Vampires, Blood Banks & Advertising

What on earth do vampires, blood banks and advertising have in common? At first glance, they seem completely unrelated and nonsensical. But when you consider them within the context of the Australian TV calendar, you soon realise that these 3 elements have much more in common. In fact, they are so tightly intertwined, that the Winter of 2010 presents the Australian advertising industry with an extremely unique opportunity.

Let me explain...my rather distorted/alternate market observations:

Firstly, True Blood Season 3 will debut in Australia in Winter, on August 19.

Secondly, Winter seasonally marks the lowest levels of blood donations to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service (people fall sick during Winter and donation rates drop dramatically). It also marks the period when donor campaigns are ramped up to obtain more blood.

The extremely unique opportunity here, is to capitalise on the business needs of both organisations and go to the Australian market with a co-branded campaign.  Both organisations will benefit from significant national exposure in the lead up to True Blood's third season debut. This will also continue to persist during the season's broadcast. Additionally, the Australian Red Cross Blood Service will potentially benefit from increased quantities of new donors or existing donors donating blood during the Winter season.

Why does this idea work?

It's vastly different.

Globally, I think this may be a first, where an international premium cable-television network teams up with a local humanitarian, non-government organisation to support a blood drive campaign. The closest the Australian Red Cross Blood Service has come to partnering with a media-related organisation is the 2010 Open Air Cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. According to @redcrossbloodau, their "presence at the event was focused on raising awareness of the need for blood, rather than donations".

This campaign will be like a breath of fresh air, for the general public, and it will instantly grab their attention.

It's bold & edgy.

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service will be taking a huge leap away from it's current marketing strategy and will be definitely pushing the packet. What is exciting about this is that it's bold and edgy: it shows the versatility of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service to adopt an alternate market position, one within international, mainstream television media.

And it's not THAT risky.

Vampirism is nothing new for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. For example, it currently works in conjunction with the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) on an annual blood drive competition known as the Vampire Cup. It also coordinates the Vampire Shield program at Queanbeyan High School during June and July. As such, affiliating the Australian Red Cross Blood Service brand with the True Blood vampire theme won't be an issue.

What will be issues though, are the other connotations associated with the True Blood series - the vulgarity, graphic violence, racism and nudity. I however, think this can be overcome - it depends on the angle of the True Blood series, which is marketed to the public. Furthermore, most of the public will understand that the motive for the co-branding is for a good cause. In this case, I believe the greater good will significantly outweigh any negative connotations.

What do you think? Putting aside the short time frame to execute an advertising campaign like this, do you think a co-branded approach would even work?

Drop a comment below & hit me back with some ideas :)

Case Study: Jesus All About Life, Part II

This blog post contains recommendations for the Jesus All About Life campaign. Majority of these may appear as trivial and extremely obvious, but I believe they are the fundamental basics that individuals/groups/corporations have to get right if they wish to utilise the web technologies of today and more importantly, maintain an image of control and competence.

These recommendations, whilst focused on this specific campaign, are still highly relevant for everyone. They are also easily implementable :)

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Think online. Not only is the Internet a cheaper medium to advertise on compared to traditional mediums (television, broadcast, print, radio), it also has far greater reach than any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Internet transcends local and even national communities, countries, cultures, time zones. One goal of Jesus All About Life Campaign is to increase the public’s awareness of Jesus. The internet is the perfect medium to assist in achieving this goal.

   Another reason for focusing on web technologies (as opposed to traditional medium)  is that there has been a mass movement from the traditional "old" media to the "new" media by the younger demographic of global society. A proportion of Gen X and the majority of Gen Y are less inclined to read physical print. Interesting fact: according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Centre, a tipping point occurred in early 2009 in America, where more individuals sourced their news online for free, than paid for it by buying newspapers and magazines. Putting one obvious reason aside (online news is free, for now at least), I think it is fairly obvious where the storage, retrieval and publishing of information is headed: online.

   I recommend the campaign continue using the web technologies used in the past campaign and  offer Foursquare, the geo-location service (not the ball game), as another platform to be utilised in future campaigns. I do not see much relevance in exploiting the mayor and badge models for a campaign of this nature. While these bread-and-butter features of Foursquare are proving invaluable for many businesses today, I offer that which is on the horizon - the Foursquare   Promotions Functionality. This new feature identifies nearby specials based on your location.

