Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right

Here's an interesting case study from mashable.com:

Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big.

The company’s Mountain Dew division is several stages into its DEWmocracy campaign — a plan to launch a new Mountain Dew flavor with the public’s involvement at all levels of the process, and PepsiCo also just launched the Pepsi Refresh Project on January 13th. Rather than spending money on Super Bowl television ads this year, the company is spending $20 million on a social media campaign.

Jay Baer, founder of the social media strategy company Convince & Convert, said brands are realizing they need to market for the long haul. “I do think it’s a good move for Pepsi. I don’t know if every brand can pull it off,” he said.

Click here to view the full article.

Study: Consumers Are Not Annoyed by Ads on Facebook

Here's an article from Advertising Age:

 NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Good news for Facebook: It turns out users find ads on social networks no more annoying than any other ads on the web. According to a study from research firm Dynamic Logic, consumers view brand messages on social-media sites as comparable to those in online video, and are only slightly more annoying to internet users than search or banner ads. While that's better news for Facebook, which has been embraced by blue-chip marketers such as Procter & Gamble, it's a bit of a backhanded compliment. Indeed, all web ads pale when stacked up to TV and print, which can claim twice the favorability among consumers, according to Dynamic Logic's Ad Reactions 2009 study.

You can view the full article here.

A Video on Thinking and Innovation in the Digital Age

P&G is Getting into Social Media

This is a good sign for digital marketing firms when one of the biggest consumer goods companies in the world starts using the social media as part of its marketing mix. For us agencies who try to pitch the digital medium to potential clients showing P&G as a case study would definitely help our case.

Here's a snippet from the article from Advertising Age:

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Procter & Gamble Co. loves Facebook after all, and besides encouraging brands to develop a presence there, the world's biggest marketer has opened an office in Silicon Valley to help develop social-networking systems and digital-marketing capabilities with the website.

P&G's outlook on Facebook and social media as marketing tools appears rosier.

Those messages came in a meeting last week between P&G executives and venture capitalists, recounted by David Hornik on VentureBlog in a post that quickly picked up currency over the weekend on, of all places, Twitter.

"P&G's explicit goal for 2010 is to assure that each of its brands has a meaningful presence on Facebook, and they are willing to pay dearly for that," Mr. Hornik wrote. "And while P&G's thought leaders expressed some skepticism about the efficacy of Facebook's 'engagement ads,' they certainly view Facebook as a must-have for digital advertising and brand building. They didn't quantify what they are paying for that exposure, but it is quite clear that the numbers are very big."

See the full article here.

A local site's take on the top 10 sites for 2010

Here's the full article from Spot.ph - Win, Lose, or Draw? How will 10 top sites fare in 2010?

The ten sites they listed are:
1. Facebook
2. Friendster
3. Robo.to
4. Looklet
5. Twitter
6. Plurk
7. Tumblr
8. Formspring.me
9. Deviantart
10. Multiply

For online marketers you only interest would be where your target market is. The site you would target is still the most active social network site which basically the two hottest at the moment which is Facebook and Twitter. Facebook has around 9.3M users as of last count.

I don't have any idea of the total number of Twitter users but if you look at the following of local showbiz stars such as Bianca Gonzales, Anne Curtis, and Maxene Magalona they have roughly about 80K, 60K and 50K followers respectively. I see a lot of their fangroups now making Twitter account for themselves and asking to be followed. Given this, I feel Twitter is growing rapidly hitting a broader scale of the market.

With the introduction of online data plans. Usage of these sites would most likely continue even if they are not connected via laptops or computers. They will almost literally be connected 24hours. Establishing a presence in these social networking sites strengthens a brands presence online. It gives brand additional touch points aside from the website (if any).

Convincing Clients to Go Digital

I'm hoping that a lot of brands start to look at the digital space as one of their main avenues of marketing. Based on a talk I attended at the first IMMAP membership meeting digital marketing expenses for brands in the Philippines are just about 1% of the total adpsend.

Just like any new trend it will take a lot of convincing for marketing managers to embrace this new medium. From my experience, it's easier to convince the young brand managers to embrace it but it's their bosses which we really need to convince. At this point my goal really is to make a lot of actual case studies to convince marketing bosses to go digital. 

Here's a snippet from an article from Adage.com:

What is a Global Marketing Organization? 

by Freddie Laker

Click here to view the full article.

