Bank sponsors advertorials to educate Saudis about home loans

Al-Rahji Bank has been doing something interesting: sponsoring advertorials that educate Saudi newspaper readers on what to expect when applying for a home loan. The advertorials provide general information, rather than a promotional message. Al-Rajhi wants to ensure that people seeking home loans are well-informed on the complexities before visiting the branch—a smart move given how poor customer service is here in Saudi. Once an ad has motivated customers to visit the bank, they can’t rely on sales staff to provide much help.

Facebook fan page best practice [B2C]

For many brands a Facebook Fan Page is an integral part of their social media campaign. But, what elements help fan pages build up large followings and what can brands do to emulate the success of others? I’ve put together a list of specific elements that I believe have helped create fan pages with large, engaged, followings.

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1. Networking with other platforms

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Building a large following requires a network of other platforms, working in conjunction to drive visitors to your fan page. One brand that does that well is Victoria’s Secret with their PINK line.

As you can see, on their PINK landing page they have a link to their Facebook fan page and their MySpace profile. Victoria’s Secret leverages the traffic their home page gets and pushes them to their Facebook fan page.

Many companies lack this level of dedication, expecting their consumers on Facebook to find them automatically. However, that’s not usually the case.

When is the last time you went looking for a brand’s Facebook fan page? More often than not, a consumer will stumble upon the page, either through a friend or from a hub, similar to Victoria’s Secret’s PINK page.

Understandably, the fact that the demographic targeted by Victoria’s Secret PINK, aligns exactly with the demographic that is most active on Facebook, has helped grow the group as well.

Key Takeaway: Connecting multiple social platforms and a hub from the brand website, can help funnel consumers throughout the network.

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2. Creating a resource

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Some pages are used as connection hubs, but others offer information pertinent to their consumers. They use the information as added value to have consumers create a connection with the brand.

Dell has done a great job with their social media resource for small businesses. Understanding that small business owners buy computers, by offering them this resource, small business owners interested in social media keep Dell top of mind.

Although, Dell can’t explicitly gauge the success of this program in ROI, it is a branding exercise. Also, since they offer deals and updates on new products on the page – the page does have a chance to convert small business owners into Dell consumers.

Key Takeaway: Offering a resource page allows a brand to target a new demographic, outside of those that already know and love the business.

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3. Creating contests that include participation

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For brands that want fan pages to have added value (a reason for users to join the page, aside from brand loyalty), but don’t want to become a resource portal; offering contests and coupons specifically to Facebook users can entice consumers to join.

Sears offered fans a $10 coupon to use in stores, giving consumers a reason to join. Clicking on the coupon takes you to a page where Sears collects your information and sends you information about the coupon, deals, and offers. There’s no way to make sure the coupon is given to only Facebook fans, however like Sears, brands can require an email before receiving the coupon.

Key Takeaway: Offering something to consumers to join can help build a large community. Some examples of things to offer: Coupons, free shipping, weekly deals.

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4. Empowering pre-existing pages

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One of my favorite stories about social media involves the Coca Cola Facebook page. The fan page was created by two users who liked Coke. What started as a fan page for fun, turned out to be the largest product fan page on Facebook.

Coca Cola, instead of taking over the page and making it their own, rewarded the fans by bringing them to Atlanta and giving them a tour of the Coke facility. The fan page remains theirs, but now they have the blessing and help of Coca Cola.

By empowering the fans to keep their fan page, Coke ensures a passionate page owner.

The Coca Cola marketing team was also smart enough to realize that letting others know what happened here would work in their favor. The fan page creators were told to make a video of the history behind the fan page, and how Coke had reached out to them and rewarded them for this.

The video shows future ‘brand enthusiasts’ that creating successful groups around Coca Cola can result in rewards and recognition.

Key Takeaway: Taking over unsanctioned Facebook fan pages isn’t always the best idea. Instead, rewarding dedication can inspire others to do the same.

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5. Targeting the proper demographic

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Sometimes no matter what you do, your Facebook page won’t grow. This can simply be a side effect of Facebook’s demographic. There are just some brands that will not have a strong presence on Facebook.

Understanding the demographic present can help you decide if Facebook is worth it for your business.

