Samsung wins Olympic sponsorship gold, Nike upstages Adidas again

by Marketing ON 15 August 2012

Samsung has taken gold for results from its London 2012 Olympics sponsorship, as the sponsor that did best out of the Games in terms of website visits, while Adidas has again been upstaged by non-sponsor rival Nike.

Despite experiencing a strong uplift in site visitation, Adidas failed to convert sponsorship dollars into the same level of social media buzz as non-sponsor Nike. Data from Socialbakers shows Nike, which released an emotive campaign flouting Olympic advertising rules by using towns named London, won the battle for sporting social media engagement on Facebook and Twitter.

During the course of the Games, Nike’s Facebook fan base grew by more than double that of Adidas’, the former netting 166,718 new fans compared to just 80,761 for the official sponsor.

Nike also took gold on Twitter with over 16,020 tweets linked to the brand, 6725 more than Adidas, which was mentioned in just 9295 Olympic-themed tweets.

Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers says the data points to social media having levelled the playing field, marketing blog The Wall reports.

“There was a time when primetime slots around major sporting events were essential for maintaining position as a household name; but social media has levelled the playing field. Through its savvy social strategy, Nike demonstrated that you no longer need prime time to create brand buzz.”

In the site visitation stakes, Samsung experienced a 111% uplift in visitation during the course of the games, trouncing non-sponsor rival Sony which dropped by 7%. The data from Hitwise also showed Adidas and Cadbury coming out on top of rivals in terms of official website traffic.

Olympic sponsors with highest website traffic uplift

1. Samsung – 111%
2. Adidas – 44%
3. Cadbury’s – 41%

Nike received a 10% boost in traffic as a result of its guerrilla campaign and general association with sporting events.

Nike gazumps Adidas in stunning Olympics ambush

by Marketing ON 26 July 2012

On the eve of the 2012 London Olympics, Nike has launched a powerful ambush ad which skirts Olympic restrictions by showing locations around the world also named London and steals the limelight from offical sportswear sponsor Adidas.

The emotive ad shows weekend sportsman, children and amateurs avidly participating in different sports to the subliminal message that greatness isn’t reserved to the chosen few and the bright lights of the Olympics. “The truth is greatness is for all of us,” the voiceover says. “Greatness is not in one special place and it is not in one special person. Greatness is where ever somebody is trying to find it.”

The ad titled ‘Find your greatness’, is currently running as a rich-media billboard ad on YouTube’s home page. It shows signs of places named London from around the world, supported by the message, “Greatness isn’t reserved for the chosen few in one special city, it can also be found London, Ohio, and London, Norway, and East London, South Africa, and Little London, Jamaica, and Small London, Nigeria and the London Hotel and London Road.”

With the Games set to kick off in London on Saturday, local time, Nike’s campaign looks poised to get around rules designed to prevent non-sponsors piggy-backing on Olympic fever with the clever execution, and steal the thunder from offical sportswear sponsor Adidas.

Nike would not reveal how much it was spending on the campaign, which will run in 25 countries, and be backed by a website integrating with Nike+ apps and products and a Twitter marketing push using the hashtag #findgreatness, The Guardian reports.

Attempting to distance the sports giant’s campaign from the Olympics, Nike’s brand chief Greg Hoffman was quoted as saying, “The idea is to simply inspire and energise everyday athletes everywhere and to celebrate their achievements, participate and enjoy the thrill of achieving in sport at their own level.”

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Adidas gives away shirt off Murray’s back in grab for Twitter followers

by Marketing ON 10 July 2012

Adidas in the UK ran a competition overnight for the shirt off British Wimbledon finalist Andy Murray’s back in a grab for Twitter followers.

Adidas, Murray’s apparel sponsor, sent out a tweet asking people to follow their account and retweet the call for entries in order to go into the draw. A winner was drawn at 1pm UK time.

The account’s follower base has gone up to 81,985 as of this morning, local time. The competition approach has been found to be less effective on Twitter, with discounts and offers less of a motivator than they are on Facebook, according to a study.

