Sunday, 6 March 2011
Monday, 7 February 2011
SPONSORSHIP-DRIVEN SOCIAL GAMING: FANS EARN ACCESS WHILE DRIVING WORD OF MOUTH.
Social gaming is big. It's also very rich territory for brands involved in sponsorship.
We're currently developing a number of sponsorship-driven social gaming platforms for brands with audiences as diverse as kids, families and 50+ females.
Here's why...
Passions last a lifetime.
The sponsorship platforms that are truly valued by fans are the ones that get them closer to their passions again and again over time - not just as part of a PR spike that sits alongside a gig, game or gallery opening.
People's passions often last a lifetime. They're a long-lasting red thread that runs through their lives. Yes, interest peaks around big events (where sponsors usually focus their investment), but the 'gaps' between these highs are a real opportunity for brands to deliver just-as-valued-value, with less need to fight against competitive clutter and noise.
Social Gaming amplifies advocacy.
Social Gaming is a great platform through which fans can 'earn' value from brands, ongoing.
Sponsors can reward participation, contribution and sharing with 'credits' that can be redeemed for anything from more content to greater access to live events or online experiences.
Think Air Miles + Vodafone VIP.
Think FourSquare + Groupon.
Play more. Get more.
Social gaming enables a sponsor to 'amplify advocacy' - to encourage and enable positive word of mouth through the promise of more value to the consumer.
You can't add value if you haven't listened.
The first critical step is to listen to and understand what your target audience really want as it relates to their passion.
Music fans might want cheaper access to big live events.
Comedy fans might want help learning who's hot.
Sport fans might want faster access to richer stats.
Arts fans might want privileged access to behind-the-scenes stories.
Find out what your audience value. This becomes the value they can earn through you, through social gaming, as they spread your word.
josh@robinsonpincus.com
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN COMEDY SPONSORSHIP GETS SOCIAL? HERE'S AN IDEA...
Comedy has huge potential for brands, not least because of its power as social currency. The question is, are brands making the most of this potential through sponsorship and if not what could a more socially-supercharged comedy platform look like and deliver?
Historically, brands have looked down upon comedy like it’s the dark arts. The black sheep of the sponsorship flock. Underground, unpredictable and grungy, not polished, planned and professional like sport or even music. Interesting then, that over the last 18 months we’ve seen big brands including mobile phone operator 3, Innocent Drinks and Fosters shift sponsorship budget out of sport and music and into comedy. Here they find loyal audiences, cost-effective access to talent and the opportunity to show they don’t take life too seriously. And that’s not all. Comedy isn’t just good entertainment. It’s great social currency. In a world where the right kind of content is shared more quickly and easily than ever before, comedy has massive ‘share value’. Here lies the opportunity to get so much more from comedy sponsorship than awareness that lacks value, PR that lacks relevance and live experiences that lack reach.
When you embrace the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of comedy fans out there, active across the social web, you open up a new dimension to sponsorship activation. Online communities give you great insight into what fans want and the cost-effective channel through which to give it to them, thanks to the social web’s built in advocacy-button. To get the true potential out of comedy, the first question has got to be, what do comedy fans really want?
By tapping into live forums and social networks we can listen to the natural banter that runs through communities of everyone from comedy connoisseurs to everyday people who love to laugh (aren’t we all fans of comedy in some form or other?). One thing rings loud and true. People love live comedy and they want more of it. How often have you heard someone say, ‘We went to a comedy gig last night. Never heard of most of them but it was bloody brilliant. Don’t know why we don’t do it more’?
Where there’s desire, there’s opportunity to add value. And it’s the stuff that’s valued that gets shared and remembered. If we were a brand engaged in comedy sponsorship or thinking about it, we would set out to become the hosts and facilitators of the most active comedy community. Nike boast the world’s largest running community. It works because the fan base is there and the opportunity to add value is broad, varied and long term, from soundtracks to crowd sourced runs to product purchase. This is not a dip in and out activation. It’s a longterm relationship. Running fans will love running til their knees give out, just like comedy fans will always want to laugh.
