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The Yellow Papers Series

We Love to ShareSocial Media Means Business

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“Word of mouth is the best medium of all.” - Bill Bernbach

Social media is one of the hottest and most debated topics in marketing. The irony is, even with all the activity, many marketers are merely following the pack, playing it safe, or experimenting in small doses for fear of making mistakes. That translates to few standout examples to draw on.

Even practitioners like myself get tangled up in it. I am on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google +; I blog on Tumblr, have a Klout score, and am a recognized book reviewer on Amazon.com. Yet, this area is so new and incredibly fluid that absolute experts are in short supply.

Arguably, the social media phenomenon began in 1971 when the first e-mail was sent. It then took the better part of two decades for Geocities to launch in 1994 and be deemed the first social network. From there, AOL instant messaging arrived in 1997 along with sixdegrees.com, which allowed users to create a profile and list friends. The world was then introduced to Myspace in 2003, Facebook in 2004, and Twitter in 2006.

Defining social media is also a challenge because it is still in its early days. The problem is analogous to trying to define “strategy” or “marketing” – it can either be incredibly vague or way too specific. So I appreciate a quote from Avinash Kaushik, Google’s analytics evangelist, who said, “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better.”

Beyond the humorous context, this quote is accurate because social media is hugely hyped—so much so that results often disappoint. The most accurate description of social media may have been written over fifty years ago by Bill Bernbach, who said, “Word of mouth is the best medium of all.” This is highly relevant because social media tends to get tangled up in the technology when its essence is in human behavior.

We Love to Share The Yellow Paper Series

Statistically we all know that social media is impressive. The speed and extent of adoption and use are staggering. The following figures proving this should impress but there is a caveat: The moment these are released, they are out of date. This is simply because the practice of social media moves at such an incredible pace. Keep these facts and figures in mind as you consider the role social media could play in your marketing but, more importantly, note that they are all predicated on one simple truth: people love to share.

3We Love to Share The Yellow Paper Series

Sharing More and More

The desire to share started a long time ago, when early man first congregated around fires. It grew and took on a commercial aspect in farmer’s markets through the centuries. Anywhere people gathered, they shared ideas, opinions, and beliefs. And now the Internet and social media applications allow us to share more, more often, to more people, and at faster speeds than ever before.

Here is the evidence.

• YouTube’s user content volumes are staggering with their 490+ million users uploading more video content in a 60-day period than the three major U.S. networks did in 60 years.

• We are explorers who enjoy searching—performing 90 billion searches a month. About 46% of those are for products and services.

• From pictures of kittens to recommendations for a new car, we love to share on Facebook; in fact, we share over one billion items a week.

• There are now more than 200 million blogs with authors distributing their latest thinking.

• Flickr now has over 500 billion images stored. A European artist who printed all the photos posted to Flickr on one day subsequently overwhelmed a gallery when he put them on display as a demonstration of the volume.

• Twitter has proven that 140 characters can have serious influence. Over 150 million people are tweeting, 55% of them follow brands, and amazingly, 2.2% of users create 60% of all tweets.

Jeff Swystun is Chief Communications Officer, DDB Worldwide. He is responsible for all aspects of the DDB brand, including intellectual capital, marketing, internal communications, and knowledge management. Jeff has spoken at more than 80 conferences in over 25 countries. He is the editor and author of numerous books, papers and reports, among them “The Brand Marketer’s Report” and “The Brand Glossary.” Jeff’s work has appeared in over 250 publications and on numerous television programs, including CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and “On the Money.”


Social Media Mirrors (Mostly) Normal Human Behavior

As impressive as these statistics are, they are not why social media is important. The reality and value of social media are that it mirrors mostly normal human behavior online and through technology. This practice of sharing is predicated on trust, our desire for open communications, and the fact that some people have more influence than others.

In terms of trust, everyone has a circle of peers and family that they turn to and interact with. These are people whose opinions they listen to and respect. This has been the case since humankind first formed communities. In fact, trust is the basis for any relationship— its glue and its fuel.

