1. Chad Douglas
MMC6936
Summer 2016
Social Media Brand Plan
Gibson & Epiphone
INTRO / FOREWORD:
This social media brand plan focuses on Gibson/Epiphone guitars and aims to get the
brand(s) and consumers more engaged on social media, and to position Gibson as the go‐to
brand especially for those wanting to or already learning guitar. Another goal of this plan is for
Gibson to better reach out to musicians, using contests relying upon user‐generated content,
and creating niche mobile apps that support learning guitar, fine‐tuning instruments, and more.
A third goal, one that meshes with goal two in many regards, is to support the musical
community directly and indirectly by supporting artists with helpful exposure, while
encouraging aspiring artists and beginners to practice, play, and put their original music out
there for the world to hear. Finally, this brand will use social media to create awareness for
great guitar learning opportunities that already exist, such as “plug and play” instruction
involving Gibson’s existing partnership with Ubisoft’s Rocksmith software.
Some of the ideas elaborated on in this plan will include the following: 1) Vine will be
used to host a contest driven by user‐generated content; 2) iTunes and the Google Play store
will be used to provide learning tools such as a Gibson tuning app that makes recommendations
and suggestions for the best sound across a variety of models; 3) Youtube will be used to
feature up‐and‐coming or unknown talents who use Gibson products, giving Gibson the
opportunity to support artists with helpful exposure while encouraging aspiring artists and
beginners to practice, play, and publish their original music. A great contest for Gibson to hold
would involve asking musicians to submit original, short guitar riffs via Vine or Youtube. The
best one would be used as Gibson’s new brand riff in ads and the like. The winner would win a
one‐of‐a‐kind guitar. 4) There are opportunities for the brand to build stronger partnerships
with software like Ubisoft’s Rocksmith, a guitar learning tool that allows users to plug their
guitar into their gaming console or PC and learn guitar by playing real songs and following the
guidance of a virtual instructor that adjusts the difficulty of lessons based on the user’s
individual playing ability.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
Internal Environment

2. Gibson is in luck because the brand is already well set up for the social media brand plan
internally. The overall marketing plan, which will call for 1) establishing closer brand‐to‐
consumer ties with guitarists both experienced and new, 2) supporting indie artists in the music
industry, and 3) being the go‐to brand for instrument‐related knowledge and assistance, are
already three activities that the brand is engaged in as far as both their traditional offline and
decentralized online marketing is concerned.
Gibson’s main brand website demonstrates much of this. A few of the primary functions
of the site are providing product information, industry news, guitarist lifestyle blogging,
community and product support, and more. Here, Gibson has already begun to position itself as
a craft, community, art, and industry leader as well as a staple brand. Its news blog makes for a
great substitute for a traditional magazine, and rolls out new posts daily, most of which are
then shared out through the brand’s social media network—primarily Facebook, Youtube, and
Twitter. A big highlight of the site, though, is the “24/7 Support” section, which offers myriad
information on how to find product dealers and distributors, how to become a dealer, repair
and restoration, counterfeit reporting, warranty information, serial number searching,
schematics and manuals, customer support, tips on guitar buying, and so on.
Facebook and Twitter, as said before, are already great extensions of Gibson’s primary
website. The brand has already established a social media network which hasn’t overextended
(channels such as Pinterest aren’t entirely warranted), and the existing channels play to the
strengths that the brand is comfortable with. The brand Facebook and Twitter accounts are
strong, at that—Facebook boasting around 7.5 million current followers; Twitter, just over a
million. There’s also Youtube, a channel which is key to this brand plan. Gibson’s Youtube
channel currently sees a little over 86,000 subscribers and has accumulated almost 20 million
views across all its content. On this channel, Gibson smartly employs a variety of video content,
with everything from reviews to performance, tutorials to factory tours. There are a handful of
user‐generated videos, but Gibson could be doing so much more here. There will be more on
that further along in this plan.
Clearly, Gibson is already internally prepared to expand its overall marketing plan on
social media and not just to introduce and explore decentralized norms of online, social
marketing. With social channels already in place, Gibson has implemented policies and
procedures for carrying out brand‐to‐consumer relations online. More importantly, the brand is
prepared to communicate. Its main website’s “Talk 2 Us” feature, for instance, is one of the first
features listed on the home page’s title link bar. This is an excellent habit, because this
campaign will be especially about communication and positioning.
External Environment
Gibson’s consumers are actually more varied than may be apparent. Of course Gibson’s
natural target audience are guitar players—everyone from the high school teenager who just

