Can Facebook "Likes" Lead to Actual Likes?

 

Corona Light is launching an innovative campaign to integrate outdoor advertising with social media in order to reinforce their product’s brand.  From November 8 through December 6 Crown Imports will take control of a 40-foot billboard in Times Square.  Corona Light has a goal to become the most “Liked” beer in the U.S. (that is of course via the “Like” button that is found all over the internet thanks to Facebook).  Crown Imports thinks that this billboard will help them achieve this goal. 

The main premise of the billboard is that customers can visit the Corona Light Facebook page and “Like” the beer.  Consumers can then upload photos of themselves that will be posted to the Times Square Billboard.  According to a recent article in Direct Marketing News, the company is looking to increase engagement amongst their core consumers, 21 – 34 year olds.  They are also looking to separate Corona Light from Corona Extra, giving each brand its own personality. 

From the consumers’ perspective, getting their face up on a billboard in Times Square creates excitement and in and of itself is a reward for becoming an ambassador for the brand.  From Crown Imports’ perspective, this campaign is a great way to gather data on their target audience.   Through the Facebook page they will collect zip codes and topics of interest.  There are a variety of games on the site that require users to give up some information voluntarily in order to participate.  Customers are also giving the right to Corona Light to use their image for their ads, all essentially for free.  Yes, they have to pay for the billboard space, technology, etc, but there is no monetary value to the customers, only the satisfaction of seeing their image up on screen.  This is smart on Crown’s part to keep down the cost of the campaign

If done correctly, this campaign could be successful in creating a relationship between fans and Corona Light.  Corona Light must use the data they gather wisely in order to keep the consumers engaged in the long run, after the billboard has long been taken down.  In addition, the billboard will bring attention to foot traffic in Times Square and will intrigue even more customers that weren’t aware of the campaign.  Those people will use word of mouth to tell their friends what they saw, and also talk about the campaign through Facebook postings.  This will help spread the message and in turn will help Corona Light build their database.

Corona Light’s campaign is a clever one in that it engages current and potential customers through social outlets as well as more traditional outlets.  It will benefit Crown Imports in that it will allow them to learn more about their target audience.  Not all customers will find the campaign rewarding, but those that do will most likely offer up their personal information for the chance of a lifetime – seeing your face up in lights!

Welcome to the Starbucks Digital Network

Yesterday Starbucks launched its own digital network, available through its wi-fi, in select store locations.  As announced this past summer, Starbucks locations now offer free wi-fi in order to compete with other chains that have always offered free connection.  So any customer can walk into one of the 6,000 Starbucks locations nationwide and experience their new network.  The Starbucks Digital Network, which is partnered with Yahoo!, offers access to subscription editions of The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today.  Visitors can also listen to music from Starbucks Entertainment, and access exclusive iTunes downloads.  In addition, visitors can browse an unlimited array of Zagat reviews.  Customers can even use the service to check-in through Foursquare and manage their Starbucks Rewards. 

According to an article in Direct Marketing News, Starbucks doesn't plan on offering up advertising deals for this network.  Their content carriers can carry their own advertisements, but the actual network won't carry any.  Starbucks has also kept the terms of their agreements with the content providers a secret.  Nevertheless, this new network is just a jumping off point for Starbucks.  Adam Brotman, the VP of Digital Ventures at Starbucks, has promised more premium content, more rewards and a more personalized experience in the near future.

Creating this branded network is a smart move by Starbucks.  It fits in well with its overall brand image, appeals to their key demographic, and shows their avid customers that they are listening to their requests.  Starbucks went from essentially charging customers to use their wi-fi network, to offering it for free, as well as offering access to free content, all within a matter of months.  The only thing we can't be sure of is how long this network will exist without carefully placed advertisements.  Starbucks is keeping its business deals with their content providers under wraps, but once they are no longer satisfied with these deals, it could only be a matter of time before ads creep into the network.  I hope for the customers' sake that Starbucks keeps this network fairly clean of cumbersome ads that will deter users altogether.

When Facebook Goes Down, Does the World Stop Talking?

On September 22, Facebook went down for about two hours.  Were you one of the people freaking out, or did you not even notice?  Well, other than the Facebook users that have a constant connection to the "world" through Facebook, there were a few other people that were freaking out about the outage, only they saw dollar signs quickly slipping away.  According to a recent article in AdvertisingAge, more than 1 million sites are currently linked to Facebook, and when Facebook has issues, these sites feel the pain as well.

All things considered, Facebook doesn't go down often (this was the first time in the past few years).  However a situation like this does make you realize just how reliant other sites are on Facebook, and what could happen to these other sites when this social giant goes down.  Paid advertisements are never seen, no one can use the "like" button (oh no!), users can't use Facebook Connect to comment on other websites, and for those sites that build their entire functionality on top of Facebook, they lose thousands of dollars for each minute it's down.

Should this be a major concern for websites that rely on their links with Facebook?  Is it worth it to build an independent site to avoid Facebook bringing you down when it falls?  The other side of that argument is that Facebook brings so much more exposure than can be achieved by an independent site.  Also since Facebook rarely encounters these outages, it's not necessarily something that sites should be agonizing over.  But what will happen as Facebook continues to grow and intertwine itself with another million sites.  At some point will it become impossible to operate independently of Facebook?  Or will sites begin to break away from Facebook and become less reliant on it's social web?  It's only a matter of time before websites are forced to make this touch decision.

Watch Me Now!

