Now that the honeymoon phase is over for brands and social media, it’s interesting to see which marriages have sizzled – and which have fizzled.
For years now, brands have focused their marketing efforts around social media. Sadly, in the rush to cash in on this new frontier of digital marketing, many forgot one very important rule of branding: the ability to evoke emotion.
So which marriage is going to withstand the test of time? It’s the one between keen social media observation and traditional broad-based broadcast and print media that is proving to stand strong.
Branding and the Quest for Meaning
In an ongoing effort to provide value and meaning to a wide range of potential consumers, brands have traditionally relied upon focus groups and quantitative research to segment their audience(s) based on demographics, psychographics, lifestyles, income, age, sex, and a myriad of other factors. The key is to then target each segment with unique messaging, thereby offering the greatest value and ultimately building brand trust.
As more and more traditional shoppers transitioned to the online world, brands were quickly put in a position to adjust to the paradigm shift and pivot their marketing strategies. Social media was unfamiliar territory, and critical errors were made. Those brave enough to pave the way began spending massive amounts of money to fuel Hollywood-style content as they tried to captivate these new social media eyeballs. The result? Nobody cared.
Social Media Branding Campaigns that Fizzled
Coke, for example, invested heavily in big-budget social media marketing campaigns. In 2011, with the lofty goal of doubling sales by 2020, the iconic cola company launched a branded content campaign for digital media called Liquid and Linked. As part of the effort, it launched Coca Cola Journey, replacing its former corporate website. Unfortunately, Coca Cola Journey has never reached the top 10,000 websites in the US. It turns out few consumers “like” the branded content much because it’s not relevant to them.
Emotional engagement starts with the consumer’s interests, not the brand’s. As some brands found out the hard way, social media is not there to encourage talking heads. Rather it’s something that requires strong listening skills and human interaction.
As social media branding expert Douglas Holt wrote in the Harvard Business Review (March 2016), brands realized social media “would allow your company to leapfrog traditional media and forge relationships directly with customers. If you told them great stories and connected with them in real time, your brand would become a hub for a community of consumers.”
The key is to uncover powerful ideas and personal interests bubbling up from social media channels, and then create emotionally relevant content that resonates with “crowd cultures,” as Holt calls them. This proved to be a match made in heaven for some brands.
Social Media Branding Campaigns that Sizzled
Chipotle’s relationship with consumers has sizzled. The food chain identified the anti-industrial food ideology and championed its values by producing compelling art films that resonated with the burgeoning pre-industrial food culture. Beginning around the same time as Coke’s campaign, Chipotle succeeded where the soda giant failed because they produced content that was deeply meaningful to a specific crowdculture. For example, Chipotle’s Scarecrow film is credited with an eruption of social media activity – an incredible 18.4 million conversations over 17 social media channels. And the bottom line? The campaign played a key role in increasing Chipotle’s 2013 net profit by 34.9 percent.
Social Media + Branding: A Traditional Marriage
Social media is a space where brands’ market propositions can connect with energized audiences clustered around emerging cultural segments. But it doesn’t end there. The most successful relationship between brands and social media occurs when the ideologies are identified in social media and are legitimized and reinforced in traditional broadcast and print media.
Under Armour took a crowd culture approach with their “I Will What I Want” campaign, which included an ad featuring dancer Misty Copeland’s rise after rejection by the ballet establishment. Copeland’s underdog story was championed on traditional media after being identified as a good match for a potent subculture – rejection of strict body type standards. Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” is a pioneering example that was met with great success.
Indeed, research conducted by The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has demonstrated that broad-based brand campaigns that are emotionally engaging create the best brand awareness—and ultimately the best sales results. People want to associate with brands that can relate to who they are and what is important to them.
Marketers recognizing this phenomenon are positioned to develop successful, engaging campaigns and, in doing so, strengthen their brand relationship with emerging consumer groups. Social Media + Branding — a happy marriage after all.
Credit to Jim Cobb (The Bloodhound Group)
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