The New York Times recently posted a great article about how major brands are making their mark in the world of social media via Facebook and other networking sites. Law firms can learn a great deal from these big businesses and their millions spent to learn how to connect with their all-important audience.
The number of advertisers with presences in the social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are increasing faster than the lines at the supermarket when the values of the cents-off coupons are being tripled.
Now, two familiar brands of baked goods sold by Kraft Foods are stepping up their marketing efforts in social media.
One brand, Oreo cookies, is going to be giving its Facebook page a global look, effective on Monday. The other brand, Wheat Thins crackers, is starting a campaign to reward fans of the brand who discuss it on Twitter.
Oreo has been on Facebook since last August with a page that has been primarily American-oriented. But the many comments left on the page from other countries — reflecting that more than half the brand’s 5 million Facebook fans are from outside the United States — led to a rethinking of how Oreo is presented on the Web site.
A new Facebook campaign for Oreo will salute a “world’s fan of the week.”“It was an ‘A-ha’ moment for us,” said Mark Clouse, senior vice president for global biscuits at Kraft Foods in Northfield, Ill., reflecting that the company understands Facebook “is now a global vehicle and a platform we can use to have a global dialog” with consumers.
The interactive agency 360i is working on the revamping of the Oreo Facebook page. New features will include a “world’s fan of the week,” saluting a devoted Oreo consumer.
The contents will be a mix of global and local material, Mr. Clouse said, because, for example, “an American consumer is intrigued to see what’s going on in Venezuela with Oreo.”
The mixture would acknowledge that the Oreo brand is in different states of development in different markets. Some elements are universal, however, like the selling of the cookie with the “twist, lick and dunk” ritual involving Oreos and a glass of milk.
In creating the content, Mr. Clouse said, the goal will be to “make sure our language is coming across as human and not as lawyer- or corporate-speak,” so as not to turn off brand fans.
“We want to be smart and terse in what we are saying and doing,” he added.
Turning to the Oreo sibling Wheat Thins, that brand is working with a Chicago agency named the Escape Pod on a project in the form of a campaign that will carry the theme “The crunch is calling.”
The Wheat Thins campaign, which is getting under way this week, will include a channel on YouTube. It is centered on a mobile team for the brand that travels around bestowing surprising treats to brand fans.
For instance, a young woman named Tabitha — who wrote on Twitter “AAHHHH Im outta wheat thins … Mi life is officially over!” — is greeted by the brand team at home with a forklift loaded with what looks like a couple of cases of product.
“These were actual tweets that we selected” to respond to, said Vinny Warren, creative director at the Escape Pod, after searching on Twitter for comments about the brand.
“We’re using what’s already there,” he added. “You don’t have to make it up.”
Wheat Thins also has a Twitter account, which as of Wednesday afternoon had 337 followers.
The goal of the campaign is to stimulate comments on Twitter about Wheat Thins as well as to encourage more consumers to follow the brand there, Mr. Warren said.
“If it was me and I saw it, I’d check it out,” he said of the campaign, laughing. “I’d say, ‘I love Wheat Thins as much as a Ferrari, and they’d give me a toy Ferrari.”
No comments:
Post a Comment