Chances are you’ve seen Nabisco’s latest campaign for Wheat Thins, “The Crunch Is Calling,” as the spots are online, in movie theaters and on TV. So, what’s so special about Wheat Thins? The snack cracker may not be special but the brand’s use of consumer driven content is special.

Prior to social media, advertisers would offer a vague print ad or minimalist teaser TV spot, encouraging website visits for “interactivity.”   However, these campaigns lacked real consumer interaction within the content.  “The Crunch Is Calling” is different because the content is driven by the social media user, giving the user a role in the brand’s promotion. Why did Nabisco embrace social and consumer driven content? A Brand Manager within the company noted, “We set out to reinvent Wheat Thins.” Looks like the company wanted something new as the social media tactics scream, “We’re not your grandma’s snack cracker.”

The campaign concept is simple. Nabisco brand reps mine Twitter for positive Wheat Thins tweets and surprise the author with a product delivery and a good amount of hoopla (reaction is captured for TV spots).  Winners are featured in the tweet-based spot. As an extension of the campaign, a “Crunch Den” tab on Facebook streams Wheat Thins themed tweets and a branded YouTube channel hosts fan comments giving the campaign a 360-degree feel. The social media efforts keep the marketing alive as users discuss comments.

Social media usage also gives the brand access to real time info without the costs and effort normally associated with focus groups or similar market research. It’s too early to know ROI for the “Crunch” campaign as spots initially dropped in July, however the campaign’s creativity has resulted in buzz and additional campaign reach online.

A quick glance around the social media sphere reveals a list of corporate users not limited to food and beverage brands.  Video game development company, Eat, Sleep, Play’s founder releases concepts and art via his personal blog to gauge player reaction in lieu of focus group, as he too is eager for consumer comments.   Behind the scenes photos drive enthusiasm and help strengthen the fan base as gamers are allowed to interact with the product before it is in home.  Marketing messages may not be driven by the consumer as with Wheat Thins, but blog reviewers react and share content which then could effect the final package product (thus ultimately creating content which impacts the company).

I’ll stay tuned to find out the social media efforts effect Wheat Thins’ sales numbers and how other companies are embracing consumer driven content to further their brand.

There are many components that are associated with a start-up. Getting your name out there is one of the most challenging.

I think a great way start-ups can help market themselves and, in turn, help their business grow, is to add a charitable component to their marketing plan or their company’s mission. It’s something that is pretty easy to do and the return can be both financially rewarding and beneficial to the charity/charities they select (which I hope is the main reason why a company will do this).

Marketing your company as having a charitable component can open up so many doors. You tap into a market of consumers you might not have ever reached without the charitable piece. You are more likely to increase your chances of editorial coverage, because you have that different angle on your brand than your competitors. The media might give you a break on your cost or throw in a few free runs because they know you are doing something for a good cause. Most importantly, it will cause people talk, and even though people think it might not be as effective as it once was, word-of-mouth advertising is huge.

Recently, I came across a bunch of start-up companies on Trend Watching’s 2010 Innovation Insanity list of the most promising new brands. On this list, there are a lot of start-ups that involve a charitable component to help market themselves, which is great. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) How many people, like myself, hate those $2 service fees for using a non-bank ATM? Choose Change ATM in the USA has come up with a solution. Every time you use one of their ATM’s, they will donate $1 to the cause or charity you choose, which you select during your transaction. Love, love and love! Even though technically, they are making $1 off my transaction, I think it’s great that another $1 is going to a charity I believe in. Who can’t spare a dollar? My only complaint is they don’t say anywhere on their website where these ATMs are located. Hard for me to use it, if I don’t know where it is.

2) Stop buying plastic water bottles. Give Me Tap in the UK has come up with a program where people buy a reusable aluminum water bottle, and then they can go to restaurants and cafes and refill them for free with clean tap water. You can find locations via your phone. They also donate 70% of the profits to fund water aid in Africa. Cool concept. I wonder how many people have these water bottles with them at all times, how clean the tap water really is (does Give Me Tap test their water prior to allowing them to be a certified partner?) and do the restaurants and cafes allow you to clean your water bottle prior to refilling?

3) Purchase wine, donate water. So many people are involved with wine clubs or purchase wine online. Well, Cellar Thief has created an idea that when someone buys a select wine off their site, they will donate 100 days of clean water to Charity Water, a company they have partnered with. This is so easy. You buy the wine, they donate the water. I do applaud them for being involved in the social space. As they have a good amount of Twitter followers, they should be more active, as their last tweet was in the middle of July.

