17.4.09

Digital relationships :Spectrum of Online Friendship



Another attempt to ease the struggle while describing your online friendships to your Arab Marketers who just don't / don't want / cant understand the power of social media.If you did not hear the news yet!! online friendships are different from what we've traditionally called friendships. Digital technology has affected the number of relationships you can maintain, and the intimacy of those relationships, effectively enabling us to create fans who feel like friends.

Passive Interest
This is the easiest level of engagement. It asks the least of your friends, and achieves the least commitment from us. But, it's the crucial starting point. I follow my curiosity to you, I'm interested in what I find, and I choose to pay attention. e.g. repeat visits, blog readers, fans, followers, etc.
Active Interest
This is when I care enough to let you know that I care (in a nice way, not in a stalker way ;). It's a small step, but a big opportunity for you to identify key members of your audience who are candidates to move along the spectrum. We don't yet expect a response, we're just letting you know that we're listening. e.g. people who leave comments on your blog, wall comments, @replies on Twitter, etc.

Sharing
At this point the audience member starts to become a fan. You and your work become part of my identity as I use it to talk to my own friends about what interests me (remember that we share content for social reasons). I also have made myself more valuable, because I am now partly responsible for the spread of your ideas. e.g. social bookmarking, retweeting links, posting links and content to my own sites and profiles, etc.
Public Dialogue
This is the first phase that requires action on your part. I have either demonstrated an Active Interest or have Shared your work with my own friends. You foster a relationship by responding to my interest in a public forum. By doing so, you make the rest of your friends aware of my existence, and welcome me to the group. e.g. public @replies, referrals in a blog post, and references posted to our various sites and profiles, etc.
Private Dialogue
At this step, we begin to transform mutual interest into mutual trust. We are willing to share thoughts, ideas, experiences with each other directly. We trust each other with direct access, which has increasing value in an increasingly always-on world. e.g. exchanging email, TXT messages, IM, and direct messages on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.
Advocacy
At first glance, Advocacy looks a lot like Sharing. But, the crucial difference is that Advocacy means that I am making an explicit recommendation of you to my friends. It's too easy now to simply share, all it takes is one click on your bookmark tool bar. Choosing to actually say, "This is important. It's worth my friends' time. And I'm willing to risk my own reputation to convince my friends to check it out." e.g. same tools as Sharing, but different language; usually entails recommending the person or brand, and not just a specific piece of content
Investment
The brass ring of online friendship. This is the most difficult achievement to recognize or quantify. But it's the most important because it represents the willingness of your friends to take action on your behalf.

Investment, became clear to me in the wake of well-wishes deservedly showered on David Armano after his announcement last Friday of his move to the Dachis Corporation. I was one of those well-wishers myself, and was genuinely proud and excited to hear about his new gig.

Van Gils:Dating a dummy

BRAND OWNER:Waalwear Group
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:EMEA
DATE:Aug 2008 - Sep 2008

Van Gils was a successful formal menswear brand across Europe in the eighties. In its prime it rivaled Hugo Boss, but had fallen into decline and had become largely unknown. Van Gils wanted
to rebuild the brand’s visibility among 28-40 year old men in four local markets: Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

While other fashion brands use celebrities as models to add borrowed interest to the products, Van Gils understood that it is really only the suit that counts.

The campaign consisted of magazine spreads featuring an anonymous mannequin who “gets a life” and lives out a celebrity life.

The strategy was to take the mannequin (an actor in costume) to high profile events in each market. On each occasion the mannequin would be ‘dating’ a glamorous female star with a high profile in that market.

This meant model Susan K at the Survivor TV Party in Denmark; Miss Belgium, Alizee Poulicek, at David Coulthard’s pit at the Belgium Grand Prix; model Carolina Gynning at a film premiere in Stockholm and actress Lieke Lexmond at the Netherlands Film Festival.
Two international events saw Pamela Anderson ‘date’ the mannequin at Vivienne Westwood’s London Fashion Week show and Channel 5 presenter Laura Esposto at the ‘Burn after Reading’ premiere at Venice Film Festival.
This helped to generate major press interest and PR. In each market an exclusive content deal with one key publication was negotiated (such as FHM) to ensure a minimum level of coverage. To raise the profile beyond this base level they used extensive online seeding and blogging, while employing a local PR agent in each market to gain exposure in more channels.
Despite a relatively low weight of press advertising, the campaign achieved a 6% increase in Van Gils suit sales. This was accompanied by a 90% increase in new visits to the Van Gils website.