However, this ‘money-can’t-buy’ prize appeared to gain a lot of traction for the brand with thousands of re-tweets generated. Murray fell at the final hurdle in his bid to become the first British man to win Wimbledon in 74 years, losing to Roger Federer in the final on Sunday night.

Adidas launches branded game on Xbox and PS3

by Marketing ON 3 May 2012

Adidas has entered into a global agreement with video game publisher 505 to launch fitness game miCoach on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which will allow players to train alongside their sporting heroes.

The game, which is built around Microsoft Kinect’s and Sony Move’s motion control functionality, will launch to coincide with the Summer sport season in Europe. It’s described as a personal training system for people of all ages, gender and athletic level, in which users can develop training plans according to their chosen sporting activity, track their workout progress and get coaching feedback.

Users will be able to engage in up to 400 different exercises, with Adidas sponsored athletes simulated alongside them, and also incorporate their existing fitness routines into the game using mobile apps and the miCoach website and products.

The game will feature 18 athletes including Brazilian footballer ‘Kaka’, American basketballer Dwight Howard, German footballer Manuel Neuer, English track athlete Jessica Ennis, Portuguese football manager Jose Mourinho, Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic, Australian rugby union player Will Genia and American gridiron player Eric Berry all of whom provide training classes for their sport.

Head of global brand at 505 Games, Tim Woodley, says the game brings something truly new to the sports training and fitness segment, with integration between gaming and traditional fitness routines.

The launch of the game comes as brands increasingly look towards branded content. Channel Seven recently ran a documentary – McDonald’s Gets Grilled – about and funded by the fast food giant, investigating the quality of its food.

The consumer trends that will shape our world

by Marketing ON 18 December 2011

It’s that time of year again – the time when every marketer and their dog looks to their crystal ball to light the way ahead. We all want to know what the world is going to be like so we can beat the competition to the punch, right?

Noteworthy trend watchers such as JWT Intelligence and trendwatching.com have released their trends for 2012, while local researchers are also chiming in with their own opinions on the state of play. Marketing has done the reading for you and cross tabulated the two to bring you a guide to the consumer trends most likely to shape the Australian marketing world next year.

The state of the our nation

Roy Morgan Research this week released its ‘State of the Nation Report’, which tracks the relative importance of the key issues facing Australians. The big mover over the past few months has been ‘government, political and human rights’ which has shot up to almost equal the economy as the most important issue.

Concern for the environment has plummeted in recent months as the economy and the country’s governance gained an increasing share of the focus.

The economy, of course, has been captivating our attention for quite a while now. According to Dr Rebecca Huntley, director of The Ipsos Mackay Report, the long running social trends study that tracks the ‘mood and mind’ of Australians, we remain in an altered emotional state of conservatism and caution due to a combination of negative political leaders and media, and the filtering down of global unease. JWT Intelligence describes the uneasy and frugal mindset as the ‘new normal’, predicting it will continue for many years.

This altered state prompts Huntley to predict that spending will continue to flow towards online and private label goods in response, and that experiences will be favoured over brands even more. However, brands that incorporate experiential elements in their offer, or engage consumers on their journey, stand to unlock spending.

Technology is another recurring theme that is impacting on our behaviour and it continues to change the way we work and live. The pervasiveness of constant connectedness is clearly impacting on how Australians spend their leisure time. Fewer are playing sports (23%, down from 32% in 1999) while more are using ‘a computer at home’ (81%, up from 48% in 1999)[1]. Time spent facing a screen will continue to grow, with a number of sources predicting a ‘screen culture’ that will see screens turn up in greater numbers and more places.

Six consumer trends that will affect your brand

1. Mobile brings it all together. The impact of the smartphone is becoming all-encompassing. According to TNS, a mobile device is used by 51% of (smartphone owning) Australians while watching TV, 58% to find a product in store, 55% to do live price comparisons in store and 42% after viewing an ad [2]. It is the glue that connects the dots between offline stimulus and online touch point. And it is quickly becoming a platform for closing the purchase cycle also, with mcommerce set to take off rapidly, capitalising on the ability to connect ads, location, deals and purchasing on one device.