This chart from Nielsen proves that those in your circle are the most important marketing channels. They handily beat out traditional channels. Basically it says that if you are looking to purchase something, you will tap your friends, peers, and family for advice, opinion, and dialogue. The study shows that only 56% of consumers trust traditional advertisements, versus the 90% who trust recommendations and advice from their circle.

Social media’s rapid acceptance by consumers stems from the fact that marketing has historically been a broadcast medium where consumers were pelted as “target audiences” with intrusive and overwhelming messages. And this impacted our behavior. Marshall McLuhan noted in the 1960’s, “Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.”

As this famous Canadian points out, for the greater part of the twentieth century we were shaped to be receivers of information. Then somewhat dramatically, in the last decade, we have all been given the tools to communicate and promote ourselves like never before—sharing our lives, interests, biases, beliefs, attitudes, and more.

So instead of broadcasting one way, brands, media, government, religions, and cultural groups must now converse with their constituents and listen hard to what they are saying. This has produced incredible challenges in business because control of the brand message is not ensured. Social media’s democratization of communication has put a great deal of power in the hands of individual consumers.

We have seen brands face significant consumer backlashes that are sometimes deserved, but often not. The immediacy of information these days can distort reality. Inaccuracies travel fast and gain currency despite the absence of truth. If organizations are not authentic and transparent, social media begins to hum and heat up, calling to question the values of a brand.

Source: “Trust, Value and Engagement in Advertising.” Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, July 2009

We increasingly trust people more than institutions and marketers


Some Of Us Are More Influential

Even though we may have democratized communications, this has only reinforced the fact that some people are more influential than others. I believe the prime delineator between having influence and having less influence is the power of one’s ideas. And today ideas have to stand out from the sea of information and communications we receive each and every day. This is partway proven by the volume of online opinions people share about brands:

• 500 billion is the number of impressions consumers share with others online about products and services annually.

• 60% of the 500 billion annual online impressions about products and services are shared on Facebook.

• 16% of online users generate 80% of the 500 billion annual online impressions about products and services.

So the few influence the many. And it has always been that way. Social media is actually not new; the few have always influenced the many, but now they have new platforms to do so. And it is the challenge of marketers today to identify those best suited to help spread their message—because those people are trusted and they are connected. This is not an absolute rule as evidenced by research from Yahoo! which only suggests that marketers must examine the role of influencers on a case-by-case basis.

However, with all the fervor around social media, it is important to note a few truisms that will help guide successful social media practices.

• Social media must have a clear business objective and not just be put in place because everyone is doing it.

• Social media is meant to take marketers’ messages from monologue to dialogue.

• Social media will go in directions you could never have anticipated.

• Social media creates an expectation that people are being heard, that things will change, and that brands respect everyone’s opinion.

But when done right, social media marketing can provide incredible benefits that may influence entire business strategies, not only marketing and sales. Here are a few cases to demonstrate possible benefits.

The prime delineator between having influence and having less influence is the power of one’s ideas.


Reach Open Book Project

Reach is a youth charity that believes that every teenager deserves support, regardless of their situation. DDB was tasked with raising awareness of Reach and with showing teenagers that everyone – even the most famous people in Australia – went through exactly the same stuff once. So we created The Open Book Project. The first phase was a call for entries to celebrities, TV and radio personalities, politicians, actors, sports stars, musicians, and comedians, asking them to submit their own intimate diary confessions from their teenage years online.

This in turn encouraged visitors to submit their own teenage diary entries to our site and Facebook page. As our celebrities’ stories spread through the media, the public became captivated. The project generated 59,944 page views and over $1.2 million of editorial coverage, and spread Reach’s message to over 9 million Australians in the month-long campaign—and all for a total cost of $30,000.

Our goal was primarily one of awareness: we wanted the broader Australian public, specifically adults, to know about what Reach does as an organization. We wanted these adults to upload their own diary pages that in turn would stimulate and create conversations online, specifically on Facebook. Allowing people to physically and emotionally engage with Reach was the ideal goal, and social media was the perfect vehicle for topics rarely spoken about in the real world.

