Foods and Drinks companies using social media video competitions
Following on from my post yesterday, here are a couple of examples of food and drinks companies using social media video competitions: Jim Beam and Doritos.
The Doritos competition invited people to create an ad to be screened during the Super Bowl. The Doritos one takes a while to load when you have a look at it. The counter hits 100 and then it starts to play.
These are two good examples of how companies are collaborating with their audiences to create content. They are mobilising online supporters of their brands. Rather than guessing and researching what their audience would like. They are inviting their audience to participate online and create content they would like to see. The companies, of course, judge the content before it is published. It is not a complete free for all!
This is likely to create good word of mouth support for your company. Now I don’t imagine for a minute these examples get a lot of publicity from your traditional agencies because they always want to make the ads! Or they want to be in charge of the content that your customers see.
In the world of social media relationships between audiences and organisations are changing. Your customers want to be able to express themselves: publishing videos, photos, rating products, commenting on blogs, twittering etc. And you can harness that to your advantage by putting them in control.
To quote Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?: ‘The more your customers take ownership of your brand, the less you will spend annoying people with your ads. I can hear the agency: You can’t hand messaging over to the people: they will be off-message. Well, tell your agency their message may be off. Your customers have always owned your brand’
Take a look at these: people are not as apathetic or as passive as you might think, especially when good prizes are on offer. And think what a return you get on these ideas compared to a standard traditional media competition which is not interactive and which does not spread virally and has practically no life to it, other than statically occupying a small space on a page!
Some other posts you'll find interesting:
- Social media video competitions support empowered audiences
- Whole Foods Market: Using Twitter to build the brand
- Companies revolt against Nielsen measurement