So, what would our Comedy Club look like and how would Brand X benefit? Comedy Club would host the best of the best in live comedy content and give members access to an ongoing and ever-evolving calendar of live gigs, from up-and-coming talent at your local pub to Alan Partridge at the MENA. Members would earn ‘Smile Miles’ when they shared their favorite content. Smile Miles would act as live event credits, a kind of Comedy Currency. On average, people share content with 66 others, so Comedy Club would grow and grow. Brand X would support grass roots by rewarding the most shared talent with their own gigs. Comedy Club would always lead with the best content as voted by the people, so quality of content would always be high.
This is a platform built on audience insight first, not sponsorship opportunity. Comedy Club would be fed by a number of sponsorship deals and associations with Brand X’s pick of new talent, big talent, venues and ticket sellers. It’s hard not to point how incredibly appropriate Comedy Club would be as a footfall driver to pubs and bars, the natural home of easy-access live gigs.
Comedy Club is an example of what a more ‘social approach’ to sponsorship can look like. It shows how a layer of real value that is often missing from traditional sponsorship activation can be created and how choice of assets should be driven by concept, not vice versa.
Monday, 31 January 2011
Saturday, 15 January 2011
NEW RESEARCH: THE NEW RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FANS AND SOCIAL MEDIA...
Fans are coming together in bigger and more diverse communities than ever before.
They're creating and sharing content much more than you might think.
They're happy for brands to get involved, but right now brands aren't giving them what they want.
Click here to find out more about how fans use the social web, what they want from brands and the implications for Sponsorship & Social Media.
To discuss the full report, give us a call.
Josh Robinson
+44 (0)7771 903889
josh@robinsonpincus.com
Ben Pincus
+44 (0)7785 227215
ben@robinsonpincus.com
Josh Robinson
+44 (0)7771 903889
josh@robinsonpincus.com
Ben Pincus
+44 (0)7785 227215
ben@robinsonpincus.com
Saturday, 8 January 2011
SPONSORSHIP ACTIVATION: HOW TO INVOLVE FANS MORE IN SHAPING WHAT HAPPENS, WHERE AND WHEN
Traditional marketing agencies have a business model built around:
1. Selling the CREATIVITY that leads to 'the big idea'
2. Selling the MEDIA that broadcasts the big idea
The Social Web offers an alternative to brands that challenges the traditional agency model:
1. As a source of high quality INSIGHTS and IDEAS
2. As an active network where the best ideas (content) are SHARED for free
Better insights ignite Better ideas.
For sponsorship, this is a particularly exciting opportunity because so many of the communities across the social web are built around shared passions. They're a hotbed of insight, waiting to be tapped.
Now we have the opportunity to listen more closely to what target audiences want and need from a brand. Not through flawed focus groups or incentivised surveys, but through 'natural fan chatter'.
Now we have the opportunity to listen more closely to what target audiences want and need from a brand. Not through flawed focus groups or incentivised surveys, but through 'natural fan chatter'.
By listening more closely to what fans want and need we can create better activation ideas that give them what they want (often it's just help getting more of what they love).
And by giving them what they want, we give them what they want to share:
Content that their fellow fans will value.
Our 'Leverage Loop' model simply places listening and insight at the heart of a more effective sponsorship campaign. By listening before giving, you involve fans more in shaping what happens, where and when. Not just when you create a Platform, but throughout its activation.
This means your campaign works harder for longer.
Listen closer. Connect better. Reach further.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
FACEBOOK V TWITTER 2010: BRAND FOLLOWERS
Interesting to see how facebook and Twitter compare. As pointed out by the originators of this infographic, twitter users are by and large older, a little richer and better educated.
Twitter users follow brands less but buy those that they do follow more.
Our upcoming research next week will dive deeply into how consumers are using the social web to access and feed their passions and the consequent opportunities for brands, through sponsorship.
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