Market 2.0

By Edwin Oliver -

Web 2.0: The power of 2

This article gives a very perceptive and thoughtful overview of howWeb 2.0 applications can change the nature of marketing. Some Excerpts:
"Social networks, blogs, user-generated content, tagging, wikis, P2P - all those are about conversation and fall neatly under 'reputation management', which is, essentially, PR," says Howell. Companies need to be out there, looking at what people say about them online, and respond in an open and appropriate way. Ignoring even one customer's negative comments on a blog could do serious damage to a brand's reputation.



Brands can learn an awful lot from blogs and social networks, which they can use to their advantage; not just to get their marketing messages right but also on a deeper business level, by involving consumers in product development.

An interesting example of this approach backfiring:

...car brand Chevrolet placed tools on its site that allowed users to remix and 'mash-up' its latest Chevy Tahoe ads.

Later,

[Chevrolet] took down its 'Make Your Own Tahoe Commercial' site after receiving a different response than expected. While it attracted 400,000 participants, 16 per cent created ads mocking the over-sized cars, the nature of the ads and the company.


Then, the success stories:

A rising number of digital marketing campaigns over the past year have enabled users to generate their own content. Here's a few:

Orange Paper Film Festival, by Poke

Entrants were invited to shoot a film on their mobile and send the clip via MMS to the Orange web site, where they could then edit them, and add a soundtrack and titles. Winners of the 'Palm de Paper' were presented with awards at a ceremony. The campaign won a BIMA award for best integrated campaign last year.

Sony PlayStation Summer of Freedom, Greenroom Digital

Sony ran a competition to find four 'Freedom Explorers' to act as cheerleaders for the brand. They were whisked to events throughout the summer and kept video blogs of their experiences, which users could read on the PlayStation Freedom site. Visitors could also upload their own video blogs, with a prize awarded to the best each week.

Coca-Cola World Cup campaign, bdnetwork

The soft-drinks giant invited users to take a digital photo of themselves, which showed just how much they love the World Cup, and send it in via MMS or email for the chance to win a pair of tickets to see a World Cup game every day throughout June.

Levi's Mobile Audio Mixer (MAX), Lateral

The fashion brand created web tools that enabled users to create a ringtone as part of an online competition last year. The best submission had their track remixed and pressed on to vinyl. There are rumours that the brand is considering launching the winning track as a single.


Read the whole article here:

Web 2.0: The power of 2

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