Spotlight: Michelle Klein and Wayne Arnold THE SOCIAL COCKTAIL Marketers mix traditional and social media, physical experiences and a layered content plan with a spalsh of Madonna to create global citizenship for their consumers

1. SPOTLIGHT MICHELLE KLEIN AND WAYNE ARNOLD
The Social Cocktail
Marketers mix traditional and social media, physical experiences and
a layered content plan with a splash of Madonna to create global
citizenship for their consumers I N T E RV I E W BY G O R D O N W Y N E R
T
hink nothing good happens after 10 p.m.? dramatically from other campaigns in concept,
Some global marketing executives would design and execution.
have to disagree. 1. It’s a combination of TV and social media
The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project that is linked with real physical experiences.
is a coalescence of media channels around the 2. It scales social media to a global level—its
Smirnoff brand community. The key to this is so- social community is currently made up of about 9
cial media, since the idea doesn’t manifest unless million people.
the consumer participates. It starts with Smirnoff 3. It’s a global brand building campaign that
putting out a brief message to consumers around is tailored to address vast differences in local
the world, telling them what makes nightlife markets, cultures and regulations. Its size and
great in their specific cities. And in exchange for complexity pose execution challenges that haven’t
participation, consumers then get the chance to been addressed before.
experience the nightlife from somewhere else “What we learned during year one was that
around the globe. TV and traditional public relations played a
Consumers send their ideas to Smirnoff massive role in driving awareness, while social
through Facebook, Twitter, Smirnoff.com, drove the heartbeat of the idea,” Klein explains.
YouTube and so forth. “It lives and breathes through social channels, but
But, instead of starting with a splashy TV we needed traditional media to fuel and generate
investment, the campaign actually began at awareness and excitement.
the grassroots level, with a lot of seeding done “My firm belief is that the idea only has value
through outreach around the different categories if we create a reward for participation in the
of nightlife, from dance and music, to fashion, real world. A lot of brands ask people to submit
bands, drinks, clubs and hot spots. a video online or go out and do something on
Michelle Klein, the vice president of Smirnoff behalf of a brand idea.
global marketing, communications and digital at “But we get the best content contributions
leading global premium drinks company Dia- and responses when there’s a credible reward for
geo, received AdWeek’s Brand Genius Award for participating, e.g. to come to an extraordinary
her innovative work on the Smirnoff Nightlife event, and even to get a chance to earn fame by
Exchange Project in the fall of 2011. She oversees performing on a global stage.”
the international project in collaboration with The primary event for year two was held on
Wayne Arnold, cofounder and global CEO of the Nov. 12, 2011, Klein explains. “There were mul-
digital marketing agency Profero. tiple ways consumers could be rewarded for their
participation. After submitting their ideas, there’s
The Social Heartbeat high-value downloadable content about where the
The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project differs best nightlife is around the world. That’s a content
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2. reward. Smirnoff partnered with Vice magazine to
create compelling, original content to share with
the online community.” Vita Klein
If a consumer participated in something at a
higher level, e.g., by submitting a video or going Current Vice President, Global Marketing,
to a dance audition, the rewards could go much Smirnoff (USA)
higher, with a chance to be on the world stage.
“You could submit your application to attend an 2006 Global Digital Marketing Director,
event in person in your own country or somewhere Smirnoff (USA)
else around the world, and there were events across
50 countries. 2005 Global Group Account Director,
“On Nov. 12, countries swapped their nightlife. Agency.com (UK)
If you were in Argentina you could experience the
nightlife of Turkey without having to leave Ar- 2000 Head of New Media, Sea Contain-
gentina because we brought it to you through the ers & The Illustrated London News
Exchange. Equally, if you were in Argentina, you Group (UK)
could also win tickets to physically go to Turkey
for the night or to one of the other participating 1999 Travel Writer, The Sydney Morning
countries,” she adds. Herald (Australia)
“What happens after that night is a constant
celebration across the world from the content that
comes out of the original events.”
Last year focused a lot on the category of
dance, which is one of the ingredients that makes
nightlife great. Smirnoff worked with Madonna
for the dance category—consumers had the chance
to compete to win the chance to be a dancer in Vita Arnold
Madonna’s next tour. Smirnoff invited people to
submit a 60-second video for Madonna and her
choreographer to review. Ten finalists won the 2001- Opens Profero in Sydney,
chance to perform on Nov. 12 in New York City in 2010 Shanghai, Singapore, Japan,
front of Madonna, and the world. Beijing, U.S., Seoul
“This, of course, created a huge amount of
content pre-Nov. 12. You can look on the YouTube 1998 Cofounds Profero with brother
channel to see all the fantastic submissions from
Darryl in UK
dance hopefuls around the world. It got the world
engaged and offered an amazing reward – the 1996 Works for Merrill Lynch, Hong
chance to be a dancer on Madonna’s next tour,” Kong
Klein says.
