Posts Tagged ‘Social media’
Social media is open to all aspects of society and is subject to the same rules regarding Freedom of Speech that govern us offline. Article 100 of the Norwegian constitution states that “No person may be held liable in law for having imparted or received information, ideas or messages unless this can be justified in relation to the grounds for freedom of expression, which are the seeking of truth, the promotion of democracy and the individual’s freedom to form opinions”.
In a previous post, freelance copywriter and editor Rachel Pictor explored the relationship between individuals and the Internet, with an emphasis on social media in the context of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. She concluded that social media performs a lot of functions which fulfil the needs of individuals, enabling them to interact, do business and act creatively and spontaneously.
Hampered by regulation and traditional mindsets, financial services in the UK have been slow to grasp the possibilities of social media marketing. Traffic to Twitter has increased by 1,736% in the past 12 months
Within Europe, we are fortunate to have a relatively good penetration of Internet access, admittedly some countries are better off than others; for example in Finland, the Internet is a human right and broadband access is a legal requirement for the entire country.
Journalism is filled with ideas. Many of them ‘bold’. Some of them ‘great’. A few might even be ‘good’. But rarely are any ‘innovative’. There is a preconceived idea in many media companies that the future is what you follow, i.e. ‘we will do that when our competitor does that as well’.
With over 130 million blogs worldwide, Twitter users sending 50 million tweets per day and over 2 billion videos a day watched on YouTube it’s easy to get lost in the jungle of content. Rachel Pictor questions how we know what to trust on the web.
Social media has changed the way people interact. Online communication has become as easy as talking to someone who is physically next to you and conversations can take place in real time. As online connections increase, many people are seeking ways to get together with their contacts in the real world. As a consequence there has been an enormous rise in the number of ‘tweet-ups’ to help people develop and maintain their relationships as they transition offline.
Social media and technology has changed the way entertainers, businesses and organisations communicate with their fans and customers. media140 writer and digital marketing executive Tony Wright highlights the downside of over exposure through social media.
You can find out more about Tony on his blog or follow him on Twitter.
Rachel Pictor explores social media’s impact on how we learn given the rapid rise of the Internet and how this is changing the way people absorb information. Years ago when I was at school studying for my GCSEs a lot of kids used prompt cards to help them study. Small cards with a few notes or even a single word would be stuck around the house to help them remember important facts before their exams. Now instead of study cards I see people passing information along in tweets and blog posts or news articles that come through to my feed reader. Do I take all of this in? Has it changed the way I think? Has Google become my textbook?
Ironically the first Old Spice fragrance was originally designed for women and was only introduced for men in 1937, yet the fragrance has been a prominent male American brand for over 70 years.
Dominated by a nautical theme of sailing ships, clippers and more recently yachts the brand classic buoy shaped design has been a staple product with many famous actors including Bruce Campbell, Neil Patrick Harris and more recently Isaiah Mustafa endorsing it.
And if you are young enough to remember, the original 1970′s Old Spice TV ads featured a surfer risking life and limb to manoeuvre through the wake of huge waves, a glamorous and seductive woman waiting for him back on shore and the thundering voices from “O Fortuna” by Carl Orff.
However, all that changed with the recent social media rebranding campaign that generated over 40 million video views and over 1.4 billion impressions.
Wieden+Kennedy recently released a case study of the recent Old Spice social media campaign, calling it “the fastest-growing and most popular interactive campaign in history”
Actor Isaiah Mustafa stars in the video as character ‘Old Spice man’, recording and putting out over 200 videos (so far) featuring answers to questions received via social networking channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Digg.
This is a great example of combining traditional TV production methods and realtime social media technologies with a very creative team, one that managed to write nearly 200 ads in 48 hours creating incredibly funny and personalised content.
Questions to Old Spice man came from the general public and well known web personalities including Ashton Kutcher, Ellen DeGeneres, Guy Kawasaki and Digg Founder Kevin Rose.
This is will undoubtedly become a referenced case study for how a brands can use social media effectively to engage with fans in entertaining, innovative and realtime way.
Whether this will be a case study that demonstrated real commercial returns is another question; Ad Week reported sales of Old Spice body wash had declined by 7% over the past year.
On the other hand the Wieden+Kennedy are naturally claiming success with a sales increase of 107% within the last month, as to whether this is sustainable that has yet to be seen.
However, if you still yearn to be that surfer with the 70′s lifestyle and side burns you can still experience this on You Tube
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