Look at your brand. . . now back at me. Now back to your brand. . . now back to me. Sadly, we’re going to tell you what you don’t want to hear about the Old Spice campaign. Old Spice gave us a campaign that was equal parts entertainment, traditional television advertising and YouTube social media magic, writes Stephen Denny, marketing consultant. But when the sales numbers started trickling in, something was amiss. Namely: sales. What ensued was a firestorm in the blogosphere with sharply divided camps fighting a holy war of mostly unsupported opinion. When new data points started emerging, they provided the careful student of business a few nuggets to keep in mind for the future, when we’ll be spending our money and looking for real results. Here’s what we saw:
Problem 1: Where’s the beef?
First, the data suggests that campaign itself didn’t move the sales needle. For the first six months of the television media flight, Old Spice sales were first reported to be down 7 percent year over year, then flat in terms of share growth. Then, when the brand’s celebrated customized YouTube video campaign broke, sales hockey-sticked upwards, with sell-through increasing 106 percent. Upon further review, this big and much celebrated uptick coincided with an avalanche of buy-one-get-one-free coupons.
What this means: Of particular concern was the groundless optimism that many viewers seemed to be clinging to. They just knew things would turn out all right because… because… they just had to! The campaign was so funny! It’s dangerous to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing simply because you love doing what you just did. We need to keep our eyes open and our judgment as objective as the human condition allows.
No school like the old school? Possibly so. The coupon avalanche seemed to convince a temporary mob of people to try Old Spice. Would the coupons have worked without the ads and the viral social media campaign? Don’t know. Would the viral social media campaign have moved the needle without the coupons? The data suggests no. The ads alone certainly didn’t.
Let’s agree that activation and conversion are your goals as a business owner. In short, get people to buy more stufft. Everything you do must be pointed at integration, at tactical face-to-face, in-the-store or on-your-site conversion. There’s no such thing as “buzz.” There’s sales and there’s money down the drain.
Problem 2: All the hammers think you’re a nail.
Second, it seems anyone who has never managed a P&L or met payroll thinks Old Spice was the greatest campaign the world has ever seen. And that person is probably pitching you their agency’s services right now. Listen to the venom in roughly half of the comments coming from digital agency types. This is a red flag.
What this means: There’s an undercurrent that thinks marketing – and advertising, and particularly video designed for the Web – is all about entertainment. It isn’t. Advertising is supposed to sell stuff. And when your agency types come in the door breathlessly telling you they got a billion views on YouTube but look positively insulted when you ask if it had a positive ROI (gasp!), you need to wonder – assuming that your marketing dollars are finite and you care about making the company money – if you’re with the right people. Preconceptions are dangerous, especially when it’s their preconceptions and your money. Demand facts, not feelings.
Problem 3: They score, but you lose.
Third, the biggest winner seems to be Old Spice’s advertising agency, which pocketed the coveted Film Grand Prix at Cannes for the campaign. What this means: Any time the clear winner isn’t you – meaning the paying customer – there’s a problem.
When asked at Cannes whether the campaign was a success for Old Spice, the brand representatives gave a “no comment.” For good reason, apparently. Later, after some much-needed media training, we were told that the brand was “thrilled” with its results and couldn’t be happier. This doesn’t inspire confidence.
The post-mortem:
There’s nothing wrong with spending money on video aimed at viral success. Go ahead. It might work. And there are many, many people who will tell you how to go down this path. But the real point of spending money at all in business is to get more business, so ensure – regardless of what you’re promised – that everything you do is pointed towards converting that casual viewer into a buyer.
The secret of many successful advertising campaigns is that they can be leveraged in-store or online. Look at the Pepsi Challenge. It wasn’t just a brilliant campaign – every time a consumer walked into the store and saw those two pallets next to each other, the ad replayed in their heads – but the fact that it was running the campaign at all gave Pepsi the opportunity to convince those retail buyers to stack its pallets next to King Coke. Advertising drives merchandising, and merchandising drives sales especially when it’s paired with advertising.
