Homework. This is Gareth Kay's question from his account planning school of the web, applied to my brand Shakespeare Fishing. The question is, Should Shakespeare fishing tackle build a standalone social network, in order to deepen the role that the brand plays in consumer’s lives. This was assigned in my digital strategies class at the Academy of Art University.

1. POV by Paris Daniell
Question: Should Shakespeare fishing tackle build a standalone social network,
in order to deepen the role that the brand plays in consumer’s lives?
Paris’ POV: Instead
of creating an artificial pond in which
these brand experiences swim around in, lets create a vessel
that can sail across the sea of digital channels; connecting
them through the stories they tell and shared passions.
The vessel in which houses these experiences could be branded, customized, user specific and embeddable. This would
then link many people on various social networks and blogs through sharing the most recent fishing trip.
Shakespeare’s digital experience is about doing things for their participants.
Shakespeare is only a part of what people do while fishing. There are many stories told, pictures taken, and memories
made without the brand being involved. At the end of the day though, Shakespeare will be there for consumers by cre-
ating a safe place for stories and experiences that can be shared.
These post purchase experiences will much more influential on potential consumers than a standalone social network.
Instead of competing against the big kids of social networking, lets play with them.

2. Evidence: Fishing is highly WOM offline and online. Angler activity consists of forums, social networks,
blogs, email, texting and good ol’ talking.
When a brand participant is speaking with someone about his or her fishing trip, they will reference
their ‘Fish Story with Shakespeare’ and send it to them. This is much more feasible and un-intrusive than
asking an acquaintance to join yet another social network in order to see their fishing trip. A portable
experiance will keep the ball in the brand advocates court, where it can be passed much easier.
Fishing and social networking background: Angler’s have already created social networks for
themselves. There is Getreeled.com, which claims to be the largest fishing social network (no data to
support that claim on quantcast). Other angling social networks are, anglingmasters.com,
fishing-network.net, FLWoutdoors.com (41k mo visitors, Wal-Mart funded), along with Facebook and
Myspace. There is a lot of fishermen on social networks. This is in addition to a huge amount of
geographically anchored forums about fishing, and blogs.
Shakespeare’s online history and their problem: 15.4k people visit Shakespeare-fishing.com a month,
an indicator that there is a drive to see what Shakespeare is doing online. Currently they have a basic website
which showcases their list of products, company history, where to buy, service, guide round up, and success
stories.
The success stories section is a place where experiences posted. There is a good amount of submissions, but
they are trapped within the site, and hardly discoverable. The major failure about the success stories page is
that Shakespeare tells the story for the consumer, who has submitted their adventure.
The control should be put into the participant’s hands in order to have any true effectiveness. This element
of storytelling needs to be updated to cater to their participant’s online behaviors, which are hidden in
established digital channels of their choice. Because there is already a seeded group of online brand advocates,
this will fuel the catalyst of Shakespeare’s new digital strategy.

3. Plan of action: Create a shakespeare branded widget which is portable across the social network
landscape and other digital outlets such as blogs, email, and mobile.
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Social Networks
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Forums, Blogs,
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Email, Mobile
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Key Benefits: Spreading the rich brand passion for Shakespeare that exists offline, to
existing/potential consumers that are online.
Connects Shakespeare brand with multiple digital communities that is ultimately driven by the
user and not the company.
Creating a ‘Fish Story’ vessel that will house memories beyond this generation, allows kids and
adults to grow up with the brand online by sharing and remembering their experiences.
Ultimately Shakespeare will continue to provide tools that make angler’s lives easier, perpetually
fueling a deep rooted passion and respect for Shakespeare.