Posts filed under ‘advertising’
Twitter Identity Theft Strikes Brand Mascots
With Many Marketers Choosing to Keep Icons Voiceless Online, Impostors Are Rampant
On Twitter, Mr. Clean isn’t Procter & Gamble’s bald-headed muscleman. He’s a designer from Pennsylvania. As for Mr. Peanut, there are two: a French-Canadian and a nut that wields an ax.
Many of the most-loved brand mascots, from the Pillsbury Doughboy to Tony the Tiger, are on Twitter in some respects, but not in any official capacity. Everyday people not affiliated with the brands have picked up those familiar names and cartoon faces, as many marketers have left them idle. @TheChefBoyardee, for example, is foul-mouthed, wears a chef’s hat and applied to Charlie Sheen’s #tigerblood internship.
“Brands can’t do anything about [fake Twitter handles] other than complain or set up a verified account, but they need to put something into its place,” said SapientNitro Creative Director Derek Fridman, who hosted a panel on this topic at the South by Southwest Interactive conference last month. During the panel, a real McCoy, @Smokey_Bear, responded to people tweeting with the hashtag #brandmascots. “People often want to see those brands online and will create them on their own and assume the role.”
One reason why so few are online might be because many brand mascots are highly controlled. Long, detailed marketing documents often dictate exactly what these cartoons can wear, say and do. But leaving these highly protected characters voiceless in social media has opened the door for the public to drag these highly guarded brand characters into dicey territory.
If people aren’t making money off brands’ character copyright, marketers aren’t likely to be able to claim legal damages for misrepresenting, say, the California Raisins. Yet, “even if they are used for non-commercial purposes, I think it would be prudent for brands to be vigilant in protecting their assets because consumers might well believe there’s some connection here,” said Linda Goldstein, chair of advertising division for law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
Twitter does not police user accounts, but does accept reports from individuals or companies about accounts that want to take down impersonators. Some brands have contacted Twitter to reclaim accounts that use their trademarks or characters and, increasingly, those requests come through the social network’s growing ad sales force. But Twitter has strict rules about these accounts: Parody, fan or commentary tweeters are just fine. It is accounts with clear intent to deceive or confuse that are prohibited as impersonation accounts and subject to suspension.
With famed mascots such as the Pillsbury Doughboy and Tony the Tiger unclaimed on Twitter, regular people are picking up those brands and tweeting what they wish. One account, @PillsburyDboy, uses images of the General Mills mascot for its profile picture and background. His name is listed as “Pillsbury Doughboy” and his location is grocery stores. “Being the pastry mascot, my life is routine — get bought at a grocery store and eaten later on everyday,” he once tweeted. After a period of frequent tweeting, Dboy appears to have abandoned the account in October 2009.
As for Mr. Clean, if P&G ultimately decides to push the more than 50-year-old man onto Twitter, it plans to ask that his eponymous handle be returned to the brand, said a spokesman. But nothing’s happened yet. “Mr. Clean does not have an official Twitter handle, and no steps have been taken to reclaim the brand name from the fan who created the account,” said a P&G spokesman.
Mr. Peanut, who only uttered his first words months ago after being silent since 1916, is not ready to debut on Twitter, said a spokesman for Kraft, Planters’ parent company. He is, however, already very active on Facebook and Kraft owns the @MrPlanter handle. As for squatters such as @MonsieurPeanut and @Mister_Peanut: “We have no plans to share at this point regarding other Twitter handles that are similar to Mr. Peanut’s,” the spokesman said.
Not all old mascots are missing on Twitter. General Mills operates an account for Green Giant, the massive mascot for its frozen-vegetable products. While @GreenGiant has been uttering wholesome tweets like “Do you have any fun weekend plans? Lil’ Sprout is hanging out in Costa Rica!” since October, a Washington pot dispensary has been spreading the marijuana gospel from @420jollygreen, using General Mills’ Jolly Green Giant name and image. General Mills did not provide comment on this account.
“This is something brands should want to police,” said Manatt’s Ms. Goldstein. “This kind of activity could result in tarnishing of the brand.”
One newer mascot has taken action to dethrone squatters. Aflac, with help from digital agency Digitas, has run @AflacDuck for its famous 11-year-old mascot since early 2009. After Ad Age inquired about a copycat account, @RealAflacDuck, the brand’s new media director James Wisdom said it was in the processing of having the account shut down. The account has since been suspended.
