Anna Bradshaw, Account Director at BEcause Australia

Anna Bradshaw, Account Director at our Sydney based office, takes a look at one of Australia’s top integrated campaigns of the moment, and applauds the unsung heroes behind the campaign’s execution.

Going into any branch of Coles, Woolies or your local convenience store in recent weeks, you couldn’t help but notice the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, featuring different first names printed on bottles of Coca-Cola.

In the first phase of the campaign which launched in the Autumn, Australians could pick up a personalised bottle, or buy a can and get it personalised at one of 18 Westfield shopping centres.  Widely supported by out of home and social media, the campaign quickly captured the imagination of local consumers.  A second phase had over 30,000 fans voting on the next 50 names to release, results were announced in mid-December, and those winning names have already been on shelves throughout this month.

At first, like many others, I was struck by the genius of such a simple idea. It taps wonderfully into the brands iconic nature and people’s love of personalisation. In doing so, it invigorates the brand keeping it top of mind whilst also being a strong sales driver which doesn’t erode value.

But then I went on to thinking that though this is a simple idea – as is all too often the case with integrated brand experiences – making them happen isn’t all that simple.

The unsung heroes of this campaign are the print, production, logistics and supply chain departments. A great idea poorly executed, goes back to being a weak idea – the devil is in the detail. This campaign would fall flat if the labels were a significantly different quality to that of the real thing, or the time lag between the names being decided upon and them appearing in-store was too great, or if the different names weren’t evenly distributed across the country.

This is a truly integrated campaign which works not only across different consumer touch-points, but also across different client and agency disciplines.

It’s a lesson for all brand teams.  If ever you find yourself thinking “great idea, but I’m not sure we’d get our Operations team on board to make it happen”, be willing to challenge that mindset.

Good agencies can certainly deliver great integrated ideas.  But excellence in integrated delivery can’t come solely from them.  The key is getting all areas of your company working in tandem if you want your marketing to fizz and not fall flat.

In recent years, the concept of shopper marketing has surged in popularity.  Of course, in-store marketing has always been important, but shopper marketing is much more than just packaging, display and promotions.

It’s about everything brands can do to influence shopper behaviour, from initial interest to final purchase.  In short, it’s about the whole journey, not just the final destination.

What’s driving interest in shopper marketing?

• Media fragmentation – it gets harder for brands to stand out via traditional media, so many are now investing at the final “moment of truth”.

• Economic climate – shoppers are looking for ways to save money, driving down brand and retailer loyalty.  Never has it been more critical for brands to provide strong reasons to buy.

• Own brand focus – retailers are investing heavily in their own brands, so manufacturers need to find ways to work with them for mutual benefit.

• Wealth of data – loyalty cards and EPOS data are opening up more opportunities for brands and retailers to analyse and predict shopper behaviour.

Principles of effective shopper marketing

There are many tactical elements that make up effective shopper marketing strategies – some of which we’ll be looking at in future posts.  Ultimately, though, it’s important to follow a few guiding principles for success in this field:

1. Adopt a different mindset

Shoppers are very different to consumers.  The mindset and motivation of someone out shopping is poles apart from someone watching, listening or reading ads at home.  Shopper marketing is about focusing on the in-store experience first, and using clever integrated marketing ideas to create touchpoints which seamlessly build to that final experience.

2. Focus on positive interruption

Shopping can range from social excursions to task-driven outings.  Understanding different mentalities, group dynamics, dwell times and environmental factors for each is vital if brands are to connect in positive ways.  Disrupting peoples’ “auto-pilot modes” only works if brands leave shoppers feeling glad they were interrupted.

3. Understand and work with retailers

A crucial element of shopper marketing is working with key retailers to create mutually-beneficial shopping experiences.  That requires a real understanding of each retailer’s openness to new ideas, their value and relevance to individual brands, and their wider objectives or strategies.  Success is all about aligning your brand’s interests with the retailer’s category visions.

4. Deliver on the brand promise at every touchpoint

Shopper marketing is all about aligning the online, off-line and in-store brand experience.  Brands need to ensure their communications are integrated and consistent – before, during and after the store visit.  The art of shopper marketing is building understanding, desire and expectation right along the shopper journey.  But if the “moment of truth” purchase experience doesn’t fulfil those “promise” touchpoints, then it’s worthless.