3. picked up their first SG or Les Paul to famous artists who endorse the brand just by carrying a
Gibson out onto stage during a big arena show (i.e. Slash, George Harrison, Peter Frampton,
Billie Joe Armstrong, Bill Kelliher, Joe Walsh, Eric Clapton, Zakk Wylde, Joe Perry, Pete
Townshend, et al). That said, the brand sells the bulk of its product to instrumentalists falling
below the “world‐famous” mark, marketing to the learner, the hobbyist, the amateur, the
undiscovered pro. But there are other, niche consumers to be considered here, especially with
this particular brand plan in mind. Educators and techs should be kept in mind—instructors of
music, freelance tutors, music techs who do the behind‐the‐scenes work for live shows and
performances, and more. Additionally, this campaign will have video game players in mind,
particularly those interested in learning or honing guitar skills by using tech‐assisted methods
more familiar to them than traditional lessons or instruction.
Gibson has no shortage of competitors, but the “big three” we ought to pay most
attention to for this plan’s purposes are C.F. Martin and Co. Inc., Yamaha Corporation, and, of
course, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. All of these brands deal in precisely the same
products as Gibson, including guitars, bass guitars, guitar accessories, sound effects pedals,
amplifiers, guitar hardware, and more. These competitors are also using social media marketing
in much the same way as Gibson is currently. Looking at Fender’s Facebook account, the brand
doesn’t draw even a third the number of followers that Gibson does, but it boasts content
backed by music legends like Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, featured in this video. On
Twitter, Martin Guitars isn’t as follower‐strong as Gibson, with just about 190,000 followers to
Gibson’s 1 million+. Something to note, though, is that Martin positions itself more as the
“acoustic” and “classical” brand, spending more of its effort on hollow‐body acoustic
instruments and genres of music that Fender and Gibson spend less marketing attention on.
Yamaha is also on Youtube, and like Gibson, has attracted a significant follower base, but on
this channel, the brand has positioned itself more in favor of a target audience that prefers
piano and keyboard as well as other classical band instruments. In other words, Yamaha’s
products are more diverse, and it spreads its efforts thinner.
There are two environmental conditions that will be important to keep in mind in the
interest of this plan. The first is a social/cultural factor. Independent art and independent art
production has become more and more popular and more and more visible in recent years, if
not the past decade, and it pervades all arts. Independent book publishing, video game
publishing, and music publishing have been made much more feasible and much more
potentially lucrative than they’ve ever been in the past. Social media and the Internet have
empowered the “little guy” and made it possible for artists to represent themselves or seek
representation through social mediums, and many breakthrough artists’ claim to fame are
online exploits. This is important in understanding the need for Gibson to extend a hand to the
independent music industry. Likewise, Gibson has an opportunity to reach out to the musical
education community. As long as the economy is in a slump, and education, particularly after

4. school and creative programs, continue to suffer from issues like insufficient funding, it will be
important to remember that educators and, for that matter, amateur instrumentalists are likely
watching their budgets and more interested than ever in seeking affordable means of
supporting their art.
1 Social media has changed music publishing (source)
SWOT ANALYSIS:
Strengths
As demonstrated in the competitor analysis, Gibson is currently dominating social media
in terms of raw numbers, which is to say follower counts, video subscriptions, regularity of
content uploads and posts, and so forth. This positions Gibson well to speak to consumers over
all the noise. A brand which historically has a loyal and large consumer base, Gibson will be able
to leverage the large amount of social attention it’s already receiving online in order to make

5. the most of a new campaign to engage with consumers in a more personal, crafted manner.
The following infographic also provides a valuable insight: currently “Les Paul” is the most‐
searched guitar term in the United States that doesn’t include a brand name, and “Gibson
Guitars” is the most searched term that does include a brand name. Consumers are already
seeking Gibson more than other brands and models!
2 Gibson is already a top‐searched guitar brand (source).

