• Brand is everywhere

French On Brand

~ by GroPartners Consulting CEO Greg French

French On Brand

Tag Archives: track ROI

Webisode “Infotainment”: Can it Boost Your (B2B) Brand Profitability?

21 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by French On Brand in Alignment, Branding, Social Media and Branding

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

brand, brand marketing, brand metrics, brand positioning, branding, branding ROI, marketing strategy, positioning, social media, track ROI, webisode, what is brand strategy?

shutterstock_193136513

A creatively relevant story about people’s lives can lead to stronger brand relationships…even in B2B.

Over the past decade, content marketing has become the staple best practice for strengthening brand relationships. Blogs (like this one), white paper marketing, book authorship, branded documentaries, and one of the most intriguing and creative forms—branded webisodes—provide today’s marketer with an expanded palette of options to deepen and broaden customer relationships. The use of Webisodes—part of a trend called branded entertainment—is growing because marketers are compelled to find new methods to reach consumers in an era when traditional media are losing personal engagement time to the Internet. Webisode formats can range from a previews/trailers; a promotional series, part of a collection of shorts, or conversely, segments of a long form piece such as a TV series.

In any of the above formats, effective webisodes:

  • Use entertainment and video storytelling to engage stakeholders
    Television and movies taught us that visual storytelling is the “killer app” for engagement. Done well, ironic humor and humanitarian appeal are especially effective approaches.
  • Emotionalize the brand
    Emotion adds dimension more powerful and motivating than even logic to any relationship.
  • Relate to issues first
    Focusing on issues or cause (social, life stage, cultural, moral, political, or other lightning rods) tap into people’s mind at a visceral level in contrast to sales approaches that trigger emotional barriers.
  • Promote buying v selling
    When people “buy in” to a cause or an issue, selling isn’t needed to make a transaction.

Historic analogies

As my mom used to say, “Everything’s different but nothing has changed.” Blogs are really just reincarnations of the company newsletter with one big difference: WordPress and other digital blogging tools make it easier for anyone with a computer to be a publisher. White papers are still one of the best tools for thought leadership positioning. The difference here is digital creation and access. And webisodes are very much like early radio and TV serials, sponsored, owned, and produced by advertisers and their agencies instead of by producers and networks. The difference is the medium: broadcast versus the internet, the latter providing some game-changing advantages.

Media trending toward web video

It’s no longer news that web video is taking a bite out of TV viewership. Nielsen’s (television audience research) most recent study indicates that viewing by 18-24-year-olds dropped by a little more than 4-and-a-half hours per week. http://bit.ly/1p7nVvc That’s equivalent to roughly 40 minutes per day.

At the same time, YouTube now reports that:

  • YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any single cable network
  • More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
  • Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that’s almost an hour for every person on Earth
  • 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
  • YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages

My purpose in citing these stats isn’t to diminish TV advertising. It’s still the 800-pound gorilla to beat. But rather, my point is to emphasize that webisode marketing done right—with focused objectives, cogent strategies, and the right metrics attached—can now create a serious competitive advantage with clear ROI. For many brands that either can’t afford TV time or don’t fit into the TV advertising model (such as B2B), webisodes can present a green field of opportunity.

Can webisodes deliver real business results?

Many media historians portray our current period as the “post-broadcast era,” implying that audiences are sharing more of their video consumption with the web and media other than broadcast. Not to say that web entertainment will replace broadcast or cable TV. That would be like doomsters of the 1940’s and ‘50s who presaged TV replacing radio.  And though it probably won’t displace TV, web video does contribute to an ever-fragmenting, increasingly complex media landscape in which consumers have so much choice that traditional media-driven marketing it is neither practical nor effective. That’s why content-driven marketing provides a sorely needed solution. It creates valuable, targeted content to repurpose in as many media as possible.

On the flip side, in order to get views, web video needs to be supported with targeted search marketing, SEO techniques, social media, and traditional promotion. This support allows audiences to discover what’s important to them, in a compelling format, on demand—when they have a specific heightened need or interest. Webisodes fit this solution profile like a glove, versus dubiously relevant promotional content force fed as an inline component of entertainment programming (aka TV).

