Facebook is becoming more than a place to track down those people you do not really keep in touch with. Now Facebook wants to take word-of-mouth marketing to a whole new level. Their new approach is to pay for ads that have your profile picture attached to it. It is another way to market your brand preferences. By getting Facebook users to recommend products to friends, they are narrowing down their targeted audiences.
Not only does Facebook allow you to post your interests on your personal profile, but now whenever you make a purchase or a rental, it will ask you if you would like to attach your picture to the brand or type of product that you just ordered. They will basically try to partner with companies and keep up with the activity of Facebook users on those sites. Facebook is not giving the information to marketers and they are just letting it roll.
It is true that nothing means more than when it comes from a friend. This is the easiest, and smartest way to market a brand and to easily target those that will most likely be interested in the same things. By accompanying the ads with friends’ comments, this takes away a largely commercial feel from the Facebook site as well. This concept is social marketing at work.
However, is this really what we want our future to look like? I mean yeah, marketers will be getting a gain out of it and your friends will be able to see what you are interested in. But it could turn your face and comment into an advertisement. Like most social network dealings, you must be careful what information you have made available about yourself and who you offer it to. You could become a “brand ambassador.”
This sounds like an effective marketing idea, but will it really hold out this way without marketers eventually getting involved?
General Motors Corps. entered a power-partnership when they paid a large sum to have four of their vehicles placed in the blockbuster hit movie Transformers. Their new 2008 models were advertised in one of the summer’s top movies that targeted various demographics. The vehicles were targeted in such an awesome way, that people attached that brand to the movie characters and actually wanted to go out and try them in real life.
The movie offered a global platform for marketing GM products and building their brands. Having GM support, added advertising for the movie as well. The two go hand in hand. Going against the grain, and the traditional style of automotive marketing, this movie brought the GM brands to a whole new level. GM put in more than a million dollars’ worth of product that included hundreds of their new and old vehicles. After paying all of that money to have the vehicles displayed as major actors in the film, they looked so attractive to the targeted demographics that sales went up.
The movie not only appealed as an action thriller for little boys, but also to strong and independent women that saw themselves relating very well to the powerhouse female characters leading in the movie. By broadening their audience, they actually got more attention and eventually viewers and fans.
Was it smart for GM to invest so much in a summer movie?
I really don’t have much to say in this blog post. A friend of mine sent me this amazing article that tracks the ads of Pabts Blue Ribbon.
I know what many of you are saying, “Pabts is swill sold to college kids looking to get drunk.” Well that’s half true. I like have always liked Pabts, it’s a solid beer with a good clear taste.
I love this link. It really shows how ads were racy, maybe a little racist, so long ago. I am also fond of the Bob Hope ad.
Knowing what we know about brands and markets what do we think Pabts would do for and ad campaign now? I would like to see them re-launch the brand as a kind of non-pretentious beer that could be enjoyed in simple bars by good honest folks. But that’s just my take on it. What’s yours?
I find myself at an impasse; I am getting older and older, and not much skinner. To fight this truly unfair waist expansion I have decided to switch to diet soda. Being a Coke baby I of course opted to drink Diet Coke.
While cruising the lanes of my local super-market I stumbled across a kink in my plan: Coke Zero. Knowing nothing of the diet soft drink realm I bought a bottle of both Coke Zero and Diet Coke.
To be honest I taste no difference between the two, their apparent lack of calories in both is also interesting. So you can see my current conundrum right? What diet soft drink do I buy?
Well being a slave to advertising I looked at the ad models of both these products to make my choice. Well seeing the ads that have sprinkled this post what do you think I decided when it came to my soda of choice.
The problem I see is that the stigma of diet soda has become so strong that brands have had to repackage themselves to attract new users. While this is normal for brands, the intensity that Coke Zero is changing its image is amazing.
Look at the coloring of the ads, Coke Zero uses blacks and reds while Diet Coke uses silver and white. Men typically gravitate towards stronger “masculine” colors while women are interested in the in the suave and elegant.
Well I am hooked and I am a Coke Zero user for life . What is your brand?