The viral


Scandinavia Online :::Digital answer guru

BRAND OWNER:Eniro AB
CATEGORY:Publishing & Broadcasting
REGION:Norway
DATE:Aug 2008 - Oct 2008


Guru.sol.no was a Norwegian web service similar to Yahoo answers, where users can post questions, answer people’s questions and get answers. With a September launch, the challenge was to encourage people to use the service and obtain 100,000 unique visitors by the end of 2008 on a limited budget of €140,000.
Guru.sol.no created situations on street level that would engage the consumer and encourage them to visit the site to find out the answer. Fifteen different ambient scenarios were executed in four main cities in Norway during a two week period. Some 1000 posters were placed next to ‘missing cat’ posters, along with the question “What is kebab made of?”. A broken grand piano made to look as if it had fallen from the sky and landed in the centre of Oslo on street level with a ‘person’ trapped under it, complete with moving limbs, was accompanied by the question “What is Karma?”. This was supported by a digital campaign involving more than 200 banners on 60 websites including MSN and Facebook as well as more niche websites. The web campaign lasted for 8 weeks and each banner was tailored to its environment. On Facebook the question “can I get fired by checking my Facebook profile while I work?” was posed. On a fitness website they asked: “How does liposuction actually work?”. Answers to the question would be found at guru.sol.no.
The new approach of using niche websites saw click-throughs reach 1,2%, while the benchmark in Norway is 0,15%. The site achieved 100,000 unique visitors in the first week and maintained 100,000 unique visitors weekly, 3 months after launch, all within budget.

Bruno Banani::: Helping men to chat up the ladies

BRAND OWNER:Procter & Gamble
CATEGORY:Toiletries/ Cosmetics
REGION:Germany
DATE:Apr 2008 - Jan 2008


The male beauty product market is expanding by leaps and bounds and Procter & Gamble’s Bruno Banani wanted to be a major player. It needed to bring to life the brand’s persona of charming seduction in a way that would connect with young males.

Bruno Banani identified Carnival as the flirtiest season of the year a time when Germans go mad for a taste of Rio de Janeiro. At the same time Bruno Banani knew that young males needed the self assurance that would help them get the girl.

The brand identified male toilets as the best place to give the target audience a boost. Posters, mirror stickers and floor ads alerted them to the Bruno Banani’s helpful service offering smooth lines to impress the ladies.
By sending a text message and they could get a naughty but nice pick up line to help them get the girl: “All those curves and me without brakes!”
The brand helped the guys impress and underlined the cheeky positioning of the brand, boosting key brand scores by up to 30%.
The campaign helped deliver P&G’s biggest male lifestyle launch, helping the portfolio become the number 1 fine fragrance brand on the German market beating Boss, Davidoff and Armani.

Arimidex:::Celebration Chain

BRAND OWNER :AstraZeneca
CATEGORY :Pharmaceuticals/ Healthcare
REGION:USA
DATE:Oct 2007 - Apr 2008

AstraZeneca wanted to build an online tool for the breast cancer community to celebrate and support its patients and survivors. One of AstraZeneca’s cancer drugs is Arimidex, which is indicated for early and advanced breast cancer.

The aim was to raise awareness of Arimidex and AstraZeneca and demonstrate the company’s commitment to breast cancer and provide charitable contribution to advocacy groups.
Celebration Chain represents individual women who are united by an experience with breast cancer. Friends or family who want to honour a breast cancer sufferer can choose an avatar or “celebration doll”, a simple, whimsical, and endearing rich-media animation that reflects a patient/survivor’s personality.
They can then send the doll to their loved one via email to create a celebration chain. For every new doll created, AstraZenece donated $1 to charity. Other friends can also create their own “celebrations” in support of the cancer patient. The idea is to act as a supportive network for the women being treated for breast cancer. The idea spread virally and was picked up by bloggers who endorsed the Celebration Chain.
As of February 2009, over 17,000 celebrations had been created, and many more (90,000+) had visited the site to view them.