Digital, once deemed complex and expensive by the rest of the advertising world, actually offers the ability to produce re-usable libraries of common tools that can be shared across markets and brands, empowering them to focus their budgets on brilliant creative ideas instead of unnecessary technology that had been used multiples times in the last year by other agencies and brand teams.

Social media monitoring tools can be set up for enterprise businesses and deliver intelligence to multiple brands across multiple markets at reduced costs while facilitating a deeper understanding of the consumer. Web based collaboration tools are helping to produce better ideas, faster, with equal input from brand agencies, digital agencies, and media agencies.

123joblogs (123 joe-blogs) is a year old

I just realized that my blog is already a year old. I actually made a blog account late December 2008. I'll just post some of my last 2009 pictures so I can technically move on to 2010.
Here's pictures for the Advertising Congress. I was a first time delegate.

Anvaya Cove (nope I didn't stay here, how I wish)

Here our creative and dev duo (Jots and Cholo).

Here's pictures from the Marlboro Party.

The ad congress was around mid-November and we fast forward to Rogue Digital's Christmas Party/Outing. Just got 3 pictures though.

 Our company's first party was held at Enchanted Kingdom. We braved the December SLEX traffic to go here. Not everybody enjoyed the rides but I hope everyone enjoyed the experience - our first group activity.

For some reason my 2010 will start after my Bangkok trip at the end of this month.

So here's a much delayed Happy New Year blog greeting!

Ten mobile trends that will dominate 2010

Here's an article I got from Blog Media Asia. Again, I'll just choose some relevant items I will comment on.

Smarter than ever: mobile data use increases

The APAC region accounts for nearly 30 % of the overall market for smartphones. Attracted by innovative smart devices and killer applications, there will be an increase of mobile subscribers in Asia joining the data use bandwagon. This will only increase with the ongoing proliferation of high data consumption services that include video or peer-to-peer applications.- Joejoe's comments => the Philippines has about 70M mobile subscribers and it is still growing. Cheaper Smartphone handsets will only support this trend.

Adding on: mobile data plans as value-added services

The rise in the ownership of smartphone devices like the Apple iPhone in the APAC region will see more users adding mobile data plans as value-added services. Applications that are specifically developed for the iPhone, Android phones, Blackberry devices and others will eventually convert many to mobile data use for internet access. This is a pull factor for subscribers to add mobile data VAS – in turn this will add to the ARPU for each subscriber and improve the bottom line for operators. - Joejoe's comments => Globe and Smart introduced unlimited data plans late last year (Sun has one too). This will only encourage people to stay connected via their social networking sites. People will eventually be connected to their Twitter and Facebook account 24hours a day. Online strategies must now also focus on maximizing brands' Twitter and Facebook pages.

You can view the full article here.

Google is Practicing What They Preach

Google maximizes it's leverage when they market their new Nexus smartphone. They obviously capitalized on the power of search marketing. This is what we always tell our clients in Rogue Digital - that you need to be easily searched on the world wide web. If there is anyone on the internet who is looking for a product or service, your brand or product should come out at least on the first five pages (ideally 1st page). 

Search marketing is somewhat of a 2 way effort. If someone is looking for you, you are also trying to look for him. This makes for a more aggressive marketing effort since search helps you find people who are also looking for you. With millions of consumers constantly searching for products and services you can be assured that someone may be looking for your brand or service at any given time.

Here's the full article about "Google's not so secret weapon".

Here's and excerpt from the article:

 When it comes to selling smartphones, it pays to be the king of search. Google jumped directly into the smartphone seas this week with the launch of the Nexus One. One of the first things the search giant did (besides open an online store to sell the phone) was put a big ad for the phone on its homepage. That's prime real estate, especially considering that the pristine page is generally ad free. But Google has other tricks when it comes to search that could be more dubious. Like manipulating search results and blocking advertising on its trademarks. Google doesn't like to think of itself as a media company, but as the search giant acquires content startups and starts selling its own products, the lines are getting blurry. Google's smartphone is the first phone sold directly to consumers online. It is not sold in stores and has almost no real estate on T-Mobile's site save for a searchable link that points users to Google's online store

Top 10 Moments in Social Media

Here's the top 10 list based on the LA Times.

I'll just choose some which I find interesting and relevant to the local market.

