Tag: coke

  • Deconstructing a viral

    Google’s Project Glass demo was the best product demo I’d ever seen. The sheer possibilities with such a device was amazing, but in essence, it was the theatrics that impressed. Everyone I shared it with shared it on.

    It made me think of the concept of a viral. From many murmurs I have heard around me, “Let’s make a viral” has only evolved, not died. The question of what makes a content viral is also asked when 2 or more marketers/social media practitioners are present. I find it a bit ironic that sometimes when ‘virals’ are named, I can’t recollect them. I first thought this was just me, until I figured out otherwise from other blank looks. But that’s not surprising, considering our increasingly fragmented consumption patterns across media platforms.

    I realised lately that if reach were the only parameter, then every TVC/newspaper ad, by sheer consumption, is a ‘viral’. So, a necessary caveat is that the reach has to be through peer sharing. But what good is an eminently enjoyable creative if it does zilch for the business? The viral is thus walking that exact balance between entertainment and brand objective. But would our current definition of a viral deem the Project Glass demo a candidate? I don’t think so. Nor would flipping on the Open Graph on a website and allowing multiple contextual actions to go across newsfeeds and Timelines.

    And that’s where the evolution is interesting – because technology is slowly moving from being an ‘enabler’ (euphemism for cheap means of distribution – YouTube/Facebook, I always felt) to being the best tool to weave in the brand story, and an inherent part of the experience. It goes beyond just social platforms and into Augmented Reality, NFC and other legacy/new technologies. I saw quite a few examples (via) – Buy the World a Coke, Red Tomato Pizza’s fridge magnet, even Amex-Twitter and one of my favourites for quite a while now – Nike+. Would we call these virals? I don’t know, but they were shared, seen, and tied in neatly with the brand experience. So probably what needs to evolve now is the marketer’s mindset on what he/she defines as a viral. The opportunity and the challenge is that when everyone’s a publisher, the marketer’s real job is to make it more share-worthy – conceptually and practically. That hasn’t changed. 🙂

    Since we’re on arguable territory here, do chime in.

    until next time, viral ‘producting’ as opposed to viral marketing?

  • Lady Gaga, Identity and Flexible Persistence

    Though the Old Spice man campaign (earlier post) was famed for its creativity, the other important part about it was the near real-time operations involved. More recently, I read about Kraft’s plans to turn 5 chosen tweets into TV ads for its Macaroni & Cheese product. Even more interesting was Coke getting Maroon5 to compose a song in 24 hours, with “inspiration and collaboration from fans” on Twitter. They performed it on March 23rd and Coke released it for free on April 1st. On reaching 100000 downloads, they will also make a donation to an organisation working on providing clean water in Africa. (via, there is another example too, from the fashion industry)

    Real time can be cool, and then I read this article on ‘Accelerated Cool‘, an interesting take on how to keep up in a scenario where a trend is replaced almost as soon as you hear of it. Their answer – “be yourself”, because then “You are owning your identity and embracing the rawness of pure, unfiltered, self”.

    Is this an option for brands? An interesting perspective I thought of was a personal brand – no, not Bieber or Rebecca Black, thank you but (predictably) Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga, who wowed folks at Google and Twitter recently, interviewed by Ev and Marissa Mayer respectively, and answered a viewer question on “Stefani” (her real name) with “This is me. Gaga is just a nickname.” Her song “Born This Way”, viewed a record (until Black’s Friday happened) 24 million times on YouTube, is incidentally about identity. (via)

    But a Lady Gaga cannot scale beyond a person. So, with existing platforms in a constant state of flux, and new ones appearing with a unique set of rules regularly, the answer for a brand is not simple, especially when consumers have the tools to amplify the brand’s #win and #fail and the economics of attention do not usually allow second chances. There is always a choice – to take an example of logos, revert to the old logo like Gap, or stick to their guns, like Syfy. (via)

    I’d say that brands have to find their purpose, from it would evolve the identity, and its manifestation across contexts and platforms then needs to be planned, governed by what LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman would call ‘flexible persistence’. “The art is knowing when to be persistent and when to be flexible and how to blend them.” (via) The science would come from the tons of data – real time and otherwise (earlier post) that is being generated and will continue to grow in volume. The trick, as usual, is in balancing the identity and the context, and if that is done, the brand can play with real time as easily as Neo does with the Matrix. Damn, that example is a dozen years old!

    until next time, identity kits

  • Content, Media, Distribution

    I read an interesting post at Social Media Explorer titled ‘Is content marketing the new advertising‘. More than the specific subject itself, which I write about occasionally, it made me wonder about the various entities that seem to be vying for the marketer’s attention. So even if we do limit ourselves to the thought that brands (and businesses) would create their own content, how does the distribution work?

    I remember writing about this a few weeks back, and asking whether content is merely a titular king and distribution is the real power. Its ironic because much of the power of the web’s second wave is in the ability to create content and distribute it fast. But over a period of time, the platforms we use for sharing have undergone a consolidation. The presence of traditional media outlets and brands on these platforms validate this.

