So a trending topic today today was how pof.com (Plenty of Fish) removed a free featured and has taken into their paid member only section. I wanted to mention it because there are businesses thinking about doing something like this right now, and there will be more in the future. So what happens to a brand when they try and take something which they offered for free, separated them from their competitors and was most likely a key ingredient to their success? While they say the move is to help cover the costs of removing banner advertisements, it seems a good chunk of their users would rather have the ads back.
Since this literally just happened over the weekend we’ll be able to see how this all plays out for the Vancouver based company. There is potential for a large enough sway from their users to get the feature back and settle for an ad based revenue stream. Either way they swing it I think it’ll at least do a great job of getting them in the news which means links and social buzz galore. The POF forum has been lit up with non stop threads complaining about their decision to remove the viewed me feature. As you can see from the picture below, their support staff will be quite busy fielding complaints from there, social media, emails and their support phone number.
It’s the little details that can set your business apart and while we’re not obsessed about our business cards like a scene out of American Psycho, we were overly stoked about these. Our in house graphical ninja Lindsay Anne put her design talents to work and came up with this new design. We’ll be expanding it into the rest of our material soon enough and I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. Our clients who have used her talents before are always overly impressed and she does more than just logos. She tackles everything from labels, magazines(in which we build for clients for tablets) as well she’s a published woman….she’s going places and we’re thrilled to have access to her talent. Her designs and branding ideas have helped some of our clients attract links to levels they didn’t even think possible.
I have no idea if this is fake but it was a hot discussion on Reddit this past week. I for one hope it’s real as it would be one helluva PR stunt. A lot of brands are not against pulling off a stunt like this although they’re quite family oriented so I can see how this may be a photoshop. Despite that factor, this image has been the talk of the town and it has inadvertently brought a lot of eyes back on The Olive Garden.
Nike and their long-time agency Wieden+Kennedy have never missed a game, lost a round, missed a shot or any other winning sports analogy you can think of when it comes to branding and marketing. W+K was actually formed as a result of Dan Wieden and David Kennedy taking Nike as their first client, after they left mega-agency McCann Erickson in the early 80s. Since then, Nike and W+K have had only victories in their ilustrious track record together and have never failed to impress both customers and marketers. And they definitely didn’t lose their stride with the recent achievement with a viral and social media-powered campaign to brand a new product. And I promise that’s the last (intentional) sports analogy.
W+K came up with Nike’s “Just Do It”, which is probably the most well known slogan ever. Since its inception, it has stood as the ultimate motivational phrase. I recently watched the documentary “Art and Copy” that had interviews with people on the impact of “Just Do It” and their responses went far beyond sports or fitness goals. Check out the clip:
The new #MakeItCount slogan is a modern social media take on the same simple concept of their original “Just Do It” slogan. The #MakeItCount campaign combined traditional marketing elements, such as print, commercials and brand ambassadors, combined with smart social media and viral marketing efforts. They fully leveraged all this through positive customer engagement and, in a sense, customer crowd-sourcing to promote their campaign.
The #MakeItCount hashtag started up just before Christmas, acting like a new year’s resolution for physical fitness, was all a buildup for a mystery product launch yesterday morning. Nike encouraged its fans to tweet what they wanted to accomplish in 2012. Building a positive and motivational hashtag at the perfect time of year, to lead up to a mystery product launch.
This campaign was so successful that not only was the hype clearly seen through social media, but also in the stock market. Nike Inc. shares hit an all-time high Wednesday, breaking the $100 mark, just in anticipation of the mystery product launch, the day before it was actually revealed.
Twitter was an important element leading into this new product launch, was the long-overdue launch of the official @Nike account. They already had a range of Nike Twitter accounts for their various sports and divisions, but were seemingly holding out on @Nike to coincide with the #MakeItCount campaign. Nike’s real-life clout transferred with ease into Klout on Twitter, with all of Nike’s big name athletes following the first day, including Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, Steve Nash, the NBA and of course Nike’s strong existing Twitter accounts.
Tweet by NBA star Kevin Durant turned into a poster.
Launched on Dec. 29th, @Nike was able to surpass rival @Adidas within 24 hours, gaining around 14,000 followers. after 23 days, @Nike has over 227,000 followers. Over the last few weeks, Nike had their wide range of celebrity athletes, through all sports, countries and cultures, tweet and Instagram their goals for 2012 and #MakeItCount, encouraging fans to do the same. Topsy.com recorded 24,387 mentions on Dec 31st alone. Combined with Instagram, Nike has created a dynamic #MakeItCount page to showcase their fans motivational #MakeItCount tweets, along with their celebrity athlete ambassadors. The current tweet total is showing at over 59,000.
