brand management Archives

October 12, 2012 By Brandsplat Leave a Comment

Five Things You Might Have Missed

Stop scrolling and searching and endlessly reading in hopes of finding the best and most fascinating brand management, digital engagement and social media marketing stories! We’ve collected a fierce fivesome just for you. We call it the Five Things You Might Have Missed blog.

1.) A Party We Can Get Behind: If you find both the Dems and Repubs more than just a little disappointing this election season, may we suggest joining the Pizza Party? Pizza Hut has thrown down a cheesy gauntlet and has promised a lifetime of free pizza to the brave soul who asks the candidates a pizza-themed question during next week’s town hall debate at Hofstra University. The question is simple — sausage or pepperoni? — but the stunt is awesome. Pizza Hut has also taken its #PizzaParty to Twitter and has loads of special offers for election night.

2.) Contests Win: If you’re toying with playing games and having a contest or giveaway with your social media following, we say, “Go for it!” A new and inspiring infographic from ShortStack that you might have missed finds that contests are the clear winner when it comes to engaging fans. Entitled Do You Know the Best Way to Engage Your Users?, the study claims that 40 percent of Facebook page administrators say that contests and sweepstakes work the best, followed by photos (27 percent) and wall topics (24 percent).

3.) Powered by Twitter: Mercedes Benz is letting Twitter users take the wheel and decide the ending of its new TV spots currently airing in the U.K. To promote the new A-Class vehicles to younger drivers, Mercedes came up with the #YOUDRIVE hashtag which Twitter followers used to voice their opinion about how the brand’s new action-packed commercial should end.

4.) Failed by Twitter: We are big fans of Twitter marketing in these pages, but we admit sometimes certain brands should just avoid the channel altogether. The good folks over at The Consumerist have come up with a great list of brands who’ve belly-flopped on Twitter that reinforces this notion. It’s filled with funny and cringe-worthy, “Oh no they didn’t!”-type of tweets we’ve come to expect from brands that need to be a little bit more careful with who they let drive the Twitter bus.

5.) Whatcha Waiting For?: Perhaps you missed it last week. Maybe you’re just dragging your feet. But whatever the case, we beg of you to go right now and make a new company page for your business on LinkedIn! Not just for the big boys anymore, the new company pages look great, are incredibly easy to use and a fantastic social media marketing tool.

August 21, 2012 By Brandsplat Leave a Comment

Progressive PR Problems and the Blogger Who Caused Them

Like so many dissatisfied customers, Matt Fisher took to blogging to air his problems with auto insurance company Progressive last Monday. Yet what has transpired over the last seven days has been a truly unique study in online brand management.

Just over a week ago, Fisher, a comedian by trade, published a blog entitled My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer in Court. Fisher might make his living telling jokes, but based on that title, the subject on Fisher’s chest was no laughing matter. Back in June 2010, Fisher’s sister was killed in a car accident in Baltimore when, according to the blog post, the other driver ran a red light and crashed into his sister’s car. For the last two years, Fisher and his family have battled to get the financial settlement they say Progressive owed his sister. Progressive said they refused to pay out the policy because they didn’t have evidence the accident wasn’t her fault — and even paid the legal representation for the other driver.

Tired of courtroom back and forth, Fisher blogged and opened a branding and PR nightmare. The company’s Facebook page was flooded by angry customers and the television media was quick to side with the Fishers, too. Progressive finally caved and reached an undisclosed financial settlement with the family after the social media backlash late on Thursday.

But some wonder if the damage can be undone. As of yesterday morning, The Wall Street Journal reported that some 1,000 Twitter users and Progressive customers claim to have dumped the insurance company based on Fisher’s story. Social media, while certainly amusing, is no joke and Progressive has learned this the hard way. Fisher’s blog and the subsequent social media outrage have made this story stay around and even gain steam, regardless of the settlement. The smiley, happy veneer of spokeswoman Flo suddenly seems hollow and a brand that promises to protect its customers appears untrustworthy. These are big problems for Progressive that a few tweets and press releases might not fix right away.

July 26, 2012 By Brandsplat Leave a Comment

Ambush Marketing Goes for the Gold

While the rest of the world will be watching to see which country brings home the most medals, brand management experts will be tuning into the Olympics for a different kind of game. Beneath the glitz and pageantry surrounding the global sporting spectacular, a branding tug of war is brewing. A handful of companies that aren’t official Olympic sponsors but are using the event to pimp their products are ticking off the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC, in turn, is doing everything in its power to keep non-sponsors away from Olympic marketing gold.

The Olympic Games in London might hold the distinction for bringing ambush marketing into the spotlight. Most notably, Nike, who isn’t an Olympic sponsor, has turned up its nose at the IOC and gone ahead with a commercial entitled “Find Your Greatness.” The spot references “bringing home the glory” without infringing directly on the IOC’s strict set of guidelines.

So what words will get the IOC all over your brand like white on rice? According to New Statesman, any combination of the following will put you in hot water: “games,” “Two Thousand and Twelve,” “2012” and “twenty twelve,” along with “gold,” “silver,” “bronze,” “London,” “medals,” “sponsor” and “summer.”

