Luxury Forum: Is social media just for chavs?

Is social media just for chavs?
Richard Pentin, Senior Planner, TMW

“
I’m not convinced our affluent customers have the time nor inclination to participate in social media to make this a marketing priority
”
“
I don’t feel comfortable letting go of our brand just yet
”
“
It’s more important in these recessionary times to use tried and tested BTL techniques to drive sales
”

overview
| WHY the luxury sector should not ignoresocial media
| WHAT strategic considerations are critical for success
| HOW Infiniti Europe have used social media successfully

WHY is social media so important?
Visitors
Extent of brand owned or controlled online touch points
Luxury brands need to engage consumers in non-brand controlled environments
The number of visitors to non-brand controlled online touch points far outweighs those visiting ‘official’ sites
Sites / devices used
The Long Tail Principle

Or to put it another way…
Your prospects simply won’t see you if they’re looking in the wrong direction

Power is shifting away from brands to consumers

Marketers are taking it seriously too
Around 90% of companies believe social media marketing is effective in building brand awareness and driving website traffic

Social media perceived as the catalyst for change
76% of marketing professionals within large organisations believe social media is the catalyst for change
More companies are planning to increase spend on social media than any other channel

“
So how should luxury brands embrace social media?
”

Create a MySpace page?
http://www.myspace.com/lovebycartier

Create a fanpage on Facebook?

Write a corporate blog?

Create a branded YouTube Channel?

Open a twitter account?

50%of social media campaigns will fail
Gartner Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2008

Key to success is understanding how andwhy your consumers participate in social media

How consumers participate in social media
Consumers participate in social media to different degrees

How consumers participate in social media
Participation varies significantly by age

Why consumers participate in social media
To maximise your chances of success it’s important to appreciate your target audience’s different motivations for participation
SOCIAL Connecting, reinforcing tribes or belonging
DISCOVERY Learning or self-development
ALTRUISM Helping others or involvement with the brand
FAMENotoriety or competition
EXPRESSION Creativity or identity
ESCAPISM Entertainment
ICM research sponsored by Creston Group

1,000 people
16 motivations
6 core value opportunities

Having defined how and why your consumers participate in social media you can start to develop a social proposition

Learn
Inspire
Play
Share
Celebrate
Discuss
Explore
Create
Challenge
Stimulate
Involve

CASE STUDY

Blogosphere Buzz Infiniti barely registered on the Richter Scale!
Audi
Lexus
Infiniti

Forum posts per dayInfiniti also lags behind on forum postings
Audi
Lexus
Infiniti

Target audience The Progressive Entrepreneur

45-55+ male
Highly affluent, successful businessman
Entrepreneurial spirit, non-conformist, independent
Stylish, fashion conscious
Appreciates creativity, design, quality
Understated luxury
Very internet savvy, iphone/blackberry
Currently owns premium car - BMW, Lexus, MB, Audi or Porsche

Social media behavioural insights of the Progressive Entrepreneur
HOW?
WHY?
DISCOVERY Learning or self-development
“Spectators”
“Discoverers”
+

SOCIAL PROPOSITION
Empower key opinion formers to talk passionately about Infiniti coming to Europe, so that Progressive Entrepreneurs get to hear about us and satisfy their own curiosity

Video assets4 stunning visualiser films

Video assets‘Making of’ visualiser
A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the visualiser films were made.

Video assetsInfiniti Duel
A short, stylistic film of man versus machine

Seeding approach3 key strands
1
Video sharing sites
2
Blogger seeding (online PR/paid media)
3
Social optimisation

1
1
Top 10 video sharing sitesacross G5 markets
Video sharing
YouTube
MySpace
Bebo
Veoh
Yahoo! Video
Megavideo
Dailymotion
Metacafe
Imeem
Break
Dailymotion
YouTube
MySpace
Megavideo
Metacafe
Yahoo! Video
Veoh
Skyrock
Wat
Videotribe
YouTube
MySpace
Libero Video
Google Video
Dada
Netlog
Yahoo! Video
Tiscali Video
Veo
TuoVideo
YouTube
MySpace
MyVideo
Netlog
Dailymotion
Veoh
Clipfish
Megavideo
Sevenload
VideoTube
YouTube
MySpace
Dada
Megavideo
Dailymotion
Veoh
Metacafe
VaClip
Tu.TV
DaleAlPlay
Video sharing sites vary in popularity across different markets

1
Optimising content onvideo sharing sites
Video sharing
Background info and tags are key to facilitate search and depth of experience

2
2
Blogger seedingOutreach Targeting
Blogger seeding
Quiet Rebels
Citizen journalists within the motoring sector were primary KOFs
Quiet Rebels
Progressive Entrepreneurs
ProgressiveEntrepreneurs
Lifestyle & video addicts(VISUALISER & MAKING OF)
Media Community(VISUALISER & MAKING OF)
DIRECT kOF
MOTORING
(ALL ASSETS)
ProgressiveEntrepreneurs
Adventure sports(DUEL)
Quiet Rebels
But to achieve cut through & organic growthwe wanted to alsocast the net wider.

