24 September 2008

Posted at 22:05h in chunga championship, john broome, nestle, pimp my kettle by

The front page of this week's B&T says social media marketing is about to become massive. Of course some of us have known this for a long time.Roy Morgan is moving into word of mouth and social media research. The Population has just launched, one of the first pure social media agencies. Neilsen Online is montioring conversation buzz in the blogosphere. And Nestle has just launched Australia's biggest social media campaign costing around $1 million.Except the campaign is shit. And not even a social media campaign.In fact, I feel like I'm almost going to repeat myself word for word.Once again we're seeing traditional approaches towards new media. The Chunga Championship campaign is about a fake character who plays a fake game. He has a fake blog. And a fake Facebook page. And a YouTube channel. All of which will die in three months.There is no integration of the brand. There is no content creation with consumers. In fact there is no engaging with consumers at all. No influential people or niche communities have even been asked to join their conversation. But there are banner ads. Lots of banner ads. Oh dear.John Broome, head of Nestle's confectionery marketing responded to the $1 million cost and future campaigns saying, "I think we'll see ourselves going above that...

13 September 2008

Posted at 11:43h in apple, coca cola, coka, fantastic noodles, ipod, ladbrokes casino, pepsi, pimp my kettle, schweppes, spots, television by

One of my marketing hates is when a campaign, usually a television spot, advertises an industry and not a specific product.Most advertising fails to integrate the content with the brand. Throwing a logo at the end of a commercial rarely does anything. Same with making the logo bigger. This spot promotes online casinos, not Ladbrokes Casino. This joke of a campaign advertises instant noodles, not Fantastic Noodles.But when you see an Apple iPod commercial, you know it. They aren't advertising any MP3 Player, they are advertising iPods.Same with Coke and Pepsi do it well too. Schweppes has done it well here and I think Solo has pulled it off here too. In all four cases, they promote their specific product and brand, not the soft drink industry.Yet so many campaigns don't. A waste of money and one of the many reasons the television spot should ensure their will is all in order before a long and painful death....

11 August 2008

Posted at 17:35h in adspace pioneers, fantastic noodles, julian cole, pimp my kettle, the body shop by

I've received a fair bit of flack over my post about the Pimp My Kettle campaign. Apparently I wasn't constructive enough, which admittedly is true but by saying campaigns like this are ruining my career was apparently going too far. Well here is some justification on what a successful social media campaign should look like. Check out Julian's post on The Body Shop. So not only have they established a blog that actually works quite well, they are slowly looking to build up an authentic community. The best part of this, was that after Julian posted that, the author behind the blog commented. Simply using Google alerts this author has created a relationship that has since grown. But it goes one step further. If you were to check out Julian's post on the Pimp My Kettle campaign there is again a comment from The Body Shop. It was actually rather insightful, fits well with the brand and most importantly wouldn't have shown up in Google Alerts. This means that the author is regularly checking out Julian's blog, continuing to build this relationship. And that's how social media campaigns should work. Building relationships by providing value. Not creating false communities around passions that don't exist that will die in three months anyway. So while this is all new and we are still learning our way around, some rules and guidelines have already been set. Ignoring them does hurt my career and gives me every right to bag your shitty campaign if it deserves it....

02 August 2008

Posted at 15:58h in clemenger bbdo, google, ning, pimp my kettle, social media by

If one of today's marketers doesn't pull off a decent social media campaign soon they are going to kill, or at least hurt, this highly potential channel. This leaves tomorrow's marketers in a very bad place. Case in point is Fantastic Noodles Pimp My Kettle. I made a conscious decision last year to ensure my blog refrained from slamming campaigns as much as possible. But this is worth an exception. The official page comes up fourth on a Google search. Furthermore, the page is a Ning. Oh dear. Interestingly, of their 276 "members" the majority of them are from Adelaide. As Julian Cole pointed out to me, Clemenger BBDO, the agency behind this atrocity, is from Adelaide too. I hope these guys can sleep with themselves at night. Not only are there ethical issues here but you're really fucking up my career....