Advertisers that want immediacy opportunities need to have a comprehensive plan in place to quickly “amplify” a message, according to Sears Holdings executive Adriana Llames Kogelis. In a keynote address 6/20 at the MediaPost Brand Marketers Summit, Kogelis talked about how Kmart seeded two provocative spots this spring on social media that became viral hits. The “Ship My Pants” ad featured an array of people saying that phrase fast as Kmart sought to promote its free shipping for online orders. There have been close to 19 million YouTube views.
Kmart followed that up with “Big Gas Savings,” a spot again where people said the statement fast, where the retailer was promoting an opportunity to get discounts in gas with purchases. The YouTube views are less, but still 5.4 million.
Kogelis also offered a prime example of how a marketer had a war room ready to capitalize on social media: Oreo during the Super Bowl. Oreo tweeted out a photo of one of its cookies with a “You Can Still Dunk In The Dark” message during the famous blackout during the game.
Oreo had a Super Bowl spot in the game, so that may have been the reason it was ready. Kogelis indicated its social media big-game efforts cost $4 million. “You have to have people ready to go during these big events,” she said. “If you don’t have an entire staff and leadership ready to make decisions in the middle of these events, you can’t capitalize on the real-time activity.” Oreo garnered 8,000 new Twitter followers and 34,000 Instagram followers with “Dunk In The Dark,” she said.
The effort generated $3.8 million in media value. If big events such as the Super Bowl offer real-time opportunities, how does a company conduct social analytics day to day to make decisions on media mix, creative and, maybe more importantly, business issues in a crisis. Kogelis cited a Dell example, where complaints started moving online about pricing. After picking it up, Dell analyzed the consumer sentiment and within 24 hours altered the price, responded on a blog to the frustration and communicated to customers about the change. “Pretty impressive,” she said at the Summit.
RBR-TVBR observation: Tying in social media to an immediacy-based campaign gives marketers a powerful tool to gauge consumer reaction in real-time. Like Kogelis said, though, a team must be in place to react to trending with multiple contingencies as part of the game plan. The best part of using social media correctly with a traditional media plan is how much extra value and awareness can be created for next to nothing.
