by Mongezi Mtati (@Mongezi) Ever since the dawn of humankind, we’ve created and spread stories; from generation to generation, we’ve talked about tribes and their significance. It’s natural for people to share stories and spread them, from older to younger, from one village to the next. These stories have had a lot to do with our preservation as a species.
We later figured out that we could interrupt these conversations with brand messaging but, of late, I’ve been seeing companies trying to fit themselves naturally into our daily lives — as naturally as one does when they are the highest bidder of eyeballs.
Over the December 2013 holidays, I saw less Christmas adverts than I usually do. It could have been because all the noise caused me to finally shut down, or less budget was spent on interrupting the consumer.
Stories emerged more than normal: needless to say, most of them — as you might have seen on your Facebook timeline — were photos of Coke cans with your name on them. There was also a little known campaign by Urban Degree and the calculated meteoric rise of the Samsung Galaxy S3.
The customer IS the story
Customer stories, as told by customers themselves, are the most powerful way to generate buzz. Urban Degree realised how much we love taking and sharing selfies, which gave rise to the #UrbanSelfie campaign. For a chance to win a R10 000 shopping spree, its customers took selfies wearing their desired Urban Degree garments; after showing their tweets, they could receive an instant R100 to R200 discount towards a purchase.
The campaign included Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, where the most-retweeted selfie stood a chance to win a R10 000 shopping spree. Customers who uploaded pictures on the Urban Degree Facebook page could also win a long weekend in New York, London, Tokyo or a fashion capital of their choice.
On Sunday, 24 November 2013, people made their way to the stores, armed with cameras and ready to pay with their selfies. It was so well supported by customers that, because of the buzz they generated, this campaign went on for three weeks, instead of one day as initially planned.
The Jupiter Drawing Room Cape Town team shared the results and some of the selfies from the campaign.
The response
- New Facebook ‘likes’: 16 947
- Urban Degree ranked in the Top 250 Facebook Brand Pages in South Africa for December 2013.
- Urban Degree had 873 351 campaign impressions.
- There were 88 winners in the end.
Urban Degree made its customers the centre of its campaign and saved on the costs of marketing a sale through brochures and catalogues. This allowed it to seed their new stock to customers, ahead of the December holidays.
Its customers were also given a simple call-to-action that got their friends to participate and judge their new look.
Let influencers become evangelists
South Africans, following a GSMA report commissioned by Informa Telecoms and Media, are reported to spend more on their mobile bill than the global average. It seems that, among the tech-savvy, two brands come to mind when looking to upgrade to high-end smart phones: the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy, which have both risen to market dominance through less traditional methods than their older competitors.
Samsung’s White Glove Program has caught my attention as it makes use of some of the oldest tactics in marketing. As detailed in Fast Company, The White Glove Program sends representatives to dinner parties where they seed Galaxy handsets to some of Hollywood’s high-flyers. The handsets are customised to suit the influencers who attended the dinner parties, down to their mobile network of choice.
An unnamed South African company plans to assemble Samsung phones this year, as reported by Reuters. Their head of content, Thabiet Allie, also shared that 50% of the 20 million smartphones shipped to Africa — in 2013 — were manufactured by them.
Connect the dots
The common thread in both the Samsung and Urban Degree campaigns is the activation of customer-led tribes. The brands gave their communities something to talk about without interference, and with little involvement, from the brands themselves. The buzz, as stories from friends among friends, spread organically and started conversations.
People are already having conversations about your brand, and being part of your customers’ lifestyle, non-intrusively, is the key to generating conversations. In most instances, campaigns become another thing that the customer has to do and, without an incentive, influencers are less likely participate.
The brands that understand their customers better build tribes that far surpass campaign objectives.
Mongezi Mtati (@Mongezi) is the founding MD of WordStart (www.wordstart.co.za). Apart from being a kiteboarding and sandboarding adventurer, Mongezi connects companies and brands with measurable word-of-mouth. He contributes the new “The Word” column on word-of-mouth marketing and social media strategy to MarkLives.
— MarkLives’ round-up of top ad and media industry news and opinion in your mailbox every three work days. Sign up here!