Current clients and recent projects include: Plascon, Johnnie Walker South Africa, J&B West Africa, Johnnie Walker Africa, kulula.com, Steri Stumpie, Capitec Bank, Europcar and Sanlam.
Society is part of the King James Group.
This is how we promoted the launch of the new 1 litre Steri Stumpie. A number of bloggers and friends of the brand were contacted and invited to an “exclusive” launch party. And then we turned up with this giant shipping crate…
Last week was pretty interesting in King James and Society with first kulula and then Santam going supernova online. (Disclaimer: We were very involved in the former and only a very little in the latter campaign so these are just observations from my perspective - Dan).
To give you an idea of the scale of things:
kulula’s Fourth Wife Flies Free was released (initially via a press release issued by Atmosphere) on a Friday PM and had been picked up the news wire SAPA/AFP within 45 minutes. By the time we got home there was early coverage on websites as far as the Malaysia and Twitter was abuzz. Since then its been covered by most major news outlets in SA and globally has hit Good Morning America, USA Today, Fox News, New York Post, Huffington Post and Daily Mail amongst many other places.
In the other example Santam’s response to Nando’s spoof of their ad trended on Twitter in SA within an hour of being released and stayed amongst the top stories for the next few days. It also attracted substantial media coverage almost immediately. The YouTube clip was viewed 186,000+ times.
These are our observations on what went down and what it means:
- Things move very, very quickly. Once released both stories spread uncontrollably at a very rapid rate. The story of course totally ignore normal office hours… (what used to take days that then took hours now takes minutes)
- Everyone involved (agency, client, partner agencies) need to move very quickly to spot opportunities and release content before the story moves on. It’s easy for anyone that’s stuck in 24 hour approval periods and normal working processes to get left behind (and become irrelevant). Santam is a good example of the story changing rapidly as it mutated as different parties reacted.
- What goes viral is the idea, the content (ads, video, press releases) just give people tools to package and share the idea in different ways. You can’t say either campaign was an ad or social or viral. It was all of this and something else that’s more hard to define. Consumers may not interact with all of the content: they may just see one piece or they may bounce between several pieces (even just a tweet for example).
- Twitter was really the engine of viral spread, many media and bloggers etc picked the stories up from the massive amount of tweets and as more media broke more articles were shared creating a snowball effect. There is a close link between traditional journalists and viral buzz as each “traditional” media hit resulted in a flurry of social sharing.
- One of the first steps was thinking of people that could most effectively get this snowball rolling and giving them the tools to tell the story in their own way (e.g. put the ad on youtube before it was aired in Santam’s case).
- In the case of kulula events forced us into releasing the story on a Friday afternoon (pretty much suicide in PR 1.0 times) but because of the speed of online coverage this didn’t hold back the story at all which peaked over the weekend and was dying down by the start of the next week.
- Facebook probably had a more under the radar spread which is harder to track via sharing on personal pages (although we tracked plenty of activity on the kulula page I suspect only a small part of the activities audience ended up there).
- In both cases traditional advertising space was booked but used 24 - 48 hour after the story launched. These had relatively low reach (for TV/Print campaigns) but the act of booking media space gives a credibility to the activity that a purely online response maybe lacks (the ads act as a public statement and commitment to the story).
We’ve just hit the road with a rather un-traditional launch party for Steri Stumpie who are bring out a (long asked for) 1 Litre bottle. It arrives in what looks like a shipping crate and transforms into a launch party for one on opening (in one of three themes including beach, space and disco). It’s being delivered to bloggers and other friends of Steri over the next few days.
A case study on the work we did last year for Capitec Bank with our friends in Atmosphere, Switch, Punk (then called Mnemonic) and Hammer. One of the things we were most proud of doing in 2011.
