Friday Forum: Is it ethical to keep the likes from an old Facebook page when you rebrand a product?
Browsing: Facebook
The 1 billion-strong social network launches a social-powered search engine. Is this where your next SEM dollar will go?
Creative ideas increasingly need to be media ideas—and specifically social media ideas. And OMD recognised this earlier this year by hiring social strategist, self-proclaimed ‘askhole’, opinionated mofo, treasure hunt lover and enthusiastic supporter of the Herne Bay Local Anthony Gardiner. So get these opinions down ‘ya gullet.
Hoax chain letters on Facebook, copyright confusion, career limiting evidence posted for all to see … When it comes to the internet, we need to engage our brains or suffer the consequences, says Simon Fogarty.
We live in a world of information overload, says Andrew Lewis. And as consumers start entering ‘The Age of the Cull’, brands that enhance life through digital connections are the only ones likely to survive.
Recently many people have been whingeing that Facebook has changed its algorithms, forcing brands to pay more for the same reach they were getting previously. But, as Justin Flitter writes, perhaps Facebook’s changes simply highlight a weak Facebook strategy built on buying likes with big competitions instead of actual engagement and relationship building.
During the annual hirsute pilgrimage that is Movember, many participants become quite attached to their new lip slugs. So, to ensure that the memory lives on, Schick and Y&R have created a Facebook campaign called Mount your Mo to not only reward the dedicated men of New Zealand for their efforts, but, through the wonder of taxidermy, to “allow them to keep their pride without prejudice”.
Interactive ad revenue figures have been steadily heading upwards over the past few years in New Zealand and in the latest round of figures, the sector hit its highest ever level, with total advertising spend in Q3, 2012 of $94 million, an increase of three percent from the last quarter and an increase of five percent year-on-year. But, as you’d expect in such a rapidly developing industry, there are still a few issues to contend with, including a fall in display advertising, the use of ad blocking software and discussions around the appropriate methodology for collecting revenue data.
Absolut’s latest artistic innovation is, as per usual, pretty impressive, with the company rejigging its entire production process in an effort to create unique patterns on four million bottles. There are only 4,800 of them available in New Zealand and, judging by the number of co-workers fawning over the bottle sitting on the StopPress desk, they might not be around for too long. But fans of the brand and its creative MO have an opportunity to get the next best thing by creating their own personalised bottle online.
Recent changes to Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm have got a lot of people up in arms. Yet again, the social sky is falling. But PHDiQ’s Polly Williams is here to be the voice of reason.
There have been some impressive campaigns harnessing social data in recent years, with Intel’s Museum of Me and Me the Musical coming to mind. Now Colenso BBDO is putting that information to good use for Amnesty International with Trial by Timeline, a Facebook application that shows users what some comments or behaviours might have cost them if they lived in different, less tolerant countries.
Sponsorship is less about logos on hoardings and more about activation these days (although ANZ might disagree after its logo-fest at The Cloud for Valerie Adams’ gold medal ceremony last week). In fact, some believe the old ratio of three dollars for every one spent on the sponsorship should now be upped to five. So in an effort to offer some added value to All Blacks fans, Adidas and Carat have unveiled Game Day, a Facebook application that lets them follow live commentary, comment on the game, track up-to-the-minute stats, access player and team profiles, weigh in on referee calls, vote for man of the match, and buy Adidas gear.
Through business, sporting franchises have learnt how to turn loyalty into revenue. Is it possible that through sport, businesses can learn how to turn customers into fans? Here are five things Oliver Haydon believes will give you a sporting chance.
The Share a Coke campaign in Australia was brilliantly simple. Those who had their names on the tin were happy, and those who didn’t wanted to find a way to make it happen. And now Kiwis have a chance to offer their own suggestions to add 50 more names to the original list.
Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder. And, after the Sanitarium factory was knocked around by the Christchurch earthquakes, passionate yeast spreaders have been pining for their regular slathering of Black Gold. So, in what most see as a company making the best of a bad situation and what some cynics see as a stunt to raise the profile of the brand, Sanitarium and Saatchi & Saatchi launched the Don’t Freak Out campaign to assure eaters Marmite would be back. And it’s continued that approach with a competition asking Kiwis to prove how far they’ll go to protect their stash.
It seemed like such a good idea: Peanuts vs Cashews. Grab a handful, pelt your mates and discover once and for all who’s the real ‘King of the Nuts’. Then things went wrong. A rogue peanut bounced off a lamp-post, caught a cycle courier and tossed him in front of a bus. Luckily the bus swerved, no one was hurt and they only took out a small building. Rogue accident, you wouldn’t read about it (mostly because it didn’t happen). But it could. And the question on the table after a recent Australian Standards Board decision that has put the onus on brands to manage their Facebook pages is where does the buck stop when social goes awry?