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Video: When grocery chain Tesco wanted to expand their market share in South Korea, they put up billboards in subway stations with their range of products, accompanied by QR codes, that consumers could scan, buy and have delivered by the time they got home.

2. Selling the experience

With many prioritising experiences over goods, savvy brands are incorporating experience into their offer. Bricks and mortar retailers are also looking to enhance the customer experience, a necessity if they are to recover, says Huntley. Her research notes an undercurrent of antagonism towards local retailers around disappointing in-store experiences, particularly when compared to overseas.

Video: Many are turning to the smartphone to enhance the in-store experience. Macy’s ‘Backstage Pass’ initiative delivered celebrity tips via QR codes on tags to enhance the retail environment.

3. Screen culture

With the explosive proliferation of smartphones, tablets, and the ‘cloud’, 2012 will see more surfaces become screens, and more screens become interactive. This is opening up novel opportunities to inform, engage and motivate consumers. 2012 will see three technological currents converge: Screens will be even more ubiquitous, mobile, cheap and always on; Interactivity via touchscreens, tablets etc. will increase; And, the screen will become an interface to everything and anything that lies beyond via the mobile web and, increasingly and finally mainstream in 2012, ‘the cloud’ [3].

Video: Adidas Germany’s ‘adiVerse Virtual Footwear Wall’ identifies nearby consumers as male or female and provides product recommendations accordingly.

4. The future of deals

In 2012, not only will consumers continue to hunt for deals and discounts, but they will do so with relish, if not pride. Deals are now about more than just saving money: it’s the thrill, the pursuit, the control, and the perceived smartness, and thus a source of status too [3]. However, deals will have to take on new creativity and relevance to consumers, with large discounts losing their novelty and no longer considered out of the norm.

Pictured: Notikum is a real-time, location-based app for Singaporeans which enables users to find deals near them, organised into categories of ‘Shop’, ‘Eat’ and ‘Play’.

5. Authenticity gives way to ‘flawsome’

The desire for authenticity goes up a notch every year. It’s now reaching the point where consumers are drawn to brands that behave more humanly, including by exposing their flaws. According to JWT, a greater emphasis will be placed on reintroducing randomness, discovery, inspiration and different points of view into our worlds. Consumers will embrace brands that push the boundaries with frank, risqué or non-corporate products, services and campaigns.

Pictured: In July 2011, US-based fast food retailer Domino’s launched a month-long promotional campaign in New York. Hiring out a huge billboard space in Times Square, the brand live-streamed good and bad customer feedback via Twitter onto the digital hoarding.

6. Bottom of the developed world’s pyramid

Prolonged economic unrest in the developed world has created consumers that are permanently in a cost sensitive state. Frugality and thrift are now the norm, with spending unlikely to return to pre-bust levels anytime soon. JWT Intelligence predicts that marketers will find new opportunities in creating stripped down offerings, smaller sizes and otherwise more accessible products and services, such as is common in the developing world.

Pictured: In the US, Heinz has introduced a range of smaller-sized and less expensive products to boost sales in a sluggish economy, including a 10 ounce (284 grams) pouch of ketchup retailing for US$0.99.

A final thought to keep in mind is that, according to JWT, trends don’t occur in isolation. They tend to intersect and work in tandem with each other. If this is true, these trends suggest that in 2012 your brand needs to start acting more human, revealing its flaws while exciting your customers with randomness delivered with a relevant deal via an interactive touchscreen experience. Marketing magazine looks forward to hearing how you go about this.

[1] Findings from Roy Morgan Research, State of the Nation, November 2011.

[2] TNS, The Evolving Online Consumer, November 2011.

[3] Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide in 9 languages.

[4] JWT’s 10 Trends for 2012 report is the result of quantitative, qualitative and desk research conducted throughout 2011.

Adidas Originals heads to the stars

by Marketing ON 25 June 2010

Sportswear giant Adidas has found a novel way of marketing its Star Wars-themed line of products, by allowing users to blast its logo on their friend’s Google Earth location… from the Death Star.

The Originals Star Wars collection is being pushed through a comprehensive digital marketing execution, with a number of online videos featuring its sports stars and various other celebrities.

