For me it is not a surprise, and a little of apples and oranges comparison.  For example, comparing fans to visits is incorrect.  Facebook fans are not all active on the page, in fact I would argue the majority of fans are not active on a marketer’s page in a given month.

If we want to truly make it an apple to apple comparison, Facebook fans are more analogous to an marketer’s email list — people who opted in to stay in touch with the brand.  For comparison purposes let’s assume Kraft had an email list equivalent to their facebook fan volume.  The exposure rates would be similar if a message was sent out in email and facebook.  While we know the exposure volume, we don’t know how many people acknowledged the message.  We only know the response rate (e.g. likes, comments, postings).  Comparing facebook to email, in a given email blast a marketer would expect a 25% to 35% response rate or about 2.6 million responding.  I doubt that 2.6 million people are active on Kraft facebook communications.

“Digital Direct Math” aside, there is several data nuggets in the article.  One is the extreme drop in web site traffic for Kraft.  The article points out this may be a function of marketers shifting email lists to facebook fans.  Logically, it makes sense.  If my email list declines (or becomes more passive) the number of people going to the site would drop with each blast.  

While we could micro-analyze each digital experience we need to take a macro view the online experience.  We need to stop assessing a brand/consumer presence by one destination or domain (e.g. facebook, website, YouTube Channel). This is so 2003.   The online brand presence should be measured as an aggregate of all content, all experiences, all conversations.   Kraft is probably looking at their online presences in totality, understand the purpose of each channel within the brand / marketing strategy.

From a consumer perspective this makes sense too.  Marketers are smarter to integrate their brand experince into the consumer’s online experience, instead of brand-centric view expecting consumer’s to come to the brand destination.  A marketer’s online investment strategy should not be restricted to one destination, rather it should assess opportunities holistically, and determine the best places to intercept the desired target, at the right time, right relevance, and right mindset.  This may be facebook, search, email — or all the above.

We have all witnessed the anti-exposure: a commercial that is so annoying it not only wore out its brand welcome, but has also became a detriment to the brand — degrading the brand with each successive viewing.

There are different reasons for this like the commercial was never that good. However, sometimes the anti-exposure is more than just a good or bad commercial.  It is a byproduct of too much money, micro-targeting, or lack of desire.

Too Much Money
My guess is the Southwest commercial tested well with focus groups, however, I am sure the focus group did not watch the commercial 50 times.  The high frequency of the commercial ruined possibly an effective ad:  

• Seeing the commercial once – entertaining, impactful, and memorable. 
• Seeing the commercial too much – annoying, harmful to the brand, and unfortunately not forgettable

Sometimes over exposure is a function of too much money.  Marketers have a choice of spending money in media or production.  Many times the marketer will choose to minimize production (number of commercials) to maximize media dollars (exposure). 

Some marketers understand this concept and consistently create ads to keep their message fresh and prevent the anti-exposure.  For example, to win the mobile wars AT&T and Verizon are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into broadcast, and they are constantly creating ads to support their key differentiation.  Verizon is continues to generate map commercials, and AT&T has Luke Wilson reveal a myriad of different ways to multi-task with a phone.

Designed for the Few
About five years back I was working on the Chrysler business.  A bright strategist for BBDO did a insightful analysis proving excessive dealer association advertising degraded the brand.  It made sense.  The dealer advertising targeted deals to people shopping for a new car, which at any given time is less than 4% of the market.  The excessive deal-vertising overwhelmed the brand message and constantly degraded the brand for the 96% of people not in market for a new vehicle.

The Chrysler example is another reason why a commercial can get annoying — they are designed for the micro-target.  Designed for the few.  Most Super Bowl commercials work because they are designed to entertain all viewers.  Effective marketers who use mass media understand they are communicating to all viewers, so they either need to entertain the masses and/or communicate a mass benefit (e.g. think about our Verizon’s maps as a mass benefit).  If people cannot relate to the product benefit or the entertainment value of the commercial, it will decrease commercial effectiveness.  It will become more and more annoying with every exposure.  In a way, DVRing the commercial may be a brand blessing.

Create Commercial Desire
You may remember the  Messin’ with Sasquatch commercials from Jack Link’s Beef Jerky.  Or maybe you don’t, because the commercials did not receive a lot of air play.  The commercials were based on a simple entertaining premise — people playing pranks on Sasquatch.  The commercials don’t seem to get old, and if you check out the YouTube Channel you’ll find that many of the commercials of received well over 1 million views.  They are not only on television they are sought out online.

Sought out — an interesting premise.  Can you imagine creating commercials that are the antithesis of the anti-exposure — they are a desired exposure.  Many Super Bowl commercials are sought out, because the single airing was not enough.  Some marketers, like Apple, create desirable ads on a regular basis. For example, the introductory commercial for the MacBook Air ad was simple, elegant and memorable (i.e. sliding a MacBook into an envelope),  and online within weeks the commercial had over 1 million views.