2
2
Paid Placement MediaExample Network Sites
Blogger seeding
BuscaTuning
MotorPasion
CiberMotor
DiabloMotor
Liboh
XatakMovil
EltirantCodigoGeek
NeoTeo
ViendoVideos
Blog Automobile
Culture Buzz
Blig
2803
JarrodXXX
Wiik
AccessOWeb
InnovaBlog
Webilus
DroleVideo
AngoloMotori
MarketingBlog
NinjaMarketing
SpeedBlog
BlogGiando
TuttoVolume
Pandemia
Sugiu
StupidExe
OutTube
AutoMobil
AutoRegional
TotalBlogal
IchDigital
RebellMarkt
DatenSchmutz
BrainWash
OwnClips
Bendecho
DezenterHinweis
Fast Fever
Auto Spectator
Tube
Fast Car
Power Slide
Gadget Grid
Technovia
BlackberryInsight
ScaryIdeas
ViralVideoChart
Mixture of KOFs from within the auto sector but also media, upmarket lifestyle, politics, gadget, entertainment and video addicts

2
2
Outreach: Bespoke Site Identification Viral Video Chart
Blogger seeding
Viral database
Tracks 5m videos over 2 years
Indexing 110m blogs
Blogger identification
Who disseminated similar content?
Which blogs are most influential?
Site recruitment
Approach salient sites

2
2
Combining assetsCreate widget with multiple video assets
Blogger seeding
Lead video
In some cases we combined all assets into one widget to maximise engagement with full model range
Space for four additional videos
Viewer can channel surf content in one place

2
Social Media Press Release‘Making Of’ Social Media Release - France
Blogger seeding
Social Media Press Release distributed across 5 markets
http://console.unrulymedia.com/viral_campaigns/cration_du_visualisateur_infiniti__la_voiture_qui_nexistait_pas

3
3
Social media spread
Social optimisation
Video player is integrated with key social networks...
...making it easy for people to share or publish assets on our behalf

ExamplesVideo sharing sites

ExamplesPaid media placement (without editorial)
FX only – HomoSapiensInternetus (France)
All Models – DerSatiredienst(Germany)
http://www.logiste.be/blog/
http://www.satiredienst.de/

ExamplesFree editorial
AllModels – IlBlogDiDadoBonsai(Italy)
http://dadobonsai.blogspot.com/2008/11/ho-trovato-la-macchina-dei-miei-sogni.html

ExamplesFree editorial (with comments)
http://www.autoblog.it/post/16600/16600

So how d’it go…?

Results Summary

Engagement Metrics

CTR of nearly 2x average signals strong interest in finding out more about the Infiniti brand
Lower than average sharing metrics reflect the modest viral appeal of the clip (as we expected)

Killer slide
For every €100 invested in this campaign it generated 848 playsand 24 click throughs

“OK, that’s all well and good but how can we engage in social media if we don’t have any sexy assets?”

Why not have a chat instead?

Strategic approach
REACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
PROACTIVE ENGAGEMENT
Join existing conversations or post comments on existing articles/sites (where comments are enabled)
Kick start conversations where none exist already

Key agency partners & social media tools
Role: Identify and rank the most influential stakeholders. Monitor campaign effectiveness through debate analysis. Quantitative analysis of influence.
Clients:COI, Microsoft, Dyson, Nokia
Role: Forum moderation experts. Local pan-European resources enabling local research, moderation and forum participation.
Clients:News Int., Canon Europe, O2, P & G
PARTNERS
Role: Video seeding partner for UK and Pan-European campaigns. Blogger outreach.
Clients:Mini, Nike, Sony, Sky, Nokia, Ford
Role: Online press clippings service, providing articles according to defined search agents.
Clients: Fortune 500 companies on a global basis.
TOOLS

Conversation seeding process
Define campaign objectives, social media partners, strategy, budgets & KPIs
Campaign planning
Ongoing review of conversations using variety of social media tools and strict reporting processes
1
Rules of Engagement
Monitoring
DELIVERY
DISCOVERY
2
4
Strict guidelines on how to engage conversation including environments, scenario planning, reply prompts, product training and reporting requirements
Implementation
Set up newsfeeds, social media alerts and reporting processes
Moderators to search, interact, engage conversation in sites and forums
3

Reactive engagement live example

Proactive engagement live examples
Direct Response
We reviewed hundreds of auto discussion forums across Europe and where there were no Infiniti threads, we created them.
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/forum

Proactive engagement live examples
Direct Response
Yahoo Coches Espana
Even some popular forums didn’t have a discussion thread on Infiniti, so we created one, helping to build awareness of the launch and stimulate discussion.
Once created, these discussion threads should build momentum of their own.

Proactive engagementWikipedia (brand articles)
We updated Infiniti’s pages on Wikipedia about the brand’s arrival in Europe including supporting sources and links to Infiniti Europe website (across 5 languages)

Product pages were also updated with the latest models backed up with authoritative sources and links
Proactive engagementWikipedia (product articles)

Topline results
Our moderators posted over 1000 comments across 5 markets
13% of web traffic was referred from social media sites where we were active
3 of the top 10 web referral sites came from social media environments (en.wikipedia.org, autoblog.it and gruppofassina.it)
Wikipediais the highest referral site (which is not controlled by Infiniti or Nissan)
Referring Sites

1 www.infiniti.com
2 www.salon-auto.ch
3 www.infiniti.eu
4 www.nissan-global.com
5 www.infinitieurope.com
6 www.infinitipress.eu
7 en.wikipedia.org
8 search.ke.voila.fr
9 www.infinitifx.org
10 insider.infinitieurope.com
11 www.hobidas.com
12 suche.t-online.de
13 de.wikipedia.org
14 www.x5world.com
15 minkara.carview.co.jp

Do’s and don’ts
DON’T
…spam indiscriminately
…be guilty of astroturfing
…be too pushy or salesy
…hit and run
…be transparent
…act with humility
…add consumer value (otherwise don’t bother)
…rule your moderators with an iron fist
...put rigorous reporting systems in place
…allow for spot checks after campaign has finished
DO

Thank you