   What attracts me to this feature is that you are easily able to instantly increase your potential audience. No longer are you bound to static individuals who view the event information behind a computer screen. You are now interacting with the mobile users. Through a simple mobile data connection and being in the neighbourhood, individuals who may not have known about the event or campaign, can be accessed.

   This functionality is suitable for Jesus All About Life events, such as the free barbecues.

2. Reconsider television as a campaign medium. From my research of the Jesus All About Life television advertisement, there has been mixed feedback regarding its reach and exposure. Some individuals had seen the advertisement on Channel 7, whilst others (including myself) had not. Considering this mixed response, I question the effectiveness of television as a medium for this campaign. Furthermore, considering the high costs associated with brainstorming, producing and broadcasting the advertisement, I question whether television should be part of the strategy in the next campaign.

   What I would like to see is the data of viewer behaviour when the advertisements were aired. Did viewers instantly flick away (a potential sign of television not being so effective) or did they watch the whole advertisement. Another trend I would look for in this data would be viewer behaviour towards subsequent showings of the advertisement after they viewed the first screening. Yes, this data can be mined for many other trends. I am only highlighting two , which I find particularly interesting.

3. Reassess the print strategy. At the start of, and even during, the campaign, I observed several news articles informing about the theft or vandalising of banners and posters associated with this campaign. The printing costs of this media is extremely high, and instantly lost when this occurs. I recommend that the funds towards banners, posters and similar articles be minimised and/or channelled elsewhere within print media (such as providing more teaching resources to the involved churches) or elsewhere in other communication channels.

The following section details recommendations per channel/touch-point utilised in this campaign.

WEBSITE

1. Become W3C Compliant. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a free, online mark-up validation service. Becoming W3C compliant is important as invalid mark-up can affect the accessibility of the site from users using older browsers, or mobile devices. Invalid mark-up has an even greater impact on disabled users who completely rely on screen readers. Whilst some screen readers and other assistive technologies have been developed to be more 'tolerant' towards invalid markup, its recommended to follow best practice and develop with standards and accessibility in mind. The W3c has published a Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) which explains how to make online content more accessible.
2. Practice Progressive Enhancement. Progressive enhancement is a web design and development strategy that adopts a layered approach towards content and functionality. It assumes a fundamental belief that content will always be accessible to the user. The progressive enhancement comes in the user experience, which can be enriched through other means such as JavaScript.

   I believe progressive enhancement can be implemented on the Google Map widget, which is found on the homepage. When JavaScript is disabled, users are unable to access the functionality or data associated with this widget. I recommend that the data accessed by the widget be output to another page, to improve accessibility.

YOUTUBE CHANNEL

1. One brand. Multiple Platforms. Campaign branding should be consistent and seamless irrespective of the platforms used in the campaign (website, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube). This not only reinforces the  image associated with the campaign, it improves user experience when bouncing between platforms.I recommend that the YouTube Channel be customised, to be more in-line with the website. I have listed the steps to achieve this below:

   i. Login > Click 'Account' Click 'Edit Channel' (see screenshot) ii. Click 'Channel Design' (see screenshot) iii. Customise your Channel (see screenshot) (An an example, I lifted the website background and temporarily used it as the background to my YouTube channel).

FACEBOOK FAN PAGE

I am unable to make any recommendations regarding this touch-point. The overall utilisation of the Facebook Fan Page is excellent. This channel is well maintained and the content published (photos, notes, events, etc.) keeps the audience constantly engaged.

The number of fans (approx. 22,100) is impressive, and I believe is a good sign of the campaign achieving one of its goals, i.e. "Get the churches in the advertising target area, active." Yes, it's highly likely that most of the fans are Christians, but here is one channel that unites individuals from across New South Wales and Western Australia, in one campaign for a common objective. Now that’s exciting!

I'm confident in saying that there is traction around this page - there is a healthy stream of wall posts and comments even to today (some 4 months after the campaign has finished). This may be one good indicator of the campaign's persistence and 'stickiness' within the general public.

