Snapchat is booming and smart brands are embracing it in a big way right now. With a current valuation of $16 billion, we expect that it will continue to grow as more and more users and advertisers begin using the platform. Snapchat caters largely to 13-34 year olds now but it’s only a matter of time before the 35 plus set joins in. If you are a brand marketer but have not yet made Snapchat a significant part of your strategy, here are ten reasons to begin doing so…
We couldn’t help ourselves. Here are two more bonus tips:FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE - There are relatively few companies using Snapchat consistently right now, allowing marketers to garner significant attention for their brands. There will also never be an easier time to build a massive following.MORE IMPACTFUL ADS – Snapchat provides full screen mobile video ads, which have a 9x higher completion rate than horizontal video formats offered by other social networks.
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Given the ongoing upheaval in the ad world, I feel there has never been a better time to be in this advertising business. Consumers see more than 5,000 ads per day, most of which make little to no impact.To me, there is a tremendous opportunity to shift the ad strategies of yesteryear into much more effective, thoughtful marketing.But how are advertisers supposed to connect in such a cluttered world of product-driven messages, particularly when the average attention span for a human is now just 8 seconds?[caption id="attachment_2941" align="aligncenter" width="675"]
Source: Microsoft
[/caption]The Answer: Do NOT rewrite history. Tap into the stories your customers already know. Get them to remember, rather than expecting them to connect with new things.We all have certain stories that we’ve heard over and over and still love because they are wired into our DNA. Brands can tap into these stories and customize with their own unique characters and mini plot lines. It’s a proven method that works again and again to drive brand equity, connection and, yes, even sales.When the Think Different campaign launched in ’97, Apple aligned itself with seventeen 20th Century iconic personalities including Albert Einstein, John Lennon, Amelia Earhart and others. Each of these people represents specific archetypes that trigger a connection with our unconscious. Apple brought its tagline to life with these heroes, inspiring us all to change the world for the better (by using Apple products, of course).
To connect with customers, brands need to see the world through their eyes. They need to think, act and talk like their customers and, most importantly, do so authentically and transparently.Brands can most easily do this in social by tapping into the archetypes of their customers. Archetypes represent a pattern of ideas and thinking that transcend time and cultures. According to Carl Jung there are 12 core archetypes. Each one represents its own basic human motivations, values and traits. Jung said Archetypes tap into our collective unconscious and control most of our decision-making. They set the foundation for how we see our place in the world and how we connect with other people and with brands.
How are smart brands using Archetypes in Social Media?Click here for the full story on what other brands are doing to tell stories in social media and how they are tapping into archetypes to build true connections with their customers.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Filmmaking is a labor of love. You pour your soul into a project then, after countless hours of agonizing work has been logged, you hand that precious creation over to a team of marketing professionals that you desperately hope can sell your vision to the masses. It's terrifying, and we understand. However when done well, social movie marketing can be a seamless extension of the film itself.74% of people in the 18-65+ age group are on social media, and they're all very savvy. So marketing films has moved beyond simply uploading your trailer and a few stills from the film. You've got to produce engaging, interactive content that rewards existing fans and recruits new ones. If this were the early aughts you might call these "DVD extras."
Leverage Current Events
You've got to break through the social media clutter somehow to sell tickets, and this is one excellent way. Leveraging current events and the buzz from another movie. Last year when Fifty Shades of Grey aired their notorious Super Bowl commercial, the marketing team behind the new Spongebob Squarepants movie smartly posted this bit of appropriative artwork. Simply genius.
Publicizing a film with a parody of another popular movie is just one of the tactics you can use to engage potential fans and acquire new ones. Current events are ripe with opportunities for movie marketers. Please, for the sake of Kris, find a way to use Kim Kardashian's latest twitter faux pas to market your movie.
Kreative is King
Wait. Sorry still stuck on the Kardashian reference. Creative is king. But seriously, it's crucial. You've simply got to find creative ways to tell the same story throughout the life cycle of the campaign. Below's an excellent example of the work we've done for The Big Short, and how we were able to represent the mood of the film based on in a short video.
Groundbreaking Interactive Ideas
Interactive is everything. You engage the user for far longer than a simple text over image post, and when done well you make fans and sell tickets. As JJ Abrams recently noted at SXSW virtual reality will become a key marketing component to a slightly more complicated and involved movie marketing strategy, but one that's catching the attention of movie goers world wide is alternate reality games, or ARGs. ARGs. They create a fictional world that users in the real world interact with, often through online communities. Some games even have dedicated social media accounts and coded websites to GPS coordinates that players must travel to in order to uncover clues.
Facebook Canvas
Where you could once only market to your customers with photos or video, Facebook is doubling down on the benefits of interactive storytelling as a way of connecting with your audience in meaningful ways (without driving them outside the platform). Facebook LIVE, Facebook 360 and Canvas are all prime examples, and there is surely more to come.