Here is the Youtube commercial released to coincide on Dec.31, which received around 62,000 views that day alone:
Nike was founded on the genuine goal to encourage sports and fitness, along with all the positive side effects they have. And by selling the products that help people to reach this goal, their marketing and products a honest combination that has always been well received by the public. With their ongoing #MakeItCount campaign, Nike has already received an obvious high-level of engagement with their huge fan base and effectively crowd-sourced them to hype their upcoming product.
And Thursday morning, the Nike FuelBand was released to plenty of hype, praise and criticism, that you most likely caught some of by now. Even the @NikeFuel Twitter account that was launched yesterday morning has topped @Adidas’ follower count, with over 10,000 after around 36 hours.
Here is the Youtube video that also coinsided with the release, which has seen over 478,000 view in 3 days:
The huge press conference to finally reveal the mystery product involved out plenty of stars (and their Twitter followers). Pictured here at the event is Kevin Dudrant, Carmelita Jeter, Lance Armstrong and host Jimmy Fallon. With coverage hitting every major news source, blog and social media platform as a rusult, Nike has seen instant exposure for their FuelBand that few companies outside of Apple rarely see.
Photo courtesy of CNET
For a better explanation of what the FuelBand does, check out the video below:
From a marketing perspective, the desktop and mobile app are important mentions. They lets you track and monitor your progress, using elements of gamification to keep you engaged with the product. The social aspects come in here, letting you share your goals and progress with friends through social media, either to motivate, brag or compete with each other.
Now the Nike FuelBand, retailing for $150, isn’t a new concept,with comparable products already existing, such as Motorola’s MOTOACTIV (with costs $250, but with a music player and GPS) and the cheaper JawBone UP at $100. But like the world of gadget brands being divided by Apple and non-Apple, no fitness brands can touch the Nike brand.
Nike was eager to get people testing the FuelBand, with most reviews saying it’s does what it promises too. But when it comes down to it, this product can be seen two ways: Either a great motivational tool for fitness or a unnecessary gimmick that doesn’t technically improve your fitness. With the social elements of sharing with friends and the gamification element of gaining points, beating records and tracking progress, it can be a great tool for some. Or you could just do all those activities without the $150 wristband.
Every Karate Kid-style crane kick counts too.
One thing is for sure, Nike has branded a fitness tracking product like no other company could ever do. They excelled in all areas, from traditional, viral and social media marketing efforts, to leveraging their athlete brand ambassadors to engaging and crowd-sourcing their fans.
And to keep these $150 FuelBands selling, Nike has no plans to let #MakeItCount and @NikeFuel stop trending. First by using their athletes’ continued promotion and and massive combined Twitter following they’ve easily built up. Secondly, with their fans’ utilization of the social sharing and gamification aspects to keep each other engaged and active. Has Nike started a new era in fitness? Or have they just started a big pile of barely used $150 wristbands? We’ll have to wait and see.
Here is Nike’s pop culture/sports/movie montage to promote the FuelBand and #MakeItCount that’s racked up over 1.3 million views in 3 days. Another stellar commercial by W+K that’s imagery resonates with its audience, conveys what the product is about and is just fun to watch, check it out:
With the launch of the Nokia Lumia 800 they sourced deadmau5 to drop some serious branding magic on the world in London. If you want a top notch example of branding that’s going to bring you serious attention both in the real world and the social, here it is. This event drew in a massive crowd that sparked thousand of user videos, blog posts, newspaper and magazine mentions, pictures, TV buzz, radio buzz…pretty much the bloody works. I love bring you folks amazing examples of branding even if I’m a month behind on mentioning this one.
I just caught this promo video calling for entries into the ADDY Awards and couldn’t get but think this should already be the winner. This contest is open to students, professors and agencies of all sizes and the only thing that matters is creativity. If you want to take part you can drop off your entry to the Miami International University of Art & Design 1501 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, Fl 33132. You can alsoenter by going to http://www.addycompetition.com.
Ron Paul being what seems the only candidate with a heart and brain(and non corporate ties) running on both sides of the idiot fence, his message is not his only strong point. He’s the only candidate with a strong social media push from supporters and his camp and this video is a brilliant example of doing things right. Sadly the mainstream media treats him like the handicap kid in school stuck in the far back corner. Well, before I go off on a political rant and make either new fans or enemies, just sit back and press play….the marketing is brilliant and so is the message.
I noticed Blake from Workaholics in a commercial for Sockos(thanks to the folks on the Workaholics Reddit) and loved the cross branding. I always talk about “riding the social wave” of other influentials in the social realm, and this is a fresh example of just that. Blake has 111,000 Twitter followers, mad Facebook rep and enough branding power to get Sockos a huge amount of buzz.
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Check out the anatomy of a "negative SEO" attack on our own site in our latest post. There's too much worry about these attacks happening, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Come read what I think and just what to do if anything like this happens to your brand.