Here at BEcause, we have years of experience working with brands and retailers on campaign-based in-store experiences and shopper marketing initiatives around the world.  Notably our retailer activations for Pamper’s, one of the world’s leading brands, which is still the UK’s most awarded shopper programmes  To find out how we could help you, contact Sharon Richey in London, Meredith Cranmer in Sydney, or Igor Gusev in Moscow.

Joss Davidge, Director, BEcause

Tracking trends and reacting in real-time to consumer behaviour is one of the aspects to social media campaigns that can make them so effective.  The growth in use of smart-phones and ‘check-in’ apps offers potential to extend this strategy offline by tracking how consumers are interacting with a real-world location.

But the level of insight that can be gleaned from Foursquare and Facebook Places has, until now, been fairly limited.  With check-in deals also a relatively new concept, launching and managing promotions is still quite a disjointed process, especially if it involves more than one platform.  Multiple locations mean multiple deals and venue pages, so a national campaign can become quite resource intensive and complex to manage.

This month Hootsuite may have provided an answer with the addition of Geotoko to its ever-expanding suite of social media campaign tools.

Geotoko offers brands and agencies a platform to manage campaigns across key location-based social networks including Facebook Places, Foursquare, Twitter and Gowalla.

Geotoko also addresses the need for insight and offers a more joined-up approach to campaign management with the following tools:

A promotions builder that allows check-in deals and offers to be launched simultaneously across multiple networks & multiple locations.  QR codes can also be automatically generated, opening up the promotion to an even wider audience.

An analytics dashboard that presents check-in data in a variety of ways, including check-in time / day trends, key influencers, sentiment, demographic trends and consumer feedback by location.

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So how will these tools aid experiential marketers?  Here are some examples of how we think they could be used:

1. Inform strategy

Use historical data from venue check-ins to inform sampling strategy.  For example, what day of the week do people tend to be checking-in? What time of day are they more likely to leave feedback?  Which locations are check-in hotspots?

2. Real-time feedback

Track the effectiveness of a campaign in real-time by monitoring check-ins and consumer feedback across the locations where field staff have been placed.  Trends in sentiment and product/brand/event feedback can be monitored and acted upon as the experience or sampling happens.

3. Tailor content & promotions

Location-specific online content and promotions can be created (or revised) and posted on the fly, based on consumer feedback during an event.  With the addition of the QR code generator, this content / promotion can also be attached to real-world objects and events by field staff at the location.

4. A clearer picture of success

Support results from consumer surveys and other measurement mechanics with check-in data from each location.

Until now, consideration of geo-location platforms has tended to be an ‘either/or’ choice, with Facebook understandably winning the toss in most cases due to its huge user-base.

Geotoko has just made it a lot easier for brands to launch integrated, multi-platform campaigns that can be evaluated effectively.

Sharon Richey, CEO BEcause

Last month we explored how digital and social media can amplify an experience by extending reach, enabling conversation and encouraging content sharing.  But despite the technological benefits to digital integration, there are still certain aspects of a brand experience that work better in the real-world.

In part two of our blog, we outline why face-to-face conversation and interaction are still key to a successful experiential campaign.

1. Body language

Despite video chat becoming more prevalent, when it comes to reading people’s responses there is still no substitute for a good old face-to-face chinwag.  A consumer’s body language will paint a thousand words when they are presented with a product sample, a visual or a new experience.   Brand ambassadors can also use open and welcoming body language when speaking to participants, which helps them to relax, enjoy the experience and form a positive impression of the brand.

Innocent Smoothies

2. Eye contact

We all feel much more at home speaking to an actual person in the flesh, rather than a generic company profile or call centre rep.  This is why many brands have applied the personal touch to their social media presence.  But use of eye contact, a key part of developing trust, will always work better in a real-world environment.

3. Tangibility

As each generation learns digital skills from an increasingly early age, we are all getting comfortable with the ‘virtual’ world of the web.  But despite this we are still very much hard-wired to think about our immediate surroundings as much more ‘true’ and ‘believable’ (hence the term ‘real-world’!).  Something that is more tangible is likely to be more memorable and will inevitably generate a longer-lasting impact (albeit one that is then shared virtually!).

