TaylorMade / adidas Golf / Ashworth

Social Media

Ashworth came looking for ideas to grow its social media presence and drive awareness of its new shoe line. This photo submission contest on Facebook delivered on both in spades. The design showcased the complete line of footwear and grew Facebook fan count by nearly 20 percent.

Quaker

Naming

Even with a robust morning foods portfolio, Quaker Oats continues to seek fresh opportunities to capture share of stomach. One recent solution? A new heart-shaped cereal that grabs consumer’s attention while walking the fine line between taste and heart health. Working hand in hand with the Quaker team, Hiebing helped define the role of the new cereal in Quaker’s lineup and coined the playful yet nutrition-conveying name of “Whole Hearts.”

The Emergence of Cord-Cutters

When Nielsen released the new Cross-Platform Report no one expected growth in a group of people deciding to opt out of a technology.

The biggest news from this year’s Nielsen study was the 22.8% growth in a group of households that have broadcast TV and broadband Internet access but are not paying for any other form of cable. Roughly 5.1 MM households now fall into this classification, or about 4.5% of U.S. TVHHs. This segment still views 122.6 minutes of traditional (in this case, only broadcast) television daily, but that is less than half (47.8%) of the TV viewing among all TVHHs. This segment is viewing up to 11.2 minutes of streaming video per day, over twice the amount across all households. This is the first validation from Nielsen of that elusive “cord-cutting” audience we have been reading about. Who is this segment of the population that is relying on streaming video for their entertainment?

Well, streaming video viewing remains concentrated among a small group of the heaviest streamers. The first quintile of video streamers, roughly 29.5MM people, stream an average of 21.1 minutes per day. The next heaviest quintile of video streamers are only streaming an average of 2.8 minutes per day, and 40% of people have yet to stream video in any form. They are mostly 18- to 34-year-olds, a demographic that has traditionally been difficult to reach through television, and should this group continue to grow we will have to find alternative methods to connect with them. Streaming video, which is currently only a focus for national advertisers, needs to get on local advertisers’ schedules to complement TV buys against younger demos.

Are Club Stores and E-retailers Decimating Our Life Stories?

I was at Costco last weekend. Quite possibly you were too.

I was on Amazon.com this week. Quite possibly you were too.

Were you buying an engagement ring?

I know the story of my husband’s search for just the right ring for me—I’ve been married a long time, so pre-Internet. He searched store after store; making excuses to “run to the mall” or “make a quick stop at xyz shopping center” since it was to be a surprise. It makes for a good story.

I know the story of my husband’s search for just the right diamond for his first fiancée (yes, I’m a soul baring blogger). They scoured the diamond market in NYC to find just the right shape, and the right seller. Husband can still do a great recanting of the bargaining process. I’d wager his ex-fiancée can too.

So the $20,000+ engagement ring for sale at Costco caught my eye (it was right between the big-screen TVs and the shredders, to the left of the battery display).

And it got me thinking: What’s the great story behind buying an engagement ring at the same time you bought some tires? Or shopping for a new book on Amazon and ending up with a 2 carat stunner?

If we continue down this path, one of three things will occur:

• E-retailers will have to give us ways to create those stories.
• Think cool certificates about the specifics of your diamond’s journey to Costco—it crossed the ocean on X/XX/XXXX date, only to be delayed by a storm in ABC city . . .
• Imagine creative follow-ups after purchase—”Yes, Son, after I bought Mom’s ring, Amazon sent us roses on that date for 10 years”

Are you up to that e-retailers, are you?

• We’ll have to fill in stories around the purchase.
• “I stole her class ring to get the size and then thought I lost it when I was attacked by a hyena”
• “I got a flat tire on the way to Costco and guess who stopped to help me change it, guess . . . no, just GUESS!”

• OR, these purchases won’t come with stories. And that makes me sad. Very, very sad.

So come on Costco, Amazon, whoever you are. Let’s make sure those stories still exist—even when the time comes that 90% of engagement rings are purchased with the click of a mouse or at the same time as lowly paper towels. It’s up to you to fill the void and make sure they don’t disappear.