So what about Southwest Airlines?  Well, as of the past weekend they have moved on from the beer-gut, belly-painting, flashing baggage handlers to just the baggage handlers strolling on the tarmac discussing the merits of bags flying free.  Simple, entertaining, and not over epxposed … at least not yet.

To understand the successful formulas, you don’t need to look far. By reviewing the top viewed videos on YouTube you will find the following successful genres: comedy, freakish stunts, scantily clad women (or men), celebrities, and water cooler topics.

Any brand can create a successful video by adopting one or more of the genres. The problem is most brands are not interesting, and in order to create a highly entertaining video, the focus becomes about something other than the brand; therefore the brand is lost and does not receive cognitive credit from the viewer.

Enter Coca-Cola.

A recent video titled “The Happiness Machine” is a brand viral video worthy of the title.  The video (below) centers on a Coke vending machine that dispense happiness — literally.   The video has a lot going for it.  The video is entertaining, it illustrates Coke’s Brand DNA (“Open Happiness”), and it has over 729,000 views in  24 hours.   

Their fixation seems to be a trend in back to school.  An article in the Los Angeles Times (“Retailers hope for big pay-off  with one-cent sales” ) talks about different sales techniques by retailers to capture the back-to-school shopper.

Spiral notebooks, batteries, markers, crayons, pencils and even some clothing are just a few of the items going for 1 cent these days. The gimmick, which seems as old as the penny, is gaining traction as merchants try to attract penny-pinching consumers with deals.

“You’re playing into the consumer psyche, which is already delicate as it is,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group, a market research firm. “Buy one, get one free has been around so long it doesn’t even make a noise. Buy one, get one for a penny feels like a deal.”

The article points that Staples was one of the first retailers to bring back the penny promotions in 2006.  OfficeMax upped the ante last year by trying to own the penny through multi-channel efforts including a series of  humorous YouTube videos and giving away $2 million in pennies at the Mall of America.  This year OfficeMax continued their penny promotion and added to the online video series.

Back to School is the second largest retail period of the year.  It is also a hectic time.  Consumers do not want to be ripped off, and most are looking for deals.  Every retailer has a sale, but I think the penny breaks through the clutter.  The penny says deal.  The fact OfficeMax is consistent in their approach over the past several years bodes well.  As they look to the future, they should expand on their penny campaign, finding innovate and different ways to solidify their cognitive ownership of the penny.   If they can own the penny, it will be a long-term brand differentiator.  And a penny will always be a deal.

The revolution is a shift to a social architecture from a content architecture.  Most online brand experiences today are based on a content architecture.  In a content architecture content is king.  Consumers of the site are users, who experience the content and then move on.  We (marketers) talk about using social tools like facebook, YouTube or Twitter,  because it is fashionable, trendy — whatever.   The reality is marketers still treat consumers like users and content reigns supreme.

I believe moving to a social architecture will require a revolution, because it will require marketers to think differently about consumer to brand interactions; it will change core marketing procedures (e.g. content creation, budgeting;, and it will require a certain level of brand self-awareness (i.e. btw not everyone is an advocate for your brand).

So what are attributes of a social architecture?  In my view there are two significant differences between content and social architectures:  How content is used and how the consumer is treated.

Content Usage: Brands using a content architecture center the experience around the content.  In a social architecture, content takes on a new context.  First off, definition of content is more than video, images or copy, it is all content within the experience regardless of who generates it. 

Secondly, brand content takes on a new purpose.  It becomes a catalyst for action.  Many brand videos are a brand talking to themselves.  Rarely does a brand listen to the community and then provide content relevant to the conversation — therefore, fueling the conversation.

Consumer Treatment:  As I stated prior, consumers in a content architecture are users.  In a social architcture, consumers are participants — they are contributors — consumers are king.  A social architecture is designed to engage the consumer both initially and longitudinally.  We want a person to act immediately.  The action may be to comment on content, share it, or contribute their own content to the experience. 

Longitudinally, we would like to continue build a relationship by encouraging additional action.  We can accomplish this by inviting the consumer back based on how we, as a brand responds to their action, how other’s respond, and/or an invitation to contribute more content. 

To move to a social archtiecture measurement needs to evolve too.   Many marketers struggle with how to quantify their social experience.  They focus on visits, video views, content sharing, or commenting.  These measurements are not bad, just difficult to interpret the vibrancy of  the social experience.  