Guerrilla Guide: E-marketing

by Marketing ON 21 March 2008

The wonderful thing about e-marketing is you’re almost never paying for the media itself. It’s this that causes so much angst, so much intrigue, so much bull. And here I am again, sitting up to my arms in it.

I’m actually sitting at Coast, aptly named for Sydney, because it can’t see any. In Melbourne they wouldn’t have the cheek to call themselves that, but Sydney? Oh, the power of the front, the belief in oneself, regardless of the facts… And when they f**k up, like they did with the tunnel, they just put a bigger spin on it. But I digress.

Oh, hang it, lunch is never long enough and many’s the tale a bottle can tell, so why not keep digressing? Lunch is not technically in Darling Harbour at all, ‘cause that’s the other side of the ditch. This is Cockle Bay. An appropriate place for ordering oysters. Which we do. They have three kinds. The guy from Google orders Sydney Rock. The guy from iSelect orders Coffin Bay. I order all three and twice as many, because at my age if you can get a shot of zinc, you take it. It holds loads of promise.

We start the serious part of the lunch about e-marketing with the question ‘Where’s it going?’ or ‘What do you see as the picture five and 10 years out?’

We’re talking ‘off the record’. We talk about what may happen, where it will go. But we can’t say anything definite. And we sure can’t be quoted.

Besides some decent experience in the e-game, this article is based on about 10 of these ‘off the record’ conversations. No one wants to be quoted or named. Why, you may ask? What have they got to hide? Lots.

A changing landscape. A fundamental shift in the power matrix. A gaping hole in the age-old wall of predictability.

We’re talking the slow demise of TV, the rise of consumer power, the march of democracy and the empowerment of anybody. The rise of the creative classes and the mass marketing of experience.

It’s here, right around you, washing you forward. You, as a professional marketer, are as wedded to e-marketing as your feet are to comfortable shoes. We have simply moved on, taken e-marketing on like we took on mobile phones. Doing business via a machine and Bluetooth is life now. When was the last time you sent a memo via snail mail? Did your banking at the branch? Shopped by pot luck, not after internet search?

I view e-marketing like the big bang theory. I see no trends, no directions. Everything is developing so fast it’s more a matter of observing the cloud edges expanding, with us surfing on it.

Web, phones, TVs, radios, emailing, SMSing, sending you clips, sounds, ads, into your car, house, train seat, on your fridge, on your ear, seducing you, educating you, pumping you, scaring you, enveloping you.

It’s fabulous fun when you get down to basics. I can now have a thought and in minutes have researched it enough to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Anything from where to meet a friend, to what to wear or how well things will wear. I’m constantly thrilled by the daily advances.

Soon we’ll be living in a 35-millimetre version of Second Life. All your PC and phone systems will be open online – quality cameras sending you quality images of whatever thing/person you want to see and talk to. And shopping online in any of these worlds.

On that note, virtual life gaming has already got its grip on many. Take the above mentioned Second Life, with a following of 4,424,419 residents as at March 2007, and a following of 7,198,548 residents as at June 2007; almost a 50 percent increase in three months… With US$1,664,868 spent in the last 24 hours, there is some serious value in the game. Why else would giants like Adidas and Nissan have invested?

Speaking of big brands, how do you defend them? What do you do when you stumble across a blog post slamming you? With 87 percent of consumers busy researching online the product they’re about to buy in a traditional store environment, and lots of them blogging when things go wrong, the success of the sale is pretty dependent on your online media and your management of opinion.

Recently Engadget wrote a story saying both Apple’s iPhone and Leopard OS were to be delayed. The info came from what appeared to be an email on Apple’s internal mail server. The result was $4 billion knocked off Apple’s share value in half an hour. Apple was forced to issue a denial and the stock recovered, but it’s an indication of the power of blogging.

But, for all its scary promise and the likely smashing of status quos, e-marketing is, without any shadow of a doubt, absolute marketing Utopia.

Heaven 4U

You can target people precisely. Send them information that warms them up before trying to close a sale. Get the timing dead right – you can send them emails when you know they are seeking information (gathered from cookies you’ve inserted into their computer ready to spring to life the moment they go to a widget website or type a sentence that implies they are interested in a new car…) and get a computerised person to call them and close. The accountants will love it.