A little something we’ve been working on with King James and Atmosphere this week. Click on the photo to have a read of the ad…
This is what the press release said
kulula launches 4th wife flies free offer
Larger families to get helping hand into the skies with a uniquely South African offer
Jo’burg, 20 April 2012: South Africa’s favourite low-fare airline kulula.com has achieved yet another world first with the launch of a discount for families with multiple wives. The offer is a uniquely South African response to pressures faced by larger families during these turbulent financial times. Inspired by regular VIP travellers with sizeable spousal entourages, the offer is open to all fourth wives when the family travels together on the Jo’burg to Cape Town route.
The offer was launched today with a nationwide campaign in newspapers and online. Whether it’s for the honeymoon or not, the happy quintet can fly three and get one for free until the end of April 2012.
“kulula.com is constantly seeking to innovate and find ways to help South Africans zip around the South African skies for less. We believe that a family that flies together, stays together, so lending a helping hand with a free flight for fourth wives is a great way to bring (often needed) harmony to bigger households” says Heidi Brauer, Executive Manager: Group marketing kulula.com.
The husband and wives will qualify for a refund on the fourth wife’s ticket upon the presentation of a sworn affidavit and ID documents at a kulula.com customer service desk before departure.
Full details and terms and conditions are available from www.facebook.com/iflykulula.
Our Ketchup flavoured Steri Stumpie announcement trended on Twitter yesterday (in SA) and picked up a massive response on Facebook. It seems there are a few people out there who really wanted it to be true - sorry guys.
We did an internal show and tell to the King James Group earlier this week. These are the slides for your viewing pleasure.
Some people see SXSW as the place to spot the next big thing in social media (Twitter and Foursquare both used it as launch pad into the mainstream) however the real value for me is in the cross-pollination of ideas that happen. The event attracts not only tech and social geeks but also music, film, foodie, marketing and fashion geeks (and yes if you’re not a geek before you arrive you officially are one when you leave).
The really interesting thing is seeing how ideas from different industries and cultures bounce around. It’s also fascinating as a social media marketer to see inside the headspace of the people creating the platforms we use for storytelling and communication on a daily basis.
These are some more things that caught my eye/thoughts:
The most interesting social/tech people aren’t tech people
Some of the most inspiring people at SXSW stumbled into using digital/social media whilst they were trying to do something else and found it a great way to tell their story or market their business.
Some examples:
The Twitter Betty Draper is a (i assume traditional background) copywriter who was curious about the storytelling abilities of Twitter check out Adbroad.com.
Anthony Bourdain is used to making career jumps (chef>novelist>food writer>TV presenter>transmedia type person) and is using Twitter, Tumblr and other social channels to fill in the gaps between shows.
There there are a bunch of other foodies using social channels to support their small businesses in Brooklyn: @fleishers, @onegirlcookies, @luckypeach, @brooklynbrewshop, @momomilkbar
It’s about storytelling first and technology second
A point illustrated by the guys above is that the best campaigns and work comes when the focus in on telling a compelling human story rather than just finding a gimmicky way to use technology. This was a continued theme retold by everyone from cookie makers to Intel (their focus is on curating stories about how people use their products not so much the product themselves).
A great example is Google’s Project Rebrief which re-imagines campaigns from decades past for the digital era with some really innovative results. Watch out for a documentary on the project from the same director as Art & Copy shortly.
Think before you jump onto the next bandwagon
A related point and one that came up several times was that too many people jump onto the next trendy social media platform without thinking through how it will be used or what they really have to say on it. Pinterest was picked on as the example that social media marketers are getting pressured to use (personally think there are some good opportunities there but does require thought and commitment before using it). On the flipside of this argument if you can be an early adopter and use a new channel in an innovative way you can capitalize on the buzz surrounding it (Burberry used as an example of a brand that regularly does this).
The results of cross-pollination
As I started this post by saying cross-pollination is one of the key strengths of SXSW compared to other events (such as Cannes). One of the important areas of crossover is happening for me is the web start-up scene and ad agencies (also the Maker scene and advertising as Deep Local illustrate nicely). Movements/schools of thought which began in the web start-up scene such as Lean Start-ups and Agile development are now being used to describe new ways of approaching advertising. Both of these could have a profound impact on how marketing is approached in the digital age.
