks and how giving away freebies is a great way to manage customer relationships. We all feel exclusive with a freebie, but as a marketer I don’t think Vimto have considered if this tactic is going to produce positive response, and above all a relatively enduring attitude.

Straight away I checked Vimto’s online channels- to find out more, but it has not been advertised which to me is strange. If this was a marketing strategy surely the brand would have considered diverting traffic to their website, Facebook & Twitter to become everlasting customers? Or even take the name and number for the purpose of their database and send each person future e-mails?

I sound like an absolute bore who is not at all impressed with a free bottle of squash, which is not the case, I know what Vimto are trying to achieve and it could potentially work, but I am thinking along the lines of a marketer not a consumer. This is a great example of a tactic and not a strategy.

 It is quite difficult for any brand to target potential consumers at their home and expect a positive enduring attitude straight away. A brand needs to motivate the consumer and give them a message to think about. Without this push people will resist the kindness- in the same way I did. Or perhaps I was unmotivated towards Vimto because I did not have a chance to 'like' the brand and gain credibility towards the brand?

What do you think about this 'Free squash'. Tactic or strategy?

Join the picture day for future generations

The Swedish non-profit foundation ADAY.org have created a campaign on May 15th to encourage us to photograph our daily lives.

ADAY.org supports scientific research and education centred around the photographic image and written word. Their new campaign sure does inspire creative reflections on humanity.

On this one single day they ask you to pick up your camera to help them photograph 'daily life'. Anyone can join for a wider perspective. All images will be displayed online and some will even be selected for a book 'A day in the world' to be published October 2012.

If you love photography and you have something to say about your life get involved and inspire generations to come.

Click here to join now.

Pepsi launches digital dashboard as a pop culture news source

Pepsi Pulse, a social media interactive board on www.pepsi.com, went live yesterday morning for Pepsi's new global campaign "Live for now".

The ambitious new social platform 'Pulse' is a real time board that aims to pull pictures, tweets and news items from filtered sources. The stream will come from the '#NOW' and '#LIVEFORNOW' hashtags, to update the board with 'now' moments based on social popularity. If it's now its on pulse!

As a result of this Pepsi; a brand who has often associated themselves with live music and events, will attract and advertise their website through messaging, which in effect will direct traffic to their site. Pepsi Pulse aims to be a major player in conversations relating to music and entertainment.

“Pepsi Pulse is a cheat sheet for pop culture,” Shiv Singh, global head of digital for PepsiCo Beverages, told Mashable.

Consumers can find pop culture news on Pepsi pulse- but will the digital platform continuously engage and encourage repeat visits to www.pepsi.com?

Pepsi is among a multitude of companies buying into social media's ability to strengthen their brands. They have even got endorsement deals with Nicki Minaj who can potentially influence her 10 million followers when she tweets something about music #NOW. 

Will you be tweeting pop culture news #NOW on Twitter? 

Nicki Minaj's song 'Moment for life' will be included in the campaign's first commercial on 7th May.

Freebies work!

Great product marketing from Starbucks today! 

Go and introduce yourself on Wednesday 14th March and they will introduce you to the new standard of Latte absolutely FREE!

The power of this promotional freebie gives Starbucks creditability in customer relationship management. We as consumers get excited with freebies and we feel exclusive and special that we are likely to become loyal customers down the line. We could become obligated to pay Starbucks back.

Although free Latte's are costing Starbucks- it is actually saving them millions that might otherwise be spent on  less-effective marketing and advertising schemes.

As mentioned in the video: 'Everything is becoming impersonal nowadays. We have become usernames, reference numbers and IP addresses.' 

Go get your Free Latte!

Freedom of tweet

Although the concept of super injunctions took place in the 80’s, their technological existence only took place a decade ago. Today commercialized stories and numerous publications fill the internet which made it necessary for the ‘Freedom of tweet, Censorship, Government, Marketers and the law’ event to take place during London’s social media week.