4) School uniforms can be expensive, especially in underprivileged  countries. FIGS in California will donate a school uniform to an African child in need for each tie that is purchased on its website. The ties though, run around $100 and I have to purchase via PayPal. It makes me a little uneasy about buying a tie via PayPal and makes me question how I know if a uniform was actually sent to a child. They really need to allow people to purchase on the actual website.

All and all, great job you four! I am glad to see that you have used a charitable component to help market yourself.

What other start-ups do you think should add a charitable component to their strategy to help their business grow?

I am so darned sick and tired of marketing agency people with an inferiority complex about being in San Diego, and last week creative legend Mike Hughes had my back.  Mike was in town to speak to a group of marketing leaders gathered by San Diego AdClub, and one of the key points he made was that creativity can come from anywhere – even San Diego.

Mike is the creative genius at The Martin Agency (ADWEEK agency of the year), and is the guy behind blockbuster advertising campaigns for GEICO (geckos, cavemen, dancing money), Walmart (tear jerker holiday ads with snow falling on troops in Iraq), the singing guy from freecreditreport.com and more.  And that award winning blockbuster agency is located in….Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond? Population 204,000 thousand, humid in the summer and snowy in the winter, miles from anything remotely cultural, capital of the Confederacy and firmly planted in Southern traditions.

Yet guys like Mike Hughes can thrive there.  Creative geniuses from around the country are drawn there. Talent grows and prospers there.

So why would we not expect the same or better from San Diego?  We’re a happy bunch, basking in nearly perfect weather, enjoying a plethora of cultural events and arts, inspired by people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, and uniquely uber cool.

Look at this amazing work by some of our best local talent, and tell me there’s not the seed of some greatness here.  We just have to nurture it so it can grow into the next Martin Agency or Crispin Porter (Miami? Gimme a break).

http://www.vitrorobertson.com/
http://www.meadsdurket.com/
http://www.gearyi.com/
http://www.lambesis.com/
http://www.fishtankba.com/
http://www.baileygardiner.com/

Come on folks. Drop the apologies and just pony up. We deserve the cred.

In the past, we’ve given quite a few tutorials on how to best utilize Facebook or what to measure when reporting on Twitter, but we haven’t really broke down our recommendation for how to go about creating a fully-integrated, well-researched social media campaign.

While it may seem we’re going to back to basics, this list of to-dos can also be applied when you feel that your current social media strategy is getting stale.  I also believe that it should be integrated into your social media plan to reevaluate every six months to ensure that you’re best utilizing your social media budget.

1)  Right off the bat, when beginning a new campaign or revamping, you’re going to want to spend some time listening – where are people talking about your brand?  What platforms are they using?  What types of feedback are you getting – good or bad?  What confuses people and where can you implement customer service to streamline the process?

There are numerous tools to use to measure and evaluate your brand mentions.  Social Mention, Google Buzz and Vocus have all incorporated a tool where you can either log in or have an email sent listing all the platforms that are mentioning your brand (by keyword).  You may find right off the bat that the all-encompassing Facebook strategy you’ve been working on isn’t actually where all the chatter is about your brand.  Perhaps your customers are still using forums to talk about you.

2)  Now that you know where people are discussing your brand, what’s the chatter surrounding your competitors.  What’s interesting is organizations that you may consider your greatest competitors may have no social presence whatsoever – this makes for an even greater opportunity for your brand to capitalize on.    You also may find there are organizations that you had no idea were competitors.  If their campaign is successful, there’s no harm in incorporating some of their successes into your own campaign – just make sure to make it your own.

3)  Once you’ve done your research, it should be clear what platforms you should be using to speak to your current customer base and if it makes sense to join additional networks.  While numerous companies will only focus on Twitter and Facebook, think of what your brand offers.  If it’s a consumer product or service that you find customers don’t know how to use, perhaps YouTube is a platform you use for tutorials.  Are most of your mentions coming from FriendFeed or a particular blog or forum?  Perhaps start there and once you’ve established a presence there, let your customers know that you’re also on Facebook and Twitter and have your own blog.  If you’re looking for foot traffic, create a social loyalty program with FourSquare.

4)  While you may want to dive right in and begin making updates and tweeting to your loyal customers, you should first create a six-month plan and outline goals you have for social media: Do you wish to increase sales on-site?  Do you wish to increase website traffic?  Or are you hoping that you can give your customer service phone line a break?

