I have been watching a lot of the Olympics and loving it.
One thing I have noticed as I watch in real time is a growing trend of brands using social network URLs instead of their own. Below are examples from Uniball and Toyota. I remember seeing another for an upcoming movie but I forgot the name and campaign.
The first example is Uniball which makes pens and pushes people to their Facebook page for more info. They do not have a copy of the commercial online (that I could find) which is the first problem. The second is that if you visit their corporate site www.uniball.com there is no mention of the ad either or the Facebook page.
The URL that is getting so much airtime is below
Facebook.com/uniball
Going to the Facebook page you can either login to connect with and become a fan of Uniball or click through to enter your information to get a free pen.
What is the metric of success here? Free pen signups? Facebook page fans?
The second is a bigger brand, Toyota, pushing people to their YouTube page Youtube.com/toyota (via @amandapey)
In this case the video page automatically starts playing the commercial. If the metric of success is eyeballs on the video, this page behavior is artificially inflating the “videos watched” number. It is also notable that you cannot embed the videos from here but only share via a YouTube link.
So what is the advertising goal of these campaigns?
What are the metrics of success?
How do you measure accountability and targeting?
I am not suggesting that sending folks to another companies domain is a bad idea in all cases, but I wonder the value of have non integrated campaigns running and potentially confusing customers. It is tough to have a sound message across all platforms, but it should be considered when people search for, interact with, and ultimately buy from your brand in so many different places.
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:10 pm
What are the chances the marketing people who make these decisions (in very stuffy, corporate offices) simply think that they will look more “hip, now, with-it and wow” if they use Facebook in the URL? In other words, pens aren't very exciting – but Facebook is – so they decide to force a brand association.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Is it tough to have a sound message across all platforms? Really? I mean, that is what their ad experts are getting paid thousands, sometimes millions to do. I agree branding continuity is paramount. To see some major brands missing this is ridiculous.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I am not sure – but will get the answer.
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
I do not know why you would not want to have a message that is congruent
across all your platforms. I do however know how hard it is to update all
the consumer touch points (web, print, text) with all the moving pieces
behind the scenes. You need branding continuity or else people get
confused.
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:47 pm
I noticed the same thing as well. It seem like they are creating a boundary between there professional and now “social” websites. Most commercials or ads now end with their twitter, Facebook or Youtube accounts that you can go to for more information.
This could be a new movement to a cheaper and possibly more effective landing page for potential consumers. Your questions at the end of the article though are still a cause for concern as it is much harder to answer them if they are hosted somewhere else.
It's great to try and be hip and cool but what's the price you pay for doing faking it till you make it?
February 25th, 2010 at 4:10 am
Commercials (especially from big brands) focus on awareness and salience–that is, no immediate, direct push to buy (e.g., an infomercial). And I have the feeling that clients don't like ending a 30 second spot with just the logo–seems like such a waste.
If you've got a shitty website, Facebook seems like a logical destination, especially if the content is at least engaging. I see it as, “for those of you that have paid enough attention to read the tiny link at the bottom of the page–go here for more information.”
It's icing on the cake, not the primary objective. That is, I'd hope Toyota isn't spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to direct people to a YouTube video.
And since when did social media have any accountability metrics?
February 25th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Great article, Eric. First time commenter, long time reader here. I think any time you get a potential customer to view ANY targeted media, it's a win in my book. In the case of advertising during the olympics, it's a double win. The people at Toyota, let's say, know the demographics of Olympics viewers when they buy ad time from NBC. Thus, not only are they getting millions of eyeballs on the TV ad, they get extra brand awareness and when people go to youtube to view something else related to what they saw on television.
On the other hand, I agree with you. The execution of both of these strategies seems a bit bumbled. If companies go to the trouble of producing additional video content for the internet to supplement their ads, it's MUCH easier to get valuable metrics for their effectiveness if it hits their own domain. So why send viewers to YouTube? The only reason I could see Toyota putting an ad on YouTube is to save bandwidth on their own server. Although usually, it's a GOOD thing to get millions of hits on your website. Maybe then YouTube would want to place ads on Toyota's site!
The Uniball case is a little different. Having people sign up for a free pen and get their valuable personal information is a smart idea. Why, however, direct someone to Facebook for this? One possible reason is ease of use. A LOT of people spend quite a bit of time on Facebook and are familiar with it. Perhaps the marketing people at Uniball thought customers wouldn’t take the time to go to their website or may forget the URL. If they pushed them to go to a Facebook page, it would make the customer do less work since they already spend most of their online time on the social networking site.
I liked Matt Daniels’ comment below mentioning if Uniball has a subpar (he used a different word) website, perhaps using the Facebook functionality is the way to go. However, it appears as though even if the customer goes to the Facebook page, they still have to go to Uniballsuperink.com for the free pen. I agree with you, Eric. This can be very confusing to people who want more information on the product or just want a free pen. They should use Facebook to supplement their ad content and have it be just another integral part of their marketing strategy.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
I legitimately believe there is a “right way” to do these experiments as long as all channels of your company are on board. Mass adoption of a social network – in this case Facebook, ensures that most are on it, but some are still not.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Accountability metrics can be and should be views, engagements, clicks, purchases, data, etc… I think that having a clear call to action is great – it just has to be congruent across properties.
February 25th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for reading Chris!
I agree that the power of affinity to videos when you pull up YouTube is great – however they all might not be Toyota videos.
Off domain metrics are collectible, but you have to bring them back into a centralized dashboard to make them meaningful and determine if they contributed to your overall goal.
Interestingly I heard from the folks behind the campaign who pointed me to yet another URL which is Uniball-na.com (Uniball North America) which has the messaging from the ad and congruent story.
All that being said it is interesting and bold of these companies to spend marketing dollars and mindshare on companies that are drafting off of the value of sending people their way.
February 28th, 2010 at 2:36 am
Long-time listener, first-time caller.
If the goal is “activation” – i.e., consumer “watches” video, then this goal is different than “drive people to our site”. Knowing how research-driven agencies can be, I have to believe higher (possibly double-digit) activation rates on Facebook and YouTube.
Remember, most consumers will learn how to use websites on sites other than those owned or managed by the brand or its agency. Consumers “know” what they'll get when they go to a familiar environment like YouTube or Facebook, resulting in higher click-through rates than the corporate site.
Lastly, I'm not sure the CTA URL needs to be the same across all messaging venues (ignoring for a moment the standard Facebook/YouTube analytics) – different URLs/toll-free numbers can give you insights beyond those available from traditional analytics in tracking interactions with creative.
And remember that the agency is usually not getting paid “millions” to place the ads, be sure not to aggregate the media spend with agency fee. It's a challenging environment and IMHO it's nice to see agencies trying different approaches beyond placing creative on their website.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:53 am
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