Heineken is winning the digital war for eyeballs, engaged consumers and sales, according to think tank L2.
Social media is evolving, and in order to keep up, brands must work to stay one step ahead of their competition. Heineken has done this so successfully, their biggest competition on YouTube has less than one half of Heineken’s numbers. In addition to a thriving YouTube community, the brand has also claimed the most Facebook fans with the most engagement and the most Twitter followers. Heineken also controls 60% of the organic searches on Google.
Part of their success has to do with a massively upgraded website, allowing the brand to capture data and tailor user accounts based on personal preference. This is big data management and manipulation at it’s finest. Brands have to choose their social media channels carefully, and Heineken has done an amazing job.
Find the rest of the case study and details about Heineken’s standing among other beer brands at L2.
The world stood still and watched with horror as 15 year old Pakistani education activist, Malaya Yousafzai, was rushed to a British hospital after an assassination attempt by the Taliban.
What does this have to do with social media?
Malaya’s experience was a shot heard ’round the world and was one of the catalysts for a documentary called Girl Rising. The 100-minute film showcases 9 girls’ stories, from 9 different countries and their struggles just to get an education. When the people behind Girl Rising started to look at ways in which to market the film, they went directly to the grass roots. There was no way they would be able to compete with the budgets Hollywood documentaries had at their disposal. Producers chose to circumvent the traditional route of theatre distribution and rely entirely on social media tools to build a community and spread their message. As of March 3, 2013, Girl Rising has more than 245,000 fans on Facebook, more than 32,000 tickets pre-reserved and 500 screenings have been requested nationwide.
This kind of distribution and promotion–the Hollywood 2.0 route–is ground-breaking for smaller projects.
For more details, see Daily Beast’s coverage on the filmmakers, the movie, and their marketing efforts. The official trailer is available here.
One of the largest airlines in the world, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, is also considered one of the best in converting “Likes” into paying customers. Part of their marketing success is their willingness to take bold yet calculated risks. They are able to do this because they understand the customer buying journey. The touch points along the journey a lead or existing customer takes as they experience the KLM brand and then, how KLM works to improve each touch point along the path.
They began in social media the summer of 2009. Since then, they had a few failures along with great successes. One of their more controversial and successful campaigns is their Meet and Seat initiative. See below video. It’s a way for you to see who you may be sitting next to days before you board the plane.
Seven Social Media Campaigns Documented
To read the case studies of each campaign, go to their Facebook Page and click our social journey. They provide details about each campaign and insight into what made each one successful. They also did a 4 part series about their social media strategy. Part 3 of the series talks about some of the campaigns. Skip 1, 2, and 4. Weak on substance and depth. Not worth your time to read unless you are new to social media.
Yahoo! Movies, a division of Yahoo! wanted to get a bigger piece of the multi-billion dollar movie going pie by the summer of 2012 through their Facebook page. Their goal is to become the source for movie goers who love to research, be in the “know,” get VIP passes to early showings, and communicate with other movie aficionados.
They get 24 million visitors on their main website but lack that kind of traffic on Facebook where they see untapped potential to grow their brand.
Joint Venture
Their campaign strategy was a joint effort with their offline partner, Regal Cinemas, who put up banners in theaters promoting the Yahoo! brand along with a QR code pointing to an offer most movie goers couldn’t refuse – free popcorn. People who did a social check-in via their Smart phones and liked the page got the popcorn. Offer applied online also. They would just redeem the popcorn when they arrived at the theater.
The Results From Campaign
1.2 million new Likes on their Facebook page
200,000 Check-ins
1.4 Million minutes spent on Yahoo! Movies Website
$1,000,000 of popcorn given away
Let’s Test Their Million Dollar Spend
They say their long-term goal is not about the “liking” it’s about building an audience of repeat visitors who will engage and make Yahoo! Movies their online source.
The great part about case studies like this is that you and I can take a peek behind the curtain and see if this is hype or really working. Below are the objectives/goals they hope to achieve now since the campaign began a few months ago. I encourage you to go to their Facebook page and see if the goals below are being lived out.
How Yahoo! Measured Success
Target a Season – focus on summer movie season
Hit Fans From All Angles – Reach fans online and offline
Relevant – Reward movie goers and capture “Likes” in return for continued activity on their Facebook page
Connect More – Interact with more movie fans via their website and Facebook page
Become The Movie Source – provide great content to keep fans coming back to their page regularly
My Take
I would question their last two goals – connecting and becoming the source. Out of the 2.15 million fans, they are not averaging the comments and interaction I would expect to consider this successful. It’s about amazing content and some of their biggest days of activity are based on movie blockbuster debuts or contests/giveaways they may be doing in a certain month. Their ratio of commenting back to people is very low and not that of a Sage archetype or the “in the know” type of a person I would expect running the page.
To view the full case study on SlideShare - go here. What do your think? Was it successful?
This case study features 4 examples of long form branded video content that drove millions of additional dollars and tens of millions of views using long-form copy in place of the typical 30-90 second spots.
What these videos prove is that people will make the time for well crafted stories that intersect with the narrative of their personal story. It is true that consumers are getting more savvy about the “noise” online by deleting, skipping, or unsubscribing from your site faster than ever but for valid reasons.
Most of the content online is not worth their time. Studies show that if you can capture their imagination and interest within the first 15 seconds of a video they will stay as long as you keep enriching them throughout the video.
Three of the four videos (HBO, Nike, KONY) in this case study are long. The forth, featured below, Chipotle, is just over two minutes but considered long because it’s a TV commercial. It was originally to air at the 2012 Super Bowl. Risking it would have to be shortened to 30 seconds due to budget concerns, Chipotle opted to preserve the full story and air it during the 2012 Grammy Awards. It ended up being so impactful it upstaged some of the Grammy performances that night.
ShipServ, a B2B e-commerce marketplace for the maritime shipping industry, sells to an industry that is not social media savvy and highly skeptical of, in their minds, an unproven way of doing business. ShipServ’s customer is a shipping supplier. To make money, those suppliers must pay ShipServ to list their offerings on the site.
The Video Campaign
They created a low tech animated video, “ShipServ Pages: The Movie” using Lego characters and even had a hero/star of the movie, Rex, depicting a typical owner operator of a shipping supply shop. Then posted it on their social channels, website and had their sales people send out emails to their leads with a link to the video. The goal was a low pressure approach to educate and entertain prospects and move them to try their online marketplace. Their CMO, John Watton reported that is was, “Highly successful. The innovation is really in how we’ve integrated it with our other social media and content marketing efforts.”
Now that you’ve got your YouTube video uploaded and live, it’s time to learn more about who’s watching your video, where they’re coming from, and what parts of your video they’re most interested in.
Currently, YouTube referrals represent more than 45% of all the referrals to the Dynomighty site. Company executives used to see even higher percentages prior to ramping up other marketing campaigns… but it still out-weighs everything else.
More importantly, the percentage of referrals from YouTube convert to a sale at around 50% – other site referrals typically convert at around 10%.
This shows that the depth of story telling in a video is far more effective towards making a sale and leads to a better conversion rate.
For the curious among you, know that Tayto crisps come in the following mouth watering flavours: Cheese & Onion, Salt & Vinegar, Smokey Bacon, Ready Salted, Prawn Cocktail (!), and Tex Mex.
One of the largest airlines in the world, 
Currently, YouTube referrals represent more than 45% of all the referrals to the Dynomighty site. Company executives used to see even higher percentages prior to ramping up other marketing campaigns… but it still out-weighs everything else.