6. Weaknesses
There are perhaps two most important areas of concern for Gibson, and the most
important is that it could be doing much more to distinguish itself from competitor Fender
online. Not only do the two brands produce and share similar content using similar strategies,
both vie for the attention of an almost identical target market, much more so than Martin or
Yamaha. Gibson and Fender are the guitars of rock n’ roll musicians, even more so than
acoustic, blues, jazz, and classical. Both brands have affixed themselves to the culture and
lifestyle of rock n’ roll and are often the top choice of famous rock n’ roll musicians as well as
the young beginners who pick up a guitar wanting to learn how to play like their idols. Another
concern is that Gibson is as well known for quality as it is for price. Gibson guitars, especially Les
Paul variety models often cost more than any comparable competitor. A brand new Fender
Stratocaster can cost half what a brand new Les Paul costs in some cases.
Opportunities
This is where the Epiphone brand comes into play. Epiphone is a brand of guitar
parented by the Gibson Guitar Corporation, and offers high quality instruments at a much more
affordable price than parent company Gibson. Bearing in mind some of the social conditions
discussed earlier, Epiphone guitars may be as important if not more important to affix to
Gibson’s social media marketing than, say, the Les Paul series. As has been explained,
independent artistry in music is booming, and independent artists are not operating on the
same budget as already‐successful pros and stars. Up‐and‐comers may need an affordable
product to go along with Gibson’s new and attractive social media marketing if they’re to be
sold on the brand. Similarly, many new guitar players buy cheaper brands or used instruments
when first starting out. For that reason, top brands are not often what local Battle of the Bands
teens are bringing onto stage. However, Epiphone delivers the quality, crasftmanship, and
aesthetic appeal that’s similar enough to Gibson’s top shelf models (and at fractions of the
price), and this creates a unique opportunity to compete with Fender when it comes to price
tags. Additionally, Gibson and Epiphone have a continuing opportunity to partner with cutting
edge video game developers such as Ubisoft, who are presenting video game players, an
entirely new market for guitar brands, the opportunity to learn music through video game
assisted tutorial software. Even further, mobile tech has allowed for the creation of apps that
cater to almost any need, such as a guitar tuner for iPhone or Android. This and many other
tools can allow Gibson to reach more consumers on mobile.

7.
3 This app has already reached more than 500K downloads (source).
Threats
Guitar sales have not tragically fallen as of recent years, but they also haven’t soared
(source). Economic conditions have, of course played a role in the tendency of growth to
stagnate, but at the same time, technology has allowed the guitar to do more than it once
could. Just as new learners can begin playing by plugging their guitar into a Playstation 3, Xbox
360, or PC, professionals can “jack in” directly to PC or recording hardware by USB and record
straight to their favorite programs. That said, the guitar is actually evolving. The bigger threat to
Gibson and others may actually be trends in music itself. Electronic dance music (EDM), Pop,
and other genres, all supported almost exclusively by computer‐generated or artificial sounds,
beats, and instruments are lighting up radio like no other genre, and there has been an overall
decline in the popularity of rock n’ roll as compared to these genres. Whether this is a
temporary or permanent change is yet to be seen.
OBJECTIVES:
1. To strengthen and expand brand reach and engagement with current and potential
consumers online.
2. To position Gibson as the go‐to brand for guitar expertise, instruction, and social
media exposure (artist community support).

8. 3. To position Gibson as the preferred brand in new mediums and marketing territories
such as video games/software and mobile.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
Gibson targets a pretty broad audience, typically both genders (age 18‐50), and
sets its marketing sights on “audiophiles” as well as, of course, musicians. Consumers,
given Gibson products’ normal price tags, generally fall into the middle and upper
classes. However, Gibson also markets to a segment with less spending power than the
latter, also broad in range (age 18‐60), who shop for instruments, as well as other
hardware and accessories, including speakers, amps, headphones, and so on. The brand
has shifted focus in recent years and begun to cater more to the “audiophile” segment
(source) but this brand plan will not necessarily target the primary segment.
This campaign will target a composite segment—essentially the middle class that
comprises portions of Gibson’s primary, secondary, and tertiary target markets, with
emphasis on consumers who are learning guitar or who are producing music
independently. The plan aims to reach out to the “average” musician and the “average”
artist. These segments are the ones who can be found perusing Youtube for tutorials
and how‐to’s, the segments who want to find visually rich “tabs” for their favorite songs.
It also includes those publishing their music on Youtube, Soundcloud, or even in Vine
and Instagram snippets; perhaps even artists who are published on Spotify but still
relatively unknown.
SOCIAL MEDIA ZONES:
This plan will make best use of Community, Publishing, and Entertainment, with
emphasis on the two former zones.
Community
When reaching out to the social music community, Gibson will present itself
using the solid, corporate‐entity identity that makes its current websites’ and social
channels’ voices shine. Gibson is looking to lead—to teach, to advise, to support, and to
strengthen consumers (musicians, artists, educators), and as such, a neighborly identity
bolstered with a tone of expertise is more appropriate here than, say, a brand
“character” or a collection of voices. This zone is where Gibson will share tutorials; this
is where Gibson will populate channels like Youtube with video content that provides
consumers with tips and tricks, advice about guitar buying, and where it will cross‐
promote helpful products such as Ubisoft’s Rocksmith (which supports Gibson Guitars
instrument interface) and mobile guitarist’s tools such as a Gibson tuning and