Eurostar High Speed Theatre

4. Multi-sensory

Although the web can deliver a sensory experience to some extent by combining visual and audio content, a digital experience will rarely engage with a person’s full range of senses.  The combination of smell, touch & taste is often critical to shaping a consumer’s positive impressions of a product, especially for food and beverage brands.

5. Trial

It is true that the web can potentially extend reach of sampling activity, but if a physical product is involved it will still need to be delivered by post.  The brand will have no control over the context of the product trial and will be reliant on the good nature of the consumer to respond with their opinion without prompting.  Face-to-face sampling is still a much more robust way of delivering a product in a controlled environment and enabling the field staff to instantly record responses from consumers.

A real-world event will deliver a tangible, multi-sensory experience that consumers are likely to remember for longer.  But to fully capitalise on the value of that positive impact, it is important to ensure there is plenty of opportunity for consumers to talk about and share online what they have just experienced.   This is why we believe that a truly memorable experience will involve a combination of digital, social media and experiential approaches that work in unison, resulting in a campaign that that is more than the sum of its parts.

Click here if you missed our previous blog on 5 elements of brand experience that work better online.

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Joss Davidge, Business Director, BEcause

A great brand experience will work across multiple platforms integrating experiential, digital and social media to create something special that people will want to talk about and share.  The key to an effective multi-channel campaign is in understanding the possibilities and limitations of each platform.

There are certain rules of conversation marketing that apply universally, but there are also aspects to online conversations that cannot be recreated in the real-world and vice versa.  In Part I of our two part blog we explore how digital and social media can amplify a real-world experience in ways that offline activation alone won’t deliver.

1. Enhanced targeting

Social media has enabled people to build expansive communities based around their passions and lifestyles.  Search and monitoring tools make it easy to pinpoint topics of conversation (including brand-specific ones) and connect with people based on their interests.  Similarly the granular level of user data on offer through the Facebook ad platform allows for highly targeted advertising and recruitment to brand pages of only the most relevant consumers.

2. Buzz-building and recruitment

Seeding ‘teaser’ content and conversation across online channels will help build anticipation for an event, developing a buzz that can be tracked and channelled in way that offline conversation can’t. Digital tools such as e-tickets and mobile short codes will help drive recruitment and data capture, with social apps like Facebook events enabling consumers to instantly extend the invitation to their friend networks.  In addition to traditional digital channels like email, social media now offers even more scope for brands to stay in regular touch with consumers in the lead up to an event, maintaining interest and improving footfall on the day.

3. Extended reach

A brand experience can now reach hundreds or thousands more online without being restricted by geographical or regional boundaries.  The cleverest campaigns will invite consumers to take part in an experience without necessarily requiring physical attendance.  Social media also enables those who physically attend to interact with online participants, creating a shared experience that extends far beyond the location, but is still driven by real-world content.

4. Content sharing

Exciting and immersive real-world experiences provide the perfect fuel for content-hungry social networks.  Thanks to the popularity of smart-phones and social apps, word-of-mouth can now spread across these networks at lightening pace.

5. Campaign longevity

What goes online will most likely stay online and, if popular, consumer content will continue to spark conversation around the brand long after the initial event has passed.  Recruiting participants to the brand’s social profiles will then enable sustained and long-term interaction with fan communities, meaning less reliance on awareness campaigns to reach target audiences in the future.

Digital and social media platforms allow a brand experience to reach and engage with far more consumers, overcoming the geographical limitations of a real-world event.  But although online conversation has the potential to be far-reaching, there are still benefits to face-to-face interaction with consumers that online activation won’t replace.   Check back in September for Part II – ‘5 elements of a brand experience that work better in the real world’.

Sharon Richey, CEO, BEcause

Events for bloggers can be a highly effective way for brands to identify and connect with influential online advocates.  But understanding what makes bloggers tick – and equally, what makes them sick – is crucial for success.   We look at how to kick start the right kinds of conversations, and create relevant, personalised blogger experiences.

Few brands these days can afford to ignore the blogosphere.  In virtually every sector and every market, bloggers abound and many of these social-savvy bloggers will hold influence over an extensive community of followers across social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Recent stats from Blogpulse indicate there are 163m blogs worldwide. Over 200,000 blog posts are created in a typical 24 hour period.