10. "Word of Web." As people spent more time chatting online and in public spaces like Twitter, buzz surrounding product and entertainment releases became instantly quantifiable. The elusive word-of-mouth promotion could now be measured, and "word of Web" became that new currency. (Marketers love to use the word "viral.")

The movie "District 9" played the game rather well. The low-budget sci-fi flick started the buzz train early with cryptic alien decals around major cities before its release. Despite relatively low advertising spending, the movie did extremely well. The fact that it was actually a good film certainly didn't hurt.

9. Whopper Sacrifice. Facebook was quick to kill this marketing ploy, but Burger King had a picnic with this one. The Whopper Sacrifice game asked Facebook users to delete 10 friends in exchange for a free burger. In just a couple of weeks, 233,906 friends were dropped like a bad habit.

It proved to be a hilariously successful way to promote a brand that seemed to get only more controversial and creepy over the course of the year.- Joejoe's notes, I included this since this a good sample of a campaign which can be implemented on a social network platform. I heard this case study in some local seminars I attended.

8. Google Wave. In Gmail-like fashion, the exclusive nature of Google's newest product (people vied for a limited number of invitations from friends) made it the must-have free service of 2009. Of course, once people finally got hold of Wave, their lust died down.

The interface is still pretty confusing, and the team continues to struggle with growing pains in its mission to create a stable collaboration platform. However, it packs some intriguing technologies that could very well transform journalism in addition to a number of industries. But right now, e-mail replacement it is not. - Joejoe's notes, I am not sure if this caught on locally but it didn't seem to trickle down to most local internet users. I also doubt it really caught on worldwide or even just in the US.

Now I'll make a list of local moments in Local media. But if you wish to see the full LA Times article click here.

1. Ondoy/Pepeng - Facebook and Twitter suddenly became the information highway for relief efforts for victims of this tragedy. Videos posted in YouTube showed how devastating the floods were.

2. Efren Penaflorida/CNN Hero of the Year - I think this just proves how many Filipinos there are online. One thing is for sure, the Filipino online community can rally behind worthwhile causes.

3. Pacquiao Cotto fight - just another example how strong Pinoys are on the internet. Based on one of the articles I posted during the fight Pacman was in top of 5 hottest terms Google Trends. Here's my post.

4. 8.5M Facebook users about 350,000 Twitter users in the Philippines. Facebook was just at 2.5M around May 2009. Simply shows how quick Filipinos embrace social media networks. We are still the SMS capital of the world and we are also the social networking capital of the world. Congratulations to the Filipinos!

For 2010 I am sure local politicos will try to do an Obama. They won't have Obama's integrity but the online medium is theirs to take advantage of - if they know how to use it properly.

The Best of Yahoo Ads 2009

Three 2010 SEO Trends to Look Out For: Social Media, Onpage SEO & Link Diversity

There are many things several SEO professionals are talking about on how SEO will be in 2010 where from one person to another, the priorities vary. I am not saying one person is more correct from the other, but SEO has always been a do and observe type of science and art and everyone will always have their own opinion about it. As long as you have an open mind to new ideas, backed up with your own testing by doing your own experiments, and continuously sharing with other SEO professionals, you will get a good pulse of what’s coming in 2010. As for me, this is what I believe will be coming in 2010, read more on the 2010 search trends below.

See full article here.

2010 TV Ad Budgets Will Shift Online

By Barbara Gengler (from Digital Media Buzz)

Traditional media has lost its hold on advertising budgets. Even big companies are moving a large portion of their ad spending online, with companies like Pepsi foregoing Super Bowl ads for online marketing projects. Traditional media isn’t out of the picture, of course — Pepsi’s subsidiary Doritos brand will air an ad at Super Bowl 2010. But this year, ad spending is going to continue to shift toward online opportunities.

There’s a reason marketers think of online advertising as particularly effective: the ability to put ads in front of audiences actively looking for information allows marketers to tap into a market more prepared to buy than those audiences watching television or reading a newspaper. Furthermore, the advertising opportunities online go far beyond those related to search. With the growth of video on demand through sites like Hulu and Youtube, as well as content sites providing information on every imaginable topic, audiences are also spending more time online.

See full article here.

Something to Inspire You in 2010

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address



Starting the New Year right with a very inspirational speech from Steve Jobs. I just know that 2010 will be a great year.

"STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!