Instagram post from Ralph Lauren
Compared to display ads and search that are standardized, the fragmented array of platforms ask brands to adapt to unique consumer experiences. While this makes it trickier for marketers to deliver a message across platforms, finding ways to speak to a particular online community can have a greater impact and resonance.
“It’s the value proposition,” said Jeremy Levine, senior vice president of digital sales at Live Nation.
“If you’re a brand and your marketing message or creative is looked at as content and enhancing the content, then you’re going to get buy-in from consumers,” he said. “Whether it’s a promotion, whether it’s access you’re providing, whether it’s additional content, there’s going to be an acceptance level.”
Creating content
Wattpad is a community of storytellers and readers, providing entertainment in which the creator becomes part of the audience via comments.
Wattpad is a community of storytellers and readers, providing entertainment in which the creator becomes part of the audience via comments.
The site, which gets 85 percent of its traffic from mobile, has a high engagement rate, with about 9.5 billion minutes on the site and an average session of 30 minutes.
Wattpad works with brands to create stories that are valuable for its readers.
Panelists, from left: Rob “Spider” Graham, Sean O’Neal, Jeremy Levine and Aaron Levitz
For instance, Unilever wanted to share a tale about overcoming the odds and facing the day. Rather than having an in-house copywriter create the story, Wattpad paired the company with an influencer, who already had a following on the site.
After running the campaign for a couple of weeks, Unilever had tens of thousands of views.
Similarly, movies “The Fault in Our Stars” and “The Purge: Anarchy” used Wattpad to tell stories related to their themes. The people who read the stories were 100 percent more likely to recommend the films.
“The reason that any brand wants to tell a story is that it leaves a lasting impression,” said Aaron Levitz, head of business development at Wattpad.
Live Nation, which specializes in concert streaming, has also worked with brands to generate content its audience cares about.
Expanding on the live stream experience, Live Nation curates fan content at concerts and events using geofencing, rather than asking consumers to remember to enter a hashtag. The company targets a specific area via latitude and longitude designations and aggregates content through its partnerships with social media platforms.
This content is then vetted by hand to ensure relevancy and posted along with professional photography, brand content and artist social feeds. The streaming company has also integrated infographics of interest for consumers, for instance heat maps of hot stages at a festival.
Live Nation worked with HTC for the launch of its One phone, geofencing both concert stages and kiosks where the phones were being displayed.
From adding this content, Live Nation has seen higher levels of engagement than with a stand-alone streaming feed. Even when there is no live stream, consumers still spend time on the site reposting social content and browsing attendee images, getting a feel for the event.
This addition of social content to a live stream is a tactic used by a number of fashion labels for their runway shows.
Versus Versace runway show live stream
For instance, U.S. apparel brand Michael Kors gave consumers a look at both its runway show and the backstage area live Feb. 12 through a dedicated microsite.
Through live.michaelkors.com, consumers were able to watch the brand prepare for its runway show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and view the finished product. By integrating real-time elements into its live-stream, Michael Kors was able to better immerse its fans in the show experience, creating brand loyalists (see story).
The new wave of social platforms allows brands to reach a global, yet fragmented, audience. Each individual community has a unique set of users, and if a brand can speak to them on a special level, it will see results.
Since these platforms know so much about their users, brands can use third party data mixed with their first party data to target their audience, in much the same way that they would an email campaign. However, they first need to get over the hurdle of being allowed into the club, described by Sean O’Neal, Adaptly president of social advertising, as “walled gardens.”
Adaptly provides brands with a toolkit to help make the transition from one platform to another easier and find opportunities for advertising.
Mr. O’Neal said that MySpace is a lesson in what not to do, and that it “paid the price of being an early mover” in social advertising. The banner ads displayed on its site turned users away, as they begrudged the disruption to their social feed.
Promoted posts Recently, social platforms have been rolling out ways for brands to reach more than just their followers in a way that does not interrupt the user experience.
For instance, U.S. fashion label Ralph Lauren was the latest luxury apparel brand to unveil a promoted Instagram post to expand its reach on the photo-sharing social platform.
The ad featured an orange evening gown from the back, an image the brand had posted to its account a week before the promoted post appeared. Promoted Instagram posts are still fairly uncommon, but the reaction to Ralph Lauren’s ad shows that consumers are starting to become more accepting of the sponsored content (see story).
Brands should expect a level of oversight before they are able to advertise on one of these platforms, since the owners are very protective of their community, and the content delivered to their audience. For instance, Wattpad’s Mr. Levitz said that he turned away an automaker that wanted to build a story around power seats, but would have been open about doing a branded narrative with a road trip theme.
“It’s not about potentially your brand working within the community, it’s your brand has to work well within the community,” Mr. Levitz said.
No comments:
Post a Comment