Early webisodes

On October 6, 2006, rapper Sean Combs (aka P. Diddy) debuted DiddyTV, sponsored by Burger King. Today, YouTube shows the first webisode garnering more than 993,000 views and 70,000 subscribers while building a social web brand community for a cultural niche. Not bad for an inexpensive webisode series. However, if you look deeper into the comments and thumbs down click counts, you might see a balanced story.

The following year, Mini Cooper launched Starsky & Hutch/Dukes of Hazzard webisode spoof “Hammer & Coop.” The effort, which centered around a six-episode web series, generated 1.5 million views and consumer interest that eventually translated into 800 vehicle sales (at least that’s the official report). But Mini didn’t just entertain visitors, it also presented a Mini web configuration tool to bring visitors closer to buying. The official report is: “Three hundred seven thousand unique visitors went directly to Hammerandcoop.com and spent an average of six minutes viewing the videos. Another 722,000 connected there through miniusa.com. Of the 722,000, 355,000 of them configured a Mini (by model, engine and extras); 22,000 people saved their configurations; and 2,400 of those sent them to dealers. Min reports that data represented about a 33% conversion rate that translated to about 800 vehicle sales.” http://adage.com/article/madisonvine-case-study/initial-results-mini-s-hammer-coop-effort/116193/

While I see a couple holes in the metrics strategy (from what I can tell, the 307,000 hammerandcoop.com visitors weren’t directly connected to configuring a car or the resulting sales funnel), this early example of webisode infotainment broke new ground for the medium. Bottom line: Mini Cooper sales were down 4% Q1 2007 YOY. However, US Mini Cooper annual sales hit their highest historic point to date in 2008, at 54,077 units. http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/mini-cooper-sales-figures.html It gives pause for thought.

Webisodes for B2B

What about for business to business brands? Blendtec makes blending technology for home, manufacturing, and foodservice.  They launched their webisode series “Will it Blend” (www.willitblend.com) in 2007, featuring its founder, Tom Dickson, in a wacky role as a lab technician attempting to grind up everything from cubic zirconium “diamonds” to iPhones in Blendtec brand blenders. YouTube shows more than 6.7 million views on the “diamond blend” show including more than 16,000 likes and only 2013 thumbs down.

 

AnotherB2B example is an animated production by Lawson, a provider of software and service solutions in the manufacturing, distribution, maintenance and service sector industries. This webisode provides a good competitive positioning tool, effectively promoting Lawson’s “Simpler is Better” brand. It’s no slouch for such a nichey industrial target at more than 89,000 views. I’d like to see a metrics bridge that connects these views to results in a shift in positioning, revenues, and/or margins.

 

Business-to-business brands can use content marketing—including webisodes—to exploit market niches with a fresh approach to engaging their customers, limited only by imagination and, of course, budget. Unlike broadcast TV, web presence is free, so the only cost in getting a series on the web is production, which can be managed incrementally with theme, creative development, and production values, which new technology has made dramatically more efficient.

But wait. TV has built-in audiences (that’s what you pay the stations and networks for). With webisodes, you’ll have to generate the audiences yourself (you knew there had to be a catch). This “detail” has been the primary barrier in the success of many web videos.

What’s the right objective for webisodes?

Social media and advertising can get pretty expensive in the quest to promote your webisodes for customer acquisition. So why not start by using them to improve the lifetime value of your current customers? One excellent use for webisodes is cross selling lines to existing customers. Webisodes can provide context (relevant issues and situations that uncover real needs) in dramatic, comedic, or simply interesting ways (how to, etc.). This leads the customer to buy into a larger brand context and a larger solution set. With effective funneling surrounding the webisodes, it’s possible to tightly track ROI on existing or past customers.

A proven ROI formula?

Despite a few days of exhaustive research on the web, I haven’t been able to identify any recent B2B webisode examples. Maybe that’s because there’s not yet a tried and true formula that links webisodes to ROI. GroPartners is now engaged with one of our clients in an effort to do just that. We’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, if you have any additional information on webisodes that you’d like to share on my blogpost, please leave a comment (link top of page). I’d love to post it.

GroPartners Consulting

Branded Documentaries: Captivating Consumer Consciousness

26 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by French On Brand in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Employee collaboration, Employee engagement, Employee recognition, Engagement strategies, marketing branding, marketing strategy, operationalization, P2P, P2P Power, Peer-to-peer, Peer2Peer, strategic alignment, track ROI, what is brand strategy?