9. instruction app, made specifically for fine tuning and learning to play Gibson and
Epiphone guitars, or tweaking hardware, amplifiers, and more.
Publishing
Brand‐made content, as part of this plan, is, of course, tailored more toward
serving the social community more than promoting product. The remaining bulk of
content produced using this plan will be user‐generated, and will support Gibson social
media contests that are designed especially to benefit burgeoning artists and amateurs
who publish their music online and/or seek exposure or sponsorship.
One such contest will be hosted on Vine and Youtube simultaneously, both
channels carrying the contest hashtag “#GibsonRiffOff”. Here, musicians will be
challenged to a “riff‐off”, in which they’ll come up with a fantastic and distinct guitar riff,
something that will become Gibson’s signature “jingle” of sorts, to be used in its online
and offline product ads, promotions, and sponsored video content placements across
the Web. Top entrants’ riffs will be voted for by the Vine and Youtube communities, and
a final winner will be chosen, announced, and publicly congratulated on social media,
receiving a one‐of‐a‐kind Gibson guitar as a prize.
Another integrated campaign, supported by user‐generated content, would be
held on Youtube and linked to Instagram. Gibson will invite up‐and‐coming artists and
bands to submit videos in which they showcase their original sounds and explain “why
[we] choose Gibson guitars”, using the hashtag, “#ChooseGibson”. This is not only an
opportunity for Gibson guitars to enjoy organic and original advertising, it is an
opportunity for Gibson to provide independents with valuable exposure, and perhaps
even to discover and extend sponsorships to popular and talented artists.
Entertainment
Gibson will employ social entertainment in a way that leverages existing
products and consumer opportunities alongside its efforts to encourage beginners,
amateurs, and independent artists to keep playing and keep sharing. Game developer
Ubisoft’s revolutionary “Rocksmith” is a video game responsible for the now‐widely‐
popular “plug and play” style of guitar learning. Players, or in this case, students, plug
their guitar directly into their PC or video game console of choice via USB cable, and
Rocksmith literally teaches them how to play while intelligently adjusting to the user’s
unique skill level and play style.
This product, with which Gibson and Epiphone have already partnered and cross‐
promoted but are not presently utilizing strongly enough to distinguish themselves from
competitors, will be used to entertain consumers while linking its enjoyment to a third
social campaign, designed, this time, with amateur guitarists and more experienced