From Quantcast estimates, we can tell that Facebook skews towards female youths. Interestingly, 53% of users have kids and a majority make over $60k a year salary. Obviously, over 50% are college kids. The demographics that make up Facebook are changing quickly, as more moms have begun to join and the college market has become saturated.

Armed with this knowledge, Seventeen Magazine jumped on to the Facebook fan page bandwagon. Their brand targets the demographic most prominent on Facebook, meaning a fairly quick and organic growth.

For companies whose brand does not target the optimal demographic, finding a specific line that does, works.

Consider the brand mentioned earlier in this article, Victoria’s Secret. Instead of putting the entire brand on Facebook, they targeted the PINK line, a line for college students.

Key Takeaway: Some brands cannot expect huge followings on Facebook. Brands or product lines targeting the demographic most prominent on Facebook tend to see the quickest growth.

I purposely did not talk about using advertising to increase the size of a fan page, because although it can be useful to jump start a fan page, organic growth can help build a more engaged group.

Creating a Facebook fan page is simple, but getting it to work well takes time, dedication, and some planning. Don’t expect to create a page and then have a huge following instantaneously. Build good content, make it easy to share, and let people know about it, and over-time the community will grow.

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"5" Brands Using Facebook Fan Pages Well

We have noticed a shift in Facebook being not only a social network for personal use but also a platform for business use as well. More and more marketers use Facebook as a key medium for their brands online. Earlier this year I wrote a post for the Heavy Chef blog on Why Facebook is an important platform for Brand Building. In this post I looked at its redesign and opportunities it offered brands. Now we have experienced the redesign of Facebook’s Business Pages and Fan pages and this redesign has already proven successful. Let’s look at 5 companies using Facebook fan pages well and see what they are doing right.
1. CocaCola

The page was originally started by 2 fans of Coke before the company had their own presence on Facebook. Instead of taking the page down and rebuilding their own, Coke gave these users the power to run the page for them. In addition, Coke invited them to the Coke factory, showed them around and allowed them to take pictures. This aspect of the CocaCola fan page makes the page more genuine rather than a promotional campaign by Coke.
The Coca-Cola fan page has taken the brave step of displaying user created content in their main page’s Wall feed, something most brands won’t dare do. This means that the page is powered by user generated content, good and bad. Check out this discussion on the CocaCola fan pages as an example of how they deal with negative content on their page. Even though this is a very bold move to make, it get’s their fans involved with the brand and thereby the fans get value out of the page.
2. Red Bull

For Callan Green on Mashable “the Red Bull fan page is easily one of the best on Facebook simply because it has been able to break out of the typical fan page mold by providing fun content that encourages fans to interact with and ultimately connect with the brand”. Red Bull really placed all their focus on an extremely entertaining and interactive Facebook fan page. The Red Bull Facebook fan page focuses the attention of their fans on watching videos, playing ridiculously addictive games like Red Bull Soapbox Race, and listening to music. According to Anne Brannon “it’s fun, it’s engaging, it’s what a fan page should be – tailored to the target audience’s wants and needs”.
The thing that makes Red Bull’s fan page probably one of the best is their incorporation of Twitter. I’m not talking about simply adding the Twitter stream to their fan page – it’s a lot more than that. Instead of pulling boring tweets from their official corporate account, they are pulling tweets from sponsored athletes such as snowboarder Shaun White and skateboarder Ryan Sheckler. Isn’t that just wow? It is clear that Red Bull understands their audience and appeals to them by adding valuable features that would interest them.
3. Victoria’s Secret PINK

The Victoria’s Secret PINK fan page leads the fashion category on Facebook. With about 1.24 million Facebook fans, there are clearly some things Victoria’s Secret is doing right. Understandably, the fact that the demographic targeted by Victoria’s Secret PINK and that of the most active Facebook users are basically the same, has helped grow the page as well. The Victoria’s Secret Facebook fan page engages with their fans and offer them value through competitions and special offers. They start conversations on their wall posts and thus draw fans to join in on the conversation as well. Victoria’s Secret also posts a lot on their own wall and updates status’ which other fan pages forget to focus on. Also, it’s more than just posting for promotional purposes. Victoria’s Secret offers their fans high quality posts and not only self-promotional posts. Victoria’s Secret has also added a link on their PINK landing page to their Facebook fan page, thereby generating traffic to their fan pages through other portals.
4. Pringles