TWITTER ACCOUNT

1. Contextualise every link tweeted. It is important to provide followers with a summary of what the link is about. Rather than tweeting "http://bit.ly/1tXEnj", tweet: "Thanks for Summer & Friends [img]: http://bit.ly/1tXEnj" or something similar. This is more user friendly for your followers.
2. Stick with one URL shortening service. This will make it easier to manage the analytics surrounding your campaign. Although, tracking statistics across multiple URL services is not that hard, it is less efficient. I have noticed that bit.ly and tinyurl have been used throughout the campaign, with a move towards bit.ly more recently. I recommend finding the URL shortening service that is easiest for your staff to use and stick with it. I am a huge fan of bit.ly as it smoothly integrates with the various Twitter clients I use (e.g. TweetDeck, Chromed Bird).
3. Link back to your content. Rather than posting two links (one to the original source, and one to the JAAL Facebook page) for the same content, just link to your content, i.e. your JAAL Facebook Fan Page. This eliminates redundancy, and improves the readability of your tweets. More importantly, you're channelling your audience towards your content.

   Worried that this practice will artificially inflating statistics for your Facebook Fan Page? Despite the fact that there are not many tools in the market to measure traffic to Facebook Fan Pages (most are aimed towards traffic surrounding Facebook Applications), I have found an excellent resource that enables Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages.

4. Screen/QA tweets. The following tweet is not user friendly: <object width="560" height="340"><param... http://bit.ly/poNy5

   If communication is occurring between two social platforms (such as Twitter and Facebook), check that the tweet has been published as intended. One can never go wrong with a bit of quality assurance (QA).

5. Utilise screen real estate. There is ample amount of space on the Twitter page that can be better utilised. Currently, only the Jesus All About Life Logo has been posted on the background, but other details can also be published, such as: - A summary of the campaign - Website URL - Contact details (phone, email, mail address) - Facebook Fan Page name and URL - YouTube Channel name and URL

   The moral of the story: make it simple for new (and returning) users to access general information about the campaign.

6. Be more conversational. Rather than constantly pushing content to the Twitter followers, engage with them more. Start conversations. Create connections. Maintain relationships.

That's all the recommendations I can provide for the Jesus All About Life Campaign. I may not have covered all of them, but I believe it is a fairly exhaustive list.

Let me know what you think.

Case Study: Jesus All About Life, Part I

Over the past weeks, I've been brainstorming topics to kick-start 2010 with. I won't list them but I'll say (to the relief of some) that I intend on harping less about social media and more about other 'things'. I'm not going to dump social media (a bad move, considering it's increasing dominance in the current online world), but I'll be mixing things up.

Having said that, I've selected this article from Mumbrella to christen my blog for 2010 (all puns intended). Why?

1. The differentiation factor- Not many bloggers in the online strategy/advertising arena blog about religion. Why? Because it isn't sexy (or the trending topic)...or maybe there just isn't enough traffic (or dollars) in religion to attract enough attention. I mean what'd you prefer to blog (and read) about? God or Gowalla, and it's geolocation deliciousness?
2. The takeaway - After digging into this campaign, I've hit on some insights, which I've personally benefited from, and which I believe are applicable for all organisations, great and small.

I intend on breaking up my analysis of this campaign into two blog posts. The first post will provide an overview of the campaign, and what I've learnt from the campaign. The second post will be a list of recommendations to the master puppeteers behind the Jesus All About Life Campaign, which can be implemented for JAAL 2.0 (if there will be such a thing).

The following sections provide a summary of the Jesus All About Life campaign. If you want to skip it, jump to the section titled "What have I learnt from this Case Study" and read on. The juicy stuff will be there :)

So what is Jesus All About Life (JAAL)?

The Mumbrella article has summed it up pretty well and a more detailed explanation can be found at the JAAL website, but here's JAAL in a nutshell:

• It's a mass media movement (television, print, broadcast, internet) developed by Australian independent creative agency, 303.
• The campaign ran from Sept 15, 2009 for 6 weeks, across NSW & WA.
• The campaign is non-denomational - Anglicans/Baptists/Catholics/etc alike cooperate and work towards common goals.
• Total media buy in : ~ $1.5 million

What were the campaign goals?

1. Increase the public's awareness of Jesus (and what he said about life). (Note the goal was not to convert the public).
2. Get the churches in the advertising target area, active.

What advertising channels were involved in this campaign?

