The media landscape continues to evolve and the way we view media is changing just as quickly. Internet-based TV is coming of age through the growing number of smart TVs and mobile streaming, which adds to other new channels including social media which continue to grow exponentially. And the divergence of media across these many and increasing channels – online, mobile, social, viral, web – demands ever more radical thinking and fresh ideas to create or maintain visibility of a brand within the broader cultural mix, ideas which are cost effective, successful and measurable.
For consumer brands, that have historically relied heavily on TV advertising, this places an increased urgency on finding ways to maintain visibility in culture – ways that can be measured, are efficient, and reach big audiences. Some of these ideas are relevant to brands with smaller marketing budgets and in business to business marketing, as the principles are just as applicable. The focus is on creating a viral ‘buzz’ to generate interest and high cultural capital to gain high rates of media impressions.
The power of some of these channels is evident not just in marketing brands, but in causes – the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements have used them to gain literally world changing impact. Whilst the scale and driver for these issues is altogether more significant than mere marketing, there is no doubt they reflect a mood for change leading more and more organisations to become genuinely involved with corporate social reasonability issues. That’s not just publishing a bland statement on a website page, but to actively support relevant agendas be they ecological, charitable or even political. Examples include companies with a strong CSR focus at their very core such as Innocent Smoothies and The Cooperative or initiatives such Nikes’ recent auction of its ‘Back for the future’ mags on eBay raising $11.3 Million for the Michael J Fox Foundation.
Aligning a brand with a cause can create direct business benefits as building a reputation as a responsible organisation helps to differentiate a business in a competitive environment, and dealing with suppliers who take a responsible approach, is now often part of engagement criteria. Organisations naturally favour suppliers who demonstrate responsible policies, as this can have a positive impact on how they are perceived by their own customers. Increasingly they are not just preferring to deal with responsible companies, but insisting on it. There is a strong argument for brands to present themselves as socially responsible [and environmentally aware] and it’s critical that they accountable and transparent.
Sometimes, if the context of a situation is interrupted by the unexpected it can challenge our perceptions or at least attract our attention as we naturally try and understand what’s going on. Anytime an environment, be it urban, personal, retail or otherwise is affected from what we expect it to be, it can dramatically interrupt our sense of context, gaining our attention and generating that elusive ‘buzz’. Ideas that force an opinion, or divide opinions, and create debate will nearly always create a fair share of ‘buzz’. Often the conversational ‘buzz’ is a reaction of strong opinions and expressing the sentiment of the topic – be it humour, anger, sympathy, or any other potent emotion. These topics become imitated and often morphed to increase the entertainment value of the reaction, which we’ve seen recently in the press and on social media sites – from “Winning” with Charlie Sheen, to planking and tebowing. Ideas that can spark interest and prompt others to mimic and interpret an idea in their own way are growing, driven by the ease of sharing content through social media.
Marketing concepts that use supposedly leaked or risky ideas can allow brands to gain impact covertly, even if it’s only for a short while. Ideas that feel like they’re pushing the boundaries of acceptability or are apparently secret or even that might be mistakes, often spread quickly. Threshers, for example, leaked a voucher worth 40% off booze via the internet which was supposedly only intended for retail partners. The myth that Threshers had mistakenly released the voucher made the word spread faster and faster round the country via email, social networks and blogs. Threshers told the media that they were worried about losing money on the promotion but no doubt ended up making a huge profit and getting more publicity in a month than they got for the previous year. And a recent Diet Pepsi campaign used a video of David Beckham taking seemingly impossible place kicks into a rubbish bin. The clip, posted to YouTube, generated a frenzy of media interest and social media discussion over the incredible shots – were they real or computer generated.
Whilst an A-list celebrity like Beckham generally guarantees coverage, they’re beyond the reach of most businesses. However it’s possible to create that much sought after ‘buzz’ by finding innovative ways to generate new stories, which can translate buzz into real momentum and performance for the brand. ‘Buzz’ builds the awareness and recognition of brands, if it’s original and well-managed it can achieve bigger impact thought using these new media channels – way beyond the equivalent advertising spend.