Sharing personal stories is a courageous act that will make a big difference in the lives of Australian teenagers. So far, the Open Book campaign has been recognized at the recent Digital Media Awards in Asia with a Silver award in the Best in Digital Marketing for Not-For-Profit Work category.

http://www.theopenbookproject.com/


State Farm State of Chaos

For State Farm, DDB Chicago created the “State of Chaos” campaign which leveraged many channels of communication, including a TV spot. The commercial humorously depicts a homeowner, “Duane,” under attack by destructive aliens. The chaos demonstrates the need for home, auto, and life coverage. The premise was extended online by letting people get involved in a fun way and in a different social medium.

Of course, you’re probably not expecting a giant robot to attack you, but if it does, State Farm wants you to know it is there for you. In the first week of launch their interactive microsite had 125,000 users and helped position the 89-year-old brand as creative and technologically up to date.

Visitors were allowed to enter any address and on Google Maps and Street View, an alien was dispatched to tear the place up. More importantly, the site allowed people to seek insurance quotations and share chaosinyourtown.com with friends and family. Through various media, many got and shared the core message: “State Farm helps people recover from the unexpected.” In fact, in the first three weeks, over 500,000 people visited the site with more than 6,000 quotes completed.

http://www.chaosinyourtown.com/


VolkswagenSpeed Camera Lottery

An initial campaign called “The Fun Theory” gained huge attention for Volkswagen’s BlueMotion Technologies. It was built around fun behavioral change experiments to show people that if something was fun it could change their behavior. We constructed a second campaign around the contest award winner’s idea. Kevin Richardson called his entry, “The Speed Camera Lottery, and we brought it to life.

The idea was to reward people who obeyed the speed limit through fun. We built our own speeding camera and organized a competition on a street in Sweden where the drivers who were driving within the speed limit got an instant emotional reward (a thumbs-up sign lighting up) and in the long run a rational one, winning the money raised from speeders’ tickets. We collected data together with The National Organization For Road Safety in order to see if our initiative actually did change people’s behavior for the better.

The Speed Camera Lottery project reduced traffic speed by 22%. During the first day of the experiment all major Swedish newspapers covered the project. The Fox News morning show and Autoblog.com, one of the largest car forums, wrote about it. In fact, more than 1,000 blogs were written about the project, and the YouTube video received over 550,000 views. Volkswagen’s eco market share continues to grow, and last year it grew 84%.

http://www.thefuntheory.com/


Remember A Charity: Rocky Taylor

In a brave, game-changing play for the Remember A Charity consortium, DDB sought to raise awareness around leaving legacies to charity through the “One Stuntman, One Legacy” campaign. Due to a tight budget, neither a broadcast nor a direct approach would have efficiently reached the desired audience of over-50s. In order for the campaign to cut through, DDB had to think outside the box. And so “One Stuntman, One Legacy” was born.

Remember A Charity teamed up with an aging stuntman named Rocky Taylor to perform a series of stunts to remind people of the importance of leaving a gift to charity. At ”60-something,” Rocky is relevant to the desired audience, and with his death-defying job he’s able to talk about death and the importance of looking after your loved ones and what you care about when you’re gone, as well as delivering the important message in a charismatic, entertaining way. Rocky Taylor is definitely not your average pensioner.

The campaign was designed to be interactive. On Remember A Charity’s Facebook page, members of the public could watch Rocky’s short film, find out more about Remember A Charity and the “One Stuntman, One Legacy” campaign, and ultimately vote on how his final stunts would be performed.

On September 13, 2011, to highlight the importance of making a will and leaving a little money to charity, Rocky broke a Guinness World Record previously held by the Bond franchise. Facebook fans voted in droves to predict the outcome and the stunt attracted thousands of online viewers who watched it live via social media. Rocky made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with his stunt at age 60!