Quaker Oats’ cereal brand Cap’n Crunch also recently pushed its mascot on Twitter. The move coincided with a Chicago boutique social-media agency’s guerrilla campaign to cajole the PepsiCo character onto Twitter. The agency Giant Steps launched a “Where’s the Cap’n?” website, Twitter feed and Facebook page and handed out missing posters. The agency wasn’t responsible for getting the brand onto Twitter, said Barbara Liss, Quaker Oats director of social media and digital, but it definitely caught her attention. Last month, Quaker launched @RealCapnCrunch and has so far seen limited returns.
For one, it’s been a challenge to update the decades-old brand for a 21st-century medium. “We’re working to figure out how do to use things that are relevant in pop culture and also makes sense for the Cap’n,” Ms. Liss said. For now, that mostly means thanking those who are tweeting about the cereal. After about one month, Ms. Liss said she hopes to see more followers than the Cap’n's current 1,500.
Not all brand mascots can weather current events. Shamu, Sea World’s beloved killer whale, resigned Twitter after the real-life whale killed a trainer. “At this difficult time, @Shamu will not be active,” he tweeted for the last time after the accident. “For Twitter updates follow @SeaWorld_Parks.”
Other recent brand characters have eschewed Twitter on purpose. Heineken brand Dos Equis decided against taking its Most Interesting Man into the tweetosphere.
“When we evaluated if Twitter should be part of our marketing mix, we felt that we also needed to apply filters to stay true to our brand character,” said Paul Smailes, senior brand director for Dos Equis and Sol beer brands. The man has also turned down movie studios and other advertisers looking to partner. “We believe the Most Interesting Man doesn’t spend too much time with technology. He’s busy with his worldly adventures.”
After decades on packages, in print and on TV, Tony, Mr. Clean and Doughboy could probably make the same claim.
Tim Burton Telling Crowd-Sourced Tale via Twitter
Ever had the burning desire to collaborate with Tim Burton? Well, now you can, as the director/producer/artist/writer has taken to Twitter to create a crowd-sourced tale to promote an upcoming museum showing of his work.
The Twitter project is titled “Tim Burton’s Cadavre Exquis,” which translates to “exquisite corpse.” An exquisite corpse is a game adored by the Surrealists in which a group of people add phrases to a slip of paper in turn to create a story. Images can also be used to create eclectic beasts.
That’s pretty much how Burton’s Twitter experiment functions. Burton has started off the game with a sentence detailing the adventures of “Stainboy” and is asking people contribute a line to the story with the hashtag “#BurtonStory.” The best tweets of the day are chosen to continue the story, which will run from today until December 6.
This experiment is meant to coincide with an exhibit of Burton’s work that will be opening in Toronto November 26 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. The exhibit previously opened in New York City at MoMA, where it drew the third-highest attendance of any exhibition in the museum’s history.
Uniqlo’s U.K. Twitter Campaign Looks to Be a Perfect Fit for Retailer
Every Time Someone Tweets About an Item, Company Drops the Price, Boosting Web Presence and Brand Recognition
LONDON (Adage.com) — Japanese clothes retailer Uniqlo has found a novel way of encouraging U.K. shoppers give the brand a big presence on Twitter — by reducing the price of clothing pieces every time someone sends a tweet about an item.
The “Lucky Counter” promotion has been running ahead of the relaunch of Uniqlo’s U.K. e-commerce site this week, and has seen the brand’s name appear in Twitter’s trending topics list for the country.
In a web page dedicated to “Lucky Counter,” users can choose from 10 pieces they would like to see discounted on the website when it relaunches on September 9.
Clicking on one of the pieces of clothing brings up a pre-written tweet using the hashtag #luckycounter. Users can add their own message and then send it, and watch the price fall.
The more tweets users send about a particular item, the lower the price goes. At the time of writing, one of the items — a gray, crewneck long-sleeve T-shirt — had hit its target price of nearly 60% off, meaning it will go on sale on Thursday at $4.60 instead of $10.70.
Uniqlo worked with Hiroki Nakamura, web director of its global advertising agency, Dentsu Japan, to create the campaign. The U.K. is the first market that Uniqlo, which also has stores in the US, France and throughout Asia, has tried the approach.
The company has relied solely on users to spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, rather than paying for promotional tweets, as well as trailing the promotion heavily on its website, which was otherwise closed for business.
The tweets being sent are largely a mixture of people taking part in the promotion and those who are telling their followers about Uniqlo’s unusual social-media experiment.
