Never say no to Panda
This YouTube Video is gaining a lot of popularity. Panda Cheese, a product from Arab Dairy which I understand is popular in Egypt and the Middle East.
I however feel that the company has yet to act on its YouTube success in anyway.
The commercial, I believed to be filmed in 2007 suddenly became a hit on YouTube when several influential websites like boing boing shared it, and the video immediately became an instant hit.
In my opinion, this is a WIN for the company, and they should embrace REAL TIME Marketing, and ACT on this success to start a YouTube campaign to sell more... cheese.
If I were the marketing director of the company, I would do the following.
1) Create a new Panda commercial. This time, focus on the newly found success, and label -- 2010 Never say no to Panda -- Stand a chance to win a flight to Egypt and be in a commercial with the Panda, by buying Panda Cheese.
2) Create a Panda Cheese competition where there is a serial number for each cheese sold.
3) Create a Cheese competition site. Customers can login to the site, input their personal particulars, join their Facebook group and input the serial number of their cheese to take part in the competition.
4) Share the Panda commercial video online on YouTube, and inform customers about the chance to be in the Panda commercial, and ACT NOW.
5) Track the number of customers who are joining the mailing list, collect personal information and at the same time measure ROI of increase of sales of competition due to the commercial on YouTube.
6) Pick a random winner, be transparent about the process, make another Panda video with the winner, fly Winner in and thank winner for being a customer, and create another Panda video.
I am pretty sure that this online competition does not cost much, but the impact can possibly be BIG. Celebrating customer and possibly giving away PANDA costumes to people to make more panda commercials may also work.
This is such a waste if this company misses such a golden opportunity.
-- Robin Low
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
BP slips out of the top 100 brands
In a recent report on best global brands 2010, BP fell out of the top 100 rankings after being on the list for nine years.".
Coca-Cola topping the list for the eleventh straight year as they consistently perform very well, online and offline.
The Top 10 (value in millions)
1. Coca-Cola $70,452
2. IBM $64,727
3. Microsoft $60,895
4. Google $43,557
5. GE $42,808
6. McDonald's $33,578
7. Intel $32,015
8. Nokia $29,495
9. Disney $28,731
10. H-P $26,867
BP on the other hand failed to remain on the list after the oil spill incident. I feel that it is not the crisis that actually out them out of the top 100 list, but rather the way they handled the crisis.
They failed to give a clear direction on where BP is going in the long term. In terms of strategies and tactics used during the oil spill, it is clear that they obviously did not handle the situation well, and yet they tried to cover some of the facts, which will lead to a loss of trust.
Brands are build on trust and relationship. When you lie about something, and there is no transparency when a crisis happens, people tend to speculate and the results are much worse than the truth itself. (see Tiger Woods Case) The damage to the brand is often not considered when strategies are formulated, and it does cost the company billions and a long time to repair the damage.
Companies are only as good as the people that work for them. Giving a clear vision to people inside and out is very important to them right now. BP was unable to give a clear direction, and it makes the employees uneasy, and it is hard to perform well if the future is uncertain.
In contrast to BP, Toyota was able to better manage its recall scandal, although the carmaker did drop to number 11 in the rankings vs. number 8 in 2009.
With Digital Media getting more popular, it is important to manage and engage with the public as comments online can influence people when they are making decisions. News are happening almost in real time, and time to respond to crisis is shorten drastically.
Getting your presence on social media, and building a good base of supporters is a good way to help brands build trust and support, and in turn it may help too in times of crisis.
-- Robin Low
Coca-Cola topping the list for the eleventh straight year as they consistently perform very well, online and offline.
The Top 10 (value in millions)
1. Coca-Cola $70,452
2. IBM $64,727
3. Microsoft $60,895
4. Google $43,557
5. GE $42,808
6. McDonald's $33,578
7. Intel $32,015
8. Nokia $29,495
9. Disney $28,731
10. H-P $26,867
BP on the other hand failed to remain on the list after the oil spill incident. I feel that it is not the crisis that actually out them out of the top 100 list, but rather the way they handled the crisis.
They failed to give a clear direction on where BP is going in the long term. In terms of strategies and tactics used during the oil spill, it is clear that they obviously did not handle the situation well, and yet they tried to cover some of the facts, which will lead to a loss of trust.