The campaign generated $2,048,302.40 of free broadcast PR, reaching over 83 million of the desired gift-giving audience and 2,114,413 more through endorsed social promotion. Legacy donation conversation levels increased 39%, with more people agreeing they were more likely to discuss leaving a legacy and almost a fifth saying they were more likely to leave a legacy after seeing the ads.

This activity generated a 210% uplift in search for Remember A Charity during Awareness Week over. the previous week. And visitors’ search for “Find a charity’,” illustrating who they’re considering donating to, rose by a third, while the number of new visitors was up 500% on an average week.

http://www.rememberacharity.org.uk/


StarHubMusical Fitting Room

StarHub is a full-fledged telecommunications company providing a full range of services over mobile, Internet, and fixed platforms in Singapore. They wanted to ensure their relevance and value to a key consumer segment—youth. We all know that youth tend to define themselves by the type of music they listen to and by the clothes that they wear. Taking that insight, we combined music and fashion—two powerful forms of self-expression for youth—with RFID technology to create a hyper-personalized experience that they would want to share. We invented “Musical Fitting Rooms.” This was done by tagging RFID chips to clothes and installing RFID readers with directional speakers in the fitting rooms of select fashion retail stores. When a garment is brought into the fitting room, the RFID chip triggers the reader to play a music track matching the style of garment. An iPad interface installed in the room then provides information about the suggested song, as well as a link to Starhub’s online music store.

Starhub’s Musical Fitting Room introduced the youth to music that best suited their style, helping them better express themselves through both fashion and music. It positioned the StarHub Music Store as the online music portal truly in tune with what matters to youth—So much so, that sharing via smart phones and social media prompted droves of young people to experience it themselves.

http://bit.ly/xlzd1A


Think Party Planning

So far this paper has defined social media and identified its promises and challenges along with some practical cases. But how can it really be applied? Well, perhaps by thinking of it as party planning. This fantastic idea comes from my colleague Jason Rockwood at Tribal DDB, who has produced a valuable way of getting the most from social media. When planning for any party you need a few key ingredients, but in this case you need more than just a good supply of alcohol, a Twister board, and music.Jason uses the party planning analogy to effectively plan a social strategy across four components of the social process including listening, understanding, participating and measuring. These components can be paralleled with the four sequential steps to planning a party: plan, prepare, party, and perfect.

In posing basic questions like: What theme should the party be? Is it a cocktail party or a party with colleagues? Do we have permission to use this venue? How will people find out about the party? And how will we know if people had a good time? This construct sheds light on the necessary considerations a marketer must confront in order to carry out a coherent and successful social media campaign that has well-articulated motives, set parameters, a clear target audience, and valid metrics for success.

A presentation that details Jason’s approach can be found at: http://tribalddb.com/news/blogs/what-party-planners-know-about-social-media/.

Wrapping Up

Two of the most powerful forces in business are creativity and innovation. Both require experimentation and courage. Those who will truly be successful are the ones who take a chance, potentially fail, but dust themselves off and try again. As Woody Allen said, “Ninety percent of success is just showing up.” So make sure you are integrating social media into your communications, experiment, have fun, and throw parties that people want to be a part of and share.

“Ninety percent of success is just showing up.”

- Woody Allen

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DDB Worldwide Communications Group Inc. (www.ddb.com) ranks among the top five consolidated advertising and marketing services global networks, according to Advertising Age. Consistently one of the most creatively awarded networks globally, DDB was Campaign’s 2009 Global Network of the Year and captured both the Cyber Grand Prix and Film Craft Grand Prix at the 2010 International Advertising Festival in Cannes.

With more than 200 offices in over 90 countries, the DDB Group helps grow the value and influence of leading brands around the world. We believe that creativity is the most powerful force in business, allowing us to develop the ideas that people want to play with, participate in and pass along. We call this Social Creativity which results in ShareValue, the powerful combination of influence within social communities and tangible business performance. DDB Worldwide is part of Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC).

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