Mobile handsets in social media

In case you missed it this week, we'd just like to point you in the direction of Marketing magazine, pages 22 and 23...

This week's issue of Marketing, being read excitedly over lunch by @claire_foss

...where you'll find a comprehensive look at how the top 10 mobile handsets are doing in social media, produced by Yomego. We've scored each of the handsets using our proprietary SMR system and seen who comes out on top and why - and the answers might surprise you.

If you want to take a look online, head over here for more - and if you want more information on any of this, just get in touch and we'll be happy to help.

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@yomegosocial

#AndTheWinnerIsNot

BrewDog’s Twitter bio states it is a brand which pushes limits and challenges conventions with award winning craft beer. Unfortunately it didn’t add another award to its shelf at the 2012 BII Scotland Annual Awards, held in Glasgow on Sunday 6th May. 

The BrewDog team arrived for the night with high expectations. This was helped along by the fact they were sat at the same table as a number of judges, who might have let it slip that they were set to win the ‘Bar Operator of the Year Award’. It was then that things took an interesting twist.

“The winner is…not BrewDog”. Despite being etched on the award, another party was named as winner of the ‘Bar Operator of the Year’, much to the surprise and uproar of BrewDog. The winner, Behind The Wall, based in Falkirk, then refused to accept the award as it didn’t bear its name.

The controversy began with a Diageo executive, who remains anonymous at the moment, as he threatened to pull any future sponsorship of the event if BrewDog was announced a winner. These slightly childish tactics, mixed with the global reach of social media, ensured the story went viral. Manifest London, BrewDog’s PR team, clearly recognised the potential. Camilla Brown, an account manager, took to Twitter to look for a photographer to shoot at BrewDog Camden, undoubtedly producing the photos we see all over the net, giving a middle finger to Diageo.

Although it is a brand known for its controversial marketing, this is one campaign that forged itself, with a little helping hand from Diageo. The end result was a worldwide trending campaign, generating more than 1,500 tweets of the #andthewinnerisnot hashtag in 24 hours.

Diageo has since apologised, although the immediate sharing on social, partnered with the virality of the campaign means that the story has been seen around the world. BrewDog’s grasp of the PR potential ensured that its side of the story led the coverage, attracting comments from around the world, even as far as Chile.

Did Diageo feel it had to respond to the controversy due to the global impact via social? Would it have issued a response had the story not gone viral? One thing is for certain, Diageo was caught red-handed trying to carve its seniority and it came out on the backfoot. 

Here’s to the underdog, the drinks are on you.

From insight executive Mark @MisterMumble

Tiger Woods and J-Lo go social

Over the past few days a golfer and a singer used social to offer fans exclusive video content like never before.

First up, Tiger Woods took to social to answer to his fans with a 14 minute Q&A video. After taking answers to questions submitted on Twitter and Facebook, the resulting video was posted to his personal website ahead of the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina.

This intuitive approach meant Tiger could choose relevant questions and plan an answer to each. This meant he could avoid any criticism following the Masters and speak directly to fans.

Although the likes of David Beckham have participated in live Q&As, this pre-recorded method could be one we see replicated a lot over the next few years. The approach received a mixed reception, with industry commentators saying the golfing star didn't reveal much of interest –  but perhaps for Tiger that level of control was the point.

The next celebrity to offer fans exclusive content was Jennifer Lopez. She became the first musician to use Twitter to premiere a new music video, as she unveiled ‘Follow The Leader’ to her 6.4m followers.

J-Lo has been promoting the event as “a part of history”, pushing the event to her 12m Facebook fans. This approach further extends Lopez’s use of social after giving Facebook fans access to ‘I’m Into You’ before its official iTunes release in March 2011.

From insight executive Mark @MisterMumble

Hanging out with footballers

As an avid believer of the power of social media in sport (cue shameless plug of my previous blog post), the news that the top two picks in last week’s NFL draft will hold G+ hangouts with selected fans of their new teams really excites me.  

The NFL is renowned for its excellent approach to social media, so it’s no surprise that it would be the first sporting body to innovate on G+. 