But do you want marketing Utopia? Do you want to work in a marketing world that is so perfect? You don’t have much choice.

Where’s it going? I can only give a few directions to keep an eye on. And like points on a compass, there are hundreds more you could name.

Goodbye Mr TV

The Packers are getting out. That tells you everything. Not soon. Not even in three to four years, but the death of the power and influence (and profitability) of TV is coming. This is something that saddens me more than Essendon being on the bottom of the ladder. I feel like I’m going to lose a leg. TV is my friend, my ace in the hole. TV is the best thing ad agencies like Starship can do, because it works fast and influences everyone.

There’s a silver lining on the cloud though – Millward Brown’s 2007 CTV-1 Study shows that marketers can fully engage their target audience by placing ads in full-length TV shows online.

The results show a higher level of engagement among the online viewers – leading to increased communications awareness, brand appeal and consideration. Online viewers were 53 percent more likely to pay attention to the ads during commercial breaks compare to normal TV viewers. The study also shows that ad recall was four times higher among viewers of the online format versus recall of live or time-shifted viewers. That they were probably being shown the same ads in each break may have something to do with it…

All TV will be online in a few years; it will be free, and plentiful. With free to air TV becoming an irrelevant sideshow in the mid-term future, ad agencies will have to work out how to get traction on millions of sites for similar money. Currently I’m only seeing fragmented, quite expensive eyeballs and it’s hard to buy mass cleanly in any volume.

You’re still back on the issue of how TV will die, aren’t you? What will happen with TV is it will slowly fade away in relevance. I’ve got a mate whose plasma TV, with surround sound, is connected to his Mac, which drives all his entertainment and he makes phone calls and emails while he is on the couch. He uses Skype for mobile/international calls and downloads TV via Juice or Apple TV, I can’t remember.

Telephone = mobile TV/PC

E-marketing is super mobile. Soon you’ll be talking to your watch, Dick Tracy style. This has fantastic advantages for marketing as we can hit people when they are in the mood for things, like food or clothing. We can send them messages as they near the juice shop, suggesting a strawberry slider with patented B as it’s been three days since we’ve had any B and we were drinking last night…

This is great for emergencies and good for keeping sales alive too – invasive technology that adds brilliant connectivity and keeps us connected to the gene pool, but in the same sweep, may destroy a human’s sense of self – pushing us towards a life of Borg.

Cookies

Like with any sugar coating, there’s a dark side. Great for marketers, bad for humans. Many of the big company websites you go to today send out micro-cookies that enter your computer and make notes of the stuff you like and are interested in buying etc. They then tell other sites you visit, so you get to see ads that are more attuned to your preferences. This means an advertiser can be assured they are hitting on a warmed-up customer. Fantastic for improving response rates.

Media fragmentation = better creative

Where’s the power going to be? In creative content. The reason the creative class will rise to new heights of power and money is because there’s a lot of bucks going into trying to get consumer traction and the only thing the consumer wants is to be entertained or informed or helped in some way (i.e. what’s in it for me?). That does not require big lumps of media spend. In fact, it can’t be bought with simple money. It requires brains. You have to seduce, amuse or charm your customers. You can’t bully them in e-marketing, like you used to on free to air television. They will spam you and blog you if you make a mess of it. If you stuff up your relationship by being too pushy or too dumb, they will simply turn you off. Bye.

You have to make them want to look at you. Shit, how do you do that?

Lots of different, related messages

Integrate broad messages, but vary your message by customer type. How a 60-year-old will view a Snickers Bar is very different from how a 10-year-old does. But they both buy them and they both have a mobile in their hands right now. Be prepared to do five or six executions to different targets if you want the brand to be right for the audience. It will cost more in ad production, but your media costs are so low, it’s a great compromise.

Assume they understand

People are used to the methods of e-buying now. You don’t have to explain SMS shrt hnd do U? And assume your advertising websites will also be savvy. With banners, stick to the standard formats – 728 by 90 (long horizontal) and 250 by 300 (squarish) only.

