Die Danke Million. Eine echte „Talk of Town“ Idee.

Wer kennt es nicht. Der Kunde möchte eine Kampagne, die „Talk of Town“ Potential hat. Was Virales, über das alle begeistert sprechen und schreiben. Aber das Produkt hat keine nennenswerte Differenzierung und soll, auf gar keinen Fall, verändert oder angefasst werden.

Die Agentur Überground hat nun eine Idee entwickelt, die dieses „Talk of Town“ Potential hat, das Produkt noch interessanter macht, ohne es zu verändern. So ungefähr, wie wenn man beim Kauf eines Bierkastens einen Flaschenöffner dazubekommt.

Es ist: eine Million Euro zusätzlich beim Gewinn des Jackpost. Als „Dankes-Million“ aber nicht für den Gewinner selbst, sondern für jemanden, den der Teilnehmer im Vorfeld nominieren muss. Der Insight dahinter: viele, die einen Lotto-Jackpot gewinnen, machen sich danach darüber Gedanken, wem Sie etwas davon abgeben sollten, was den eigenen Gewinn mindert. Bei Tipp24 ist die Million für die Eltern, Geschwister oder besten Freunde gleich mit dabei.

Natürlich ist das Risiko nicht besonders groß. Wie hoch ist die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass ausgerechnet ein Teilnehmer dieser Aktion den Jackpot gewinnt? Außerdem kann man sich gegen solche „Schadensfälle“ heutzutage versichern lassen.

Der Film, der natürlich dazu gemacht wurde, erinnert mich stark an „The Big Lebowski“. Soll vermutlich so sein.

 

 

Ripple Effect – a new book on word-of-mouth by empowerment

Martin Oetting – sorry, Dr. Martin Oetting, as of a short while ago (congratulations!), just published a reference to his newly released thesis: ripple effect (How Empowered Involvement Drives Word of Mouth). The link leads to a page with a small „social media release“, which includes a PDF with a short summary (in German), a video interview, etc.

The key question triggering this whole study was: „how can marketing leverage word-of-mouth for products and brands?“

The answer, in short: empowered involvement, by offering choice and meaning, leveraging consumer competence, allowing for real impact by the target audience. The long answer: buy the book 😉

Here is the video interview with Dr. Martin Oetting (in German):

Amazing Axe Guerrilla stunt

A nice yet simple idea: at an all women race an Axe guy sprayed himself and then ran ahead of the crowd as if they were chasing him.

As with most guerrilla marketing campaigns, this one seems to have its main effect through the word of mouth it’s getting online, on sites like this one, but also here, here, and here, where i found out about it.

The fascinating Word of Mouth effects of the iPhone.

iphone 1 for illustrative purposesIt’s amazing how much unfounded gossip there is about the fact that Steve Jobs might reveal the iphone 2 on June 9th. One of the first „solid“ rumours I saw was at Gizmodo. Since then, new rumours, hints and other gossip has increased.

I subscribed to an RSS Newsfeed of Google News with the keyword iphone. There is so much happening, it’s amazing. If apple had tried to construct a viral or word of mouth campaign around the iphone, they couldn’t have done a better job than the web just did. Or may be they did help spreading the word?

Some more of these clues and assumptions that are spreading around the web are mentioned in an article of Newsweek:

Jobs‘ secretive computer and gadget company, has been quietly positioning millions of units of a mysterious new product—almost certainly the new iPhone—in key markets since March. And yet, incredibly, not one credible image of Apple’s new product has yet been published.

[…] One clue: Jobs began racking up serious mileage on his corporate jet during the company’s final quarter of 2007, as he likely finalized deals with distribution partners in Europe and Asia, and perhaps scrutinized the first 3G iPhone handsets to come from his partners‘ factories. Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty was the first to spot the enormous jump in Jobs‘ airplane expenses—to $550,000 from $203,000 during the previous quarter.

[…] By May 6, it became clear that AT&T was getting ready for something big, with a blogger publishing an all-hands memo to employees at AT&T stores telling them they couldn’t take vacation time between June 15 and July 12. That news hit amid widespread reports of iPhone shortages in Europe and across the U.S.

Cult of Mac even listed some of the Specs the new iphone should have (some have been rumoring around for quite some time, admittingly, but the info about the size – 22% thinner – is new). A seemingly rather complete list of the current rumors can be found at mobilecrunch, rated with a „Pre-keynote Legitometer“.

With all the clues, hints and gossip around the web, it appears to be like a giant world wide scavenger hunt. The whole setup and effect should be every marketers dream (and every ad agencys dilemma, since less or no advertising will be needed for the launch). Once the product itself carries viral potential, it automatically triggers word of mouth. The iphone is a classic example of this.

PS: if all goes well, I will be owning an iPhone 2 by next week 😉

Quantitative and qualitative influence in marketing

Over at the Online Spin blog, there is an interesting article about „peers vs influencers„. The question is, of course: who is your ideal target group. It’s the debate of Gladwells Tipping Point theory vs Duncan Watts argument, that there aren’t any network nodes more influential than others.

Joe Marchese says, there are indeed people who are more influential than others. But only in three dimensions – and they can vary according to topic, point in time and other variables for the same person:

–People have a quantity of influence: the maximum number of other people they can reach with a message.

–People have a quality of influence: the amount of influence they exert over those that they reach.

–People have types of influence: categories of “expertise” that other people assign to an individual.

If this is the case (if it is that easy), you can quickly deduct your target audience according to the marketing objective. Is it widespread awareness? Is it consideration? Is it increased sales?

Not sure if it is that easy. But it does sound nice to put these target groups against the typical marketing funnel. Only question remaining: can you always clearly distinguish one from the other these days? (I doubt that.)