The latest social media campaign launched by Frito Lay invites consumers, via Twitter, to participate in a challenge which they have titled "Bold Flavor Experiment." Consumers are advised to check their grocer's chip aisle over the next several weeks as Doritos is introducing three new mystery flavored Jacked chips. The chips will only be known as numbered test flavors. But here is, in my opinion, the best part. Consumers are challenged to try all three of the test flavors and vote for their favorite for a chance to win a daily prize of $1,000 in gold. :-D
Needless to say, I think that this is an excellent way for the brand to engage consumers and to get them to actively participate in their taste test. I am not a real fan of Doritos, but I am a fan of contests awarding cash prizes. This campaign has totally lured me in. I am absolutely inclined to purchase the new chips, and cast my vote for my favorite. I will also likely tell my friends about challenge.
The Livescribe Echo Smartpen allows you to record audio while you're taking notes, and then play them back later. You can save and share interactive notes to your computer, iPad or iPhone via a micro-USB connector that also allows you to recharge your pen. The memory storage holds 400 or 800 hours of recorded audio, depending on the model, and includes an OLED display that makes it easy to navigate smartpen apps.
While this technology cannot be connected to business in a marketing context, I would consider it a must-have for business executives and administrative professionals responsible for scribing accurate and thorough meeting notes.
Additionally, this technology would be extremely useful in an academic environment. Sketchy and/or incomplete lecture notes would virtually be a thing of the past!
So, I have noticed a huge trend in online food ordering with GrubHub and Seamless, but there is a new sheriff in town and they are even more convenient than the others (which I did not know was possible). Unlike GrubHub and Seamless who give you the name and information of the restaurant of your choice, ChowNow went straight to the restaurants themselves to make their own customized apps for online ordering. So now instead of calling a busy restaurant and being put on hold for several minutes only to not be able to hear when they pick-up to take your order, you can go directly to the website or restaurants Facebook page and order through ChowNow. Chicago restaurant group Four Star uses ChowNow at all of their 8 locations.
This service allows customers to customize their own orders. Since ChowNow is an app based program but can also be used on a computer, they offer the restaurants a wi-fi enabled tablet to use to receive the orders on. Four Star Restaurant Group has seen an increase in online to-go orders and it has definitely alleviated a lot of extra work for the hosts who would normally have to take the orders via phone. There is a set-up fee of $299 per location plus $99 monthly fee. However, you get more than just unlimited on-line mobile, web, and Facebook ordering. This new technology also includes: online marketing support, on-call customer service, plus custom iphone/ipad ordering app and one on one training.
When you don't have time to cook, don't wait, ChowNow!
One of my favorite online advertising campaign is from Frito Lays called "Do us A Flavor." This campaign give the public the option to submit flavor ideas to the company. This campaign is a contest for a new flavor to be voted on by customers who purchase and taste the flavors. To make a flavor suggestion go to https://www.dousaflavor.com After visiting the Frito Lays website you have to like them on various social media platforms before gaining access to where flavor suggestions are made. you can search and vote for ideas you have, which may have been submitted previously. Lays also has a youtube channel where commercials for the campaign can be seen. This Idea Frito Lay had intrigues me, because while I've never made a flavor suggestion, I have friends who watch, track, and make suggestions, and while listening to them read of submitted flavor I find myself with countless mmmm's and why's. As I mentioned before this is a contest, with the winner receiving the honors of having the winning flavor, and 1% of net sales from a predetermined sales period. While I do enjoy a plain lays chip I like this campaign from Lays giving its customers the ability to be heard, and responding by producing what the masses like most. I have purchased, and tried the finalist from last year Sriracha, Chicken, and Waffles, and Garlic Cheesy Bread, Chicken and Waffles was my favorite.
Social media campaigns extend beyond Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. One particular example of this can be seen within the various companies who have tried to establish Viral Videos as a social media based marketing medium. These companies use the virility of particular orchestrated videos and their consequent public attention to drive product sales.
One company that encapsulates this well is Red Bull. In their Youtube marketing strategy, they sponsor experienced daredevils. These supposed daredevils then put on shows that border on the extreme. This rallies the virility of the videos, and all the Red Bull logos are just part of the picture.
Red Bull has a philosophy of value trading marketing, they believe that in their marketing they should be able give something to the customer (extereme entertainment), and get something back in return(sales of its product). They believe that this strategy should be carried out across all relevant media Red bull Youtube campaign summarized into a TV commercial.
Another cool example of advertisement through social virility, that I liked was done by the makers of "Carrie", a horror film. In this video the producers put together a prank, at local coffee shop, in which the all the customers were part of the prank. I for one knew about the youtube video before I ever found out about the movie
If you look back
ten years ago before cloud storage, before Facebook advertising, before
twitter, really, before the Internet was used for basically everything for
business; you would see offices full of faxes, sticky notes, and contact
rolodexes all with scattered information on clients. The rise ofweb 2.0 has brought a fantastic and almost
necessary tool for keeping all this information on clients and outputting very
useful data for targeting markets, this software is called Customer
Relationship Management Software (CRM).I have personally used this software and seen the amazing data that it
can output just from all the data being in one system. CRM’s can help marketing
departments really get to know their customers and remarkably target certain
markets.
So what exactly is a CRM?
According to Salesforce,
the largest CRM software company in the country, “At its simplest, a CRM system
allows businesses to manage business relationships and the data and information
associated with them. With CRM, you can
store customer and prospect contact information, accounts, leads and sales
opportunities in one central location”. This ability to store all customer,
B2B, and internal information allows for companies to create reports that can
output data on any information that has been collected. With the huge serge in
Internet speeds over the past 5 years, CRM’s have also been going completely cloud
based, allowing for information to be added and stored
anywhere, IN REAL TIME!These CRM
systems now are also being integrated with all social media platforms too. This
is allowing marketers to know when the perfect time to target a single
particular customer is on social media. Can you imagine that? A targeted ad can
be sent to just you, automatically, by just giving the system a set of rules.
This is just me
guessing, but soon enough marketers are not going to exist. Once these CRM
systems get smarter, and they are, the system will know exactly the correct
wording, exactly the correct email, exactly the correct time of day to send an
email, and exactly what product/service to offer a client, all just by knowing
what the client is talking about on social media. If your interested in what I’m
talking about this is a great video to watch.
I was watching TV the other night and I saw a commercial for
new Viva vantage paper towels (linked below). I have previously seen other
products, like Wheat Thins, use positive twitter posts from their pages as a TV
marketing tools, but I’ve never seen a company use someone else’s positive posts
(especially not a competitors) for their own marketing benefit before, and I
found the result remarkably fascinating!
After seeing this commercial, I couldn’t seem to shake the
contemplation. I wondered first, if you were a Bounty user would this make you
think about switching or would it make you feel betrayed? Then I wondered how
Bounty felt about it and how Viva got the rights to use their name. The next thought
was how do current Viva customers feel about it, maybe “our posts aren’t’ good
enough you have to steal Bounty’s”? I eventually came to the conclusion that it
didn’t’ matter; I definitely wanted to try this new towel and see what all the hype
was about. Believe it or not, the very next time I was at the store I actually bought
some Viva Vantage towels!
So I guess all I can say is this - hats off Viva marketers,
you did your job, you switched over a competitor’s customer and used relevant social
media to boot.. now all I wonder is how many more like me are out there… What
do you think? Does this TV spot make you want to try Viva?
