Dr. Augustine Fou discusses several examples of how social media has been effectively used by companies for marketing purposes and provides lessons learned. Positive examples include a TNT video ad that received 22 million views in 5 days, a Kony 2012 documentary video that received 112 million views in a week, and how American Express and JetBlue leveraged feedback and social sharing to launch new products. Negative examples include a problematic #McDStories campaign and a disgusting Domino's Pizza video. The key lesson is that social media can greatly amplify marketing messages for better or worse, so companies must plan carefully and be prepared to leverage social amplification, not just place ads.
Social Amplification Blows Up the Good, Bad, and Ugly
1. Dr. Augustine Fou
http://bit.ly/augustinefou
April 3. 2012
Marketing Science Consulting Group, Inc. 1
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19646481@N06/4307303625
2. Good: TNT “Add Drama” Video
April 2012 – 90 Second Video Ad: 22 million views in 5 days
TNT in
Belgium
“Push to Add
Drama”
Button
Source: YouTube
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3. Good: Kony 2012
March 2012 – 30 min Documentary Video: 112 million views in 1 week
Source: VisibleMeasures
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4. Bad: McDonald’s Twitter
Jan 2012 - #McDStories turns into a social media sh*tstorm (w/ real feedback)
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5. Good: Groupon
2011 – Group buying site skyrockets due to social lift
Why it worked:
•“Deal is On” –
minimum number of
buyers needed,
incentivized sharing
with the right people
•Time fuse – had to buy
before the deadline
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6. Ugly: Wienergate
June 2011 – Congressman Anthony Wiener Resigns 1 month into Scandal
Source: New York Times
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7. Good: American Express Mobile App
April 2010 - Cardmembers helped create the app; helped launch the app
• 10,000
cardmembers in
beta provided
feedback
• Achieved 30,000
downloads in the
first week
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8. Good: JetBlue All-You-Can-Jet
August 2009 - Twitter followers became a mass channel to launch, for FREE
• Launched via a tweet
• Within first 7 hours, got 31
million Google search results
on All-You-Can-Jet-Pass
• 10 million more blog
reactions
• Achieved mass awareness
Source: go-Digital Blog
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9. Bad: Domino’s Pizza
2009 - Disgusting YouTube video blew up; forced actual innovation
After PR disaster, Domino’s Pizza actually innovated their product, using
fresh ingredients; featured product innovations by employees, a new start.
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10. So what?
Social media can blow things up, and is permanent.
“Before you do ‘trial-and-error’ social media
marketing, you’d better plan ahead and be ready
for it to blow up – good OR bad. The opportunity
for marketers is to leverage social amplification
instead of sticking ads in social media sites.”
- Dr. Augustine Fou
Social Media Social Amplification
April 3. 2012 10
11. Dr. Augustine Fou – Chief Digital Strategist
Dr. Augustine Fou is Chief Digital Strategist of
Marketing Science Consulting Group, Inc., a company
he founded over 11 years ago. He is an industry-
recognized thought leader in digital strategy, search
and social media marketing and former Group Chief
Digital Officer of Omnicom's Healthcare Consultancy
Group.
Dr. Fou teaches social media marketing to executives at
Rutgers University’s Center for Management
Development. He is a frequent panelist, moderator, and
keynote speaker. He writes a monthly column on
Integrated Marketing for ClickZ.com.
Dr. Fou completed his PhD at MIT in Materials
Science at the age of 23. He started his career with
McKinsey & Company. and can be found on
Twitter.com @acfou.
slide shares - http://www.slideshare.net/augustinefou
bio - http://www.linkedin.com/in/augustinefou
April 3. 2012 acfou@mktsci.com 11