The Problem with Facebook Insights

Recently, Facebook rolled out some great improvements to the user interface.  More importantly to social media marketers, Facebook also rolled out substantial enhancements to its analytics platform Facebook Insights.

The new Insights allows managers of Facebook brand pages to dive deep to see how well content is performing. It allows them to analyze the success of each post and even shows where fans clicked. The new analytics platform also gives marketers insights into what types of content are performing best.

The wow: the new Insights platform will let Facebook marketers prove the ROE (return on engagement) of their Facebook strategies to stakeholders.

The miss: engagement isn’t effectively measured.

One of the new stats Facebook rolled out is the Talking About This metric. In short, it allows all page visitors (not just admins) to see how many people have been talking about the brand over the past seven days. Actions that are counted toward this metric include liking a page or a post, posting to the page’s Wall and commenting on and sharing any of the page’s content. While it’s great that Facebook tracks these actions, it could have gone one giant step further in calculating how engaged a page’s followers are.

Facebook should recognize that different actions on a brand’s Facebook page should be valued differently. It takes far less emotional investment from a Facebook follower to “like” a post than it does to share a page’s post or proactively post to the page’s Wall. As such, the Talking About This metric is incomplete. Engagement should be calculated by a weighted scoring model that values actions based on the level of emotional investment from a follower.

Time will tell if the Talking About This metric lasts beyond the next Facebook update, but brand pages that rely too heavily on that metric aren’t getting the full insight into the performance of their page’s content. However, marketers who recognize this statistical deficiency and calculate engagement with a weighted scoring model will be able to more accurately gauge the success of their Facebook strategy.

Culver’s

Social Media

Culver’s asked us for help building fast traction for the new mini size of its beloved Concrete Mixers. We suggested a tease sweepstakes within Facebook. Netting nearly 20,000 new fans and driving more traffic than any other coupon promotion in company history, Big Secret unlocked a delicious success.

Schneider

Public Relations

Already a thought leader in the transportation and logistics industry, Schneider hoped to expand and deepen its reputation as a go-to resource. Our answer? A digital thought leadership library populated with timely white papers, case studies, podcasts and Slideshare presentations.

Co-branding: Like any tool, use it wisely.

Lately, we’ve seen a spate of spots using other brands to make their point.

Procter & Gamble has interrupted new product launches for Charmin and Bounce to sell its Old Spice Brand. The idea is that Old Spice is so powerful it busts into other people’s commercials. Funny. Catchy. A real idea drives it. But I forgot all about the Bounce and Charmin—Old Spice ruled the day. They’re all P & G brands, so maybe it was a smart play to grab some attention for a small line extension budget with a high-profile mainline brand.

In a recent Super Bowl spot, GE had pub mates salute their GE turbine-making brethren with a round of Buds. Made sense—saluting the unsung hero with the king of beers.

Even Chevy got into the act—again, at the Super Bowl. In the post-apocalyptic world, only four Chevy drivers survive. Dave, the Ford guy, perishes. A survivor offers his sad friend a Twinkie—an inside joke that Twinkies could survive Armageddon. I remembered the Twinkies. The Silverado, not so much.

When it gains attention for both, excellent. When the product supports the proposition, excellent. When it’s a punch line, as with the Silverado spot, be careful. The gag may overpower the spot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

2012 Super Bowl Ads.
The Year of the Big Fancy Nothing.

Production values were on full display but groundbreaking ideas—despite the millions spent—took the back seat at the big game.

Advertisers served up loads of clever dogs, fantasy, rehashed plotlines, supermodels, B-list celebrities, borrowed interest of classic movies and a classic ad, over-the-top tricks, and over-the-hill rock bands and stars. It all blurred together.

There were a couple of nice moments. Chrysler made good use of Clint Eastwood to continue the “Imported from Detroit” campaign. And as goofy as it was, Mr. Squiggles for Skechers made its point memorably—though at the price of upsetting animal rights activists.

At $100,000-plus a second for media, not including production, we hungered for more differentiated, relevant and engaging content.

Good thing we had the game to take our mind off it all.

Click here to view the embedded video.