For brands looking to engage with bloggers, it’s essential to approach things carefully.  Chances are, a small number of bloggers will be hugely influential for different brands or campaigns.  Their experiences, reactions and advice can have a massive impact – good or bad – on brand fortunes.

One excellent way to kick start conversations with bloggers and build strong relationships is via live events.  Here at BEcause, we’ve created campaigns for the likes of Timberland, Eve and Perrier which have all involved getting bloggers directly involved in events.  Here are some tips for success:

1. Understand that blogger outreach is not PR

Although there are many bloggers who are journalists (or ex-journalists), many are simply people who have a passion and love to blog about it.  If a brand is inextricably linked to that passion, most bloggers will be happy to talk about that brand.  But don’t expect them to just regurgitate generic press releases.  You need to engage bloggers personally, and face-to-face interaction can be a great way to start.  Oh, and never treat bloggers as secondary citizens to journalists.  Many carry as much, or more weight with consumers these days.

2. Treat every blogger as an individual

Bloggers may fall into broad categories (eg mummy bloggers, tech bloggers, fashion bloggers etc), but that doesn’t mean they all have the same interests.  Often they have a very niche focus.  If you’re creating an event, it’s crucial to handpick blogger invitees and make individual approaches.  At best, poorly targeted invitations will just be ignored – at worst, you could find bloggers openly ridiculing an ill-thought through corporate approach.

3. Place event content above the brand

The art of a good blog event is to create conversation through experience.  Great event experiences happen when you offer people something exciting and different that they can take part in, and which taps into their passions.  When we launched female-orientated Carlsberg drink Eve last year, for example, we created fashion swapping events in Manchester and Liverpool.  National and regional fashion bloggers were invited as VIPs, and because everyone had such a positive experience, the event generated extensive buzz on blogs and social media.

4. Maintain the dialogue

Just as with any form of marketing, relationships dry up if you don’t keep the conversation flowing.  Well-conceived events can really kick-start positive relationships between brands and bloggers, but it’s important to keep finding ways to leverage those partnerships, developing long-term influential advocates.

1. Lynx -- ‘Angels Will Fall’

A firm favourite with all the team here, this extremely successful integrated campaign speaks for itself. For us, it ticks all the boxes; catchy TV ad, hugely creative experiential activity which bought the ad campaign to live, a dedicated Facebook page with over a quarter of a millions fans and celebrity endorsement in the form of Kelly Brook.

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2. Mini Countryman – ‘Mini World Record’

This award-winning campaign put a digital spin on a traditional idea.  The challenge? Break the world record for the number of people in a Mini.  The answer? Go digital. Mini placed four experiential installations in 10 UK locations where people could record a short video in a green screen booth that was then integrated into the windows of a replica Mini Countryman. The results were record-breaking with more than 10,000 virtual people being crammed inside.

3. Timberland -- ‘Trail of Heroes’

OK, we’re a bit biased on this one, as it’s one of our campaigns.  But taking location-based technology to the next level is Timberland’s latest ‘Trail of Heroes’ campaign, the first geocaching campaign to span multiple countries.  Kicking off this month with a dedicated website, consumers are encouraged to get outdoors and find a series of hidden caches in London, Paris, Milan, Brussels, Berlin and Madrid.  There are prizes for the first people to find the caches in each city, with one savvy treasure hunter crowned the overall European champion.  In addition, a new app encourages consumers to track the number of miles they travel and for every mile tracked, Timberland will plant a tree.

4. Heineken – ‘One Millionth Facebook Like’

Brand wanting to use brand experiences to amplify social media activity can learn from Heineken’s campaign to celebrate its one millionth Facebook ‘Like’. To mark the occasion, Heineken sent a ‘hug team’ out and about in Amsterdam to thank the people that drink its beer. Not only did this show the value that Heineken places on its social media presence, but it also proved that to make online activity relevant to consumers you need to turn it a real life experience.  Videos of the ‘hug team’ were used for extra online content, which of course, went viral and completed the cycle.