    Now if we zoom out further and consider the various other things that are making their presence felt – social gaming, location based services (check out the Foursquare-Pepsi and SCNGR-Coke deals, and the new contexts of advertising they’re creating), group buying; apps on iPhone/ iPad (Murdoch and Branson are making a newspaper/magazine specifically for iPad) and Android. (do add on) This is in addition to the terrains that the incumbents – Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter will discover and develop at least for some more time, and the technological possibilities that will arise. (eg. Augmented Reality, and the return of QR codes) Each of them are building their own distribution systems, and its difficult to bundle all the ‘content’ that appears on them under one umbrella. And that’s only the digital world.

    All of this also makes me think of destination sites. I can count mine on one hand. Every other consumption is via Reader/Twitter/Facebook and occasionally email. When the web (and its consumption) is rebuilt around people and their connections, what value does a destination site (belonging to a brand) add? How does the brand deal with fragmentation? The good news for the brands is that there are many more options than ever before. Not every campaign needs to be a TVC, radio spot, newspaper ad, site banner. There are smaller, more scalable and more flexible options. The challenge is to find them, and develop things that enable them to connect with the consumers. We live in interesting times indeed.

    until next time, many kings and many thrones

  • The brand your brand could be like

    The world seems to have loved the Old Spice guy horsing around. Even though the campaign had been around for a while, (via Surekha) the last couple of weeks took it to a completely different level, with the Old Spice guy (actor Isaiah Mustafa) sending unique video responses to people who had blogged/tweeted/written to him  – not just celebrities like Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano, Mrs and Mr Demi More, Ellen DeGeneres etc but regular people too. He even made a marriage proposal on behalf of one @Jsbeals. You can see all his work at the channel here. Mashable has some statistics, which are quite amazing, and yet unsurprising – 180+ videos, 22500 comments, and more than 6 million views, when I last saw it. But more than the stats, it is the amount of interest that it has generated. The Google CFO mentioned it during an earnings call, and closer home, my eminent blogger friends – Bhat and Karthik have been gushing about it, understandably so. The Old Spice Guy even managed to charm 4chan, (this one is the 3rd most viewed in the series) and that I don’t think has a precedent! Meanwhile, after some really hard work (the making of), he has now wrapped up with one final video, thanking the internet.

    There are many lessons from what is quite obviously a case study – an idea, its amazing execution, the co ordination between creative, social media and tech to get near real time responses done, the confidence/bravery/trust of P&G to allow this team the liberty to make the responses with minimal supervision and as Karthik wrote, the importance of creating some really kick a$$ content. And thus the point of the post – an example of brands being media.

    When one way distribution platforms dominated, things were relatively simple – print ads, billboards, radio spots, TVCs, and even internet banners. But then came the tools of self publishing, the acknowledged game changer, with several possibilities.

    It meant that brands, not unlike us common people, could create their own channels using multiple tools and services available. Some brands used it just as they would use the channels of an earlier era, and pushed until no one was interested.

    When they were done with understanding that questioning the veracity of the content appearing online wouldn’t get them anywhere, some brands figured that the only difference that had been made was that a new breed of influencers and opinion makers/breakers/changers had been created. So, they formed alliances, sometimes transparent and sometimes not so. The thick line is now represented by multiple shades of grey. But that just seems to be the way the world in general works now, the Cisco-CNBC case, for example.

    And then there were brands that went deeper and figured out that creating things that would spawn positive content would be a better idea, even if it meant that they had to rework everything. It could mean that they came out with a great product/service which created or mobilised legions of fanboys/girls. They could involve their consumers by asking for ideas. Or they could take on a cause honestly and contributed to the larger society. Not every brand has a CEO who sets a gold standard (here’s an excellent example of Anand Mahindra’s Twitter magic), but it definitely can create an environment that will make ambassadors of employees. It could create such great content or offer so much reward that  others generated excellent content for them (users created an Old Spice voicemail message) , or at least link to them. And if these aren’t possible, a brand could at least ensure that you offered a little value to consumers on the platforms they preferred. And these are by no means the master set.

    When brands and their fan boys and girls become media in themselves, it raises many challenges too. What happens when a brand goofs up on a product and makes its vocal supporters seem like losers?  (you got that signal, I hope) How much of ownership can the brand take for the fans and how will their action or inaction affect those common consumers who are watching it all? What happens when there’s random malice that uses your brand name? (the recent Coke Facebook scam) Even for the star of the moment – Old Spice, what do they do, when a celebrity retorts in the same vein, and asks them to donate to a cause, that’s creating erm, waves all over the world. I, for one, am waiting for a response.

    But despite all that, I believe that the opportunities make the challenges worthwhile. The work is definitely different – doing an eyewash research, releasing an ad, and adopting vague measurement techniques like reach won’t really cut it. With technology that discovers newer and newer contexts for consumers to express themselves, and their intent, brands have to learn to react, if not be proactive, in real time. So, since the web has successfully bottomed the costs of distribution, it is perhaps time that brands started investing the savings into creating good content, finding their way on platforms and with the people using the platforms.

    until next time, content. is. marketing. too.