The Indianapolis Colts have confirmed that its eight lucky fans will be ‘hanging out’ with Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck; with the Washington Redskins fans likely to be hanging with Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. 

A great way to reward and engage with loyal fans - good job NFL!

By insight exec John-Paul @johnpaulfox

Facebook status: organs available

In its never ending pursuit of acquiring your private information, Facebook has made the next logical step from asking for your status updates – asking for your organs.

The new ability to tag yourself as an organ donor was met with mixed reception from users and and the press alike, however it definitely seemsto have done the trick. Within a matter of hours Donate Life California reported a spike of 700% in terms of new organ donors. By 5pm that figure was 1400%.

Currently Zuck intends to reach a goal of 100,000 people declared as organ donors – a number he looks more than likely to reach.

Do you heart Facebook?

By account manager Sam @cooltweetbro

Lose pounds of advertising budget with this one weird old trick

Unless you’ve tampered with your browser or carefully nurtured a blind spot to the right of your peripheral vision, you’ve most likely spotted Facebook ads offering a cure for your flabby belly, an ancient tip to turn your gnarly old teeth into a gleaming Hollywood smile or any of a host of similarly depressing acts of sorcery.

Enter Dove, which plans to bring a glimmer of light into your otherwise empty existence with a simple ad-serving app for its Australian audience.

Here’s how it works: you, the indignant Facebooker, get to pick a suitable feel-good message from a range of preselected choices, and as if by magic, your ad will be served up in one of the slots often allocated to anti-cellulite wipes and knuckle-bleaching kits. It can't guarantee direct replacement, but the ads will enter the mix aimed at the target demographic.

There’s a certain irony to the notion of a beauty brand setting up a campaign against companies that rely on women’s insecurities as their bread and butter, especially when Dove comes from the same stable as nasty synthetic boyspray Lynx, whose well-established titillation ads seem to me to be exactly the kind of thing Dove is politely requesting that we’re offended by. 

But as much as the soap-maker’s glib definition of a “real woman” brings me out in hives, in my opinion this is a smart and innovative app idea that sits well with their wider marketing. If you’re in Oz and have seen the ads already, I’d love to hear what you think.

By community manager Annie Macfarlane @anniefiddle

Social media: why so blue?

It started as an odd musing, but it's developed into a bit of a minor obsession: why are so many of the popular social media platforms blue?

Yes, blue. A sort of mid-to-bright blue to be precise. Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Yammer, Tumblr, Orkut, Foursquare, Blippy and Soundcloud  (with some orange). Even MySpace, back in the day, had a blue logo. It still uses predominantly blue, alongside black.

Once you’ve noticed this you can’t un-see it. You start to feel like it’s everwhere.

Why on earth has this happened? Why do so many of our websites look the same? Even Wikipedia’s photograph of the collective ‘share’ buttons is about 40-50 per cent blue.

Perhaps it’s down to the dictats of Pantone, the international colour people. In 2000 and 2008, they declared that blue shades were the ‘Colour of the Year’.  In 2000, we had Cerulean, a sort of sky blue, and in 2008, we had the brighter Blue Iris. 

For both colours, the Pantone people justified their choice by saying that blue was calming – in the case of Blue Iris: “Combining the stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple, Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.” 

There’s some similar guff about spiritual fulfilment for Cerulean. You may guess that I don’t buy this, and you’d be right, though there may be something in it being perceived as calming. 

But between the two years, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter were founded. Yammer started up in 2008. These were big years for social media and the officially sanctioned use of blue. Hmm.

Another theory for me at the moment is that as computer users, we are used to seeing a blue screen. Both the Microsoft Windows and Mac desktop backgrounds and logos have made use of blue for years. Does blue = trusted technology provider?

Happily, I’m not the only person to have noticed this; Quora has some questions with very good answers on the subject. There are some interesting responses, ranging from blue having no negative associations in any culture, to blue simply being a versatile background colour and one that is easy on the eye, especially when covered in text. But in short, no one really knows why it’s suddenly become so popular among a certain type of online business.

Either way. Surely we’ve reached blue market saturation?

By Steve Richards, MD (@chips11)