Once these goals are outlined, the rest of your plan should be fairly simple to fill in.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to have quality content on your pages.  If you insist on having a presence, make it a strong one.  Before you begin interacting or creating your own Facebook tab with FBML, bullet out what initiatives you have monthly, and always check back to remind yourself of your overall goals.

5)  Measure, analyze and report your findings, both successes and failures, to learn what works and what doesn’t within the realm of your brand’s offerings.  Gather screen grabs from fans and followers raving about your social media campaign, or a conversation you had online convincing an individual to visit your venue.  When your client asks for the value of social media (which they will), these will be key in demonstrating the power and value in a successful social media campaign.

Do you think there are any other basics companies should remember when creating or revamping their social media plans?

We have many opinions and blog posts at Bailey Gardiner about Foursquare. Most people get the basics of how to use the tool to check-in and how companies are getting creative with Foursquare offers. I’d like to continue the conversation on this tool, by sharing some of the new functionality that Foursquare has unveiled since its launch, as well as, a few of my Foursquare don’ts.

New functionality for users:

1. Find out what is “Trending Now.” By simply looking at the “Places” around you, you can see where the people are. These don’t have to be your linked “friends.” For example, I just saw that Hash House is trending. There must be something great going on there today, maybe I should check it out…
2. You can now see who is “Staff” at any given venue. If you are a marketer, and you manage a venue, you can mark yourself as staff and therefore users know the venue is being managed by someone and that the company is engaged in social media strategy.
3. The “History” section got an update. You can now easily add a category to a venue and see which of your friends checked in at the same venue.
4. The sign-up page was re-designed, making it even easier to sign-up and to see who of your Twitter followers and Facebook friends are using the platform. The ease of this new sign-up form is likely part of the reason Foursquare has seen such a huge growth in users, recently hitting the 2 million user mark.
5. Users now have the ability to opt-out of being a part of the business dashboard. For those who want to keep their check-ins private to business owners, they have that option. However selecting this would be a detriment to many users as they  may be unable to capitalize on special offers/promotions.
6. When you check a venue on the site, you can no longer see the profiles of those who have recently checked in. Now Foursqaure only reports a number, a move that is in no doubt meant to have users feel like their privacy is being protected.

So what do all these changes mean for marketers?

Trending now, accessibly to staff members, improved history, easy signups and upgraded privacy, all make for a better user experience, and are all part of the reason the platform ms growing so exponentially. It’s important for us as marketers to be aware of these changes and adjust our strategy. (Hint, you can no longer tweet at just anyone who checks into your location.)

Foursquare Check-In Here Window Cling, courtesy Foursquare

It is also more important than ever to claim your location with the Foursquare team, so that you’ll have access to the additional analytics provided by the business dashboard.

Finally, from a fulfillment stand-point, it is good for marketers using Foursquare specials to keep an eye on the growth of the platform to ensure they are still able to fulfill their offer. As Foursquare becomes more and more popular, special promos may have to be adjusted or simplified.

And last but not least, some Foursquare don’ts:

As the platform continues to grow and evolve, we’ll see more and more newbies jumping on board. If you are just getting started, here are a few of my Foursquare Don’ts.

• Don’t use your home address to check in. Let’s avoid crazies and stalkers.
• Don’t cheat. Only check-in somewhere if you are really there.
• Don’t auto-sync with Twitter. Don’t clog your Twitter stream with where  you checked-in. Leave this feature as a manual selection so that you can Tweet something about your check-in when it is appropriate.
• Don’t auto-sync with Facebook for the same reasons as above.

Postcards from Dwell on Design conference

In November 2009, AOL rebranded itself as “Aol.” The new logo is no longer in all caps and instead sets in sans serif typeface, colorless, with initial cap and an Aol dot.

To launch this new brand, they came up with a branding strategy of placing their white logo on ever-changing images for the backgrounds. The idea is that AOL’s brand is too deep and complex to be tied to a single image.

It seemed to be a fun idea until the Aol Artists campaign launched, and the internet exploded with criticism. The campaign aims to be a collaboration where Aol takes artists’ work and places their logo on it in exchange for helping the artist promote the work. Frankly, the idea of “give me your artwork and I will promote your work by putting my logo on it” seems odd to me. And I am not alone. Designers have been quite vocal in their dislike of the campaign).

Aol. has since applied this ad campaign to its TV ad, Wild-posting posters, and its sites. However, despite mass distribution, many feel that the campaign fails to inform anyone on what the voice of the brand is. There’s no brand. You can put it on cars, rainbow, and everything—no restrictions.

