NZ social media: The best and worst of 2011

2011 saw social media in New Zealand move from being part of most marketers agendas to central to almost every marketing conversation. Here is our best and worst of the year.

McDonald’s embraced check-in rewards at store level, which was a great initiative and showed they now take social media seriously. They also had great success with the ‘Flick Rugby’ game, which was an app that sat on the Facebook page and let people to flick a coin across a counter full of McDonald’s food to win points. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but it was a nice tie-in with the Rugby World Cup. It was also simple, very addictive and had strong engagement numbers.

The Pedigree adoption campaign ‘Doggelganger’ was a real social media success. Doggelganger allowed people to find which dog they should adopt by uploading a pic of themselves to see which canine they looked most similar to. The idea was fun, very sharable and had a good truth (people often buy dogs that look like themselves).

Westpac’s ‘Gen W’ - a Facebook page specifically for the next generation of customers where they could win cash and a financial mentor – is a favourite of ours. Again, it taps into a core human emotion, in this case that everyone loves sharing their baby photos. Plus, it gets potential customers at an underused customer lifecycle point. Read the rest of this entry »

Public Relations and Voyeurism 2.0

The PR ideas that get the most award-winning attention tend to be experiential/ambient/stunt related. There is, of course, plenty of great PR work that intentionally flies under the radar, but that’s for another discussion. Read the rest of this entry »

Sharing & consuming: the PR implications for the internet of the future

According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, there will be some interesting shifts in internet usage come 2015:

- Global internet traffic will quadruple by 2015
- Asia Pacific will be the region doing the most file sharing, dwarfing North America and Western Europe
- North America and Western Europe will lead the way in business IP traffic
- Western Europe will be the dominant VoIP market, driven by services like Skype
- Asia Pacific will be the number region for internet gaming, followed by North America
- North America will watch significantly more internet TV than other regions Read the rest of this entry »

When any PR is good PR

Following last week’s media storm over KFC’s new Double Down “bunless burger”, one thing resonates: sometimes the old adage is true; all PR is good PR.

We all know that not all PR is good PR, but sometimes it doesn’t matter if everyone is slating a product as people just can’t help the temptation to give something new a try. Fast food is probably one of those sectors – either you know it’s bad for you and don’t care, or you just don’t think about health risks when you decide what you are going to eat. I’m not sure which group my flatmate falls into, but he has already eaten five Double Downs, three of which he queued over half an hour for! Read the rest of this entry »

PR, advertising and marketing: what’s the difference and why does it matter?

Prior to the interview that got me my first job in PR, I remember researching why PR was different from marketing and advertising.

I did a few hours of my own reading and thinking to get a grip on the comparisons, but it was when I was in the interview itself that the interviewer told me this old analogy: “Imagine you’re in a bar and see someone you like the look of … Advertising is you telling her you’re great in bed; marketing is getting your friend to tell her you’re great in bed; PR is getting her friend to tell her you’re great in bed.” Read the rest of this entry »

2010 was great, but 2011 will be better

I recently shared my thoughts on StopPress.co.nz on what’s happened in New Zealand’s marketing world in 2010. It got me looking back on what has been a great year. It also got me thinking about what lies in store for 2011.

Here are some of the biggest professional realisations I will take away from 2010:

• Communications is about creating content, be it a press release for a journalist to use or social media fodder for people to consume and share. I knew this already, but I didn’t realise how much of a skill content creation is. We can all create content, but that doesn’t mean we can all create dynamic, successful content
• One day in the not too distant future, we might stop having marketing silos. When I started in PR a few years ago, I only knew the dictionary style definitions of what it entailed and the same goes for how it is different from marketing and advertising. Now that we have all become so muddied in what defines our place in the market, it might be wise to just have one marketing function, all contributing ideas directly into the same pot and do away with all the confusing titles Read the rest of this entry »

Brothers in marketing: does collaboration between creative agencies work? #markchat

First things first, it would be wise to list what I deem to be ‘creative agencies’. The following fields are what I am principally referring to:

PR; advertising; marketing; design; web development.

So, in the broad modern world there are lots of creative entities ready and willing to promote a brand. But can marketing agencies really work collaboratively with design agencies and can media agencies work in blissful unison with advertising agencies? And what happens when a PR agency has to work alongside a web agency to deliver a project? From experience, this is sometimes a very rewarding process as you get input from people with different skill sets. That said, it can also be a frustrating process when the other party doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand, how your contribution fits in. Read the rest of this entry »

The Human Touch

Not that long ago there was a void in terms of online measurement tools that went beyond ‘you have had 24 mentions this month’. There was a lack of connecting measurement to ROI, something that dug a little deeper towards bringing it back to the business benefits.