In recent years, branded documentaries have gained popularity in the marketing mix among a wide range of brands, including Stella Artois, Ericsson, Audi, Proctor & Gamble (Pantene/Downy), PetSmart, Jack Daniels, and Revlon’s Mitchum deodorant and many others.

What are Branded Documentaries?

The difference between branded documentaries and advertising or public relations is that they are actually “micro movies” (usually 3-20 minutes long) versus ads or sound bites (under 90 seconds). And unlike corporate videos, branded documentaries are issues-focused, versus brand-focused. These micro movies “feel” different. They tell emotive stories with cinematic techniques, resulting in a deeper and more engaging experience than is possible from any form of direct promotion.

Branded documentary director Nathaniel Hansen provides some insight: “Viewers are a lot more media and message savvy than we often give them credit for. If the film is people- or issue-focused, it’s a great way for the brand to take a back seat and let the content build demand.”

Some filmmakers behind branded documentaries prefer original music scores to heighten this cinematic experience. They feature real people telling stories around issues and events in their own words with authenticity that only the “real deal” can evoke. The sponsor’s brand may not be featured in the production, though sometimes cleverly placed. Instead, these films often use a carefully crafted storyline to present a worthy cause, or build a solid case for why certain attributes present in the brand are important in making people’s lives better.

Pantene Pony Up

Pantene Beautiful Lengths used branded documentaries to promote a cause: donating human hair to make wigs for cancer patients.

For example, in 2012, Pantene Beautiful Lengths charity expected to donate a record 12,000 real hair wigs to women fighting cancer nationwide. Though we can’t confirm this goal was met, the Pantene Beautiful Lengths website reports that since it’s inception in 2006, Pantene has donated to cancer patients approximately 24,000 wigs made from 400,000 consumer-donated pony tails. As a core component of Pantene’s marketing program, they created a branded documentary series that captures compelling stories from hair donors and wig recipients to drive public interest in the Beautiful Lengths program. In Pantene’s case the documentary was clearly branded. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK0J5jgf36M&list=SPIUDgI1r16CsQxkYdDNImNXCV3Rrf2EXM&index=1

Painting Coconuts is a documentary posted in January of 2013 that takes viewers behind the scenes of the model-building genius of the Audi Quattro® Experience. This one-of-a-kind slot car track creates a virtual driving experience with the world’s first car-mounted camera and iPad display/controller to put participants in the seat of a model Audi Quattro as it streaks around the highly detailed model track. “Drivers” take control of a custom-made 1/32 scale Audi A4 model slot car to test their on-track skills  and promote the luxury auto brand. This documentary was a great way to leverage the investment in building the track, bringing it to the masses in a well-made 15-minute film (though it could have been 9 minutes with the same impact). It didn’t necessarily stir me to any form of action, but it did raise my awareness of the Quattro and associated it with detailed craftsmanship and driving enthusiasm.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQxOKtCWEGE

Albert Maysles

Legendary documentary director Albert Maysles helped Mitchum keep it’s slot on retail shelves.

Mitchum rekindled interest in the heritage brand by sponsoring a nationwide contest in search of the “Hardest Working Man in America” in 2010. The deodorant/antiperspirant brand worked with CAA Marketing, director Brett Ratner (“Rush Hour,” “Red Dragon”) for a branded-entertainment program that played to its heritage and tagline: “So effective you could skip a day.” The winner was Chad Pregracke, founder of Living Lands & Waters, who alone racked up more than 50,000 votes for the award. Chad hauled over 6 million pounds of garbage from America’s rivers and their water sheds over the last 10 years, working seven days a week and selling what he could from the trash. See http://vimeo.com/64632163 for a short video case study including traditional and social media programs supporting the program and results.

Telling v Selling

Why are branded documentaries becoming so popular? My knee-jerk research reaction while writing this blog was to pit branded documentaries against traditional advertising effectiveness. But after doing some research, I realized it’s just not that simple: They are two entirely different forms of promotion, like PR and advertising. Branded documentaries deal with issues. They tell longer-form stories that engage viewers in causes of social conscience, learning, or special interest, then associate the content with a brand through sponsorship or some other non-direct means.  By contrast, advertising deals with overt selling messages based on direct product use features and benefits. You might say the contrast could be summed up as “Telling versus Selling.”

