As a part of
the work we do, we were looking into beverage preferences of consumers. In the
process, I came across an interesting article that popped up. The Hollywood's
iconic character James Bond for a change maybe, has started sipping on a beer
deserting his signature vodka martini. This has become a matter of glee for
tipplers online and they spoke of Heineken more reverently - if such a thing was ever possible - and went
on a free advertising frenzy for the brand. Tweeple found an official excuse to
pop a beer, as it was now being preferred the double-oh-seven, the quintessential blend of machismo and class.
On the other hand, news that the Dutch brewer was sponsoring an illegal dog fight irked many. Pictures of the infamous event were circulated over the internet: the brand was under fire from Heineken enthusiasts and canine lovers. People got furious that anyone would have the gumption to sponsor such an event. They started conversation threads and mass messages that caused the brand to take considerable heat. Both Consumers and admirers of Heineken (admirers on account of its popular adverts) posted queries on the beer maker's web page repeatedly and asked for an explanation. They finally received an official statement that the pictures doing rounds online were the result of an unfortunate coincidence. Heineken hosted an event the night before, and that they didn't actually sponsor the dog fight. Heineken banners were not taken down from the venue, and this space was made use of the place as an arena.
The message came along a tad too late, by which users built up too much of steam to let go of the hard feelings they built for the beer manufacturer. Posts and blogs made, went viral and the internet doesn’t forget that easily.
In both the instances, social media played a vital role. Both for extolling and incarcerating an entity, when people wanted to propagate a good, or while standing up for a cause, they chose the web 2. 0. The social media is indeed a potent concoction with viral tweets and posts as its arsenal. Viral marketing has totally evolved into a seamless network of people with its propagating centers spread across the world - internet users being the conductors. A public event created in central India might attract the attention of a user located as far as West Virginia or Outer Mongolia. For the same reason, it is almost unpredictable to detect a lone hotspot. There are multiple. With this example, I wanted to demonstrate the nature and potential of viral marketing through social media. It can bring in the right results by a little bit of showcasing, and when left unchecked, can cause a disastrous outcome altogether. Which brings us to the art of managing a promotion’s message and keeping it intact and unadulterated, Campaign management.
The age old notion of defining a target audience, creating an advertisement and measuring the campaign's impact no longer stands good. The elements of engaging and constant tracking have kicked in into the conventional campaign management process and this change has come to be a crucial part of it. Old spice for instance has done an admirable job at it in their "Should your man smell like an Old Spice man?" commercial series. The video sequences produced by the company were actually responses to user comments and queries on Youtube. Through the videos, and with a load of help from Isaiah Mustafa, Old spice was able to keep away message distortion and ridicule at bay, there by keeping the consumer sentiment intact.
Social media when harnessed properly, a campaign could be as mighty as David's pebble and produce gargantuan results and when left unbridled, could prove to be as fatal as the arrow in the mighty Achilles' heel. Over the cyberspace arena, where the mighty and the mean fight for their turf, the real question for corporates is "to be or not to be..."
On the other hand, news that the Dutch brewer was sponsoring an illegal dog fight irked many. Pictures of the infamous event were circulated over the internet: the brand was under fire from Heineken enthusiasts and canine lovers. People got furious that anyone would have the gumption to sponsor such an event. They started conversation threads and mass messages that caused the brand to take considerable heat. Both Consumers and admirers of Heineken (admirers on account of its popular adverts) posted queries on the beer maker's web page repeatedly and asked for an explanation. They finally received an official statement that the pictures doing rounds online were the result of an unfortunate coincidence. Heineken hosted an event the night before, and that they didn't actually sponsor the dog fight. Heineken banners were not taken down from the venue, and this space was made use of the place as an arena.
The message came along a tad too late, by which users built up too much of steam to let go of the hard feelings they built for the beer manufacturer. Posts and blogs made, went viral and the internet doesn’t forget that easily.
In both the instances, social media played a vital role. Both for extolling and incarcerating an entity, when people wanted to propagate a good, or while standing up for a cause, they chose the web 2. 0. The social media is indeed a potent concoction with viral tweets and posts as its arsenal. Viral marketing has totally evolved into a seamless network of people with its propagating centers spread across the world - internet users being the conductors. A public event created in central India might attract the attention of a user located as far as West Virginia or Outer Mongolia. For the same reason, it is almost unpredictable to detect a lone hotspot. There are multiple. With this example, I wanted to demonstrate the nature and potential of viral marketing through social media. It can bring in the right results by a little bit of showcasing, and when left unchecked, can cause a disastrous outcome altogether. Which brings us to the art of managing a promotion’s message and keeping it intact and unadulterated, Campaign management.
The age old notion of defining a target audience, creating an advertisement and measuring the campaign's impact no longer stands good. The elements of engaging and constant tracking have kicked in into the conventional campaign management process and this change has come to be a crucial part of it. Old spice for instance has done an admirable job at it in their "Should your man smell like an Old Spice man?" commercial series. The video sequences produced by the company were actually responses to user comments and queries on Youtube. Through the videos, and with a load of help from Isaiah Mustafa, Old spice was able to keep away message distortion and ridicule at bay, there by keeping the consumer sentiment intact.
Social media when harnessed properly, a campaign could be as mighty as David's pebble and produce gargantuan results and when left unbridled, could prove to be as fatal as the arrow in the mighty Achilles' heel. Over the cyberspace arena, where the mighty and the mean fight for their turf, the real question for corporates is "to be or not to be..."