10. learners in mind. Consumers who use Rocksmith while learning to play on a Gibson or
Epiphone guitar or bass guitar are asked to upload videos of themselves playing along to
a song they learned on Rocksmith, to completion. The campaign seeks to highlight
everyday musicians proving that anyone can learn guitar with the help of
Gibson/Epiphone and Rocksmith. The campaign will ask participants to tag their videos
with the hashtag “#RocksmithStar”, and Gibson will share the best videos on a playlist
on its very own Youtube channel. An example/average submission would likely look
something like this example.
THE EXPERIENCE:
Due to its design, this plan makes it easy for Gibson to share its message, that
“Anyone can learn and succeed as a guitarist, and Gibson can help”, with consumers
both online and off. Products like Rocksmith carry the message both in‐store and online;
the cover art of Rocksmith’s packaging even features an Epiphone guitar. Fans of the
software, those who are online, will easily be able to find Gibson’s #RocksmithStar tag
and social engagement links among video content, produced by other users, on
Youtube, or even through social gaming platforms like Steam, who carry Rocksmith
digitally. Contests and musical community outreach on Gibson’s behalf aim to both
empower and help independent artists find one another, their fans, and a go‐to brand in
Gibson. Influencers on social media, such as popular independent musicians and other
musically‐inclined Youtubers could be provided with free copies of Rocksmith as well as
Epiphone guitars and asked to provide an honest review of both the software and
Gibson’s instruments to boot. The bigger picture is that the experience will encourage
guitar players with various levels of experience who frequent various social channels,
and all of who have a love for guitar and sharing their musical experiences, to get
together online—across multiple platforms—and engage with Gibson and each other
while sharing common experiences through content generation. Encouraging social
messages can be used to further extend this campaign’s impact. Traditional ads that
promote Gibson guitars and/or Epiphone and Rocksmith can remind consumers to “get
together and play [music]” or “show Epiphone what you’ve learned as a
#RocksmithStar”, or even, “Gibson wants to sponsor your band! Go to Youtube and tell
us why you or your band chooses Gibson guitars!”
ACTIVATION:
Activating the plan is rather straightforward. Gibson should launch the campaign
to run during Quarters 3 and 4, a time when concerts are a popular way to start having
fun indoors as weather cools down and new album releases are on everyone’s minds.
Summer, in comparison, can sometimes be a lull for concerts and other music events, as

11. is true with other publishing industries—books, videogames—and lots of anticipated
product releases and holiday spending goes into full‐swing during Q3‐Q4.
The social media campaign, given its inexpensive nature, can affordably be run
all season long, encouraging interest in learning music and spending indoor free time
with a guitar or, as far as pros are concerned, gathering around the computer and
recording contest content that will win Gibson’s attention. The integrated, holistic
marketing plan should run, then, from about late August until late November, with
contests/engagements equally interspersed, each perhaps concluding every four to five
weeks. The campaign does not ask Gibson to employ any more social media teams than
it has already established or begun to establish, so budgeting for social media
management expense should remain largely unchanged and unaffected. The expenses
ultimately fall within contest prize arenas. A custom guitar, one of Gibson’s Standard
Historic models with unique hardware and finish, for instance, could range from $4,500‐
6,500. Giveaway Epiphone guitars, those used to encourage influencers to spread the
word about Epiphone and Rocksmith, would be much more affordable. Five giveaways
of an Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plain Top guitar, for instance, would cost about $2,000
total (~$400 each). Since the majority of social content generated for this campaign will
originate from consumers and social media users, contest and engagement content
should bear little to no expense at all. Should Gibson ultimately sponsor one grand prize
winner in its “#ChooseGibson” contest, and provide an average band of musicians with
equipment, i.e. two guitars and a bass, an additional cost of around $1,500 should be
expected. Finally, development of a Gibson guitar tuning and instruction app should cost
around $5,500 if not much less, leaving the total plan cost at about $13,500 to $15,500.
MEASUREMENT:
The campaigns described in this social media brand plan have been designed to make
measuring and tracking a thing of ease. The major content platforms being used, Vine and
Youtube, display “loops” and “views” beneath content that gives an instant count of
impressions the content has made. By affixing hashtags such as “#GibsonRiffOff”,
“#RocksmithStar”, and “ChooseGibson” to contests/tutorials, and asking the same of users who
create their own content, all campaign content becomes trackable through utilities like Youtube
analytics and Hootsuite. The latter will likely be of extra importance should consumers begin to
share Gibson’s relevant Vine and Youtube content across other channels, such as those Gibson
is present on (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) and even those where the brand has not yet
established presence. Further trackable reach will be easy to achieve on Facebook and Twitter,
should Gibson employ wider cross‐channel promotion and mention its user‐gen content
contests on those sites as well.
Finally, as with any social media campaign, ROI can be gleaned through a step‐by‐step

12. process. In this campaign, the brand already knows it wants to earn certain types of
impressions, particularly on Vine and Youtube. These include views, channel subscriptions,
likes, shares, and so on. Once Gibson assigns a dollar value to each, tools like Hootsuite can
help the brand keep track of its campaign impressions in terms of the cost of marketing
compared to the value of campaign reach. ROI insights can be even more specific should Gibson
elect to use Salesforce tracking codes in tandem with marketing automation software such as Marketo.
This would allow Gibson and Epiphone to track sales leads back to specific social campaigns or
messages. If any individual campaign, as marked with a corresponding tag, results in a sales lead,
Gibson/Epiphone will know!