Are we being unfair to the Old Spice brand and the agency? No, not really. The campaign ran for six months, and the brand experienced a 7 percent volume decline, with a spike driven by coupons. It lagged many of its competitors in the category. And yet, the campaign is held up as a paragon of marketing genius. Careful there, that’s dangerous talk. Let’s learn from this “case study” – the good, the bad and the hopelessly overblown – and use it as a cautionary tale to grow our own success stories.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
What Small Business Can Learn From The Old Spice Guy
Look at your brand. . . now back at me. Now back to your brand. . . now back to me. Sadly, we’re going to tell you what you don’t want to hear about the Old Spice campaign. Old Spice gave us a campaign that was equal parts entertainment, traditional television advertising and YouTube social media magic, writes Stephen Denny, marketing consultant. But when the sales numbers started trickling in, something was amiss. Namely: sales. What ensued was a firestorm in the blogosphere with sharply divided camps fighting a holy war of mostly unsupported opinion. When new data points started emerging, they provided the careful student of business a few nuggets to keep in mind for the future, when we’ll be spending our money and looking for real results. Here’s what we saw:
Problem 1: Where’s the beef?
First, the data suggests that campaign itself didn’t move the sales needle. For the first six months of the television media flight, Old Spice sales were first reported to be down 7 percent year over year, then flat in terms of share growth. Then, when the brand’s celebrated customized YouTube video campaign broke, sales hockey-sticked upwards, with sell-through increasing 106 percent. Upon further review, this big and much celebrated uptick coincided with an avalanche of buy-one-get-one-free coupons.
What this means: Of particular concern was the groundless optimism that many viewers seemed to be clinging to. They just knew things would turn out all right because… because… they just had to! The campaign was so funny! It’s dangerous to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing simply because you love doing what you just did. We need to keep our eyes open and our judgment as objective as the human condition allows.
No school like the old school? Possibly so. The coupon avalanche seemed to convince a temporary mob of people to try Old Spice. Would the coupons have worked without the ads and the viral social media campaign? Don’t know. Would the viral social media campaign have moved the needle without the coupons? The data suggests no. The ads alone certainly didn’t.
Let’s agree that activation and conversion are your goals as a business owner. In short, get people to buy more stufft. Everything you do must be pointed at integration, at tactical face-to-face, in-the-store or on-your-site conversion. There’s no such thing as “buzz.” There’s sales and there’s money down the drain.
Problem 2: All the hammers think you’re a nail.
Second, it seems anyone who has never managed a P&L or met payroll thinks Old Spice was the greatest campaign the world has ever seen. And that person is probably pitching you their agency’s services right now. Listen to the venom in roughly half of the comments coming from digital agency types. This is a red flag.
What this means: There’s an undercurrent that thinks marketing – and advertising, and particularly video designed for the Web – is all about entertainment. It isn’t. Advertising is supposed to sell stuff. And when your agency types come in the door breathlessly telling you they got a billion views on YouTube but look positively insulted when you ask if it had a positive ROI (gasp!), you need to wonder – assuming that your marketing dollars are finite and you care about making the company money – if you’re with the right people. Preconceptions are dangerous, especially when it’s their preconceptions and your money. Demand facts, not feelings.
Problem 3: They score, but you lose.
Third, the biggest winner seems to be Old Spice’s advertising agency, which pocketed the coveted Film Grand Prix at Cannes for the campaign. What this means: Any time the clear winner isn’t you – meaning the paying customer – there’s a problem.
When asked at Cannes whether the campaign was a success for Old Spice, the brand representatives gave a “no comment.” For good reason, apparently. Later, after some much-needed media training, we were told that the brand was “thrilled” with its results and couldn’t be happier. This doesn’t inspire confidence.
The post-mortem:
There’s nothing wrong with spending money on video aimed at viral success. Go ahead. It might work. And there are many, many people who will tell you how to go down this path. But the real point of spending money at all in business is to get more business, so ensure – regardless of what you’re promised – that everything you do is pointed towards converting that casual viewer into a buyer.
The secret of many successful advertising campaigns is that they can be leveraged in-store or online. Look at the Pepsi Challenge. It wasn’t just a brilliant campaign – every time a consumer walked into the store and saw those two pallets next to each other, the ad replayed in their heads – but the fact that it was running the campaign at all gave Pepsi the opportunity to convince those retail buyers to stack its pallets next to King Coke. Advertising drives merchandising, and merchandising drives sales especially when it’s paired with advertising.
Are we being unfair to the Old Spice brand and the agency? No, not really. The campaign ran for six months, and the brand experienced a 7 percent volume decline, with a spike driven by coupons. It lagged many of its competitors in the category. And yet, the campaign is held up as a paragon of marketing genius. Careful there, that’s dangerous talk. Let’s learn from this “case study” – the good, the bad and the hopelessly overblown – and use it as a cautionary tale to grow our own success stories.