Ryan Gigg’s story about Twitter proves the challenge that we are facing in the legal framework. Although Gigg’s phoned his lawyer to stop information coming out on him in the attempt to protect his family, news still escalated around Twitter, and stories were still published in newspapers around the world and in Scotland.

When Gigg’s tried to stop the stream of gossip international laws made it difficult to do so as Twitter has no presence within the UK. What this means is that we are moving away from an era of print media and publishers (which could withhold information on celebrities with super injuctions) to a modern day era where we have to believe all types of different shapes and colours of opinion.

This is the challenge we are facing. Everyone can be a publisher and how successful they are depends on what they write. Everyone has a voice within the social sphere so it is difficult for the law to determine if tweeters are breaching the court orders or if in fact they are just generating a conversation?

It has become so difficult for the law to move quickly enough and keep up with online developments to resolve the cases involved with it, that instead of advising celebrities to take out a super injunction and guarantee amenity, they should advise PR expertise to help generate good news. We cannot stop people talking.

Since the London riots, there has been adequate legislation put into place to address the challenges that are coming out, but the main challenge seems to be the Judiciary. They are not literate enough to understand Twitter and they do not know when to treat it as a joke or as a serious issue.

What we as publishers should consider is that we are in a generation where we need to stay in-the-know. If the UK government had adopted the Egypt internet censorship legislation during the riots would we have been happy? The answer is probably not.

All of us rely upon citizen journalism and information from various sources that we need freedom of speech on the internet.

However, as Twitter continues to grow internationally, the UK government have decided to filter tweets, in order to withhold content from users in specific countries. What do you think about filtering tweets? Do you think this regulation causes underlying concern for freedom of speech?

Kitkat's ' £6m 'choose a chunky champion' campaign...

I was really impressed with Kitkat's latest TV advertisement which promotes the 'choose a chunky' campaign.

Kitkat have created 4 new LIMITED EDITION flavours and are asking consumers to vote their favourite flavour to stay permanantly. This is such a tactful campaign in encouraging existing customers to purchase all flavours before they vote, and it offers the opportunity to attract additional customers.

What the Kitkat brand have done here is engage consumers via TV advertisement and accustomed them to have their say via social media, therefore it is directing consumers to their Facebook page, which in effect is likely to cause more 'likes' and more interaction with the other Facebook posts.

Graham Walker, Nestlé UK Trade Communications Manager, said:

“With consumers increasingly looking to have their say in the future of their favourite brands, the Kit Kat Choose a Chunky Champion event is well timed."

The voting will close and the new chunky edition will be collated on the 24th February! Get Voting: http://www.facebook.com/kitkatuk

What do you think about the campaign? Is crowdsourcing the future for brands?

When hashtags go wrong!

The #McFail

McDonalds recently launched their Twitter hashtag campaign ‘#Meetthefarmers’ in the hope to promote the company’s fresh produce and meat. The fast food chain took the campaign to a wider consumer market with the hashtag ‘#McDstories’. Unfortunately for Mcdonalds tweetsville soon hijacked their original tweet and re-branded ‘#McDstories’ with their less favourable experiences.

  

McDonalds hashtag is a brilliant example on the bad effect social media can have on a brand if they are not carefully planned. ‘#McDstories’ lost control within one hour, which suggests McDonalds did not consider that they are a company that strongly divides opinion and not everyone likes their food. It is not about their brand- but their consumers.


This is #Nuts!

The same can be said about the Mars owned chocolate bar Snickers, who yesterday sponsored the hashtag ‘#hungry’ for the reason they want to highlight ‘Your not you when your hungry’. But how well did this hashtag trend on Twitter?

When Snickers hijacked Katie Price’s Twitter account it had her 1.5 million followers wondering if she had been hacked! With recent issues in the NOTW (See here) about phone hacking this PR stunt could have gone terribly wrong. Luckily for Snickers they did not generate negative tweets about their brand. 

It just goes to show that when a brand sponsors a hashtag they cannot be controlled, and it can quickly turn into a PR disaster.

What are your thoughts on #hungry and #McDstories? PR fail or success?