Are contextual social media creatives a good idea?

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Today, an agency friend of mine (who is not on Twitter or Facebook) send me a link to a contextual ad campaign she found at the Eyeblaster Creative Zone. The ad is from Vodafone Italy and promoting their 360 degrees campaign. It is an experiment which reminds me of this year’s Volkswagen attempt.

So, what is happening in this campaign?

Interaction 1: Once you click the banner, the ad expands and you can connect to Twitter or Facebook inside the banner…

Social Media Creative 1

Interaction 2: The banner app takes out your surname and creates a nice picture of it by using all your Twitter friend pictures.

Social Media Creative 2

Interaction 3: With a mouse-over, you can see the latest Tweets of a specific followers.

Social Media Creative 3

The final click leads you NOT to your friends account but to the landing page of the Vodafone 360 campaign. That’s it…

Spot On!
Now, we could discuss about the creative idea, or the stickiness value or “clickiness” factor. Or we could talk about the fact of the staying time and branding factor… and who “wins” customers with such banners in the end – apart from amusing them for a while.
When I saw this campaign for the first time I was disappointed as I thought I will be coming straight to the follower’s page – but had to realize that this is a campaign and follows some different purpose. It’s marketing, it’s a campaign and the old commercial approach. No conversation – limited engagement.

And now I am asking myself where the benefit in such creative campaigns is – for the user and the advertising company.

What do you think?

PS: If you want to test the interactive banner, please visit the Eyeblaster Creative Zone.

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1Do you know how many Tweets we have for now worldwide? 5 billion (in the form of a reply to another user)! Caroline McCarthy (CNET) wrote about a company called Gigatweet that has been measuring the service for some time now… and sometiomes you ask yourself: Do we really have to waste the bandwidth by sending out so many Tweets?

SMB’s are quicker adopting social media, a study by Internet2Go, an Opus Research advisory service, and MerchantCircle finds. The main findings for me are…

– 45% have a presence or profiles on Facebook and Twitter to promote their businesses
– 79% have annual marketing budgets of less than $5,000 with the 44% spending “less than $1,000” annually on advertising and marketing
– 75% said they monitor online reviews of their business

Fantastic commercials – men are so simply but ey… we are clever, aren’t we… Well done, Jim Beam!

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1The best of the day post goes entirely to Gary Hayes social media count and the question: Can companies really ignore social media?

Seen from the text message perspective (sms): Yes, they can… – seen from any other perspective: No, they cannot…!

The most fascinating aspect for me is how many sms go around the world compared to the small numbers of tweets sent. This is a very, very small number… Nevertheless, there are workshop crowded with interested people on a Twitter hype. News corporations publish hundreds of stories around Twitter. The last news that I read talking about sms was at least ten years ago. It shows how long it takes for some technology to become mainstream.

I am sure in 10 years the tables have turned and Twitter or some replacement system or Facebook’ status update will be ‘leading’ the counter. As mobile internet apps will replace the traditional mobile phone features…

PS: THX to Blogtrainer who is always a help when you need him…

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1The internet industry is in a change period. Harvard Business editor Umair Haque paints a great picture on the effect this has for the media industry. He explains “The New (New) Mediaconomy” and talks about the old media industry generating soda while the new (new) economy users want distinctive wine. Excellent description!

If you think about a master plan for a social media strategy, you might take this framework by Tom Chapman to start your ideas. Or this one by Ross Dawson. Or you might just discover that social media is not advertising by Max Kallehoff…

If your business is panning to get engaged in social networking, then take your time and listen to this 4-minutes-video by Kristy Horwitz. She provides some good value on how to use social networking for business…

Dean Donaldson: Future Trends in Digital Marketing

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For some years now, we have an annual meet-and-greet trend show for digital marketing in Germany. Some years it was called OMD (Online Marketing Duesseldorf), and now we have the DMEXCO. And every year, I find somebody at the conference where I think, this person is the perfect presenter or speaker (and not just all talk).