“The culmination of the evening had cameras 1995 Graduates Coventry University,
pointing at many of the events around the world. Coventry, West Midlands, England
Hours later, great films celebrating global nightlife
were shared with our entire community via social
channels,” she says. “If you couldn’t be there
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3. SPOTLIGHT MICHELLE KLEIN AND WAYNE ARNOLD
Interview title
John Doe is deciding whether, when and how to conduct produce
segmentation depends on the business context. BY J O H N F R A N K
physically, you still got to see the amazing experi- PA R T Y O N T H E G O : The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project is a combi-
ences unfold through video content both on the nation of TV and social media linked with global physical experiences that
allow consumers to enjoy the nightlife of another city—a veritable swap
night and the following day.”
meet for nightlife aficionados.
Arnold adds, “Content creation for this multi-
channel world needs to be viewed differently.
Think of it like a pyramid with different layers. just one big page. It’s very locally driven, so each
Big, high-production content around the live market has its own Facebook community to keep
events capturing the excitement of the occasion, the conversation local and relevant.
married with content being generated every sec- “People express a lot of pride for their local
ond of every day by our online community. town or country. The Nightlife Exchange is about
“Content in its most basic, yet important, raising the question of, ‘Where is the best night-
form is the lexicon of simple words and ideas that life in the world?’ It generates rich conversation
people use to describe what their nightlife means at a local level where people are saying things like,
to them. These words are often used by the com- ‘the best nightlife in New York is the dive bars in
munity, discussed and built on every day, to keep the Lower East Side,’ for example.
the conversation alive. “People talk about their likes and dislikes, not
“What’s important is planning for these lay- in a negative way, but in a positively competitive
ers of content, as it is too expensive to always way. The role for Smirnoff is to join the conver-
have high-production content, yet it is needed to sation and give our perspective on what are the
stimulate the conversation in the communities we best ideas, as determined by likes and votes, and
are creating. then just let the conversation happen, enabling
“What tends to happen is there are peaks of people to celebrate what they like. Engagement
content which are followed by periods of sus- is extremely high across the world. For example,
tained community dialogue. All the way through, almost 200,000 ideas were submitted in the three-
we need to reward participation—for example: month period leading up to Nov. 12.”
submit your idea, and get some content or chance
of tickets as a reward for becoming part of the Community Conversions
conversation.” The evaluation of the performance of the
A considerable amount of work was needed campaign has been a combination of traditional
to create and sustain the Local Communities in and digital measurement approaches, with special
the various countries. Klein explains how that emphasis on the high-level metrics on brand
worked: “Smirnoff has the biggest Facebook com- equity, as well as actual product sales. The evalua-
munity for a spirits brand in the world. It’s not tion included brand-tracking surveys and
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4. consumer response. “The power of a big idea like this
Naturally, as a digitally led is when you can repeat it around
campaign, there were ample perfor- several occasions, themes and mar-
mance measures like click-through kets. Having the previous year as a
rates and open rates. While this benchmark we can gauge improve-
provided great technical data and ment against last year. We learned
detailed behavioral responses, it from the 14 countries in the first
doesn’t, by itself, convey much about year that it was a good idea. In 2011
what the campaign accomplished for we enabled the world to embrace it.”
the brand in terms of equity. How Learning from year one sup-
engaged were consumers? What was ported changes in the project in year
the sentiment around the conversa- two. “We looked at the whole media
tion? What insights were generated? mix and determined what chan-
Where do people’s interests lie? nels worked best,” Klein says, “to
What’s popular? Who are perceived see where we needed to make some
as the top talents? changes. We were able to simplify
The social nature of the Night- some of the ways of working in the
life Exchange presents a measure- second year, even though we actually
ment challenge and opportunity to increased the number of countries to
capture the depth of engagement 50. For example, do we really need
of consumers. “We look at overall banner ads in XYZ country? Maybe
participation,” Klein says. “We want we just need them in countries where
people to be excited and to know we can’t use TV. Is e-mail a power-
what’s happening, whether they find ful channel for every market? Maybe
it through a TV commercial or on a not. We enabled the markets to make
Facebook page through one of their their channel selection based on
friends. We want to see the conver- what was right for them and their
sion of that awareness into participa- consumers. And now we’re taking
tion. Ultimately, we want to see some the time to evaluate results to deter-
action as result of hearing about this, mine how we should activate as we
regardless of the channel you heard move into the next year.”
it in.”
Vita Iwata
Arnold describes how this works Mold-Breakers and Risk-Takers
in practice: “Consumer interactions Execution of this campaign required
2008 Becomes IBM’s SVP, marketing some new capabilities. In Klein’s
happen after the events too. So if we
can get the and communications with
community to talk view, “We don’t start with a linear
their friends about the brand without activity plan … we start with, ‘when
2002 Named SVP, communications
us necessarily having to incentivize, are we going to get the brief out to
it creates a huge awareness multi- consumers through social channels?
