Monthly Archives February 2016

Cultivating and Utilizing UGC

In this day and age, people are constantly taking and sharing photos. Thanks to their 8-megapixel smartphone cameras and built in filters, it’s easy to take a glorious picture. But the real moneymaker moment happens when someone shares a photo involving a brand. This is what we call: User Generated Content. UGC is any form of […]

In this day and age, people are constantly taking and sharing photos. Thanks to their 8-megapixel smartphone cameras and built in filters, it’s easy to take a glorious picture. But the real moneymaker moment happens when someone shares a photo involving a brand. This is what we call: User Generated Content. UGC is any form of content such as a, video, image or blog post created by a consumer or end-user and is publicly available. Social media mediums have proven to be continuously reliable sources for UGC. This is due to the simple fact that platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are hashtag based and easily searchable; vice versa, users are able to tag brands on posts, sometimes eliminating the need to search at all. Not to mention, everyone’s on social!

UGC posts become a kind of endorsement for brands; with the proper permission brands can repurpose these posts and show them off on their own social media page. “User-generated content as a media channel comprises an increasingly significant share of time that consumers are spending with content overall- indicating that consumers are ever more receptive to it. (Crowdtap)”Here’s how top brands go about acquiring and utilizing UGC.

 

The first step is always getting permission

starbucks

A big name like Starbucks has so much UGC at their fingertips (literally), but they still need to take the appropriate steps in order to share a consumer’s photo.
Often times brands will create campaigns encouraging users to create content
ModCloth2
In August 2015 Modcloth launched a contest on Pinterest “Be Our Pinspiration,” asking users to create a Pinterest board filled with inspirational images and named after the Modcloth campaign. The winner received a gift card and clothing pieces named after them.

 

For brands, hosting contests on Facebook is a simple and easy way to get UGC

Screen Shot 2016-02-10 at 11.32.58 AM

Dove’s “Share Your Beautiful Self” promotion asked users to upload a photo of themselves and a friend. Dove turned each entry into an e-card that could be shared with Facebook friends.
But even a simple hashtag search can reveal a plethora of UGC

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Interlux-on-Instag

Our client, Interlux Paint, receives a lot of UGC from Instagram

 

You can cross promote UGC on other social platforms, like Facebook
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The biggest content drivers are people between the ages 25 and 54 and contribute to 70% of all UGC (SparkReel). UGC continues to dominate the majority of web content, with Pinterest creations up by 75% (Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers). Everyone with a smartphone is a potential content creator and this gives marketers and companies alike a huge pool of content to choose from. Content curation is a vital part in telling the story of your brand, so it’s important to see to what your consumers are saying/posting and being receptive to them. Sharing their posts is a great way of doing just that! Not to mention it’s easy and cost-efficient!

Top 5 Super Bowl Moments in Digital Marketing

In the world of marketing, the Super Bowl is the ultimate platform for brands to get their audiences engaged. It has turned into more than ‘just commercials’; brands are flooding their audiences with campaigns from TV ad spots, tweets, Instagrams, and Facebook posts. Some campaigns get all the attention, and others fall flat. Here are […]

In the world of marketing, the Super Bowl is the ultimate platform for brands to get their audiences engaged. It has turned into more than ‘just commercials’; brands are flooding their audiences with campaigns from TV ad spots, tweets, Instagrams, and Facebook posts. Some campaigns get all the attention, and others fall flat.

Here are some top moments from past years, as well as our favorite from this year’s Super Bowl 50:

#5. Audi Uses the First Hashtag in a Super Bowl Ad

2011 – Super Bowl XLV

audi

Audi created the first 60-second TV spot that used a hashtag for Super Bowl marketing – #ProgressIs. Viewers who used the hashtag and the URL in their tweets were entered into a contest, the grand prize of which was a trip to Sonoma, California and a test drive with Audi – among other things. Although this hashtag didn’t make the “trending” list on Twitter, Audi saw a huge spike in their followers – about a 47% increase. The increase was at the same time as their YouTube teaser campaigns, and this showed that audiences were engaged in the campaign.

#4. JC Penney Super Bowl Mittens

 2014 – Super Bowl XLVIII

jcpenney-tweets

During the game, J C Penney tweeted numerous times with egregious typos. There was a lot of buzz around these miss-spelled tweets. Were they drunk? Did they get hacked?

This never occurred to the company when they were planning their campaign. In reality, the tweets were a part of the ongoing JCPenney campaign for the Olympics – they had “Go Team USA” mittens. The original plan was to tweet a few of these erroneous quips, following up with the hashtag #tweetingwithmittens. Although not interpreted how they were intended, the two jumbled tweets along with the hashtag generated 46,951 retweets and 21,357 favorites. Their brand got a lot of attention and this was a widely talked about digital marketing moment for Super Bowl XLVII.

#3.   Bud Light’s “Up for Whatever” campaign

 2014 – Super Bowl XLVIII

budlight-upforwhatever

The cast of the “Up for Whatever” campaign attracted huge attention from the public, as it featured 5 rock stars, 4 celebrities, and 412 actors. #upforwhatever was a top trending hashtag, also used on three highly shareable videos which received more than 1 million views and 55k Facebook likes within 72 hours.

These videos posed the question to viewers, as well as their star studded cast, “Are you #UpforWhatever ?

#2. Oreo Dunk Tweet

 2013 – Super Bowl XLVII

oreo-image

The Super Bowl, in 2013, had a temporary electrical blackout, and the Oreo marketing team quickly jumped on this opportunity with their ad, which must have been made as a snap decision and put together literally during the Super Bowl.

“You Can Still Dunk In The Dark” got nearly 15k retweets, more than 20k likes on Facebook, and is a great example of real-time marketing.

 

#1. New Super Bowl Moment

2016  – Super Bowl 50

esurance-image

Esurance promoted a contest this year where viewers could tweet and retweet for a chance to win up to $1 million.

Their hashtag, #EsuranceSweepstakes, trended nationally for 15 minutes, and generated 9k tweets per minute last night. In fact, Esurance ranked #1 on Spreadfast’s first quarter Super Bowl data, with 375k tweets.

The Super Bowl has been, and continues to be one of the largest marketing and advertising opportunities for companies advertising in the US. Being different and coming up with new and engaging ideas is the challenge facing these brands year after year, and with all that competition, this list was only able to mention a few of the best, most buzz-worthy campaigns. Check out other Super Bowl ads on YouTube, and remember to tune in every year for these great ads – and also the game.

 

For more on these digital marketing moments:

https://upennsocialbook.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/-study-audi-progressis-super/

http://digiday.com/brands/jc-penny-super-bowl-twitter-mittens/

http://sites.psu.edu/dylanfreieriampr/2015/11/18/38/\

http://www.wired.com/2013/02/oreo-twitter-super-bowl/

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/esurances-1st-quarter-super-bowl-ad-helped-generate-9000-tweets-minute-169495