I've identified 5 main channels:

1. INTERNET
   • Dedicated Website
   • Twitter - @JesusAAL
   • Facebook Page
   • YouTube Channel
2. TELEVISION
   • Campaign Commerical
3. PRINT MEDIA
4. BROADCAST (RADIO)
5. OTHER
   • Gen Y says Thankyou BBQ
   • Skywriting
   • Jesus Racing Team
   • City2Surf Jesus All About Life Team
   • Campaign Prize Giveaways (2 exclusive tickets to the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000)
   • Public Talks
     • Andrew Fisher, from Jesus Racing, talked to the detainees at the Reiby Juvenile Justice Centre.
     • Mark Scott's, Managing Director ABC, presentation to Christian business people.

This list has been generated from my own tracking of the campaign. A more detailed list of media mentions can be found in the JAAL Media Room, under the 'JAAL Media Monitor' section.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNT FROM THIS CASE STUDY?

1. The traditional media marketing platform is evolving The August 09 Media Report (slide 2), details that Internet claimed the largest media coverage (33%), compared to other media channels: Newspaper (27%), Magazine (20%), Broadcast (18%) and Television (2%). I believe this is just one sign that the traditional media marketing platform is evolving , and there are two main reasons for it:

   i. The people (users) of today demand constant, poly-directional real-time engagement. Users require many channels of interaction with the content or platform they are dealing with. This type of interaction isn't as readily provided by traditional marketing means which tend to be more uni-directional. However, the Internet is able to support this communication model and this is what makes social media web technologies such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook so popular. Don't believe me? According to Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable, real-time communication will only increase even more next year.This following statistic, which surprised me greatly, also supports my idea that the traditional media marketing platform is evolving: "60% of tv watchers in the USA have a laptop with them at the time." (via @markc at the Future of Technology in Entertainment Event, Sydney). Perhaps this is the start for a different approach to advertising, blending the real-time online environment with the time old television box. Perhaps this form of 'fusion advertising' will be even more effective than the advertisements that are purely designed for television or solely crafted for the Internet.

   ii. The internet can be leveraged at low cost.Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.  involve no major initial/operational costs...unlike television and radio. Advertising space on the traditional channels are extremely expensive. Unless you have deep pockets to burn holes through, I'd consider advertising online.

2. The public perpetuates publicity. Once the campaign is launched, the public will talk about it, no matter what. Whether it’s positive or negative, in the blogosphere or in the twitosphere, it will be talked about. This is important to remember because what it means is that all you need to do is to nudge your campaign into the public arena. The public will sweep it away. This means that the amount of time, effort and money thrown into manufacturing the marketing campaign really only needs to be condensed at the start. Once it’s out there, the campaign only needs to be monitored and measured.
3. Most humans have memories like goldfish. I may be wrong in saying this, but I still believe, most humans (including myself) have memories like goldfish. Why do I believe this? We are bombarded with so many advertisements, to the point where only a low percentage of advertisements are actually remembered. These advertisements are what we call  'sticky' advertisements, i.e. campaigns that have impacted the audience so much so that they are still remembered even after the campaign's termination.I think it'll be interesting to listen and measure the traffic surrounding the 'Jesus All About Life' campaign, across different online channels (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, blogs, discussion boards, etc) over the following months to see if the campaign has persisted after its operational period. The Mumbrella article referred to earlier was published approximately 4 months after the campaign terminated. Is this enough  show the campaign has persisted? No, most likely not. But it's pretty cool that Mumbrella picked it up. So...was the 'Jesus All About Life' campaign a 'sticky' campaign?
4. Budget is a limiting factor, only if you let it so. This point may be slightly contentious, but I'm going to throw it out there. If there's one thing we can takeaway from this case study, it's that budget isn't always proportional to campaign success. 303 has done a remarkable job in delivering a campaign that is on par with some of the industry's best. This statement bares even more weight when you consider that the subject matter, Jesus, is a topic that isn't easy to sell. I personally believe that using a low/tight budget as a reason for a failed/unsuccessful campaign is one excuse for poor creativity. This statement, I believe, is extremely relevant to the online industry, where web technology can be utilised at minimal cost. As such, the real limiting factor is what you can do with the technology, i.e. your creativity. As I said...a point that's slightly contentious :P

Well this basically wraps up Part 1 of my case study on the Jesus All About Life Campaign. I'm keen to hear what others have to say on the matter, and even on some of the ideas I've raised.

Stay tuned for Case Study: Jesus All About Life, Part II, where I'll be making some recommendations that are economic, realistic and easy to implement.