Client:

Solution Type: Digital Promotion – MLS Pubs ViewFest Multichannel Sweepstakes

Technology: Affinitive’s Social Sweepstakes Platform

Services Provided: Strategy, Creative, Technology, and Measurement

Objective:
Major League Soccer seeks to increase brand awareness and drive tune-in by activating their network of 150 national pubs in a creative and competitive way.

Activation:
Consumers discover the promotion from three locations; the MLS Facebook Page, the MLS Pubs page or through collateral that each pub displayed during game nights.

Consumers entered and participated in the sweepstakes in three steps:

Connect their foursquare account with the sweepstakes

Check-in on foursquare from participating pubs during MLS games

Win prizes such as VIP trip to MLS Cup, Club Jerseys, Viewing Party for winning Pub, and more

Solution Type: Digital Promotion – Michael Jackson “Experience the Glove” Ultimate Rewards Sweepstakes

Technology: Affinitive’s Social Sweepstakes Platform

Services Provided: Strategy, Creative, Technology, Community Management and Measurement

Objective

Ubisoft sought to increase awareness and acquire Facebook fans for the new Xbox360 Kinect video game, Michael Jackson The Experience.

Activation

Like & Win sweepstakes that required fans to like the Michael Jackson The Experience page then vote daily for their favorite celebrity-sponsored charity.  Each vote increased the entrant’s chances of winning a replica Michael Jackson glove. A partnership with Charity Buzz facilitated the participation of Ndamukong Suh, Whoopi Goldberg and Shaquille O’Neal.  The celebrity-sponsored charity with the most votes at the end of the sweepstakes won a $5,000 donation from Ubisoft. 

Results (8 Week Campaign)

• 600,000 Facebook Likes
• 9,700 Votes
• 3,800 Shares w/ 8.5 Facebook Feedback
• 2,500 Sweepstakes Entries
• 42% Opt-in to Ubisoft CRM

Solution Type: Digital Promotion

Technology: Affinitive’s Facebook Sweepstakes Application

Summary

Your Shape Fitness Evolved (YSFE) sought to target gamers who are passionate about health and enjoy getting fit with video games.  As one of the first games to use Microsoft Kinect, YSFE had the challenge of conveying the efficacy and fun of the game as well as the Kinect device on a limited budget. The campaign goal was to create buzz and excitement for the game within social media channels in advance of the game’s release in November 2010.

The ‘Boot Camp’ Facebook Contest campaign launched in October asking influential gamers to submit audition videos to explain why they needed a fitness makeover. Five winners were flown to San Francisco to play the game before the public and give their opinions and feedback.

Ubisoft uploaded images, video and blog entries in real time during the 2 day “Boot Camp’ event, adding excitement and intrigue for fans. Influencers uploaded their own content after the event and inspired hundreds of gamers to create their own diaries.

Results

• 17X Increase in Facebook Likes in 8 Weeks
• 5,000,000+ Impressions (Xbox, Facebook, Twitter)
• 130 photos & videos submitted
• 50,000+ YouTube Views

Winner 2011 MI6 Game Marketing Awards – Most Effective Viral Marketing

Video Entries By ‘Boot Camp’ Contestants

Hamza Aziz (Destructoid.com)

Rande Gabriel

Rachel Davis

Jeremy Yarbrough

Here’s a summary of our discussion:

Random House | The Building Blocks of a Successful WOM Platform

Through its “Random Buzzers” online community platform, Random House is facilitating conversations between the publisher, authors, and Millennial readers. In this session, you’ll not only learn the mechanics behind this program (2010 Gold WOMMY Award Winner), but also find answers to questions like; How do I best utilize a ‘Give to Get’ philosophy to drive WOM? How can I sell that concept internally? How can brands act cross-functionally to maximize consumer experience and program ROI? How do I employ segmentation strategies to optimize engagement? What are optimal content development and frequency strategies? How important are engagement incentives? How can I report on and measure online and offline WOM?

Visit the School of WOM site for more information as well as registration details. Hope you can make it!

OK, so you’ve identified your relevant social media channels and now have several  outposts within social media.   Your initiatives have proven successful at generating awareness, engaging in conversations and acquiring new relationships.  The next logical step becomes how to evolve and connect these various pieces of your social media puzzle so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the individual parts.

You may also be interested in creating paths where light touch consumer engagement can migrate into deeper relationships, in an atmosphere that the brand owns and controls.   (See interesting advertising agency executive roundtable discussion on this very topic at Beet.TV)

Integration can have many definitions; and it’s not until you take that deep dive
that you start to achieve the ultimate end goal – improved marketing efficiency.  For example, am I using an integrated approach to social media if I create a brand site that links off to my Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels?  Short answer – no, you’re not.

To illustrate several potential integration opportunities we’ve broken the puzzle into 4 main pieces which move from light to heavy engagement:

• Social Media Channels (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
• Brand Website or Microsites
• Customer Community or Blog (established in this example as the hub of social )
• CRM Database

Integration Opportunity #1

Customer Community or Blog with CRM – connecting consumer registration data from a customer community with a proprietary CRM database.