Now there seems to be a plethora of options, some of which have had pick-up in New Zealand and some of which haven’t. As with most things, there will probably be a cooling off period where the best ones establish themselves and the others fade into obscurity.

We all know that social media/ digital marketing is just the first step towards better communications and PR. The more important facet is what to do with that data. It’s pointless having it and not using it. Before you jump into the ocean of data, you need to set a long-term strategic plan. But where do you start? Read the rest of this entry »

The missing link: when sales, PR and advertising are disconnected

Apparently, the recent Old Spice ad has been right up there in terms of ‘talkability’, ‘buzz’ and ‘engagement’. This much is true, proven by the fact that the video, and the personalised re-incarnations (which was a great idea, by the way), have been viewed by approximately one zillion people around the world. They have been watched and passed on to friends and family because they are very funny; it’s that great content thing again.

But is this ad going to sell more product? I would never buy OId Spice, nor would my Dad, my brother, my boss, my flatmates…I’ve questioned them all and nobody I know buys it and the ads have, if anything, simply re-enforced this notion. Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond the guff, is all this social media stuff just advertising and PR in disguise?

I went to an NZ Marketing Association event this morning that featured the head of Facebook for Australia and New Zealand as well as the Online Editor team at Rugby World Cup 2011.

It was interesting to get an update on what Facebook can offer and it was also good to hear the inside story on how the Rugby World Cup is being promoted.

The talk did, however, raise a few questions in my mind about the ongoing role of social media.

Social media is all about sharing and it’s all about user-generated content (70% is the target according to Facebook) and…you’ve heard this before so I won’t bang on about what it is.

Driving Facebook followers or ‘likes’ is mainly achieved through advertising. Seeing as social media’s based on non-advertorial pledges, isn’t this oxymoronic? Read the rest of this entry »

Online public relations and the privacy debate

There have been lots of conversations recently about privacy, specifically in social media. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and head-honcho at Facebook, got very sweaty when discussing the topic recently. If Mark Zuckerberg, one of the pioneers of the share everything world we live in is getting sweaty about ongoing privacy concerns, then perhaps we should all be worrying.

But I don’t think it’s really about privacy. It’s actually about money. And egos. Read the rest of this entry »

Brands battling it out as World Cup looms large

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest event in the world and therefore seen as the biggest branding opportunity known to man.

In terms of global reach, it knocks spots off The Olympics, Super Bowl or the Rugby World Cup. Almost every country in the world will be watching.

Here’s Nike’s effort. Is it over-produced and slightly ridiculous? Yes. Did it cost an enormous amount that could have gone to any number of charities? Undoubtedly. But is it a lot of fun? You betcha. Read the rest of this entry »

Communicating Creatively

Think outside the box for a minute. Let’s have a brainstorm and do some blue-sky thinking. You know,  a whiteboarding session.

Working in public relations, we’re straddling the line between the creative and business fields, often being pulled strongly in both directions. Clients want new, fresh ideas that bring original thought and perspective to help reach their audiences, while the realities of budgets and billable hours mean that the grandest, greatest, most original ideas are often ones that get cut first. It’s easy to therefore fall into the trap of complacency and do the same set of standard tactics that worked before and will work again. But that does little to advance the brand and reputation of clients, and frankly, they deserve better. Agencies are engaged for their creative nous just as often as for their business acumen, writing skills and media contacts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media Myths

Edelman Digital recently interviewed Brian Morrissey, Digital Editor of AdWeek at the Marketing 2.0 Conference in Paris.

Morrissey gave a rundown of his ‘Social Media Myths’, which included:

• Social Media isn’t just about listening
• You can sell, you just have to do it right
• You can buy friends (Microsoft recently did it for its Facebook page by offering free ‘Farmville money’)
• Sponsored links. incoporated advertising can work with Social Media and is going to be the future

Some good points there, but what do you think? Are we going to continue to see the Social Media landscape evolve and will it one day come full circle and be just like TV and other media that talks to the consumer, rather than with them?

Clever Uses of Stickers in Advertising

I recently stumbled upon this cool collection of advertising stickers on StumbleUpon, the bookmarking website.

It’s a fun list and shows the creative ways advertising can be used. I would also say it’s in the realm of experiential marketing as these kinds of stickers always make people look twice, which is a form of brand engagement.

It just goes to show, not all effective communication is online these days.