In the past few months I have noticed an increase in popularity in social media tracking services, such as Foursquare, where people are "checking-in" places and then sending their location to other social media outlets.  It seems like everywhere you look, someone is telling you that they are at the mall or at their favorite restaurant.  New companies are coming up with other activities to track and share; it seems as though no activity will remain undocumented!  AdvertisingAge recently published an article that gives us some idea of what's to come in next few months.

At the moment, Facebook doesn't offer a check-in application for viewership of TV and movies, so TVGuide online has swooped in and taken the initiative.  Starting in October, they will offer a check-in feature that utilizes Facebook technology.  When TV enthusiasts visit TVGuide.com, they will be able to click a button and share with social media outlets what they're watching.  Networks and movie studios have partnered with social outlets to offer rewards to those that use the check-in feature.

How long do you think it will be before Facebook jumps in?  Facebook has recently launched its version of Foursquare, called Places.  At the same time it also acquired a fairly new company that offered the same services.  At the moment, Facebook claims that is has no plans to release a TV and movie check-in app, however networks are claiming the contrary.

So how can this TV check-in feature be of any benefit?  It seems like most people take it upon themselves to post what they are doing at any given moment on the social media outlet of their choosing.  Among those posts there are often comments about their new favorite movie, or quotes from a TV show they are currently watching.  Is a formal button to click really necessary to tell everyone what you're watching? 

Well, if Facebook does eventually start its own app to track TV and movie watching, it has the potential to track millions of users; the smaller independent sites can't even compare with this number.  The database Facebook could create with all of its users' watching preferences could be incredibly useful.  Companies such as Netflix could tap into the preferences and use the data to suggest rentals to their existing customers.  Companies that offer DVR services could use the data to help customers manage their recordings and suggest shows they may like.  Tracking viewing habits and preferences has great potential benefits not only for companies such as these, but also for the customers.

So next time you're watching TV, consider grabbing your cell phone and checking-in on TVGuide.  Someone has to care about what you're watching, right?

Cookies - Not So Sweet Anymore?

I think it's safe to say that we have all had some kind of interaction with website cookies, whether they were used to direct certain advertising our way, or to keep some of our profile information while we visited a site.  Have you considered how you feel about these cookies?  Some feel it's an invasion of privacy and they continuously delete them from their computer.  Others barely acknowledge their presence and go on with their usually online activities.  One question comes to mind, and continues to be strongly debated: Are cookies an invasion of privacy? 

Being a marketing student, I can see both sides of the argument. 

At times I feel like Big Brother is watching me, and I'd rather cookies did NOT track my every move.  In addition, many other people do not even know how cookies work, or that they exist for that matter.  They don't even have a fighting change against cookies - they couldn't delete them even if they wanted to; they are being tracked whether they like it or not. 

On the other hand, looking through a marketer's eyes at the uses for cookies, I can see how theycan provide many advertising benefits.  They allow advertisements to be directed toward more appropriate audiences and can help companies use their dollars more efficiently.  Or do they? 


An article published in Advertising Age brought up some thoughts about the limitations of cookies.  I agree with the perspective that advertisers don't necessarily need the user's entire profile that cookies provide.  Rather, data taken from a company's own ad media and web site data might be more useful.  Analyzing this kind of data can help a company better find prospective customers.  According to the article's author, studies show that advertising based on creativity can much more effective than advertising aimed at certain demographics.  I tend to agree; a more creative ad will catch my attention, whether I am interested in the product or not.  Will the use of cookies eventually crumble?

Twitter Ad Space - Recycled

I recently came across this article in Businessweek that discusses the "promoted tweets" Twitter began selling in April.

Now I should probably first admit that I don't have a Twitter account.  Given that I'm a Marketing student and interested in Internet Marketing, I should have broken down by now and gotten one.  However there is just something that is holding me back...maybe it's that I don't care to read about what kind of sandwich Ashton Kutcher ate for lunch.  I know, I know, there are many more productive uses for Twitter and it can offer Marketers critically important information.  I'll sign up soon...

Back to the article.  Many big names, such as Starbucks and Red Bull, are using Twitter to post ads that appear to users when they search for certain key words on the Twitter.  When someone searches for Starbucks, a paid tweet will be thrown in amongst tweets form other users.  Now there are an abundance of websites, such as TweetDeck, that stream in messages from a variety of social networks to the user's browser.  With those streaming messages comes more space for these other websites to sell ad space.  Twitter recently mandated that these websites could no longer sell ad space within tweets, but they could still use ad space surrounding the tweets.  Since websites like TweetDeck are just starting out, it appears that they can't really argue with the declaration make by Twitter.  I can guess who would win.  As a result, these sites will have to rely less on feeds from Twitter in order to survive.  Who knows what Twitter will mandate next.  So what are your thoughts on this issue?  Do you think that ads sandwiched between tweets are more effective that ads above or below tweets?  

One reason Twitter gave for making this rule is that the "paid tweets on other sites could hinder efforts at innovating or creating the best user experience".  (Dick Costolo, Twitter Operating Chief).  I think it has less to do with creating the "best user experience" and more to do with prime ad space.  After all, advertising dollars are crucial to the success of Twitter.  It seems as though Twitter is using its power to stake it's claim, and rightfully so.  With more and more sites coming out that consolidate messages from social networks, it's becoming a battle to get ad dollars.  This concern over third party ads will continue to be a hot topic in the coming months.  I'm expecting more regulations will emerge in just a matter of time.