Fanta :::Fanta-stic flirting

BRAND OWNER:The Coca-Cola Company
CATEGORY:Drinks (non-alcoholic)
REGION:Poland
DATE:May 2008 - Jul 2008
Fanta wanted to reconnect with young people and make fresh associations with fun aspects of their lifestyle. Fanta was rolling out its Play campaign, which featured cool teenage characters in cartoon form who set out to introduce a splash of colour into a black and white world. Fanta decided to make sure 2008 would be a summer of love for Polish teens.
Fanta went to social network MojaGeneracja.pl, the leader in the teen market in Poland, and offered to develop new applications that would help its users get over that first hurdle and then flirt with each other.
The Fanta Flirt application allowed users to send a range of flirty animated messages to each other. Users could open the application, decide who they want to flirt with, select a chat-up line or write their own and then pick an animated e-card with a character from the Play ads on TV as their avatar. All of the flirty messages were aggregated in a personal inbox for users. Fanta also created the first ever online chat function within any social networking site in Poland, so that users could continue chatting without having to use an outside IM service.
The most active users of Fanta Flirt appeared on the MojaGeneracja homepage and all supporting advertising on TV and in youth magazines directed people to the social networking site. And because users could adopt the Play characters to be an avatar on their profile pages, awareness of our fun and colourful campaign spread beyond those who were using the flirts.
As a result, some 670,000 flirts were sent by 70,000 people. The campaign reached 37% of the Fanta target. And some 81% of users said they wanted Fanta to create another application
.

Reebok:::Fitness circus

BRAND OWNER:Adidas Reebok
CATEGORY:Accessories/ Clothing/ Footwear
REGION:Global
DATE:2008

Reebok has a history of inventive workout disciplines, recognizing that women like to enjoy themselves while exercising, starting with the simple Step Reebok in 1989.

Following survey of 15,000 women across 25 countries in 2008, Reebok found that less than 25% of women work out often. The findings showed that nearly two thirds (61%) of all women would workout more if it was more fun. More than half (54%) felt exercise was a chore.

Reebok teamed up with global acrobatic circus entertainment company, Cirque du Soleil, to create an innovative gym work out called Jukari Fit to Fly.

It is the first in a series of initiatives to come out of a new, long-term partnership, first formed in early 2008. In the eight months of development, Cirque du Soleil ensured that every move was inspired by the real moves of its acrobatic artists. Jukari Fit to Fly is an hour-long work out on a specially-designed piece of equipment called the ‘FlySet’, a durable three-stranded rope fixed to the ceiling, with a 380 degree swivel point at an adjustable length with two attachment loops. A bar is placed through the loops to create a sort of trapeze. The workout gives the sensation of flying while strengthening and lengthening the body.

The class was launched in gyms in 14 cities around the world, including Hong Kong, Mexico City, Madrid, London, Krakow, Munich, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Montreal, Los Angeles, Boston and New York.

To complement the class, Reebok has created two collections of women’s fitness clothing and footwear – On the Move and the Reebok-Cirque du Soleil collection. Both consist of product which can be worn for a range of fitness disciplines, from running to yoga, JUKARI Fit to Fly to tennis. All have been developed and designed with a deep understanding and knowledge of the unique way a woman’s body moves.

The launch was supported by a global campaign spanning online, outdoor, in store and in print featuring imagery of Jukari Fit to Fly.

White flag made out of plastic bag


THE ORIGINAL?
E.Leclerc Supermarkets “without your help, nature can’t win” - 2004
Source : French Art Directors Club book,
Agency : Australie (France)
LESS ORIGINAL :
Jourdelaterre.org (earth day) - 2009
Agency : SidLee Montreal (Canada)

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