From Underconsideration

There are many thoughts on this new campaign posted on the internet by designers, brand consultant, and ordinary people. People obviously knows Aol because the company has been in the internet business for ages. But, do people really know what Aol. does anymore? Do they know what is new and relevant? If they don’t, this campaign does not seem to help communicate  that.

In my opinion, the campaign says Aol. owns everything including things that are not its own work.

What are your thoughts on this?

When we hit a recession, people sit down and think about ways to save money.  A lot of people cut back on their charitable donations and the frequency that they eat out. When people stop eating out as often, marketers need to think of ways to entice customers to come into their restaurant. And non-profit organizations need to work triple-time to keep the dollars coming in, not necessarily for them to stay in business, but for the people in need of that money.

What if a company came up with a way that you could still eat out but also be donating to a local charity organization at the same time? Well, it happened. Panera Bread opened a donation model restaurant, also known as, Panera Cares Cafe, in St. Louis, as an experiment in community service.

This idea is awesome, in theory. People come in and the menu has suggested prices for what the meal should cost. Then, people pay-what-you-can. There are no cash registers, no change. People drop their money into a donation bin — more or less than the suggested price. The hopes is that these donations will offset one another, so the restaurant breaks even and can remain open. What’s nice is that for people that can’t pay anything, they can bus or clean tables.

I have a concern of people taking advantage of this. Sure, it’s really nice for the people who really are in need — homeless, low-income families, etc, but , as sad as this is to say, we do have a lot of “greedy” people in the US who would take advantage of this program.

Panera Bread did not put a lot of money into a new location or complete renovation. Instead, they closed down a current Panera Bread location, made a few construction changes inside, renamed it and reopened. They also didn’t put a lot of marketing dollars into the launch of this concept. They announced the launch of this via social media platforms and word of mouth. This has caused a lot of buzz, nationwide.

It appears this whole idea is working for them. According to Panera Bread’s company chairman, Ron Shaich, they are already planning on opening two more restaurants using this exact same model. But I wonder, will these stores fail in the long run once the buzz has died down? I feel it is crucial for their marketing team to come up with ideas to keep this idea fresh, popular and most importantly, profitable for the community (since they say they are doing this as a community service).

I have two ideas on how they can keep this model going, and possibly make it national.

1) Get all Panera Bread stores, nationwide, involved. Set up donation bins (similar to the one in St. Louis) asking people to donate what they can, even their change. This money will then be donated to the donation model restaurants to help keep them afloat and/or open additional locations. They could make it a contest that the store to raise the most money wins something.

2) Create a “Why our town deserves a Saint Louis Bread Co” contest. Have people create a video to why their town needs something like this. Promote the contest via Twitter, Facebook, traditional PR. The money from my first idea could even be used to open up the store in the town that wins.

Do you have any ideas on how Panera Bread can keep this cool idea going?

Last month, I participated in the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. I won’t go too far into how the race went or my new found dislike for Fiesta Island and the 163 Freeway, but I will say, I was a little surprised by some of the advertising tactics displayed by some companies.

Every participant should have known the event was put on to benefit The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an organization that I have been involved with for three years.

With a lot of marathons, there is a corporate sponsor who spearheads the event. I knew in the past that PF Chang’s was the official sponsor of the the PF Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon. That one wasn’t too hard to figure out since their name is in the actual name of the event.

However, I couldn’t recall one corporate sponsor of the event leading up to this marathon or even during the marathon. It wasn’t until about 2-3 weeks later, I realized there was actually a head sponsor of the event. What do ya know,  it was actually PF Chang’s.

When I came home from work one afternoon, I started sifting through the mail. It was full of the usual junk. But then, I came across a random letter addressed to me from PF Chang’s. I will admit, I was about 3.2 seconds away from tossing it with the rest of the mail but then I felt something inside. Being a curious person, I opened it. Inside was a congratulations letter from PF Chang’s on completing the marathon as well as a $10 gift card to their restaurant. For someone like me who loves local deals (trust me I’m known as the coupon/deal girl in the office) I was pretty excited.

Obviously, their goal from this direct mail wasn’t just to get people into their restaurant, but it was also to create a buzz. They got exactly what they wanted from me. I immediately got on my phone and tweeted out a thank you to PF Chang’s letting them know I had received my gift and I posted a message on my Facebook page about how I love coming home to free stuff. And now, tonight I am actually going to go  there for dinner, just because I have that gift card. Lettuce wraps = amazing!

