Social Media integration to bring the next wave of creativity in brand campaigns

If there was one thing that brand managers need to ensure today, it's social media integration. We're at a stage when most Indian brands are taking to social media. As per the recent E&Y Social Media Marketing India Trends Survey 2013, '95.7% of the surveyed social media-savvy organizations in India use the medium to build communities and advocate usage while 76.1% use social media as a platform to highlight brand news. Around 16% of organizations, which use social media for both the above reasons also use it for customer service, lead generation, and research indicating high social maturity and moving toward getting business meanings out of engagements.’

To break it down into even simpler terms, most brands today may have a Facebook page, maybe a Twitter handle or maybe a YouTube page too. They may be using it for building communities/ bring traction to the respective platforms and/ or be doing contests. However, my bet for initiating the next wave of brand campaigns is social media integration.

At the basic level this means TVC’s could flash twitter handles and Facebook pages of the brand. Conferences and events could see the twitter hashtag be displayed in various marketing collaterals.

An MTS TVC [http://goo.gl/s8rkP] which has the social media properties displayed in it

But it’s the advanced level that’s really making things interesting. For example, how Maybelline used outdoor advertising to promote its ongoing Twitter contest #doesntlastlongenough ! It made great sense, that instead of going for the same boring static outdoor hoardings, to instead have a giant screen with the #doesntlastlongenough tweets.

Pic courtesy Lighthouse Insights - http://goo.gl/xp3GD

TV broadcasters have also been doing this integration well. The awareness that the number of people who are focusing on their mobile and TV screens together is on a rise, and taking that into account cricket matches for example are running hashtags, where viewers can ask commentators questions, that get answered in real time. Around the IPL such hashtags were #AskSunny or #AskRavi and this I think was such a powerful idea because of the instant gratification involved.

Pepsi is going this really well too. For example, around the IPL Pepsi ran a Twitter contest to share witty tweets during the key matches using #PepsiIPLLiveArt and Pepsi would select the best out of them, to make illustrated posters. The posters were then shared in real time. This campaign again had an element of instant gratification, was always works well, online or offline.

Pic courtesy - Lighthouse Insights - http://goo.gl/6dE73

Hope to see many more of such integrations!

karanbhujbal

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