The growing use of social media in marketing communications

The first conclusion from a new report on effective social media campaigns published by the World Advertising Research Centre, (WARC), says it all; Growth in the usage of social media has outpaced growth in objective understanding of how to use it effectively for communications.

This is hardly surprising given such a rapid proliferation of new communication channels which are growing exponentially but without the documented back-up in case history format which has been built up over the years for longer established media. However, the wide range of campaigns featured in the report are now yielding valuable insights into how social media can contribute to marketing communications.

Let’s take three examples to illustrate the main conclusions.

The first is a Hellman's campaign from Canada. It began in 2006 when the brand became associated with processed fast foods to such an extent that it became known as 'junk in a jar'.

In reality the product consists of just three ingredients, eggs, oil and vinegar, but it was felt that an ingredient only campaign wouldn't be convincing enough to remove the negative perceptions so the marketing team decided to champion a 'real food movement'.

They began with an urban garden initiative by taking over plots of land in cities which people could then apply to use to grow vegetables. A web-site was created to supply growing tips, recipes and details of local food suppliers. The web-site used blogs, Twitter feeds and Facebook Content to encourage dialogue and support local producers and 300,000 gardening gloves were given away in an on-pack promotion.

In the first three years of the campaign Hellman's market share increased from 25 per cent to almost 30 per cent. The campaign then moved into schools to develop healthy eating habits for children and there is an interesting video on YouTube showing schoolchildren and their teachers cheering as a huge dumper truck demolishes the school's fat fryer in the school yard. (To view a video of the of the fryer being demolished check “bye, bye fat fryer” on YouTube).

National Australia bank represents another example of the power of social media to amplify marketing communications campaigns. One of the four big Australian banks it had tried to differentiate itself from its competitors by removing some charges but the overall level of hostility towards the sector meant that something more dramatic would be required to achieve the objective.

The result was a very public declaration of independence by NAB under the slogan; 'it's all over between us'. The campaign was preceded by an 'accidental' Tweet from the bank expressing regret that their action will upset the other banks. This was followed by a wide variety of promotional stunts in a single day to attract maximum impact.

These included the release of sixty films showing NAB banks breaking off with other banks, events outside other banks offices, outside expensive places where senior people in other banks might have lunch, posters flown by air over cities and pianists outside their offices announcing 'you're dumped'. Meanwhile blogs were running continuously telling people how easy it is to leave your current bank; 'breaking up is easy to do'. The bank earned up to $5 million in publicity and saw a 20 per cent increase in new accounts. It was all very irreverent, very Australian and very effective. (You can see the more details of the campaign on YouTube; look for “National Australia Bank, Bank Break-Up”) 

ADITYA KUMAR SINGH

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