Brands are build on trust and relationship. When you lie about something, and there is no transparency when a crisis happens, people tend to speculate and the results are much worse than the truth itself. (see Tiger Woods Case) The damage to the brand is often not considered when strategies are formulated, and it does cost the company billions and a long time to repair the damage.
Companies are only as good as the people that work for them. Giving a clear vision to people inside and out is very important to them right now. BP was unable to give a clear direction, and it makes the employees uneasy, and it is hard to perform well if the future is uncertain.
In contrast to BP, Toyota was able to better manage its recall scandal, although the carmaker did drop to number 11 in the rankings vs. number 8 in 2009.
With Digital Media getting more popular, it is important to manage and engage with the public as comments online can influence people when they are making decisions. News are happening almost in real time, and time to respond to crisis is shorten drastically.
Getting your presence on social media, and building a good base of supporters is a good way to help brands build trust and support, and in turn it may help too in times of crisis.
-- Robin Low
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Empowering your employees and customers.
Reading Brian Solis's blog, (R)evolution Episode One: Empowering Your Employees and Customers with Josh Bernoff about the book Empowered.
I totally agree that businesses must now compete in domains where consumers define their experiences through the connections they decide to make. In order to compete for the future, businesses must now establish a presence and earn attention, build new connections, and cultivate meaningful relationships to foster trust, loyalty, and advocacy.
Although many companies are interested in engaging in social media, the upper management is usually preventing real progress from happening as the new technology, widely available and cheap, could transform the way branding and marketing is done. Customer service, marketing and public relations can all be benefited greatly.
In order to harness the power of Web 2.0, companies need to re-organize and think of new ways and strategies. Staff needs to be trained so that they understand what is and what is not appropriate.
Many staff can influence their own groups of people, and evangelize for the company. Instead of shutting them down and quenching their passion about the company, strategies that help in the management of the networks these staff and sometimes customers have will in turn promote branding and marketing in a unparalleled manner.
-- Robin Low
I totally agree that businesses must now compete in domains where consumers define their experiences through the connections they decide to make. In order to compete for the future, businesses must now establish a presence and earn attention, build new connections, and cultivate meaningful relationships to foster trust, loyalty, and advocacy.
Although many companies are interested in engaging in social media, the upper management is usually preventing real progress from happening as the new technology, widely available and cheap, could transform the way branding and marketing is done. Customer service, marketing and public relations can all be benefited greatly.
In order to harness the power of Web 2.0, companies need to re-organize and think of new ways and strategies. Staff needs to be trained so that they understand what is and what is not appropriate.
Many staff can influence their own groups of people, and evangelize for the company. Instead of shutting them down and quenching their passion about the company, strategies that help in the management of the networks these staff and sometimes customers have will in turn promote branding and marketing in a unparalleled manner.
-- Robin Low
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Everything is better with Infographics
From analyzing data, to illustrating the importance of a certain social media tool, Infographics provide a vivid picture of the data in the form of colorful diagrams.
I'm a big fan of Infographics, and even information about dead people on Facebook can be made to catch your attention.
A well designed Infographic can go a long way as many people will share them and use them in some presentation.
Infographics that provide a lot of current information can find its way into may places, and with cleverly placed company logos, these Infographics do provide great information branding for the companies who came up with the Graphics. Definitely a great marketing tool.
It is definitely a great way of bringing data to life in a very attractive and colorful manner and it brings the message across better.
-- Robin Low
I'm a big fan of Infographics, and even information about dead people on Facebook can be made to catch your attention.
A well designed Infographic can go a long way as many people will share them and use them in some presentation.
Infographics that provide a lot of current information can find its way into may places, and with cleverly placed company logos, these Infographics do provide great information branding for the companies who came up with the Graphics. Definitely a great marketing tool.
It is definitely a great way of bringing data to life in a very attractive and colorful manner and it brings the message across better.
-- Robin Low
Friday, September 3, 2010
HTML5 is awesome!
Of all the advances on the Internet, I could not be more excited about html5.
Some of these latest sites created with html5 seems to be mind blowing!
http://thewildernessdowntown.com/
No flash download, no Quicktime, no funny apps you have to install!
It just works.
-- Robin Low
Here is another cool html5 example: http://eyestylesllc.com/
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