Reaching Latinas Through Virtual Goods
Virtual goods --the non-physical objects such as game points, avatars, and gifts purchased online -- are a massive market, says Andiara Petterle of MediaPost. According to market researcher Inside Network, Americans alone will purchase $1.6 billion worth of virtual goods this year, mostly for use or echange with others in virtual worlds, multiplayer mobile and online games, social games, and social networks. In fact, half of all virtual goods purchased in 2010 will be within social games such as Pet Society and Buddy Poke.
Marketers are waking up to the importance of associating their brands with the sale of virtual goods, making the category one of the fastest-growing advertising platforms online today. And new research shows that one key demographic almost every marketer is trying to reach -- Latina women -- is especially interested in buying and exchanging virtual goods. According to a recent study Sophia Mind, 45% of online Hispanic women living in the U.S. have purchased virtual goods, and 61% of those purchasers are between the ages of 26 and 40.
Sophia Mind also found that Latina women are extremely open to receiving marketing messages and branded products and services alongside their virtual goods purchases. Some 75% of Latina women surveyed in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and Argentina said they would buy more virtual goods if they also received a discount for the purchase of a real product, or an actual real product, like a magazine subscription.
Some new ways top brands are marketing their products in virtual environments include associating their brand with a specific virtual good, such as a branded virtual piece of clothing, necklace or car; offering buyers a coupon or discount for their products in return for purchasing a virtual good; and rewarding users with in-game currency when they buy a real product.
However you approach the virtual environment, here are some ways to get started:
Pick games that are popular with Latinas:
Similar to television programming, the most successful games are built from the ground up with a demographic in mind. Take Playdom's Sorority Life, for example. This is prime hunting ground for any retailer looking to reach women between the ages of 17-35.
When adding social games to your marketing mix, make sure that this game appeals to your target audience and that you target offers are relevant to your precise demographic. For example, research shows that games from companies such as Zynga and Playfish are popular with U.S. Latinas as well as women in other Latin American countries.
Offer coupons for relevant goods:
Seventy-six percent of U.S. Latinas said they would buy more virtual goods if they also received a discount coupon for the purchase of a real product. Working with your social network and virtual goods partners, offer relevant coupons or discounts for your products when a customer buys a virtual good
Pair product purchases with free virtual goods:
According to research, 68% of U.S. Latinas surveyed said they would buy more virtual goods if they also received a real product or service with the purchase, but what if you enabled them to get those goods for free? Many gaming companies are now pairing advertiser offers with free virtual goods or currency.
This practice, known as "transactional advertising", allows consumers to get virtual goods for free in return for buying something from a brand like Gap or Netflix. As a brand, you can target Latinas (and other demographics who use social games) by offering them something they want (a virtual good), in return for making a purchase of your products.
For example, in a Valentine's Day promotion, ProFlowers worked with transactional advertising company TrialPay to place offers inside Playfish's popular Pet Society game; social gamers who sent their loved ones real flowers from within the game were awarded virtual Playfish Cash.
Focus on security:
Even though the concern over online transactions for real goods has greatly decreased over the last few years, buyers of virtual goods still worry about security. Some 76% of American Latinas said concerns about security had kept them from making virtual goods purchases. Make sure every social network, virtual world, or social game your brand is associated with adheres to and publishes a strict security policy, and work with partners who have a trusted reputation in the market.
Also keep a close eye on what's happening with Facebook Credits, a new sort of universal currency that gamers will be able to use across participating applications. It may be that users will be more apt to trust a credit card transaction with Facebook than an lesser-known game developer.
Make sure to cross-promote:
When running a special offer or ad connected to virtual goods purchases on a social game or social network, make sure to cross-promote it on your website, in email, video, and paid search campaigns, or any other way you usually market. For example, send an email to your marketing list saying "Get 20 Free Facebook Credits with your Next Purchase," adding a link to your virtual goods promotion on Facebook.
The Latina consumer is one of the most attractive markets for brands today. This fast-growing demographic controls a large percentage of household spending, is technology-aware and socially focused, and is more willing than other groups to receive marketing messages from trusted brands. Since many Latinas are active users of social networks and social games, and repeat buyers of virtual goods, smart marketers should craft a strategy now to reach this sought-after demographic in the virtual world.
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