This was a great thing for them to do, yet I feel they could have done a few things differently to generate more buzz and a higher-return on investment.

1) Make your presence well-known as a sponsor prior and during the event.

2) As email addresses are supplied when registering for the event, send an email 1-2 days after the event congratulating the participant on their accomplishment and to keep their eyes peeled for something special in the mail. Don’t tell them what, make them curious. This way, they know something is coming.

3) Better packaging. The envelope looked 100% like junk mail. It was plain white with my name ink jetted on it and the PF Chang’s name in the top left corner all in black. There are more creative ways to send something that doesn’t break any postal envelope regulations.

Overall PF Chang’s did a good job. I look forward to seeing what they do next year, if they continue to be a sponsor, as well as seeing what Dodge will do, since they are now the official sponsor of the 2011 San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. And no, I will not be running it. I am retired from marathons at 27.

I wanted to share some inspirational museum marketing stunts that have resulted in generating lots of museum publicity.

The first is the Space Invader Walk.

As part of it’s promotion for the exhibition “Viva la Revolucion” (beginning on July 17) the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego has planted 21 space invaders throughout the city.

The space invaders—recently featured in the Banksy film—are strategically placed so that their locations create the outline of a giant space invader when seen from above (see Google Maps image below).

Not only is this a great way to get publicity for the museum, it’s also a living exhibition all on it’s own as you can literally travel around the city, finding all of the invaders, a great weekend activity that is conveniently located near MCASD’s downtown San Diego location.

The second is the Red Cube Project.

This project was created to support “500 Ways of Looking at Modern,” the Art Institute’s yearlong exploration and celebration of all things modern.

The museum hid 500 cubes around the city (including 4 extra large versions), each one with it’s own art project attached. The lucky finder is tasked with completing the assignment and returning the cube to the museum. A few of these lucky artists then had their work showcased at the museum.

The museum encouraged those who didn’t find a cube to create their own and post a picture of it to the project’s website. A smart idea that encouraged people from all walks of like to get involved helped the campaign go viral.

You can see many more of the cubes that were created on the museum’s Flickr page.

Have you seen any other inspirational museum marketing campaigns recently?

A few weeks ago, my colleague, Callan Green, and I were tasked with the rather large project of researching, testing, and noting the good, bad, and ugly of social media measurement and reporting tools available to marketers.  While many of them are very helpful listening tools, for example showing you graphs and screen grabs of your brand mentions and what platform it came from, we are hoping to find more tools documenting reach, influence, sentiment, and really demonstrating the worth of being IN the social media sphere.  So far, we’ve found less than a handful of tools we anticipate using day-to-day, but one that’s caught our attention AND has our approval is TweetReach.

Introduced to us by the knowledgeable Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, TweetReach takes the obnoxious time suck out of Twitter reporting with the click of a button.  You simply type in the key words or phrases you wish to report on, then click “Go.”  Here is what your report will include:

I love how TweetReach creates a very clean, simple and direct view of who’s talking about your brand.  Also, I’ve found that they capture more mentions than both Twitter and Seesmic.

While I do find great value in TweetReach, there are a few changes I’d make to the tool to make it even better.  Currently here are my issues:

• Limited amount of tweets – TweetReach only offers the most recent 50 tweets (for free).  This means you have to be VERY specific with the keywords you’re searching.   You can purchase a downloadable PDF of up to 500 tweets for $20.  I’m currently considering trying this for a future opportunity.
• Can’t remove tweets that aren’t relevant to your brand.  For example my client, The San Diego Museum of Art recently appointed a new Executive Director, Roxana Velásquez.  Instead of searching the handle @SDMA, I wanted a more focused scope of mentions specifically to this news, making my search “Roxana Velásquez.”  Because the report I ran was timely (same day news broke), most of the tweets captured by TweetReach were relevant to the report.  However, there were a few strays that had nothing to with the Museum or the story I was working to report on.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t remove those mentions from the report compiled by TweetReach.
• Being a reporting system based on timeliness, you need use this tool weekly to acquire a relevant idea of who’s talking about your brand or keywords.  This is why I’d recommend this as a resource for gathering data on news vs. an overall look at a brand.

While this report may not be the focus point of your strategy, it does offer great insight and a reminder to your client as to why they are on and should stay involved in social media.

Are there any other social media reporting tools that you’d like to add to Callan’s and my research project?