The Pringles Facebook fan page really focuses on adding videos. Yes, they still focus on engaging with their fans on different levels but their use of videos is what makes them so successful. Pringles has noticed its audience on Facebook’s liking to comedy and have used their fan page to spread of a set of videos that could potentially become viral. Videos are among the most commonly shared types of content online. Pringles videos are low budget productions with little editing, about people singing goofy songs. By making a simple video such as this, they have opened up an avenue that would spread the video across Facebook. By simply ‘liking’ the video on Facebook it would appear on the newsfeed of fan’s friends and expose a great deal of people to the Pringles brand.
5. Adidas

The Adidas fan page, like many others, offers a strong page. What makes them so successful is their use of their Facebook fan page’s features to promote their other social media and advertising campaigns.
Most recently, Adidas, along with MTV, ran an exclusive Facebook contest where a fan could win an all-expenses-paid house party. What made this campaign successful is that Adidas chose a prize and partner that would echo the Facebook user demographic. They also promoted the contest on their fan page before and after the campaign. Once they had chosen the lucky winner, they used their page to share the fan’s blog posts,photos and video from the party. This resulted in a whole lot of fan engagement and interest. The thing is, they pulled through with a follow up and that’s what offered value to fans. They could see how the campaign played out.
For Callan Green “fan pages that are doing it right are the ones that are actively engaging with their fans. These pages have creative content, two-way communication, active discussion boards, videos and images, and a fun and casual tone to match the medium.” Facebook Pages present an exciting opportunity for brands to directly engage with their existing and future customers and harvest new ones. It is and has been a known fact that the more time you invest in your brand’s Facebook page, the better response you’ll get.

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Tips and benchmarks for Admins of Branded Facebook Pages

General

1. Keep in a conversational tone
2. Ask a question
3. Keep it to two sentences max

Benchmarks of success 

1-Comments on a status updates 

For branded pages a percentage of 0.5% of your fans commenting back is the average anything that gets 1% or higher of your fans commenting back is an amazing result.
2-Unsubscribe rate 
You are going to lose fans after every status update managing the level of unsubscribes is important. An unsubscribe rate of less than 7.5% is good.

Examples of good Australian Branded Pages 

• Supre/Mudo Media 
• The Contender Australia/The Population

Lacta| Interactive Youtube

"Love at first site" is an awarded Branded Entertainment campaign for Greece's favorite chocolate, Lacta. It was created by OgilvyOne Athens in 2008 and the film was produced by MovieTeller Films.

The campaign has won the Gold Award in the Branded Content category of IAB's MIXX Awards 2009 in New York. It has also won a Bronze Award in the International category of MIXX Awards 2009 and a Bronze World Medal in the Confections / Snacks category of the New York Festivals 2009. It has also won honors at the Webby Awards 2009 and a Favourite Webside Award "FWA". It was also Advertising Age's "Idea of the Week".

Only you can give a happy end to this interactive love story, shot entirely on location at the Greek island of Paros and in Athens, and presented by Lacta, the leading chocolate bar in Greece.http://www.facebook.com/Loveatfirstsite

"Love at first site" is the story of how Petros, a young Greek man and Joanna, an English girl on vacation at the island of Paros, fall in love at first sight, and spend a magic week together, only to break up and never see each other again.

The story unfolds in flash back and users get to experience the love story from the beginning. Only through their actions and correct choices users can progress the love story and bring the two heroes back together at the big finale, two years after the events at Paros.

The film was directed by Constantin Pilavios and the screenplay was written by Panos Sambrakos and Christina Sotiropoulou, on an original story by Panos Sambrakos. Cinematography was by Zoe Manta and the original music composed by Christos Triantafyllou.

Creative Director: Panos Sambrakos
Account Management: Christina Alifakioti
Art Director: Constantinos Demetriadis
Web Designer: Konstantinos Penlidis
Copywriter: Konstantina Chatzaki

10 examples of ‘advertorial’

Here are 10 examples of brand-publisher collaboration we found in the latest issue of Monocle:

1. Rosetta Stone - Monocle directed photo shoot for a series of ads for the language learning company that appear in the magazine.