Nostalgia’s not what it used to be. But when it comes to biscuits, it’s obviously still a very powerful force, because the decision to get behind a campaign started by Upper Hutt-based biscuit crusader Amber Johnson to bring back Choco-ades has well and truly paid off for Griffin’s, with AZTEC scan data figures showing it set a new benchmark as the top selling product by value in supermarkets in its first week of sales, beating the Avatar DVD.
ASB has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most innovative banks, as evidenced by its inclusion on the Financial Brand’s list of ten brands to watch, the Top 35 Banks on Facebook and Top 35 Banks on Twitter. It was the first to launch internet banking in New Zealand in 1997, its virtual ‘Facebranch’ was an award-winning world-first, and its latest development has followed that trajectory by letting users pay Facebook friends through its updated mobile app. So is it digital gimmickry? Or is ASB adhering to its slogan and creating the future? We chat with general manager, brand experience and digital channels Anna Curzon.
Over the weekend, we received a message from Facebook’s account manager Adnan Khan asking us to consider adopting Facebook’s Social Plugin commenting system on StopPress, as it would increase the authenticity of the conversations and reduce the number of “faceless trolls” and offensive comments (if you’re so inclined, you can comment on StopPress stories through Facebook, Twitter or Google by logging-in to Disqus). So we couldn’t help but revel in the irony when ComputerWorld published an article yesterday about the fact that, according to social media management tool Status People, 94 percent of Khan’s almost 30,000 Twitter followers were fake.
I remember when Michael Wolff was very bullish about the internet in the 1990s, so when he starts sounding warning bells, we had better take heed. And the way he paints Facebook—and a belief that its advertising model will eventually collapse for being so limited—is not unfamiliar to anyone who ever wondered, during the dot-com boom, just why those companies were worth that much.
Given Facebook’s pervasiveness, it’s not entirely surprising to learn the ‘Facebook in real life theme’ is already pretty fertile comedic territory. And ASB’s new agency Saatchi & Saatchi, with Thick as Thieves on production duties, has tapped into that idea for its first major piece of work for the bank, an online-only campaign to promote the new Facebook payments platform that shows what such a transaction might look like ‘IRL’.
Social media has forever changed the way we connect with each other and while some detractors are averse to sharing snapshots of their lives with the online community, LG and its advertising agency Y&R, are hedging their bets that members of the public will be keen to have their Facebook posts not only publicised, but brought to life by a team of performers and artist Otis Frizzell thanks to a gigantic 26-foot high bricks-and-mortar Facebook wall built in Auckland’s Aotea Square
The effectiveness of advertising on Facebook is being called into question once again following revelations from the BBC that its ‘VirtualBagel’ experiment, an imaginary business that tech reporter Rory Cellan-Jones started in a bid to test it, received 3,000 ‘likes’ within four days, despite the fact that it offered no products or interesting content.
Fresh from being named as New Zealand’s best online bank by Canstar, and following on from the world’s first virtual Facebook branch in late 2010, ASB has taken the next logical step, with users soon able to make payments directly to their Facebook friends.
Many believe the US$108 billion valuation of Facebook, which started off at US$38 a share and has fallen back to around US$31 a share, was based on “option value”; on the future money-making potential of what Wired writer Steven Johnson feels is becoming a monopoly. The social networking behemoth has certainly been under the pump in the media since the IPO, but research released yesterday about the powerful effect both earned and paid messages have on purchase behaviour offered some welcome good news.
Facebook is a big believer in the hack mentality; in “putting a bunch of ridiculously talented people in ridiculously small quarters under ridiculous time pressure and building cool stuff”. From time to time it employs this approach to come up with big ideas for big clients or charities in some of its larger markets, but last week, the hack came to New Zealand, when around 40 digital and creative folk from the likes of Contagion, Colenso BBDO, Rapp Tribal, DMD, Gladeye, DraftFCB, Saatchi & Saatchi and Young & Shand put aside their rivalries and gathered in the Contagion offices in Auckland to come up with ideas that would help cement the legacy of Sir Peter Blake and spread the word about the work of the Sir Peter Blake Trust.
The stain jokes have been flowing freely after an onanistic carpet cleaner got busted busting one out on Target this week. And Cavalier Bremworth, with the help of its agency Federation, hasn’t let the opportunity to promote its carpet stain remover pass it by.
Too many brands have been severely punished for failing to do their homework. So tread carefully and learn to navigate the maze of ever-changing Facebook page rules.
All around the world, things go a little bit green on St Patrick’s Day as token Irishfolk embrace the festivities and set about downing 13 million pints of Guinness. And, as part of a global effort to make March 17 officially the friendliest day of the year, Lion and Zephyr have put Guinness back on TV for the first time in 12 years with a campaign featuring very funny Irish comedian Jimeoin.
After the success of Pepsi’s MaxIt Jobs campaign last year, there were high hopes for Colenso’s follow-up, Bromitment. But, by the power of Facebook, the vocal minority have got their way and convinced Frucor/Frucor’s PR agency to bow to online pressure and withdraw a prize offering a trip to the running of the bulls in Spain from the campaign.