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July 13, 2009 Digitally Speaking, for Sex and the City and Wedding CrashersFiled under: Guest Blog, Using Ad Specialties Marketers across all industries are asking themselves the same question, “How Integrating digital elements into promotions is not an exact science, nor is it a straightforward process, however there is a methodology to deploy the best programs. Each promotional concept, incorporating digital, needs to be approached from a unique angle with consideration of the product, the audience and the end goal. For example, when our team was creating promotions to market the Sex and the City movie, we thought of a partnership with Mercedes. It was the perfect pairing to highlight the upscale feeling of New York City and bringing people into NY Fashion Week.
Similarly, the Budweiser and Wedding Crashers promotional program ‘Trailer Crashers’ was extremely successful because the concept of ‘crashing the trailer’ allowed consumers to participate in the key concept of the lead characters of the film by interacting with the property.
Good luck with your marketing efforts and feel free to post a comment now about your experience with the digital marketing world. - Gordon Gordon Paddison is the founder and principal of Stradella Road, a consultancy providing marketing strategies for brand and entertainment companies, and he is the keynote speaker at this year’s ASI Power Summit. Gordon will share his best practices and industry insights on how to leverage new media for your marketing promotions. He has experience marketing over 200 movie titles, including The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Wedding Crashers and Sex and the City. 5 CommentsLeave a Comment |
can I capitalize on social media and actually integrate it into my marketing so it works?”
Nice use of technology and promotional items.
“How can I capitalize on social media and actually integrate it into my marketing so it works?”
First – Kudos to both of those microsites Gordon! They had a wonderful feel and user experience, but I don’t think I would classify them as Social Media websites. They do immerse the user in the experience and allow you to email another user, but that seems to be where the interaction stops.
Personally, I view social media sites and SM marketing as a medium that facilitates a conversation or relationship. Perhaps if you allowed users to vote on their favorite wedding crasher redo or post and comment on other peoples fashion week/sex in the city experiences then I would feel that those are better examples of utilizing social media websites for marketing.
There are many ways to engage a visitor w/ social media and effectively market to them it really requires, as Gordon says, a good knowledge of your audience and an awareness of the social / communication triggers that will make them interact with your medium and one another. If you capitalize on that interaction you end up giving them a platform that they simply must repeatedly check to see responses. In a way its validation that the user has a bit of knowledge, an experience, has contributed to something greater than them, or simply has lots of “Friends.”
I look fwd to a discussion of Social Media at ASI’s Power Summit.
Cheers,
Jake Krolick
Jake, good catch, the specific Sex and the City example was leveraged by additional campaign elements for social media action which we can discuss at the program. Additionally these executions are only specific promotional components of the broader campaign and were developed specifically to support our partner promotional programs and their business objectives.
The Wedding Crashers program is a better social example as it leveraged a high level of social interaction through consumers embedding the trailers into their social profiles and forwarding to friends and family. There were over 250,000 consumers that created ‘crashed’ trailers, which generated over 3M views. This showed a very high level of user engagement which we feel was reflected at the box office.
gordon
Gordon – Thank-you for the quick response – I love digital marketing and this discussion of social media marketing will be stirring up conversation for years to come. I agree completely with the idea that each promotional concept, in this case digital, needs to be approached from a unique angle that considers the product, the audience and the end goal.
I found it interesting that you went w/ Mercedes as the connection to Sex and the City. You nailed the feel of NYC and the spirit of Sex and the City on that site. I’d be curious to see how much of a boost in traffic and sales Mercedes saw from that collaboration.
The Budweiser connection w/ Wedding Crashers was splendid and I’m not surprised by your impressive numbers. Personally, I understand what you’re doing, but I still feel that even though the ‘crashed’ trailers were forwarded and embedded all over cyberspace and social network profiles that it still doesn’t qualify the campaign as a social media campaign as much as a well executed viral campaign.
In my humble opinion, social media marketing offers the user a chance to step into the arena of Sex and the City and Wedding Crashers in a way that they may have never been able to before. You definitely brought them into the ‘experience’ of Wedding Crashers. However, when I made a ‘crashed trailer’ I wanted to connect with the others who made trailers by seeing what they had done.
The ability to connect with people and share thoughts back and forth across a computer screen can remove the issues of class, race, gender and sometimes level the playing field. It can allow people to find common ground on a topic that they all love – whether that topic is a movie, a product, a place – everyone has something to contribute and the more that they contribute, the more room for relationships to form. As these relationships form a need to “repeatedly visit” grows and ultimately trust is formed. With that trust comes the ability to motivate decisions and ultimately stimulate purchases. Social Media Marketing creates its own ever-changing, always updated testimonial – all the marketer has to do is create a place for interaction to happen and then monitor the exchanges and tweak as necessary.
As we move towards a new era in digital marketing it will be interesting to see marketing that creates platforms based on common interests and pulls groups of people together, giving them a place to interact, and allowing them to share their experiences. Perhaps when Wedding Crashers 2 hits the big screen its campaign will allow all the fans out there to upload the crashed videos of themselves with a thumbs up or thumbs down rating on these posts as well as on the movie and as an oppertunity for others to post comments.
Gordon thanks again for listening to my comments. I think that bringing a talented marketer like yourself in to speak w/ our industry is exciting and extremely valuable. This 2009 Power Summit should be a unique and rewarding experience for all.
Sincerely,
Jake
Social media is as simple as one fingertip yearning to reach another: “ET phone home.”
Spans continents, ideologies, prejudices.
-Susanne