This year I had the chance to listen to and to speak with Dean Donaldson, digital strategist at Eyeblaster. Just listen carefully about the future trends of digital marketing, and don’t tell me that this man doesn’t have the talent to get somebody engaged in a discussion (or a vision).

In his 5-minutes outlook he shares his thoughts about banners on a PC (“…this is so long gone…”), about mobile phone (“…that are no longer phones…”), about bill-boards (“… that are talking to you…”) and, and, and…

And he sees the moral challenges and privacy one of the hardest things to tackle for the future …and for the internet of things.

Interested to hear what you think about his view and his thoughts…

Will the RT become a "killer" for positive blog comments?

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twitterview-2Sometimes it seems to be the right time to ask questions when some changes occur to your blogging activities. And I think now is the right time to ask the bloggosphere if they obey the following development as well.

When I started my Twitter account, I at first did not know what kind of an institution the retweets (RT) could become in the future. Now I know. It creates a lot of buzz around the topics you write, you think, and you say.

For me the RT is the word-of-mouth catalyst. It is the ‘click and send’ – meaning “Thumbs up”…

Nevertheless, it seems that some people take the advantage of the RT to the disadvantage of the blogger. People are simply retweeting posts they like instead of commenting on them. When they agree to most of what you are saying, posts are simply retweeted. If they disagree or want to add something to your statements, they are more likely to write a comment.

Positive comments have become rare these days. Social media guru Alex Schultze once commented a post on my blog with the following metaphor…

“Reading a good post but leave no comment is like leaving a good waiter with no tip!”

I agree with him 100%. But in times when Twitter is surfing on the hype wave, I am asking myself if the RT will become a killer for positive blog comments?! Comments is the topping on the cake and is the idea behind social media as it creates engagement, dialogue and feedback from the target group.

Curious to listen to your thoughts about this topic… Want to share them?

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1Although this sounds unbelievable… New study (online poll amongst 271 US CMO’s by ME&L Worldwide and PRWeek – Marketers ignore social media feedback. The findings…
– 70% of marketers have never made change to their products and marketing campaigns based on consumer feedback on social media sites
– 39% are not convinced of social media
– 43% admit lack of knowledge

To find the benefits of Twitter is not easy. Every company has to evaluate Twitter for their own purpose (company messages, products and service). Nevertheless, this Forbes article gives 21 tips on how to use Twitter for business.

As usual – funny commercial for the day by bud.tv…

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1The world of advertising is changing and becoming more engaging…

The latest FIAT 500 campaign shows what augmented reality and advertising can create for a campaign in Spain… THX to DigiMaverick.

Placing ads on mobile phone applications seems to become one of the rising stars these days – and is done in a perfect way. Adage shows the latest development from their Apps for Brand conference – Yahoo’s Adam Taggart talks about the new Subway and Toyota ads running in the company’s new Fantasy Football app for the iPhone.

Can you imagine you happen to stand in a closet and don’t know why? Canal+ created one of the funniest ads I have ever watched…

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1Is business becoming web-business? At least you have to plan holistically to make your company departments understand why it will become social, thinks Jeremiah Owyang. And I completely do agree with these thoughts…

With the rise of social media the world is thinking about the future of advertising. And some companies are right in the middle of starting the new era – the knowledge blog @ Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) tells us more about The Future of Advertising Project.

Ford has recently published their social media strategy, … and obviously one of their tactics (not mentioned in the presentation) is to get viral buzz with their TV spots. OK, here you have it…

Ford – King Kong from Julien Vanhoenacker on Vimeo.

News Update – Best of the Day

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daily1As brief as possible as of flying to dmexco today…

Who is talking about recommendations for a great Twitter account in a blog? I will today: TheRealPRMan, Steve Farnsworth, is a great source of information for social media and pr relevant topics… i.e. he found the post: 50 things for using Twitter for business.

Social Media is changing Business. Read the 4 ways in which it does via Mashable by Soren Gordhamer…

DHL knows how to deliver things… whatever you want them to do. Fantastic commercial…