1,000,000 Fans and Counting

A corny gimmick and some free publicity can get you a million or so Facebook Fans fast.  For proof check out the “If 1M people join, girlfriend will let me turn house into pirate ship” group to see how it is done.  This appears to be just grass roots craziness that caught on like virtual wild fire over the last couple days.  It’s hard to tell how the sparks were started but the content is pure geekdom gold (for those non-geeks, Pirates is a geek meme that is only rivaled by Ninjas).  They are trying to capitalize on the success of the site through a CafePress store where they might make a couple bucks.  But the effort doesn’t appear to be motivated by commercial gains.

Which is unlike the effort we saw a couple months ago from TGI Fridays.  Their Woody Fan Page promised a free hamburger for all if the fan page topped over 500,000 fans.  This promotion was also heavily featured on TV.  It’s a great idea that has to be executed very very carefully.  For a primer on what can go wrong just read through Woody’s Fan Page discussion board (link).  Here’s an example of damage control:

Woody Damage Control

Thoughts:

• I’m a huge fan of leveraging communications to build an audience that you can communicate to directly.  What was once your Email capture strategy is now your Social Network Fan base creation strategy.  The bigger your base the more effective the communication.  So look to include links to your Social Networking site in your mass communications.
• Using a gimmick to quickly build your base is a good idea if executed correctly.  But gathering the fans is just the first step.  You need a solid communication plan that nurtures that fan base.  And expect to dedicate resources to it.  But what better way to send a direct personal communication to million consumers!
• WARNING:  Think twice before setting up a persona as the face of your brand.  TGIF’s use of Woody is extremely dangerous.  As you can see for his post he is speaking “to the people at TGIF” — he is not speaking on behave of the company.  What happens when he gets arrested for indecent exposure?  And how does TGIF use this base three years from now when they want to do an entirely different campaign.

This campaign from Sprite is a great example of pulling together a couple of tactics to make a very compelling and engaging brand experience.  I find that too often agencies don’t stretch themselves to expand a core idea beyond the initial focus.  This example, developed by the FullSIX Group, goes above and beyond to integrate celebrity, viral video, user generated content, and SocNet leveraging the following:

Celebrity: The campaign’s core revolves around the up and coming English artist Katie Vogel as she tries to build a successful music career.  You get to follow her through her journey by watching YouTube videos and her Facebook updates.

YouTube: Katie’s music videos are posted for fans to rate and review.  The YouTube Channel links directly to Facebook!  Remember that at this time Facebook is not owned by Google — this is the first I’ve seen a YouTube channel integrating with Facebook.

Facebook: You can be-friend Katie on Facebook and follow her on her journey to be a star!  You can post to your Facebook feeds directly from YouTube!

For more details check out this article on Clickz (article here).

My Two Cents:

• This is the first time we’ve seen YouTube integrated with Facebook.  Keep an eye on this — it may open up some really engaging opportunities.
• The first video includes Katie breaking up with her boyfriend — it’s a bit too convenient to be true.  I’d be careful to mix reality with fictional elements.  You will quickly alienate your fan base if they don’t trust you.
• Katie doesn’t post enough.  She needs to be very active to keep the fan base engaged.  It appears she is only posting updates every couple of days.  I’d highly suggest the she updates every couple hours.

Dove Micro Site on MSN

Dove is soap.  Or is it?  Dove is an expression of self esteem.  Is it?  Dove would like you to think so.  Have a look at this very well produced micro-site (link here).

Dove has used the Internet to create a brand position in a way no other medium would allow.  Consumers of Dove can delve pretty deep into their concept of beauty and self-esteem.  Forums, expert Blogs, Widgets, and other tools provide Dove’s consumers with a way to interact with the brand that truly connects the consumer with the position.

If you think your products transcend the product benefit/need fulfillment and can connect to the consumer on an emotional level — or if your product is a commodity like soap and you need to create an emotional connection as a differenciator nothing beats the web to offer a robust engagement.  Have a look at the Dove site and get a feel — they are not selling Soap.  They are selling self-esteem and using the web do to is very effectively.

eMarketer Online Movie Ad Spend Growth

I have a lot of heart for this topic.  I’m a huge movie fan and there is a ton of innovation when it comes to leveraging the Internet to promote movies.  My love started back when Blair Witch came out in 1999.  The agency went well above and beyond to build out the entire back store on the web. To a degree that there was wide belief that the movie was a “real story” — click through on the movie poster below to see the site — still looks great after 10 years.

Blair Witch

The eMarketing data shows that the studios will continue to look towards the web to get kids into the theaters.  With Social Networking and wired Cell phones expect to see some really fun campaigns.

Some Ideas:

- Studios can create online personalities for characters well before the movie starts to be promoted.  Imagine if the Blair Witch trio had 1000 friends each on Facebook — then they disappear.

- Studios, like Disney, have been expanding their movie franchises with Virtual Worlds.  But they are all POST movie release.  How about developing the Viral World first!  Think about this for the upcoming Hobbit movie.

- Think about creating Webisodes around the main characters for the upcoming films and releasing them on YouTube.  You see the networks doing a lot of this now by providing back stories on sitcom characters.  Building out that kind of robustness and level of fan engagement drives bigger audiences by creating uber-fans that spread the word.

Virgin's Kickbacks Program

Here’s a very cool campaign from Virgin mobile.  Virgin customers can grab a unique code off of the site and post it throughout their Social Network profiles (on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc).  If a friend uses the Virgin customer’s code to sign up for the service the Virgin customer gets free minutes and the new referrer gets a discount.

This is pretty much an Affiliate marketing deal — but it is done on a simplistic level that gets Virgin customers to distribute a promotion threw their viral networks.  An interesting plus up might be to give the Virgin customer value for just posting the promo codes on and distributing them – rather than only rewarding them if a new customer signs up.

According the DM New the program has already drive 50,000 new sign ups!  (link)