AB

Tag: Consumer Engagement

  • How ABC’s Scandal Makes Money off of Twitter

    How ABC’s Scandal Makes Money off of Twitter

    Everybody breathe.

    It doesn’t matter if you’ve just started watching ABC’s Scandal or have been watching since episode 1, no one can deny Shonda Rhimes’ creativity and talent in creating an infectious television series. Her characters capture our attention and the plot lines keep us begging for more week by week. She’s repeated this in “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Private Practice”, and now “Scandal”.

    Perhaps even more impressive is the show’s masterful usage of social media. If you don’t watch the show, I’m willing to bet you’ve gotten 140-character snapshots into the plot due to a friend’s tweet or Facebook status. Yes, this has a purpose! Every Thursday the show comes on, I’m simultaneously glued to my television and my twitter feed. Apparently, so are over 2,000 tweeters per minute when the show is on (according to Hollywood Reporter).

    What do those tweets mean for Scandal, ABC, and Shonda’s pockets?

    show-me-the-money

    While seemingly the entire twittersphere, including the actual Scandal cast, are talking about the show, our followers and their followers are watching. Their interest grows until they can no longer stand it and eventual search the show for themselves. Slowly, they meander from ABC’s website, to Netflix, to the their television sets on Thursday nights. This all equals advertising dollars for ABC. As they increase their viewership due to an excellent writing and a fervent following, the advertising dollars pile in because more and more brands will want to take advantage of the captive and highly engaged audience.

    I predict that the folks at Scandal and ABC will be researching ways to quantify and further monetize all the tweets they gather from their fans. I’d look to this show and others like it to set the tone for a new wave of television-meets-social-media advertising.

  • Will any of Coke’s 61 new websites make you buy a bottle?

    Will any of Coke’s 61 new websites make you buy a bottle?

    As if Coke wasn’t already annoyingly ubiquitous in today’s soda market, the drink giant extended its mobile marketing campaign with over 60 new websites. These websites are actually mobile applications (cooler people will probably just call them games) and play off of their new “Ahh” campaign. Fittingly, users can access the different websites with 60-ish iterations of ahh.com with each varying amount of H’s leading to different mobile app.

    I’ve visited a few of the mobile apps and I must say, they’re cool. We’ll have to watch to see if Coke’s entrance into the mobile application world will bring even more big players into this small business’s territory (according to Mashable.com).  The real question is, what’s the point? Are Coke marketers hoping that I, a non-soda drinker, will play all 60-something games and feel particularly motivated to purchase a pop? Not to mention, their pop? (In one sentence, I’ve shown my migration from Indiana to New York in my alternate usage of soda and pop. I’ll leave it up to you to determine the “right” one.)

    Well, I don’t buy it.

    To add insult, Coke’s Ahh campaign doesn’t even offer any promotion or extra incentive for the user to buy Coke. Thanks for the free arcade, Coke. Perhaps, when I’m in the mood for a spicy beverage, I’ll reach for the Classic, but I wouldn’t have any extra reason too. If it were my project, I would have included a a coupon for a 6 or 12-pack for frequent players or players who achieved high scores. Honestly, Coke could have these rewards in place already, but sadly, I haven’t received a high score in any one of their games :(.

    You may be thinking,

    “Wait a minute, Aaron. What about the young adults who already drink Coca Cola? Don’t you think this campaign will engage them and lock them in as consistent consumer for years to come?”

    I’d reply that you have a presented a very plausible case. However, let’s say this campaign does boost sales among ahhhh.com users. (Yes, that is a different URL.) How would Coke marketing heads measure this campaign’s true success? Aside from engagement and traffic metrics, there would be no connection between the increased sales and the new engagement campaign.

    Cool toy(s), Coke. I’ll guess we’ll have to wait and see whether or not you all come up with a better way to make this idea make dollars and sense.