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Successful use of social media requires a little give and take. Lisa Jones reports

GETTING A FOOT IN THE VIRTUAL DOOR

As any good conversationalist knows, a rewarding dialogue involves an awful lot of listening. Yet ‘marketing’ and ‘listening’ have historically been awkward bedfellows. Billboards and broadcast media yell slogans and jingles hoping they are catchy enough to stick. Carlsberg’s ‘Probably the best lager in the world’ is one of a mere handful that has been absorbed into the vernacular. Few brands achieve that privileged status. Lucky, then, that social media platforms like Facebook are giving them a second chance. But now the major difference is that consumers decide whether or not they want to spend time with a brand. And they do. Take Unilever’s Marmite spread. Some 586,400 people have ‘liked’ Marmite’s Facebook page, which is updated daily. By engaging with the people who are most fanatical about it, Marmite enables its advocates to help market its products. Simples, as Aleksandr Orlov, aka comparethemarket. com’s famous meerkat and social media supremo, might say.

Brands are not only reaching their target audiences and interacting with them via social media, they’re also encouraging them to participate in real-life events. Diageo’s fl agship vodka brand, Smirnoff, in exchange for a ‘like’ on Facebook, opened the door to its global experiential initiative, Nightlife Exchange Project. Exporting the best of a country’s nightlife to an overseas destination, more than 33,000 ideas were generated and18,000 people had an unforgettable night out thanks to the brand. By creating an elaborate engagement

platform for consumers from Barbados to Bangkok, Smirnoff is going beyond branding to display all the signs of a ‘lovemark’, a term coined by Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide CEO Kevin Roberts to describe brands that build respect and inspire love among their customer base. Brands that behave in this way see their investment repaid in participation and loyalty over the long-term as people develop a relationship with them that extends beyond a mere transaction.

Twitter has also created a new engagement platform. Unlikely though it may seem, dairy brand Yeo Valley briefl y trended on Twitter when it launched a TV spot during the UK’s favourite talent contest, X Factor. The ad, a two-minute rap featuring farmers, came to be as much a feature of Saturday nights as the TV programme itself, with people Tweeting about it prior to its weekly screening. The results for Yeo Valley of combining social media with a hugely popular TV property have been overwhelming: the ad campaign has contributed to a 14.9 per cent uplift and a £10m boost in sales. The surprise that social media has

shown many brands is that consumers actually don’t mind marketing… as long as it’s a two-way, ongoing dialogue. Though it takes a brave brand manager to relinquish control and accept that customers deserve some custody rights, those trail-blazers have often hit the jackpot in terms of brand perception. Increasingly, they have also watched the needle move in terms of sales, too. e

springboard: | www.ukti.gov.uk | page 35