Industry Giants & the Social (Media) Experiment
It seems that in today’s world, social media is king. There are hundreds of “gurus” and “swamis” flaunting their cutting-edge social networking knowledge. However, in truth, I’d say it is a little more complex than updating Twitter and interacting with Apps on Facebook. The real beauty of social media is its ability to change on a daily basis. There are new sites popping up, new features on existing sites, and endless opportunities to connect with potential clients. This is where it really gets interesting. With no set rules and an infinite number of ways to interact with those in-tune with social media, marketers have the chance to experiment. Surprisingly, it is not just the small, quirky, online-media agencies that are testing the water. Major players like Ikea have decided to push the boundaries of new media. And they have done surprisingly well.
The advertisers for Ikea were given a challenge: create major buzz about its new store opening in Malmö, Sweden on a small budget. So they decided to utilize one of the most used sites on the web: Facebook. While thousands of companies have profiles, fan pages, and groups devoted to their products, Ikea decided to take it one step further. Forsman & Bodenfors came up with a groundbreaking digital campaign for Ikea by turning Facebook’s photo-tagging function into a promotional tool. And it all started with one profile: the store’s manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Gustavsson (& team) uploaded pictures of the new Ikea showrooms to his photo album and encouraged his Facebook friends to tag themselves as those items. The first to tag the item, won the item. Simple as that. And it worked. The promo spread like wild fire through Facebook via profiles, updates, news-feeds, and the like. People were not only sharing their interest (like when “Becoming a Fan” of a company), but they were personally promoting the products on their own profile pages. Not to mention, Gordon’s Facebook popularity skyrocketed. How brilliant is this? This promotion got people energized, interacting and sharing with their friends and all of this using only existing products and applications. I love seeing big companies taking these sorts of risks and using this innovative thinking. Ikea, a rather “cool” company to begin with, really struck this one out of the ballpark. Having Facebook-ers constantly interacting with your product and checking back for new chances to win was just plain marketing genius. A well-played social media campaign, if I have ever seen one.
One good ol’ American company you wouldn’t guess to be on the cutting edge of social media is Ford. But you’d be wrong. Ford Motor Co. will spend 25% of their marketing budget on digital and social media. That is more than twice the amount spent by other the industry bigwigs who waver somewhere around 9%. As Ford goes through the process of reinventing the company after certain newsworthy, financial stories this past year, they are using digital media to get their message across. “If you are trying to communicate, as we are, that you have been reinventing the company, you can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other,” says James Farley, Ford’s chief marketing executive. Their most innovative idea? The Fiesta Movement. Ford gave 100 European Fiestas (the car is already out and about across the pond) to US social media wizzes. This marketing campaign began in 2008, 18 months before the cars will actually be available to the US market. The results have been mind-blowing. Blogging, Facebooking, Youtubing and Tweeting by lucky 100 test drivers started an unprecedented buzz. According to an article on Business Week, “The awareness level of Fiesta, a car that is not even in the U.S. yet (though it has been a fixture in Europe for years), is 37% among Generation Y, according to Ford-commissioned surveys. That is about equal to the awareness level of Fusion and Flex, models that have received, especially in the case of Fusion, hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media spend.” Before the 100 Fiesta drivers had even been chosen, the social networking realm was abuzz with socialistas vying for the chance to be a Fiesta-tester. This has got to be consumer testimony at its best. And it happens to be free and more importantly viral and shockingly sincere. Consumers are inexplicably engaged and ready and willing to participate. According to Ford, the Fiesta Movement has made 11,000,000 social networking impressions, 5,000,000 “shares” on social networks, over 11,000 videos have been posted; 15,000 Tweets, not even including re-tweets, and 13,000 photos. That’s nearing 16 million impressions in the social media realm. And that’s impressive.
While all this is amazing progress for some of the biggest names in industry, I personally can’t wait to see how things unfold. The epic drama of social media is that it is constantly changing. These ideas are innovative and well executed, but who knows? Next week a new social media site might be all the rage. And we all know that big companies aren’t quick enough to adapt to sudden change, or are they? For now, let’s just say they are doing their part in the social experiment.
–Kristin Thompson, Intern Extraordinaire