I would challenge us to assess how much of the conversation is carried by the brand versus the consumer.  If  90% or more of  the content is generated by a brand, this is still a content architecture.  Although the experience may include all of the appropriate tools, it is not resonating with the target consumer.  The brand should re-evaluate their overall experience premise.  A good start is answering the following questions:

• What are brand target consumers saying out there?  Are they talking about the brand?
• Does the site lack a unique value proposition when compared to other communities about the brand?
• Does the brand content on the site encourage commenting?  Sharing?  Consumer contribution?
• Are their activities on the site encouraging collaboration between consumers?

Finally, beware of novelty.  In my opinon slapping a social tool on your site is not a social architecture.  To me it is more of a novelty to say, “Hey look at me.  I’m a cool, hip brand that gets the social space.”  Sorry Skittles.  If your objective was to create buzz, you succeeded.  However, in my perspective you catered nicely to the Twitter evangelists, while you treated your target consumers like users.

I was pumping gas the other night at a local Speedway. As the fuel pump climbed to $36.32, I killed time by watching the gas pump TV.

Weather.
Speedway ad.
Sports.
Ford Fusion commercial.
Local News.
Bizarre commercial about alternative gum uses.

What’s that all about?

Stride Gum’s commercial uses the cheesy infomercial formula to entertain. And forget about selling the gum. The commercial centers around alternative uses for the long lasting gum like balancing a boomerang or replacement eyebrows. Oh yeah, they need your help. The commercial culminates in a call to action to go to StrideGum.com to help them name the new Nonstop Mint gum.

At the site users can participate in a contest to rename the gum and win $10,000. In addition to the contest the site contains gum games, photos from the Stride college campus tour (think dodgeball coverage), and Dancing Matt. BTW you may remember dancing Matt Harding . He is the guy who does a silly jig around the globe, partly at the request of Stride. The video did quite well with over 19.8 million views to date.

So back to the gum naming “winfomercial”. Strides’ different commercial breaks through. I liken it to recent ESPN 360 commercial using Billy Mays. Spoofing the infomercial gains attention. Add a call to action to a site mimicking the commercial, creates a fun memorable, brand experience.

I am curious what is next for Stride. First there was Dancing Matt. Then the infomercial. My guess is something with their college dodgeball tour. We can only hope includes Pepper Brooks and Cotton McKnight on the Ocho.

Instead of a web site, Skittles has deployed an aggregation of social tools. Their primary site is a twitter feed. Product information is stored on wikipedia. Ads have been posted on YouTube and flickr. Oh yeah, I am also a fan on facebook with 581,772 other facebook users.

Pretty impressive.

Skittles executed a well-thought out online social expression. Is this a glimpse of new marketing? Or a social stunt which will run its course soon? In reviewing the twitter banter, it seems the communication is not about skittles, but an industry love-fest (or backlash) for a marketer deploying a 100% social play. The tweeting included:

tevan: the redesigned http://skittles.com uses social networking to the extreme. those aren’t little candies; they’re colorful balls of steel.

  

ner1ssa: discovered Skittlesis using new media for its website – Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, FaceBook and mobile web. Interesting. http://skittles.com

 

ahhyeah: Looks like http://skittles.com isn’t the only one with this idea, Check this out: http://www.modernista.com again, brilliant!

johnmills: Skittles thinks they’re cool. They are not. Just another stupid publicity stunt from a corporate giant. Side note: I want some skittles 

 

Papstio: Had to see what the whole Skittles hype was all about. Not bad! Doesn’t exactly make me want Skittles though.

Love it or hate it. The Skittles Social Experiment has struck a cord — at least in the industry. But can it work?

One awkward practice working against Skittles, is the requirement of providing an age prior to entering the site. Seems like this would alienate many Skittle consumers (e.g. my six-year-old son LOVES Skittles). Although common in the liquor and beer industry, it is not a common practice for CPG. The reason for age filtering is (obviously) some comments may be objectionable. And, yes, there were a few f-bombs, porn references, and other select profane comments in the feed.

Is Skittles turning over its brand? I am advocate for listening to customers and engaging brand advocates. This is not what Skittles is doing. Look, skittle-ites already own the brand. They don’t need Skittles.com to artificially inflate their advocacy. A Skittles advocate can blog, comment, or post about it anywhere on the social sphere. The goal should be not to replace the advocacy, but amplify it. But Will the Skittle advocate take time to contribute?

When the furor dies down and we (the industry) move onto our next social shiny object (should be about 72 hours), will the Skittles customer be heard. Right now, it is hard to tell if the site works for Skittles customers/advocates. With the advertising/PR industry flooding the site with comments, an advocates comment will get buried in the twitter barrage. Obviously, we (the industry) have plenty of time on our hands to use a twitter soapbox to profess admiration or disdain for the site. When the twitter dust settles will anyone care? Or will there be social silence?