1995 Named VP, corporate communications
plier. “After all, positive peer-to-peer When are we going to start sharing
consumer advocacy is the best form
1989 Moves to IBM corporate
of brand halo. Our next challenge is
then to understand the value of at a research I S I N G T H E B A R : Fourteen countries participated
1984 Begins his IBM career the RA
in the first year of the Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange
‘share-ability factor’ Silicon Valley all
facility in and how that Project, and that number grew to 50 in the campaign’s
translates. second year.
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5. SPOTLIGHT MICHELLE KLEIN AND WAYNE ARNOLD
Interview title
the idea with the nightlife bloggers. When are
we going to start working with the talent? What
role will the talent play?’ It’s not a traditional
approach.
“Second we need some mavericks. We don’t
have a big team. We have a few core people on
the global team working full time on this. Then
we have brilliant brand managers around the
world who are dedicated to the local activation
on the ground, bringing local magic and flair to
the program.
“We need people who are willing to take
risks and willing to try new things,” she adds.
“Nothing is impossible. People working on
this program need a ‘we can do it’ attitude. For
example we got the dancers to come to New
York City two weeks earlier and film their entire S O C I A L B U T T E R F L I E S : The Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project boasts
a social community of 9 million consumers interacting with the brand and
journey. We got them out to clubs in New York
with one another through Facebook, YouTube, Smirnoff.com, Twitter, etc.
City so they could practice their routine with the
cool, hip New York club crowd.
“We need that type of entrepreneurial at- “It’s new, exciting and a different way to
titude to get things going. We couldn’t do this do marketing. We learn new things every day
without people who share this same attitude and through this program. Our team’s days are filled
vision. Diageo enables this creativity amongst with highs and lows (and a lot of singing and
brand managers. The organization embraces this dancing). But everybody is passionate about this
flair and entrepreneurial attitude in every area of and committed to making it brilliant.
the business.” “Right now the team across the globe is able
Arnold elaborates, “To make the agency hot- to look back and say, ‘I was a part of making that
house model work you have to leave the egos at happen.’ It creates emotion and passion inter-
the door, it is one team made up of different and nally.”
unique skills sets. The client and agency teams Also, Smirnoff believes in careful consump-
have to sit together to work out what is right for tion and responsible nightlife behavior, and
the program. This won’t be pulled off unless all Klein’s team uses their social media channels to
the agencies work together, e.g. Profero, JWT, constantly remind fans and consumers to enjoy
Saatchi X, Virtue, Splendid, Carat, DEI, etc.” their nightlife responsibly.
Klein adds, “On top of everything else what “The global citizenship that is created around
really makes this powerful is the magic! The best something like the Nightlife Exchange is very
example I have of that is the dance videos that rare,” Arnold explains. “You really want to make
were submitted as auditions. this work, really build an idea that the whole
“Some were brilliant, and choosing the world can belong to, and you want to under-
shortlist was pretty difficult for the judges. It’s stand what will make it work brilliantly in every
so refreshing to see so much wonderful creativ- market. This encourages the international team
ity out there … people who are passionate about to come from different cultures and different
nightlife and about dance. environments/backgrounds to collaborate.
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6. “In my view, campaigns like this fail not Would anything like this have even been
because the idea was bad but, because you don’t possible 10 years ago? Klein’s reaction was that
have the team with the global DNA, the desire 10 years ago, the analogy would be sending an
to learn and the attitude to roll up their sleeves e-mail out, then going to a website and perhaps
and get things done. You have to believe what then meeting up in a physical space. “What’s
can be achieved even when sometimes it can feel changed is social media, which is the heartbeat
like the impossible.” of the idea,” she says.
“Social creates the conver-
sation, the competition, the
community of like-minded
individuals with a common
passion.
“I’m not sure it would be
possible to get millions of
people in 50 countries talking
and experiencing the best of
nightlife physically and digi-
tally 10 years ago … certainly
without the borderless world
that social media has enabled.”
Arnold points out that,
“Only in the last 18-24
months have the global media
properties such as Facebook
and YouTube gotten to a
point where they reach a truly
global audience. Eighteen
months ago it would have
been a completely different
experience.
“This year is probably the
Vita Iwata first in which you could do a
truly global social platform
2008 Becomes IBM’s SVP, marketing across so many markets.
and communications “Who knows what we all
will be doing in three years
2002 Named SVP, communications time? We’re not quite sure
what’s next because these plat-
1995 Named VP, corporate communications
forms are moving so quickly.
1989 Moves to IBM corporate “Some things we know,
e.g., the rise of mobile. But
1984 Begins his IBM career at a research who will be the next Facebook?
G O L D E N T I C K E T: One of the “rewards” for participants in the 2011 Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange
facilitybe chosen as aValley in Madonna’s next tour. Here, Madonna poses with the
Project was the chance to in Silicon dancer It’s probably being invented as
winner of the dance contest, Lil Buck from Memphis, Tenn. we speak.” MM
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