Be fast

Speed is cash. Avoid photo-based messages and use vector-based stuff until faster delivery is here. If you’re using footage, keep screen sizes small, to 400 by 600 pixels, to avoid slow delivery.

Measure

Google Analytics, Quantcast… there are lots of them. Check your buying systems (Google, podcasts, teaser ads etc.) and site demographics against your objectives and adjust your creative until you get it right.

Be creative

This is an easy medium to see how good work outshines bad. You can test in minutes. There is no excuse for running poor creative when it is so measurable. Be bold. Be on relevant sites. Talk relevant language and say relevant things. Be exciting. Live a little. Matter.

Have a reason to be loved

Give them experience, values, assistance, humanity, vision, compassion and enjoyment. Be helpful, be useful. Service, and a fantastic corporate culture, sure would help too.

Love the culture

I’m just saying use your brains and get into the community. Option A is a banner ad on Yahoo! But Option B is a dance party game that has them donate $10 to St John Ambulance to save someone who’s ODing, embedded with your ads. Your choice.

Be funny or cruel

E-humour is more brutal, more slapstick. And if you’re not funny or edgy you’re not going to get sent on, so you’ve wasted your money, finito.

Have a long tail

Few of us can afford to dominate on major sites like Yahoo! or ninemsn, but if you follow your buyer’s behaviour and track their steps, you can often buy on less popular, more targeted sites at way below mainstream rates.

People power rules

If you are finding your stuff commented on, don’t answer back. (Learn, and that’s all.) If your board can’t help but try to control it, you will be swamped by the general public who hate corporates being defensive. It’s death to be seen to be corrupting the power of the people. You are invading their personal space. It’s actually much better to make fun of your own brands, your own messaging. Takes maturity, intelligence and guts, but works brilliantly.

Twitter

Everyone in e-land bags twittering as bland, shallow communications that don’t matter. Who cares if you tell the world how many times you’ve been to the toilet this morning, or what you thought of last night’s Big Brother show? Sure as I’m sitting here typing on a Sunday, let me tell you, the dumber, the sillier, the more the public love something. And the younger the market, the more they say everything – they have no sense of ‘privacy’. Twitter away if you can, without being caught as a company doing it. I know of companies hiring people to send stories out to their friends. But be bloody careful – people easily pick planted information.

Give experiences

The punters want fun things to do. Stimulation, not sales talk. Scare them, infuriate them, just don’t bore them. A hint – if your board warmly approve of something, it’s not going to work. Much better to apologise while showing the results, than bother to ask for permission.

Be viral

Few of the media sellers support the concept of viral, ‘cause it involves us sending stuff to each other without them getting a slice. But work? You betcha. Any ad worth its budget should be put up on MySpace or YouTube. And sent to all the email addresses you have in your laptop.

Or superviral

Many of the players in e-land are talking about superviral experiences – encouraging punters to make their own ads about your products, and sent out – motivated by ego and/or prizes etc. It’s very scary, but it fits with the moves to customise everything else on e-land – we get our news and our messaging in our own format, why not our own ad experiences?

Virtual worlds

Second Life, Entropia Universe and worlds like these are going to grow up to become like the Starship’s holodeck. Perfect, computer-generated worlds to live and work within. The end game of this for you is advertising nirvana, being in their other worlds.

Be scared, but jump anyway

Blogs and live footage of your factory and games on phones and all sorts of other things may be the great unknown, but they aren’t to your kids and your customers. Admit it – you go to sites you would love to have done. You get messages on your phone you should have briefed into your agency. Tell your tired old board to get in the bloody water and swim.

Know we are behind

We are behind the ball – Australian broadband must catch up or we will become the laughing stock of the entire world. Our 3- and 4G are behind, and so is a lot of the other gear that makes it all flow in other countries. I know who is to blame, but we can’t print it…

Content is king

The bottom line is whoever is creating/controlling entertainment is the key player. If your ads are hungered for (like Bud Lite) your brand will grow rapidly. If you prefer to stick to the knitting and just be good at making widgets – not good at making ads about widgets – good luck. And “goodbye”, the e-worlds say to you.