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5. Coca-Cola – ‘The Coca-Cola Village’

One of the most talked about campaigns, this activity is in its third year.  The Coca-Cola Village in Israel is a summer holiday destination with a twist and is designed for teenagers who are finishing school.  On arrival, visitors are given FID bracelets (Radio Frequency Identification) so they can share their holiday experiences on Facebook. Teens can put a digital ‘like’ on their choice of forty facilities in the camp that include swimming and a spa to sports and extreme activities. If they’re photographed by one of the official photographers, the RFID technology automatically tags everyone in the photo and uploads it to the relevant Facebook profiles. No postcards needed here!

Natasha Blevins, Creative Director, BEcause

There’s little doubt that sustainability is rising inexorably up corporate and consumer agendas.

For consumers, brand choices and recommendations are increasingly influenced by a company’s green and CSR credentials.  Meanwhile, more and more brands are looking for fresh and engaging ways to communicate their approach to sustainability and win over consumers’ hearts and minds.

Sustainability communications has become a key battleground for brands.  In the last 12 months, we estimate that over 50% of all briefs we’ve received have had this as a key objective.    Brands from FMCG to banking, retail to travel and utilities are all placing this at the very top of their communications agenda.

It’s all very well wanting to be seen as socially responsible.  But the way in which brands approach this is vital if their claims are to be seen as credible, authentic and persuasive.  Without the right approach, consumers will be skeptical, and brands could even end up being accused of ‘greenwashing’.

With this in mind, here are our 5 tips for effective sustainability communications:

1. Think dialogue, not monologue

Honesty, openness and authenticity are essential in telling your sustainability story.  Don’t just broadcast your aims and achievements.  Engage consumers in an honest and transparent two-way conversation – either face to face or via social media – and they’ll end up telling your story to others with real belief.

2. Take time to educate and entertain

Sustainability messages can sometimes be complex and quite ‘dry’, so you often need more than a 30 second TV slot or press ad to get your message across.  Experiential marketing is permission-based, so people choose to engage with your activity, and typically linger longer for more engaging, educational experiences.

3. Recognise the power of real people

A conversation with a passionate, engaging person is far more credible than any advertising strap-line.  By ensuring you’ve got the right people fronting your campaigns, you’ll make a far more lasting impression.

4. Practice what you preach

If you’re running a campaign to claim commitment to sustainability, make sure you walk the talk too.  Don’t do it unless you can back up your claims with tangible initiatives.  And look for ways to make experiential campaigns fully sustainable themselves by using recycled and reclaimed materials, eco-energy and carbon-offsetting.

5. Keep the conversation going

Live activations are fantastic ways to share knowledge, initiate relationships and offer immediate opportunities for consumer feedback or action – for example, signing up to a carbon cutting pledge or on-site purchase.  But face-to-face contact should just be the start of a lasting conversation via multiple on and offline channels to really change attitudes and behaviours.

If you’d like to find out how we’ve applied these principles to sustainability campaigns for a number of major brands in the last 12 months, then do contact us.

It look just 24 hours for the new iPad 2 to sell out in UK stores last week. Yet again, Apple seems to have another winner on its hands.

Of course one of the key reasons behind the success of the iPad and iPhone has been its App Store. There are now 350,000 apps for the iPhone, and around 65,000 for the iPad.

But which are the most useful apps for marketing professionals? Which can best help marketers stay abreast of latest consumer trends, insights and conversations – or help them be more productive when out and about?

We polled our guys in the office and we’ve come up with 15 useful iPad and iPhone apps for marketers, especially those involved with experiential marketing and brand experience. If you’ve got other favourites, why not let us know?

1. Hootsuite

Monitor keywords, update profiles and track stats on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare with this comprehensive social media management tool.

2. Redlaser

Versatile app for scanning QR codes to access URLs, events and other information – as well as a barcode scanner for easy price comparisons.

3. DropBox

Sync and share files online between computers, iPhones and iPads. Great for large file transfers and working in the field.

4. Flipboard

Flip through news, photos and updates in a magazine style that your friends and colleagues are sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, Flickr and Instagram.

5. Dragon Dictation

Voice-recognition app which allows you to simply talk and see your words appear in SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter and more.

6. Mashable

All the latest news and updates from the world’s largest blog on Web 2.0 and social media.