GoPro & Periscope
This is truly immersive, live story-telling. The GoPro-Periscope partnership enables marketers to broadcast live directly from a GoPro HERO4 Black or Silver camera. This innovative integration allows Periscope users to toggle between broadcasting from their iPhone’s camera to their GoPro directly from the phone screen with the simple touch of a button.Fans can use their Periscope interface to flip between the different camera angles, so they're constantly engaged. The possible applications for marketing are endless.
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
I am just leaving Austin after spending five days at SXSW, and between the nightlife and all day conference sessions, it’s safe to say I need to sleep for a couple days. Despite the exhaustion, it was an amazing time, both educationally and socially. Here are my Top 10 Takeaways.
1. Ad Blocking is Killing Traditional Digital Advertising
Ad Blocking is listed as my first takeaway as it addresses the core issue with the advertising industry today. Most of the following highlights are based on how marketers can adapt to address the fact that consumers 1) aren’t seeing ads or 2) aren’t connecting with ads when they do see them.In many ways the ad industry has had its head in the sand as ad blocking has been looming on the horizon for some time.In 2015, $22 billion in revenue was affected by Ad Blocking and this year, that number will rise to $41 billion. Soon, half of all 18-24 year olds will use ad blockers. Today, 22% of all Brits already do.
(1) Source: Page Fair & Vizium
But wait - there’s hope...
2. Tell Better Stories by Staying in Touch with Human Emotions
When consumers connect with a story, they listen and remember.During what was probably the hottest panel of the conference, J.J. Abrams told a story about another director who once showed him a 6-minute action filled reel that was jam packed with many of the latest special effects technology. While the visuals were amazing, he said, “I couldn’t connect with it because it lacked a human element. Even though we now have access to amazing technology, it’s important not to lose sight of what makes us human.” In essence, movie markers need to tell stories that allow people to truly relate with the characters and feel a deep connection to them.Brands are no different. Marketers need to tell better, more meaningful stories. But how?
3. Branding in Social is More Important than Ever
In a session called Stay True to Your Craft and Online Brand, the conversation was about the power of branding today. It’s more important than ever for brands to know who they are and what they stand for. According to Jey Van-Sharp, “A Brand is storytelling. It’s a concept, it’s an idea. Replace the word ‘brand’ with ‘personality,’ then how do you think about it?”Social Media is one big conversation. With people listening less and less to traditional ads, brands need to be louder in social and the ones with the strongest and most consistent POV in a positive direction will gain the most attention.
4. The Messenger Matters
Brand Ambassadors are the best storytellers. People want to hear from other people and not from large companies. I listened to and participated in a discussion and Q&A with executives from NASA, The Peace Corps and U.S. Travel, all of which are big supporters of brand advocacy within social media. The key question for them is – what is the best way to get people talking positively at scale?
Jonathan Townsend from NASA said, “People are much more likely to begin talking about your brand if you get them in a room of likeminded people.”Make them part of your culture. Connect them with one another and they will build more of a connection with your brand. The best thing a brand can do is to create a community where people have a sense of belonging and pride.For example, NASA arranges 120 events that people can attend. It brings out junior to mid level speakers who are actually doing the work, rather then high-level executives who may be a bit removed. They also arrange special tours for their advocates that are not available to the general public. This gives people a real sense of community and belonging.
5. The Best Marketing Improves People’s Lives
Kevin Plank, CEO and Founder of Under Armor, participated in a Q&A surrounding his incredible success story of building a company to $4 billion in annual revenue and growing. Recently, Kevin invested $710 million in app technology to help people track their health across the four quadrants of sleep, activity, fitness and nutrition. He now has 160 million users, growing at a rate of 130,000 downloads per day. Last year, users uploaded 8 billion food entries and 2 million workouts with the purpose of tracking, monitoring and optimizing their health.While Kevin’s core goal is to help people improve their health, he is creating two incredibly powerful marketing byproducts:
• Intelligent data that Under Armor can use to create products that help people to become healthier, fitter and happier.
• One of the most effect CRM channels ever built, giving Under Armor a direct link to potentially hundreds of millions of users who use the company’s technology daily to improve their most valuable asset: their health.
6. Brands Need to Drive Culture to Be Most Relevant
In a session called From Niche to Movement to Mainstream, Chris Barth from Contagious and Diego Figueroa from Lapiz focused on how cultures grow, using the examples of food trucks and hip-hop. There are multiple catalysts to growth - not just one tipping point - and predicting a groundbreaking cultural phenomenon is extremely difficult. But, for those brands that do, they can help drive culture and will become an integral part of a movement, such as when Adidas supported Run DMC early on in support of hip-hop. To be successful, brands should hedge their bets and participate in 10 cultural movements to see two take hold.
