So, it’s no surprise that we were recently told, “We want some of that Old Spice Guy stuff,” no less than four times, in a recent meeting with a company looking for a b2b social media strategy to capture some OSG-type magic.

It’s no wonder that companies want to capture the stuff of Old Spice. This week, Adweek published results that Old Spice sales have been on a steady double-digit uptake since introduction of its bravado-steeped manly man TV campaign featuring Isaiah Mustafa; and in the last month, its social campaign pushed the sales increase into the three-digit zone.

Watching this campaign unfold and peeking behind the (shower) curtain at how it was pulled-off, we’d say that the success of the OSG campaign involved four key criteria:

• The breakthrough social campaign embraced, didn’t seek to reinvent, the heritage of the brand
• It pushed the envelope, taking a familiar persona to the next level, ever expanding opportunities to converse
• It delivered its audience and  its audience’s main influencer something to talk about
• It delivers on the promise of the brand

Old Spice Guy knows how to get on his horse and sell it. No difference there between consumer and b2b marketing. It all goes back to marketing basics — know what’s important to your customers, find out where they are talking about it, give them something relevant to talk about, and be able to communicate how your strengths map to what they want – in the time and places where they are talking.

Want some OSG magic? Find your horse and get on it … just be sure that you know how to ride it. And if you’re not sure where to find your horse or how to ride, maybe it’s time you speak with us.

Media Logic’s latest whitepaper, Fear not! How financial service institutions can put the ‘Big 6’ social marketing strategies to work, suggests strategies, platforms, and control protocols for how financial service institutions and other regulated businesses can begin to step into social marketing without fear.

DOWNLOAD THE WHITEPAPER

Fear not! is based on web-based reconnaissance of the social media efforts of 35 American financial institutions in March 2010 and Media Logic’s work on behalf of clients in the financial services sector and other regulated industries. The whitepaper identifies the distinct qualities that separate safe social marketing strategies from unproductive, or even counter-productive, efforts.

Media Logic welcomes all comments.

It was the buzz in the agency last week, as various people weighed in on its value to parents, kids and marketers (eek!). The big question was this: Do kids really need a training ground for social networking?

Is learning how to update your status as important as learning how to ride a bike? Or is it really about teaching kids that the same actions and etiquette required in real social interactions take place via technology too — something that may be critical to both their personal and future professional lives?

The internal reaction was divided and passionate. Those of us with children on the younger end of the spectrum felt that those critical years are best spent learning how to navigate real-world relationships and learning to have confidence in that setting – from working as part of a team to learning how to share of themselves or even of their toys. It’s those skills that will best serve them in life and set them up for success in society, families and future workplaces. Others, usually with tweens versus the core target of 6-10 year olds, felt like Togetherville can help establish the rules of the road for what will be their inevitable leap into the social networking world — and allow mom and dad to be a part of it.

So what do YOU think?

Related Articles:

• Togetherville: A social network for kids (Wired)
• A social network for tots and ‘tweens (Marketplace)

Many challenged my assumptions and my data. Several approached me afterward to suggest I didn’t know what was going on, or of all the efforts underway within the paper – blogging, youth outreach, new community focus, alternate revenue ideas (like charging for the weekly TV listing), online advertising efforts, etc. – that were working to slow the revenue slide and allow the “paper” to transition to a new era.

Perhaps.

It is certainly a too easy thing to say that the regional newspaper is dead. In fact, I’ve heard that the Times Union has the most highly trafficked website in the region (though I wonder how it compares to Google). I also know that community newspapers have in some cases bottomed out, and a few are even experiencing subscription growth.

How right or wrong was I to say the regional newspaper is on life support and will not survive? Or will not survive in anything close to the form we know it?

Whether or not you were at my presentation, I’d love to know your opinion and ideas. Will there be physical newspapers 10 years from now? Will regional newspaper brands be able to maintain their authority as they move more and more online? Will the iPad save them all?

For the record, I’m a friendly. Like many who came to consciousness in a pre-Internet world, I am unsettled by the trends. I hang on to my newspaper subscriptions (yes, I have two!), and defend the form as a unique way to consume information. I enjoy the act of spreading the news before me. Moving my coffee and buttered bagel off the page to turn it. And taking the news with me wherever I, uh, go.

But I am in a fast-dwindling minority.

An admittedly non-scientific survey of 50 of my fellow employees highlights the terrible trend. Only 37% still subscribe to a physical regional paper. And as low as that number is, there is an even starker stat buried in the data: while fully 72% of my coworkers 40 and older take a paper, only 18% of those younger than 40 do. And only 9%, or one out of 11, of those under 30 do.