7. KeyNote

Apple’s presentation software is ideal for mobile presentations and on-the-fly amends to existing documents, plus it’s compatible with Powerpoint.

8. TheTrainline

Check times, fares, plan routes and pre-book advance train tickets throughout the UK at discounted rates

9. Zipcar

Reserve a car up to half an hour in advance for travelling to meetings or live activity. You can even use your iPhone to unlock the car instead of fishing for the key card.

10. AroundMe

Find a quick local place to grab a coffee or anything else you need whilst out and about at meetings or events.

11. Skype

A popular alternative to Apple’s own Facetime for free VOIP calling and video conferencing to others also on Skype.

12. TED

Watch videos of some of the most amazing talks by business leaders and others from around the world. Great for creative inspiration and keeping your brain engaged.

13. Shazam

An app that listens to a few bars of any song and identifies it. For those ‘What’s that song it would be perfect for that event/video/office playlist?’ moments.

14. Sky News

Headlines and top stories from around the world, presented in easy to digest text, photo and video snippets

15. Wozzon

Find out “What’s On” around you, wherever you are. Just the app to keep in tune with all the latest events and entertainment experiences.

Sharon Richey, Founder, BEcause

It’s been quite sometime since we started talking about ‘experiential’, first it was just a few specialist agencies talking about it and now it seems like the whole world has a brand experience offering. Brand experience is now fully embraced by brands and agencies alike, and as a result, the benchmark for a great brand experience has been significantly raised.

Consumers are expecting more from brands and brands are expecting agencies to be more creative with their offering. Social media and technology has played a significant part in this, but the basic principles still remain the same.  With this in mind, we give you this ‘The 7 Rules of Brand Experience’:

1. Move with the times, try new things!

Get creative, it’s the only way you’re going to entertain your consumer and hold their ever-dwindling attention span. Social platforms like FourSquare, Facebook Places and Twitter lend themselves to brand experience particularly well and it’s rare to see a campaign today that doesn’t embrace at least one of these.  Using a new platform to take a fresh approach will get people talking about your brand and make it stand out. Marks & Spencer did this particularly well when it recently teamed up with O2 to give customers location-based food and drink freebies.

2. Think like your target audience

Take the time to get to know your audience, it’ll make or break your campaign. Talking to the right person, at the right time and with the right message requires great insight. Do your homework and find out who your influencers are. Look at Eurostar’s ‘high-speed theatre experience’ at last summer’s Start Festival for a great example of giving a specific audience a hugely relevant experience.

3. Think social

Getting people talking online requires them to have something interesting to talk about, a brand experience that has gone above and beyond a single product sample in their hand. Involve, interact with and entertain your audience. Consumers are bored of one-way brand broadcasts, now they want to talk with brands. Generate positive two-way conversation online and the rewards will be endless for both parties. Just look at how Porsche thanked its million Facebook fans for their support last month.

4. Put yourself in the client’s shoes

Understand what the client wants and, most importantly, why they want it. Keep asking yourself ‘How will their brief deliver against the businesses objectives?’, ‘What will be the success measures?’  Show business acumen by putting yourself in their shoes, if it was your money what would you want in return?  Take this US-based games retailer that extended the visibility of a recent brand experience by staging it away from the usual choice of a shop into a public car park with high-volumes of footfall.

5. Get the basics right

A great brand experience is more than a big boardroom idea. Concepts that look great on paper can very quickly become ‘un-big’ in reality. You need to work with the specialists to get this right and get your idea translated into something manageable and deliverable in the real world.

6. Pick the perfect team

Knowing new stuff is important, but experience really does matter.  Fill your agency with people who are not only passionate about creating fantastic experiences for your brands, but also have the experience to efficiently deliver the program.  We have a long history creating brand experiences including our recent award-winning work for Pampers. An element of our success here is down to the selection of Brand Ambassadors – all mums chosen for their ability to relate to Pampers’ target audience.

7. Measure, measure, measure!

It’s vital to understand how to measure effectiveness, if you don’t understand the metrics you can’t plan. Planning is the beginning of the brand experience journey, without it, who knows where you’ll end up!

Do you agree with our rules?

Perhaps you have some great examples of them in action?

If so, we’d love you to share them with us.