Can documentaries actually convert customers or make paid promotion more effective with a halo effect? I’d love to see a study on that.

Market Drivers

The motivational model consumers use to make purchase decisions appears to be changing. One major driver is the growing culture of social responsibility (aka “causes”). Brand consumption is no longer an “I” thing, but now a badge of community consciousness. Consumers and customers feel and show others that by “participating in brands” (aka buying and using them) they’re actively making the world a better place. The emotional logic goes something like this:

“This documentary makes me feel strongly about this cause →
This brand is associated with this cause →
  (they must be providing some kind of support for it, right?) →
So by buying their brand (consistently), I can support this cause →
This makes me feel good because I am making the world a better place!”
 

Another driver of brands’ increased investment in documentaries is the ubiquitous adoption of online video by the world’s population:

  • Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks. (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report).
  • 52 percent of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo)
  • Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that’s almost an hour for every person on Earth (http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html)

Statistics supporting web video as a dominant medium go on ad infinitum.

Attributes of Successful Branded Documentaries

For the most part, it appears that filmmakers and brands agree on the common attributes of successful branded documentaries.

  • Identify and define success metrics before you begin the production—you’d be surprised at how it guides decisions throughout the production
  • Be sure that the story aligns with your brand’s positioning
  • Use real stories and real people—it’s really hard to fake real life
  • The documentary should be built on professional cinematic qualities, so don’t try to use a director who produces mostly commercials or reality-style smart phone videos
  • Focus the storyline around emotional engagement (a kind of stress), some facts, and a dash of humor (to relieve the stress at strategic points)
  • Make it personal to the masses (present the topic in a way a great number of people can relate to)
  • Before you begin, implement a content marketing strategy for roll-out across an integrated campaign
  • PICK YOUR BATTLES – branded documentary is a BIG leap of faith for most brands and clients
  • Focus on the issues and the people who are impacted by them, not the brand

Contact GroPartners Consulting for more information on how to make branded documentaries work for your organization.

GroPartners Consulting

Peer-to-Peer Power: Low-hanging fruit for high-powered results

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by French On Brand in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Employee collaboration, Employee engagement, Employee recognition, Engagement strategies, marketing branding, marketing strategy, operationalization, P2P, P2P Power, Peer-to-peer, Peer2Peer, strategic alignment, track ROI, what is brand strategy?

P2P ROI Infographic

P2P ROI Infographic

In attempts to replicate top performers’ results among
their peers, many organizations instinctively look to traditional
methods. Additional training and messaging, managing toward strategic goals, internal promotions, compensation incentives, and research lead the list. But today forward-thinking organizations are finding success with technology-driven peer-to-peer (P2P) employee collaboration strategies.

P2P collaboration can galvanize employee engagement efforts
to a point of measurable return on investment (ROI). Much like
social media’s effect on consumerism, peer-to-peer collaboration among employees is empowered by new technologies and efficiencies that can take employee engagement to a whole new level — including bottom line results. At this new level there is a “P2P Effect” that takes on its own momentum. With it, an organization can improve business performance in targeted areas and clearly track it to ROI.

Read the full story on how “The P2P Effect” can deliver surprising business results. Download GroPartners’ informative white paper, “Peer-To-Peer Power: Harnessing the P2P Effect for Improved ROI.”

 

GroPartners Consulting

Recent Posts

  • Instantly Align Stakeholders with Edutainment
  • Extreme Branded Entertainment
  • Color Creatively Inside the DOL Rule
  • ‘Edutainment’ is the New Financial Marketing
  • Cause-Driven Business: Galvanizing the Value Chain

Archives

  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • May 2016
  • October 2015
  • August 2015
  • May 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • August 2014
  • June 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • February 2012
  • April 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010

Categories

  • Alignment
  • Branding
  • Financial Literacy
  • Measurement
  • Messaging
  • Social Media and Branding
  • Strategy

Blogroll

  • Follow me on Twitter!

Supporting sites

  • Follow me on Twitter!
  • GroPartners Consulting

Twitter link

Follow me on Twitter!

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • French On Brand
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • French On Brand
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...