And when you ask the under-40s if they are likely to subscribe in the future, they either laugh or just look at you quizzically.

How do subscription numbers break down regionally? By income? Education? Propensity to purchase the goods advertised? I don’t know. But even accounting for a monstrous margin of error, the numbers do not suggest a healthy future.

If you were George Randolph Hearst III, Vice President, Associate Publisher and General Manager of the Times Union, what would you do?

Now, be nice.

The event featuring Media Logic’s Executive VP/Executive CD Ronald Ladouceur as a guest speaker will take place on Thursday, March 25 and is open to both AMA members and nonmembers. Registration is available online.

What do you think? We welcome your thoughts and comments.

Josh:

Hey Fred, Edelman’s 2010 Trust Barometer was released recently. And one of the more interesting nuggets uncovered by the report is that “conversations with friends and peers as a source of company information saw sizable drops in the U.S.” On the surface, the report findings sound dire, specifically as they relate to social media – they seemingly crumble the foundational promise that makes social media so alluring for marketers. But, as aptly noted by some other sources (AdAge and SmartBlog and Going Social Now), the findings don’t really support the demise of social media as a marketer’s tool. Although, the findings made for an evocative story on APM’s Marketplace and good press for the annual report and the PR giant that conducts the research each year.

First, I believe that it is the isolated opinion of peers that consumers are losing confidence in, not the general notion of feedback from other consumers. When an opinion is expressed by a perceived expert or corroborated by a community of peers, consumers have faith in the veracity of the claim/opinion/advice. This provides strong support for those influencer- and community-building strategies that I know you have been pursuing with your clients recently.

Second, these findings seem to underline what I see as the natural evolution of social networks. The first phase seemed to be all about broadening social circles. “I should friend my brother’s best friend’s sister’s classmate.” It was all about the numbers – how many friends, how many followers. Now that we are getting a bit more sophisticated with social networks and building our social circles, the second phase seems to be about making sense of your network of “friends” and determining which people provide value and where they provide value. For example, I find value in your insight about the political dynamics of our industry. And you look to me for… well, I’m not sure, but you get the point.

What do you think? Am I missing the implications of Edelman’s findings?

Fred:

Don’t sell yourself short, Josh, I look to you for a lot of things. After all, you give me topics for pontification, and you know I love that.

It’s funny, because this hits on the “relevance” issue that we talked about last time in our last column, Mobile Ad Evolution. Of course, fewer people trust their “friends” now, than they did a year ago. Thanks to social media we now have a much broader definition of who is our “friend.” An acquaintance from high school might not know what I do for a living, so how can he know what products I’d like?

Awhile back, Clay Shirky gave a talk about the need for a better information filter. His main point was that complaints about “information overload” are not caused by too much information, but rather having no good way to filter and prioritize the information that we receive.

It sounds similar to your second point. What if I could “score” my friends in Facebook and give more credibility to the ones who know me better or whose opinions I trust more? Facebook has tried to do this by allowing me to group friends, but we tend to do that based on how we know someone, not based on how much we trust him. I’m more likely to listen to the voice of a person – or even a brand – who I trust rather than buying something after five people have told me to.

Related articles

• 2010 Edelman Trust Trends. 7 Destiny-Accelerators and YOU. (agentgenius.com)
• How to Market to People Who Don’t Trust Their Friends (marketingvox.com)
• The Social Impact of Friendships and Lies (socialmediatoday.com)

Learn how to integrate, manage and maximize your company’s total social marketing universe. Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo now.

So what does this mean for marketers? Moms’ blogs and time online provide a plethora of listening opportunities – and provide a wakeup call to brands everywhere. Women are the CFOs of most households and make most purchasing decisions on their own; being active in social media is becoming a must-do for any brand that wishes to remain relevant. Why? This group doesn’t have dormant pages on Facebook but are in fact among the most active on the site. A few quick facts:

• Over 67% of this audience is on Facebook at least 2-4 times a day
• Over 30% are on 5 or more times a day
• Only 5% are annoyed by or dislike ads on Facebook

All of this activity and this open-to-advertising view provide marketers with ample opportunity and reason to use Facebook’s targeted advertising to reach this critical audience.

Another key fact uncovered by this research? Moms want to interact with brands and are actively looking for deals or reasons to become fans. In the open-ended areas of the survey, the target showed a lot of savvy and insight, providing clues for marketers to take advantage of. A few highlights:

Provide exclusive offers (e.g., printable coupons, etc.). Exclusive offers would entice me to respond to the message (not just read/glance at [it]), and I might look them up on Facebook and become a fan.

[Be] more interactive. Starbucks is a good example – they just had a Facebook campaign where you could send a coupon for a free Starbucks ice cream to a friend on Facebook.