The IOC considers this brand infringement and will unleash its very large and powerful legal team to shut such ambush marketing efforts down. There’s no word on how the Olympics and their marketing police, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, feel about Nike’s commercial. Other brands, including the 1995 Cafe Olympic, have not been so lucky. The IOC threatened to shut the small, family-owned diner down if they did not change its name or logo. Sounds extreme, no? There are billions of dollars to be made at the Olympics and as technology progresses, the IOC has more resources to police marketing efforts. For the first time ever, the IOC has enlisted the help of Twitter monitors to comb the social media in search of brands posting unauthorized threads about the summer games. With the endless resources and big dollars behind it, the IOC looks to have a big advantage in the ambush marketing wars.

But don’t count small, spunky brands out. Ambush marketing is garnering press from around the web including the New York Times. We think this is one game that’s just beginning — and it’s too early to crown a winner just yet.

June 20, 2012 By Brandsplat Leave a Comment

Adidas Shackle Shoe: Stylish Sneaker or Slavery Shout Out?

Nothing shows a company’s brand management prowess better than a good, old-fashioned controversy. Over the past few months, big-time brands have used social media and online marketing to put out major media fires. This week, shoemaker and apparel giant Adidas extinguished a blaze set by a new shoe — after the public outcry that the footwear was reminiscent of slavery shackles — by pulling the product off the market. But was this a politically correct move to keep consumers happy, a savvy public relations-created controversy to get the line of shoes more press or a little bit of both?

Fashion designer Jeremy Scott is known for being cutting edge and a little bit kooky. His designs are often thought of as cartoonish, bold and whimsical. But rarely is his work thought of as polarizing or racially charged. That all changed on Monday when Adidas announced it was pulling a shoe Scott designed off the market. The JS Roundhouse Mid, as they were called, were a pair of Adidas hightops which featured a pair of plastic cuffs and chains.

A Twitter outrage quickly arose after the shoe’s introduction, with many calling the sneakers “slavery shoes.” The shoes were soon the hot topic among fashion bloggers and political bloggers alike, one of which decried the shoes as “a product of rappers glamorizing criminal behavior & prison for years.” The stink arose when Adidas posted a picture of the shoes on the brand’s Facebook page featuring the caption, “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?” After hundreds of complaints, Adidas folded and announced it was taking the shoe off the market.

But the company stood by Scott and his creativity, saying in a statement, “the design of the JS Roundhouse Mid is nothing more than the designer Jeremy Scott’s outrageous and unique take on fashion and has nothing to do with slavery.” After all, Scott’s other designs for the brand featured shoes with a stuffed gorilla and silver wings. Scott himself says the shackle shoes were inspired by ’80s toy My Pet Monster.

Many in fashion have poo-pooed the whole controversy, while marketing peeps are rightfully asking when the last time was that anything by Adidas generated so much publicity. But readers, what do you think? Are the shackle shoes racist or just really great for PR? Sound off below!

June 18, 2012 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

Brandsplat Report-Penguin Update, LoveIt and BaseCamp Upgrade

Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on the Penguin Update, LoveIt and the BaseCamp Upgrade. Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

June 13, 2012 By Brandsplat Leave a Comment

Apple is Still the Master of Splashy, Buzzed-about Press Events

Since the passing of Steve Jobs a little over eight months ago, the marketing world has held its breath in anticipation. Nobody did brand management like Jobs, and it’s safe to say that we were all wondering if Apple still had “it.” Jobs and his team had a particularly uncanny ability to turn a little press conference into a highly-anticipated, rock-concert type of event. This week marked Apple’s first Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) since Jobs’ death, and it’s safe to say that Apple can still throw one hell of a press event.

Apple put big smiles on its developers faces on Monday when it announced a total refresh to its complete line of notebooks. Every Mac laptop is getting a makeover, new software and, of course, a higher price tag. The Next Generation Notebook is the one totally new product Apple announced at the WWDC. Described as a mash-up of the MacBookPro and MacBookAir, this new notebook will be a must-have for brand enthusiasts and graphics pros — or at least those who are willing to shell out the $2,199 to make it happen. Other newsworthy items included the announcement of Mountain Lion, the new OS6, Siri coming to iPad and Apple’s foray into digital mapping (a la Google Maps). Naturally, the tech elite griped about Apple not announcing other newsworthy items from the brand (Apple TV, for example) and to non-computer types, the whole affair is a yawn-inducing one, indeed.

But none of that is really the point. Even without the savvy and brilliant marketing moxie of Steve Jobs behind the brand, Apple continues to fascinate. No other company could live stream its press conference and have thousands of viewers tune it. Apple then uses digital engagement (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to keep the buzz going. Consumers, journalists and bloggers alike watch this stuff like they watch a sporting event. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve drunk the Apple Kool-Aid, it just can’t be denied that this is a company that knows exactly what its following wants.

March 7, 2012 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

Brandsplat Report-FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips and Pinterest Hate

Brandsplat Report-FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips, Pinterest Hate from Enzo Cesario on Vimeo.

Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips and Tricks from Google WebMaster and Pinterest Hate. Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

February 13, 2012 By Dawn Walnoha Leave a Comment

Brandsplat Report-Chronicle Viral Video, Specialized Blogs and Broderick’s Super Bowl Ad

Brandsplat Report-Chronicle Video, Specialty Blogs, SuperBowl Ad from Enzo Cesario on Vimeo.

Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on the Chronicle Viral Video, Specialty Blogs and Super Bowl Ads. Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

Brandsplat Report-Penguin Update, LoveIt and BaseCamp Upgrade

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Apple is Still the Master of Splashy, Buzzed-about Press Events

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Brandsplat Report-FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips and Pinterest Hate

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Brandsplat Report-Chronicle Viral Video, Specialized Blogs and Broderick’s Super Bowl Ad

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