Amy Howarth, head of marketing at Uniqlo in the U.K., said: “The initial aim was to maintain contact with the customer while the website was temporarily closed for its e-commerce migration.
“The campaign has been really successful and we’ve been delighted with the response to date. Customers seem to really want to engage with us, and it’s great as the campaign is so transparent and immediately dynamic, so they can see their tweets actually making a difference.”
After the new site goes live, Uniqlo will promote it with an online pinball game called “Lucky Machine,” offering a cash prize and discount codes.
Uniqlo has frequently used Twitter in its marketing campaigns. This year’s efforts have included Utweet, which delivered users a personalised video based on tweets that they had sent to promote the UT T-shirt line; and Sportweet, which also drew on users’ tweets combined with footage of athletes to promote Uniqlo’s sportswear.
With all its Twitter activity, Uniqlo%u2019s U.K. Twitter account has fewer than 5,000 followers.
Uniqlo and another of its agencies, Tokyo-based IMG SRC, won an award for the “Lucky Switch” campaign, which used a widget to embed Uniqlo images on other blogs and websites at the click of a button. It won the Grande Innova Lotus at Asian award ceremony AdFest.
Brand Engagement: The Case For Live Video
A recent article in Forbes discusses how an increasing number of advertisers have started using live, online video, via platforms like Ustream, Livestream and Justin.tv, to engage consumers with compelling original content.
For Gatorade, live video has presented an opportunity to bring fans closer to the athletes the brand has relationships with, while simultaneously reinforcing the brand’s core marketing messages. For instance, Gatorade used live video sessions of NFL stars using the brand’s new ‘G Series‘ line of drinks before, during and after their workouts during this year’s Super Bowl. During those video sessions – which also played a role in the brand’s TV commercials - fans could submit questions via Twitter and Facebook, which are baked into Ustream’s application. These chat conversations with star athletes were then broadcast back to social networks, which in turn alerted fans’ friends of the ongoing event – and ultimately facilitated the live video sessions going viral.
While Gatorade leverages both star athletes and non-celebrity talent (like scientists) to provide fans with content relevant to their training and performance interests, the key to making live video work is simple: provide access to unique experiences not easily available in-person. For example, we recently discussed Burberry’s successful digital tactics, including live streaming a fashion show on its site, allowing users to click items onscreen, add them to a shopping cart-like application, and purchase later if desired. Burberry’s application demonstrates that online video has commercial implications and opportunities, in addition to pure brand engagement.
The next phase of live video – like many other digital platforms – is to move from the desktop to mobile, and to Internet-connected televisions. Through live video, brands have the challenge and opportunity to engage fans by creating content and experiences that their customers otherwise may not be able to participate in – and will subsequently want to share with others – whether it’s on their desktops, phones, or TVs.
[via Forbes]
An Amazon-Facebook Alliance to Make Shopping More Social
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
On Tuesday, Amazon.com took a step toward making the shopping experience on its Web site more social.
For many people, shopping is as much about socializing as it is about buying something — a chance to run into neighbors at the farmers’ market or spend time with a friend at the mall. And people who go shopping with a friend inevitably ask advice before buying. But it’s hard to do that when online shopping.
Now, Amazon shoppers who connect their Amazon and Facebook accounts transport their Facebook friends to Amazon — and can get recommendations from those friends on what to buy.
Amazon was an early leader in offering recommendations based on previous purchases and product searches, and in posting customer reviews on the site. But it has been slow to incorporate social features, while start-ups like Go Try It On, Polyvore and Swipely have been experimenting with ways to make online shopping more interactive.
Amazon’s new feature is the company’s small first step toward tapping into the world of social shopping.
When shoppers connect their Amazon and Facebook accounts, they see their Facebook profile photo on Amazon’s site. They also see which of their Facebook friends have upcoming birthdays, and receive gift suggestions based on the music, books and movies those friends have said they like on Facebook and on their Amazon wish lists. At the same time, they see recommendations on what to buy for themselves, based on what their friends like.
Mary Osako, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the company was hoping to improve customers’ shopping experiences and help them find friends with shared interests while shopping.
Shopping activity on Amazon will not be shared with Facebook, Amazon said. That means that shoppers’ purchase history and account information will never appear on Facebook. And this will be a relief to people who remember the Beacon blunder, when Facebook shared Christmas gift purchases with users’ friends.