2. Hyundai Card - 4 page guide promotes a rather elitist Korean credit card to a global audience.

3. Toto - The Clean energy company supports the weekly (very good) podcast from Tyler and his chums.

4. Diageo Reserve - Cocktail and mixology news for the drinks company.

5. Absolut - An 8 page travel-guide spread also promotes an Absolut sponsored 132-page pocket-sized travel handbook available with a sale of Absolut vodka at international duty free stores. The book is a guide to 25 leading business cities and 25 resorts for beach and snow.

6. BMW - A 4 page Monocle styled ‘ad’ for the 5 series. BMW is also sponsoring a Summer Series of podcasts.

7. Taiwan - A 4 page spread describes the hot spots of ‘Urban Taiwan’. This is the 3rd part of an advertorial series that has also run in previous issues of Monocle.

8. Lille Tourism - A 2 page snapshot of the finer parts of the rail-connected French city.

9. Singapore - A 2 page spread that advertises collaborative report on Singapore that can be purchased in August. (Ignores swipe made at the city by the writer Matthew Sweet earlier in the magazine!)

10. Hirakawacho Mori Tower - A 4 page guide to 21st century Tokyo living covers everything that this new residential block has to offer - helipad included.

Audi::: Progressive vanguards

BRAND OWNER:Volkswagen
CATEGORY:Automotive
REGION:China
DATE:Mar 2008 - Dec 2008

High brand awareness for the Audi A8L was failing to convert into sales in China. Consumer research revealed that the Audi brand was perceived as old, conservative and government-related.

The car brand needed to communicate its new positioning of “Progressive Vanguards” to a niche audience of sophisticated business executives and hence boost sales.

We knew that this target market were confident in their own beliefs and ideals but conversely they were also keen to learn from other people’s success.

The solution was to create Audi’s own list of “Progressive Vanguards” and put their stories at the heart of the campaign.

Audi teamed up with leading business newspapers and periodicals to create Audi branded content where 24 leading businessmen from China and abroad would talk about the secrets of their success.

They included Steve Jobs from Apple, Ma Yun from Alibaba and Li Yan- Hong of Baidu. Readers were directed to their stories via eye- catching banners on the front page.

Special events and business conferences added another layer to the communication, encouraging readers to take a test drive.

Sales of the Audi A8L rose 35% year on year with a saving of 45% on a regular media buy.

Halifax :::Reaching out to expats

BRAND :Halifax
BRAND OWNER :HBOS
CATEGORY :Financial
REGION :Global
DATE :Apr 2008 - Dec 2008

HBOS is one of the most recognisable names in banking. The Halifax International offshore banking service launched in 2008 to provide a service familiar for those far from home. The challenge was to engage with a disparate audience of UK expats in a competitive, HSBC dominated market place and difficult macro-economic conditions.

Having conducted extensive global research into the types of expats (New lifers, Career Pursuers, and Retirees), messaging and content were provided across a diverse range of subjects ranging from making friends, language, property & accommodation and tax planning, showing Halifax really is more than just a bank.

Halifax teamed up with The Sun, one of the UK’s leading tabloids as business partners rather than media owners, creating a bespoke branded expat channel on the Sun Online, with 100% of ad formats owned by Halifax. Display ran across money comparison sites and global/national news sites with advertorial, newsletter promotions and channel takeovers.

An XML feed was incorporated into rate-led display advertising to update instantaneously, saving creative costs and notifying consumers of the best deal.

Partnering with TradeDoubler, affiliate marketing focused on introducing Halifax International as a competitive product through financial listings. Affiliates also ran across a range of niche sites that linked to the various expat-life stages, allowing HBOS to educate on all aspects of the expat journey. This was combined by paid and natural search.

The entire campaign delivered a total of 106,193,617 impressions, generating a CTR of 3.5%. In total, the Halifax International acquisition drive delivered a total of 8,170 new accounts, a 382% increase on targets, with CPA below target. In total, £250 million in deposits was generated for Halifax International.