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What are the key ingredients to online marketing success? We explore some case studies.

The Internet as a medium might be fairly young, but it isn’t a new medium for most marketers. Countless brands locally and globally are integrating the Web into their marketing strategies with great success, and those who haven’t will face increasing pressure to do so.

Taking your brand online requires patience. It involves testing, measuring, refining, improving and testing again, according to Diane Charton, Managing Director of Acceleration Media. “An online strategy and approach should be dynamic and ever-evolving,” says Charton.

Your online strategy also needs to be aligned with and integrated into your other marketing endeavours. “Consistency is key,” says Charton. “From here, you need to define success events or what you want to achieve. You need to consider relevancy and what solution you are providing / need you’re addressing. You also need to understand how you are going to track and measure these, as this will give you the opportunity to understand the value the campaign is bringing.”

Veteran online media planner Andrea Mitchell of DigiVox believes it’s crucial that a marketer clearly defines the objectives (e.g. lead generation, sales) of their digital strategy before they venture online. Engage and interact with the audience – this is the power of the medium – and ensure the creative input is compelling, initiates engagement, and gets the message across as quickly as possible, says Mitchell.

How successful have local firms been in integrating the digital component of their advertising with their broader marketing campaigns? Certain industries, and marketers, are doing it better than others. “Simply putting your website in the last frame of a TV commercial is not integrating,” warns Charton. “I think those that are using it most effectively are those who have bought into, and understand the value of the medium. They know the value the online environment brings to them and apply appropriate energy.

“Unfortunately, a large number of decision makers are still unaware of the power of the medium. Education is still a big challenge for us as a medium and it is only through this that we will see larger investments and better adoption of effective, fully integrated campaigns.”

Mitchell agrees that very few agencies are getting this right, with many utilising a different creative message to what they are doing off-line, or not using each medium to its maximum.

For Mitchell, the failure of marketers to initiate two-way communication with consumers stands out as a major strategic failure. “Whilst digital offers the distinct opportunity for direct communication (where traditional media fall short), most marketing campaigns treat media in isolation, rather than pulling them into a coherent whole, says Mitchell. “Mobile and online marketing cannot be treated like other media, and the unique opportunities offered by digital marketing should be maximised – in particular, engagement, return and retention.”

A presentation by researcher Booz & Company titled the Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 shows that marketers want more two-way media, and nearly 90% consider digital the ideal medium. Mobile was second with 50%. About 85% of ad agencies are also using digital media to better understand consumers, the researchers found.

Two South African brands that have set out on creative two-way communication strategies are Savanna Lemon Light and PLuGG, a new broadband consumer brand.

Savanna Lemon Light recently took its well-known ad campaign (with 16 ads in the series) online because, it says, that is where fans of the campaign have asked it to go. The now famous payoff-line, “It’s dry, but you can drink it”, has inspired viewers to send in their own creative executions for nearly as long as the campaign has been running. The brand decided to listen and engage fans in creating and starring in their own Savanna ads.

Non-database consumers were redirected via the Savanna website to a new micro site www.inthelemonlight.co.za, and its existing database was emailed or SMSed the new URL. Once there they select friends and family as co-stars, ‘write’ a script using available words and phrases, and then edit and save the final commercial for viewing.

The objective of the campaign, according to Rochelle Reid, Account Manager for Savanna at DraftFCB, was to keep the Savanna brand top of mind with loyal and new consumers, enable consumers to interact with the brand continuously, and of course in a Savanna way, increase traffic to the Savanna site and expand the database. Between 5 Jan and 16 Feb this year, the micro site generated over 9 000 visits and 31 000 page views from 7 504 unique visitors. Some of the Active Videos created – 288 and counting – ended up on social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The site was developed by local online media agency Prezence.

In another interesting campaign, PLuGG, the new consumer broadband provider from Internet Solutions (IS), launched an online viral campaign aimed at the local gaming community. Hello World Agency, RedCube Brand PR Agency and Re:Act Ideas Agency were all involved in the execution of the campaign. They targeted a sub segment of the broadband user base: namely, gamers. The campaign set out to start a debate amongst gamers that would culminate in a final Game-off event.

Betting on that age old staatmaker, the battle of the sexes, the agencies started posting the question “Who are better gamers, girls… or guys?” onto various forums and sites frequented by gaming enthusiasts. They also posted videos on YouTube supporting one argument or the other. Numerous gadget and gaming site picked up on the ‘debate’ which had now taken on a life of its own. PLuGG finally revealed its hand by launching a “Girls vs. Guys Game-Off”. A team of girl gamers travelled to South Africa to play against a guy gaming team made up of local gamers. (The guys won.) The campaign generated 17 290 views with 640 replies on debate pages, ROI on publicity garnered is 1:12 (calculated at three times AVE) and PLuGG is now a known name in the gaming community. At the time of writing, gamers still didn’t know the debate was partly a marketing ploy and it would be worth keeping an eye on how they react to the people and brands involved once the information is revealed.

Community is another key word online, and it has grown in importance with the dramatic uptake of social media networks, blogs and micro-blogs (such as Twitter, where messages are limited to 140 characters). BMW’s Facebook fan site has passed 7 000 and it uses YouTube and local video sharing site Zoopy to promote new TV commercials. Its YouTube video channel has enjoyed over 1.4 million views to date.

The real value that local social networking and user generated content (UGC) sites provide is a niche which can deliver a targeted audience to an advertiser, says Colin Daniels, Publisher of TheTimes Online. “Advertisers and media planners need to shift their expectations when dealing with social networks and UGC sites and focus more on the quality they can deliver, rather than the quantity,” he says.

A medium that avoids the disconnect consumers feel staring at TV screens or billboards, and champions two-way communication, is surely a medium marketers should support as they position their brands for an age where consumers move away from the passivity that used to be a hallmark of consumerism.

By MarkLives editor Herman Manson
From Tony Koenderman’s AdReview, published with Finweek, May 1, 2009
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