Getting Started – Customer data submitted in a community gets securely transferred to brand’s proprietary database.
Up a notch – Consumer behavior and interests within community get transferred to brand’s proprietary database.

Integration Opportunity #2

Customer Community or Blog with Brand Website – passing blog posts or user-generated content to a brand website

Getting Started – Enable one dataset of community content to dynamically flow into one area of brand site.
Up a notch – Enable multiple datasets into multiple areas of brand site.

Integration Opportunity #3

Social Media Channels with Customer Community or Blog (two way) -  passing content dynamically between channels and creating paths for consumers to reach deeper engagement platforms

Getting Started – Utilize xml feeds or social network apis to syndicate content between your platforms.
Up a notch – Utilize Facebook Connect to lower the barrier of engagement.

Unfortunately, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ scenario and every brand will have different business objectives, hopefully working through these opportunities will assist in identifying a logical starting point.  If a brand marketer was able to achieve all three of these opportunities you’d end up with an ecosystem that looks like this:

The roadblocks to achieving an integrated strategy are many; first and foremost it’s difficult because it often involves achieving consensus between parties or corporate functions.   Additional roadblocks could include technology platforms, agency opinions and AOR obligations, and corporate structure.  At the end of the day it takes conviction, hard word and leadership but hey, nobody said innovation and competitive advantage come easy.

This lack of integrated strategy is largely a result of two factors:

• the experimentation encouraged in Steve Rubel’s Digital Embassy strategy
• the relative ease involved with launching a presence

On the surface an integrated approach seems ideal but ultimately it must be driven by the key objective.  An Embassy strategy works well if you’re building up natural search results or brand awareness but not so well if you’re objective is customer acquisition and deeper relationships with customers.  Without integration, there’s no clear path for the consumer to take the casual relationship to a deeper one.

As I started writing I realized there was a good amount to cover, so instead of tackling this topic all in one go, I figured I’d break it into three manageable chunks.  Next up will be working through the various integration opportunities and reviewing the potential road blocks.

The Groundswell authors break down the opportunities within social media to mirror corporate structures, providing an easy way for people in research, marketing/PR, customer support, product development to find their path into social media initiatives.

This is a solid approach because it brings clarity and structure, leading to actionable initiatives. It’s also a good approach for a brand that is making their first foray into the space so they can clearly define objectives and measurable goals and ultimately come away with a success story to justify additional investment.

But what about the brand that has experience and is ready to take a more holistic approach? Or what about the brand that wants to leapfrog their competitors who have already been experimenting for the past year?

Social media and word-of-mouth are not about corporate “silos” – the most effective and sustainable programs cut through silos and have touch points across departments. Does this approach make getting a program off the ground more challenging? Absolutely, but it also accelerates corporate learning, improves results and sustainability of the program.

When did you say the Groundswell 2.0 bus was arriving?

1. Category – Best Viral Promotion, Games & Gaming Category (Silver W3): Ubisoft’s ‘1191AD: Brotherhood of Assassins’ Campaign for Assassin’s Creed
2. Category – Best Site, Social Networking Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for The Nielsen Company
3. Category – Best Site, Branding Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for the Nielsen Company
   
4. Category – Best Site, Entertainment Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for the Nielsen Company
   

The 2008 W3 Awards received over 3,000 entries from around the globe this year, we’re honored to be on their list of excellent work.

A summary of his points:

• Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘Mavens’ are flaky, focus on the ‘Connectors’
• Successful WOM programs must have both advocacy & amplification
• Don’t get duped into measuring viral marketing exclusively on reach, factor in conversion to sale as well
• Focus on the right message and understand that the message that travels is the one that is created by the consumer, not the brand

His point about finding the right message is one that all WOM agencies can learn from. Over the last few years the industry has been consumed with addressing:

• WHO should participate?
• HOW do I engage and motivate
• HOW do I measure results

It’s time to add a new question to the formation of a successful WOM program:

• WHAT are the messages people will spread?

Most everyone we talk to understands the need and importance for word of mouth but since it’s still a relatively new marketing tactic there is a learning curve to tackle. Some of the first issues a marketer is faced with are:

• Should it be a long-term or short-term strategy?
• Should it involve influencers or average consumers from an internal database?
• Should the execution occur online, offline or both?
• How should success be measured? (Sales, conversations, conversation reach, change in Net Promoter Score?)

A recent Forrester report does a good job in helping brands understand what tactics and metrics are best utilized by individual departments (marketing, sales, research, etc.). Approaching it from the brand’s point of view makes it much easier to digest and see the opportunities.

In the same vein I wanted to share my view of the WOM industry, specific to the agencies segment. WOM agencies typically follow one of the following models:

• WOM Agency – Media Model: Brand leases access to the agency’s network of influencers, delivers quick hit, typically short term duration.
• WOM Agency – Influencer Model: Agency specializes in identifying and sourcing influencers, typically short term duration.
• WOM Agency – CRM Model: Agency specializes in sourcing participants from client database, delivers more organic word of mouth, typically long term duration.

One of the tenets of facilitating WOM with consumers is to ‘make it easy’; we in the industry should take that same principal in helping brands understand the various options available within WOM marketing.