[Be] a little more targeted with online store specials.

The bottom line? This is an incredibly active, vocal and influential group in the social space. They are the most likely to seek out and share opinions on products, brands and services with those most likely to buy them. They are looking for brands to speak to them and provide them with a reason to start talking to them or about them. So it’s up to you: be a part of the conversation… or become irrelevant.

Learn how to integrate, manage and maximize your company’s total social marketing universe. Request your Zeitgeist & Coffee demo now.

From Patrick Boegel:

This is a nice update article on a service we have already discussed a bit, Jack Dorsey’s Square, but of even more interest is the Verizon Droid ad that is running below the end of the story copy.  It contains a commercial for Droid, links to the branded Twitter account and Facebook fan page, as well as a scrolling list of articles reviewing the product.  These are the ads we heard about being developed by Federated Media. Very engaging.

From Ron Ladouceur:

I can’t get over the excessively creepy/macho/90s techno/Lord of the Rings “towering eye” goofy look tone and feel of the Droid campaign. Dark and geeky. When mashed up with the Twitter bird, it comes off as downright Web 1.0. Given the Verizon backbone, I imagine the product will be successful. But the ethos seems to be such a throwback.

Designers, any of you have an opinion on this?

From Simona Bortis-Schultz:

The droid campaign doesn’t appeal to me either and seemed old fashioned… but perhaps the demographic they are targeting really digs the droid and the “creepy/macho/90s techno/Lord of the Rings ‘towering eye’”… it’s perhaps targeting male generation x-rs, who were in their element in the 90s?

From Beth Mickalonis:

The LTF seems like it is targeting a “PC” crowd (those people that are anti-Mac, gamers) I know a few of them and I think this is the smart phone that would appeal to them based of the anti-Mac theory alone.

From Ivan Marrero:

I can’t stand their new ads. Seems they’re reaching for a new angle – something drastically different than Apple’s iPod campaign.   They end up doing something that might have been cool 10 years ago. Kind of sad and dorky. I have to say they did get me excited with their teaser ads.

From Ron Ladouceur:

I think Simona’s analysis is exactly correct. If you’re going to fight the iPhone, you need to stake a position in opposition to stand out. Apple being so “gender neutral” and “age neutral” leaves little room. Go for the boys!

From Maura Lilley:

It reminds me of the 1984 Apple TV spot. But not in a cool retro way…

From Greg Johnson:

Agreed. It’s the anti- (iPhone, bubbly, gadgety, doohickey) campaign. Personally, I don’t particularly care for the Droid campaign either. However, knowing how popular the dark Transformer/Terminator/Star Trek movies have been, someone must know something about the people who are scooping these things up. Note: The phone itself is actually pretty neat (not dark and menacing at all)

From Michael Rodgers:

I pretty much agree… By marketing themselves so overtly techy/anti-Apple, they will absolutely attract the iPhone-haters – but they would have gotten those people no matter what. This campaign will do nothing for them when it comes to stealing current iPhone users away.

All that being said, it’s also a campaign that was destined for early success (see all the stories hyping its “huge sales numbers”). So many people have been waiting for the iPhone (or similar) to go to Verizon, they will flock early. The real question will be if anyone is buying this phone in 2 months.

And yes, I also hate the campaign.

Incidentally, it appears we’re not the only ones with strong opinions on Droid’s marketing… plenty of people out there either love it or hate it.

What do YOU think?

Regrettably, these feelings don’t last forever because focus groups really only represent a moment in time. Sooner rather than later, we start to wonder if the audience still feels the same way.

Enter social media, which is a game changer on many levels. Now we’re able to continually listen to what our clients’ customers and prospects are saying about the things that matter to them. This often includes thoughts about our clients, their products, their services, their competitors, etc. Whether it be through a Zeitgeist & Coffee Landscape Survey or a comprehensive Mine & Dine report, we’re able to tap into a data goldmine that gives us that “focus group feeling” not just for a few days or weeks – but on an ongoing basis.

In partnership with Media Logic, Fortitech implemented an integrated campaign with a drive-to-microsite call to action to demonstrate its long-standing commitment to food product safety. A sweep of the conversational marketplace was conducted to survey who was talking and what they were saying. We found that important industry influencers such as the FDA and the Institute of Food Technologists were using social media to connect with constituents.

Leveraging Zeitgeist & Coffee, Fortitech continues to receive a stream of relevant conversations in the social space, as well as pertinent news and editorial in trades and mainstream press. Using the actionable insights Media Logic derives from the chatter, Media Logic and Fortitech are able to reinforce Fortitech’s thought leadership in quality standards to audiences hungry for information.