More?
Most of the usual suspect social/web blogs have covered SXSW but also worth looking at is Slideshare which have many of the presentations.
- Dan -
It’s a damp start to SXSW in Austin, Texas. After about 28 hours travel (via London and Houston) I hit the convention centre early yesterday. As expected it’s pretty much the centre of geekdom on earth.
Here are 10 things I picked up from Day 1:
1: The impressive marketing guys are running small agencies and have non-traditional backgrounds (e.g. performance arts in the case of the CEO of DeepLocal). I guess they can move quicker than larger agencies. But then i’m biased on this…
2: The same guys also make a point of hiring people with more than just an ad background. “If you hire a guy that only has ads on his CV then you’ll most likely only get ads out of them.”
3: Brands as Patterns was my first panel (and an excellent one to start with). They made a good point on the frequency of contact social media requires (almost always on flow of content and responses) and the difficulty of trying to turn singular big ad ideas into ongoing activity. Sounds familiar…
4: Same panel used music mnemonics as an example of how to create more effective marketing strategies: find an effective riff but then find ways to vary it (again the typical ad campaign pounds the same riff over and over again with the end result boring the consumer).
5: I quote from the programme “Brands are no longer definitive. They are temporal. Brands are informed by multiple voices and exist in multiple contexts. To succeed in a more agile world, a brand needs to think less about defining a fixed identity amd more about creating coherent flexible patterns that respond to the user.”
6: Highlight is one of darling apps of the conference. It is part of a new wave of ambient social media services. It basically scans your Facebook profile and as people you share things in common move into your vicinity it makes a virtual introduction. Interesting, but being British I find the idea of introducing myself to strangers i’ve stalked on an app unappealing. Also in a conference like SXSW someone with thing in common walks past almost every minute. Not sure how I see this moving into the mainstream…
7: I’ve being using Lanyrd (and the official sxsw app) to pick sessions. Definitely a cool service for those attending or running conferences.
8: Check out the work of Deeplocal - well known for Chalkbot but they’re far from a one trick pony. Describe themselves as a post-digital agency (see point 1)
9: Also have a look at Duncan/Channon a smallish agency in San Francisco producing interesting work (and creating a great company culture… see also point 1 and 2)
10: Don’t say Cheers when you hand a bill over to Americans they assume it means all the change is a tip…
The hashtag is #sxswi if you want to be flooded with millions of tweets about the conference.
This is well worth a watch to give an overview of how to use the new Facebook Brand Pages.
Certainly something we’re excited about as it opens up alot of creative space to play with.
The team attended (via the power of the web) the Facebook Marketing Conference. There are some big changes already launched and more on the way. This is our guide to some of what’s new for brands (follow the links for much more detail):
New Timeline brand pages
On March 30, 2012 all Brand Pages worldwide will be upgraded to the new layout and your new Page design will be visible to the public. The changes can however be made immediately if you’re feeling bold.
Brands really need to consider the new impact that images will play in the new Facebook Timeline design. The most obvious change is the cover image (think of it like a magazine cover rather than an ad). But also consider that images are now much more prominent in the Timeline.
The Timeline can also be used to communicate content right back to the founding day of the brand.
One of the big changes is that tabs can no longer be the default landing page for a Page, users will see the Timeline Page as their first port of call. A good example of the new design is Ben and Jerry’s page
See also a complete guide to setting up the new page design
New ad formats
The ad formats previously used by Facebook are being dropped completely in favour of content led ads. Page post ads (which have been available for the last month or two) basically turn one of your newsfeed posts into a sponsored story. This focuses brands on producing engaging content rather than applying traditional ad thinking.
One of these optional placements will be at the new “logout experience” page, immediately after Facebook users log out of Facebook. These ‘log-out’ ads will be available in April.
The first video from our Speak Up project for Capitec Bank. Jon Cherry from Cherryflava.com gives us his thoughts on how banking could be re-imagined.