7. Virtual Reality is Exploding – Jump In Now
VR is clearly at its tipping point and was omnipresent at SXSW. NASA created a VR experience for its upcoming trips to Mars in 2018 and 2023. The University of Texas at Austin created a VR driving game on texting while driving, which always comes to an abrupt ending with a head on collision with a Mack Truck. Gillette and Discovery created VR stories on skateboarding, skeleton racing and slack lining. And, The New York Times hosted three discussions on the topic.If you are not doing VR, find a way to do it to now before your competitors. There is a huge consumer appetite right now and your efforts will get noticed. While the distribution of Oculus and Google Cardboard is low, Facebook 360 is clearly getting some nice distribution to reach millions of consumers.
8. UGC Storytelling through KnowMe
During J.J. Abrams and Andrew Jarecki’s session, Jarecki featured his new app, KnowMe, which allows users to quickly and easily create stories by stringing many videos together and adding a voice over narrative. The app just launched and my guess is that it is going to explode quickly as there is nothing out there like it.
9. Mobile Video Just Added A Sense of Touch
On the trade show floor I met a company by the name of Immersion that enables mobile video to have feeling. In other words, it vibrates to the tune of the commercials, movie trailer or other video. I became so immersed in the experience of watching a Mission Impossible 5 trailer that I didn’t realize that my sense of touch was included in the experience. I did recognize, however, that the feeling was much deeper than what I was used to.Adding the sense of touch to digital content will undoubtedly enhance experience and increase recall for advertisers.
10. SXSW Still Throws the Best Parties
I had the fortune of attending most of the best parties too. My favorite was The NYT’s with its VR Experience, 10 piece band and outdoor setting.Pandora’s event had G-Eazy who put on a stellar outdoor show with his 100+ “real” fans looking in from the outside of the fences.Spotify landed 82-year old Willie Nelson who was still pickin’ well after all these years.Funny or Die brought in the popular DJ Alice in Wonderland to spin.Mashable did not have any celebrity entertainers but the event was hopping to say the least.And, as always, Rainey Street was in fine form each night with an array of house bars, joined by Food Trucks galore to take care of late night munchies.There are plenty of stories to be told about the last five days. The most relevant for all of us is that advertising and marketing are changing faster than you can say SXSW. Between ad blocking, DVR, social media and people simply protesting traditional forms of advertising, sticking with the status quo is much riskier than trying new things. So dig deep to find your true brand voice, tell authentic stories in social and use ambassadors and new technology to amplify your message. Do any combination of those things and much success and opportunity lie ahead.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Facebook has officially launched Canvas, arguably one of the most exciting ad units available to social advertisers today. Described as “A new space for big ideas on Facebook,” Canvas gives advertisers more creative freedom than ever before, offering an immersive and interactive…well, uh, canvas…on which to tell your story.Facebook is doubling down on the benefits of interactive storytelling as a way of connecting with your audience in meaningful ways (without driving them outside the platform). Facebook LIVE, Facebook 360 and Canvas are all prime examples.In the not so distant past, Facebook ads were limited to pictures. People paused for a quick second while scrolling the newsfeed and either clicked on a link or kept scrolling. Then video came along and advertisers were able to lock viewers in for a bit longer to tell a bigger (more in-depth) story. Now with Canvas, advertisers are able to capture the video view attention span while also allowing for the interactivity that users today thrive on.With Canvas still in the very early stages, it will be interesting to see what further testing reveals as it relates to calls to action, metrics and benchmarking. Facebook’s model remains unchanged - it will not be charging more or less depending on what is put into the Canvas. Facebook will, however, be able to report on deeper metrics such as time spent on the ad and increase in ad recall.Now is the time for brands to take advantage of this “thumbstopping” creative opportunity while it’s fresh. The rich media opportunities are incredibly exciting for a wide array verticals.
The health and fitness category is exploding on social for a reason. For one, it’s incredibly community-driven by nature. The storytelling – and story starting – opportunities include everything from product news/reviews and recipes to coordinated fitness challenges and workout tips. We put together the generic Canvas example above to give you a sense of what’s possible. As the #fitspo saying goes, “two months from now you’ll regret not starting today.”
Restaurant marketers have been agonizing over the best way to uniquely communicate ingredient quality and food freshness. Worry no more. This is the perfect opportunity to SHOW your customers where your food comes from, how it’s made and who makes it. Throw in a side order of LTOs and special offers and you’ve got yourself an engaged – and hungry – audience.
Canvas allows movie marketers to introduce viewers not only to a trailer, but also to the characters, memorable quotes and critic reviews (and more) in a single location, without having to leave the newsfeed. It’s an immersive experience that’s actually going to drive ticket sales.
Beauty is perhaps the single most review-driven category in retail. With nearly 70% of all people trusting online reviews when making purchasing decisions, Canvas allows beauty, bath and body marketers to tell real stories from real people. When shared alongside product news, influencer tutorials and the lat est trends, you’re looking at one hot new tool.
Feature your products, sponsorships, influencers, UGC and special promotions all in one place. This is a formula that can be re-skinned over and over again depending on the season or occasion. When you consider the stories and lifestyle that surround your product, the opportunities are endless.Header image taken from https://canvas.facebook.com/
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