Over 200 Chicago marketing and advertising executives from Motorola, OMD, Gatorade, Starcom, Kraft and others filled the Allegro Ball Room in Chicago on August 25th for an evening of ideas, debates, dinner and socializing. The evening consisted of three sessions: an opening address on The Rise of Consumer Content, a session entitled The Power of the IDEA and a Dinner Debate on Branding.
The Rise of Consumer Content
Featuring: i20Events
Is MySpace.com really worth $580 MM or have giddy acquirers got ahead of themselves again? I had the fortune of opening i20Events' conference with some ideas that support the former.
When you consider that MySpace.com is the fourth most highly trafficked site on the web and adds 125,000 new subscribers per day, the value of consumer produced articles and videos is just beginning.
Yes, there is a lot of worthless content on the web, but there are also plenty of budding Chris Rocks, Steven Spielbergs and Laird Hamiltons who have amazing talent. In addition, with 74% of viewers accessing online video, the web is circumventing the highly controlled traditional media environment, giving rise to thousands of unknown producers who create highly relevant and entertaining content for specific audiences.
As such, companies that match advertisers with consumer content are taking off. Motion.TV (www.Motion.TV), for example, currently features sports
videos that are more addictive, viral and exciting than those running on TV.
The consumer seems to be saying that it doesn't matter where the video comes from as long as it is relevant to me. The rise of consumer produced content is just beginning; it's now a question of how advertisers interact with it.
The Power of the IDEA
A Competition between Gatorade, Orbitz & GM
Sponsored by Advertising.com
Pete Hoffman from Advertising.com introduced the speakers for The Power of the IDEA, a concept originated by Mark Silva, Principal of Real Branding.
In a world where technology is altering the face of the ad industry, it remains the simple Power of the IDEA that builds careers, brands and companies. This session featured three extremely knowledgeable executives who presented ideas that made a difference in their respective companies. Our two judges, John Joseph (SVP/Marketing at Performics) and Colleen Cassell (Director of Direct-to-Customer Marketing) at Sears kept the speakers on their toes by challenging them with questions.
Dustin Cohn, Director of Marketing for Gatorade, began the session by discussing the success of their Origins campaign. With the clutter in the sports drink marketplace, Gatorade needed to differentiate to grow sales and gain marketshare. Their research indicated that their customers wanted two things: stories and truth.
So, they developed a campaign that discussed the beginnings of Gatorade, a story about a drink that was originally designed to help the Florida Gator college football team replenish fluids faster, i.e., Gator Aid.
Through commercials, print ads, school book covers, and web ads, the Origins campaign drove an 18% increase in sales, a phenomenal feat for such an established brand.
Dustin explained, "This cross media campaign lifted and separated us from competing brands, allowed us to explain the ingredients of the drink, built credibility among influencers, and instilled our authentic beginning. As one consumer said, Gatorade was made to help athletes perform and Powerade was made to make money."
Aaron Cooper, VP/Online Marketing for Orbitz, took the stage next to discuss their online game popunders which, in many ways, is a simple concept but a highly powerful one. Orbitz developed a series of online games such as pool and golf. Aaron said, "We developed a unique brand equity that engaged the target audience with a positive brand experience when they were not in market for our product. We achieved far superior click-thru-rates, encouraged viral marketing, and increased interaction with the brand."
Jack Bowen, General Director of GM/CMR for General Motors, went next. He began by describing a recent problem. "We had 1.2 million unsold 2005 vehicles and 2006 models were on the way." In essence, Jack had a lot of cars to sell in a big hurry.
"We knew the power of employee pricing," Jack said. "Everyone always asked if they could get the employee discount, so we came up with a program to make the power of employee pricing available to everyone. We also wanted to integrate everywhere we could to drive as many people as possible to the buying part of the purchase cycle."
There were several elements to the campaign including a highly effective Internet component. "We embedded many of the tools in the (web) ads themselves so that you could get most of the information right where you were," Jack said. "You could request a quote or see the car. You did not need to travel to the GM site."
The outcome was impressive. He continued, "We went from a marketshare of 25.6% to 32.4% in our first month. Sales were up nearly 60% in the first 30 days and it was our best month in 18 years, not bad."
While all the presentations were excellent, the GM results were hard to compete with and the audience crowned Jack as the winner of i20's Power of the Idea for delivering the most innovative idea to meet specified goals.
Part II to follow next week.
i20's upcoming events are on October 20th in New York and November 17th in San Francisco where we will feature,
The Next Big Thing.....Personalization
(How Empowering Brands Win)
Details to follow.
Click Part 2 of 2 .
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