    PS. next post, in a fortnight 🙂

  • The heat is on…

    You know its summer when you see the various soft drinks launching their ‘season collection’. Coke, Pepsi, Thums Up, Mirinda and Sprite have all started bombarding the channels with their respective ads. Meanwhile, I was really surprised to know that Sprite is now the #2 soft drink brand in the country after Thums Up, the brand refused to die. This happened in October 2008, and since then Sprite has not only cemented its position (at 15.6%) ahead of pepsi (at 13%), but is also closing in on Thums Up (16.16%) (via Economic Times)

    So, let’s begin with Coke’s TVC. Coke has brought the ‘Open Happiness’ theme (which i’d written about earlier) to India, and has started the campaign with an ad featuring Gautam Gambhir. (because he’s an opener? ok sorry) The ad shows how the game of cricket (with Coke) adds fun and refreshment in our lives and builds community  by sharing our moments of happiness together – in this case, a cricket match. Gautham Gambhir brings to life a regular hangout joint by offering ‘ a dost free with every Coke’. The wife uncharitably commented that a free dosa might get more response!!

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S59gN7bl6As

    I honestly wasn’t impressed with the ‘Open Happiness’ theme anyway- Coke has done much better campaigns before, and this has cemented that opinion. Unless the remaining ads do wonders, I doubt if that opinion will change.  In fact I got thinking about Coke’s Slumdog association, rather dissociation, which i wrote about earlier. If they had allowed that association, the Oscar win would have gone wonderfully with the theme, and the Oscar is a global thing. They could’ve even done a cheering ad at the bottom of the screen whenever SDM got an award. (at least in the repeat telecast). Oh well, why cry over spilt cola.

    On to Pepsi’s latest TVC. With the cricket team in action, and IPL coming up, it looks like Pepsi has (thankfully) decided to shelf R.Kap and D.Pad for a while, and move on to Dhoni and Co. This is continuing the path of “echoing youth sentiment” – the last ad talked about how padhai wasn’t the only way to success, and this one talks of how people use their connections (jaanta hain mera baap kaun hai?) to get ahead in life. The concept, though a bit jaded, might actually work because of the execution (Sehwag’s wig’s contribution must be noted)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2xS3P_Ejjg

    And now Sprite. I had written sometime back about how Sprite is going about things in a very methodical manner. In plain words, I think they have a strategy, and from the numbers it seems to be working. Clear Hai !! They’ve added the  no nonsense approach to their product benefit of slaking thirst and the renditions have been great so far. As a massive Fido Dido fan (7 up) I can only grudgingly admire. Brilliant. They have released two ads recently, but they really don’t measure up to the earlier work.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQr9gwb_-I

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-vVSEDOWmA

    The positioning has gotten a bit diluted, I felt, maybe the later ads will be better. Lets hope someone gives them something to spoof on. And meanwhile, the big news is that King Khan, after Pepsi’s non renewal of his contract, will now say ‘Baki Sab Bakwas’. Yes, he is Sprite’s new brand ambassador!! Coke has the most awesome Bollywood portfolio now – Aamir for Coke, SRK for Sprite, and Akshay for Thums Up.

    Speaking of which, Thums Up has also released its TVC, which features Akshay in a double role.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQUcO4GMus

    The typical Akshay-Thums Up ad, all slick action and stunts, centred around “will do anything for a Thums Up”. Wonder if Pepsi will spoof like last time.

    I also saw a couple of Mirinda ads, featuring Asin, very entertaining ones, but with a distinct south Indian flavour, which, am not sure will work across India (especially the market ones, which relies on wordplay a lot)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65DbA-baZYA

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esp026fOXlE&NR=1

    The smaller 15 second ones which would work for a national audience don’t reach the same level as the ones above.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCiZ6ZCiDQ8

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em8_fbMGRKI

    7 Up has been silent so far. I hope they do something good with Fido Dido, which is a lot to ask for, considering the work so far. I couldn’t help but wonder the good use that Fido could’ve been put to in social media. This is the only brand which is instinctively identified with a character, and in a medium in which people like to talk to people and not brands, Fido could’ve served as a wonderful front end for the brand. His coolness wowed one generation, if someone thinks hard enough, he could easily wow many more too. Will he make a comeback with the new Pepsi lemon drink – Nimbooz? I, for one, hope he does.

    With the uninspiring 7Up and even Mirinda, Pepsi really has no flanking products. Coke, on the other hand, has two of its brands at the top. Pepsi needs a miracle now, to claw back. I have a feeling that Sprite is getting ready for the war for the top spot, and Pepsi played into their hands by releasing SRK. Thums Up, with Akshay at #1, and within touching distance Sprite at #2, with Shah Rukh. With these two sharing icy cold vibes these days in real life over the Bollywood #1 position, I think, we have a thriller on our hands.

    until next time, cold war!!

    PS. Interesting tactic by Coke – Don’t Dew it, a 24-ounce Vault (Coke) free with any purchase of a 20 ounce Mountain Dew (Pespsi)