Make-A-Wish Social Media Campaign

This week in class we learned about how important it is to plan your social media campaigns. We looked at different calendars you can use, charts, and more. It is important to plan these things to make sure that you are hitting your mark every day of the campaign. These calendars make sure that you know how long exactly every part of the campaign will last, what will be on it, and more. 

So, I decided to look up one social media campaign from Make-A-Wish foundation. This was a multi-channel campaign all about a boy named Miles who was dubbed “BatKid”. The campaign used videos, pictures, and articles all about Miles and even got a lot of people in the city of San Franciso to show up for Miles. I turned into a fake documentary all about him becoming BatKid. 

This used different methods of a campaign to get the final result of support for Make-A-Wish and emotional appeal they wanted from it. For this campaign, I am sure that they used many calendars and graphs to make sure they were hitting every tactic of their strategy to get their end result. 

Influencers

In class these past few weeks, we have talked about social media and how it has the possibility to reach many audiences. One way that companies can use this new found social media obsession is through influencers. Influencers are people who have the ability to influence many different audiences on many different platforms. These people are usually famous, i.e. through Youtube or movies, and have a variety of fans. While many companies can use big-time celebrities, I think a lot have looked into the Youtube, Podcast, and blogger influencers, usually because they have a certain type of audience and can be less expensive than a celebrity. 

Companies use these influencers in various ways to get the word out about their brand, or specifically a new product. Some include sending them on trips for a launch of a new product, having them post about a new product/their brand, or making videos/blog posts about them. This helps get their word out with a person that they “trust” to give them advice on a product.

One example of a company using an influencer is Caitlin Bea. Caitlin is a Yotuber/blogger/social media influencer who focuses on makeup, fashion, and has an audience of mainly college and high school girls. Recently, Caitlin worked with Bobbi Brown (a makeup brand) in the launch of their new product, a nude eyeshadow palette. This campaign came with an Instagram post, a blog post, and an Instagram story. In these, she shows a makeup look with the palette and makes the product look useful. With these posts, Caitlin shows her fans that she truly loves the product and shows how to use them and why to buy them. Since her fans trust her, they will want to buy the product.

Using influencers is a very important and new way for companies to get the word out about their products, without spending too much money on celebrity endorsements. 

Brand Personality, Voice, and Tone: IHOP

Brand Personality:

Brand personality is the words or feelings that customers relate to your brand. When I think of IHOP, I think of a good breakfast place you can rely on at anytime of day. iHOP is a 24 hour breakfast restaurant that is all across the U.S. They give a friendly, common people, and welcoming vibe to the customers and potential customers. You think of IHOP when you needs some breakfast after hanging out with your friends late at night, or early morning with your family. Their commercials are lighthearted and go for more a comical vibe, as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzh03Tn5O1s

Brand Voice: 

Brand voice is the personality of your brand that you present to the public, it stays consistent throughout your promotions. IHOP consistently has a voice of comical value and down-to-earth feel throughout their social media. If you look at their twitter, they tweet consistently about funny things dealing with pancakes, anything to do with their breakfast brand, as I have put on here. As you can see, it fits with their video of being funny, light-hearted, and loving and making breakfast fun! 

Brand Tone:

Brand Tone is a level underneath brand voice, it is the ‘voice’ of them for a specific post or content. I saw this more in their new campaign for beer. Most of their posts are very light-hearted, but with the beer campaign, their “tone” was more crafty, while still keeping some of their jokingness. They made their video design more serious and crafty, rather than focusing on the jokes. The video is here: https://www.facebook.com/IHOP/videos/308238013322930/

Overall, although their tone may change from time-to-time, IHOP strives to be the comical and trusted brand that you want to go to late at night with your pals!

Surveys as Market Research

Audience Connections

Social media is more than just for marketing, it is for making those audience connections as well. Denny’s twitter has always been one for reply to their customers and make that connection. One example is the tweet above, in this example, a guest said they were going to be going to Denny’s and they made sure to tell them they were ready for them! 

Not only can these be used for funny comments, it can also be used to solve some problems. If customers are having/had a problem with something with your company, they can comment on your social media and then you can reply and try to solve the problem! These platforms are able to connect you to your audience and make sure they feel like you are there to provide for them and give them the service they deserve.

Along with all of this, you can use these items to connect customers to other customers. A lot of companies want to create a network and a community within their products. Especially with Denny’s, they make sure that they have tweets that their customers can reply to and connect within themselves.

Social media is more than just for marketing, it builds a community and creates brand loyalty within consumers. 

IMC Campaigns

Patagonia has been a brand I have admired for a while. They are a very transparent company and always have stories linked with their clothing and campaigns. They are never just selling a product, but a whole story with it. In the “Worn Wear” series, Patagonia focused on the stories people had with their Patagonia brand items and where they have taken those things. It focuses on the sustainability of their products and the design of the items. This video has the storytelling aspect we talked about in class all over it. Each person in this video presents who they are and how their Patagonia item has taken them all over the world with their sport. It also has influencers throughout. The athletes in this video are very popular in their sport making it easy for people to trust them and what they say about the product. Not only that, but it showcases the transparency of Patagonia. This isn’t them trying to say go buy a ton of our product, but yet say that our product lasts a long time so you don’t need to keep buying from us. As I mentioned before, Patagonia loves to be transparent about their products environmental impact and this just builds up their credibility in that they are trying to do everything they can to help the world stay clean. Patagonia is a brand I love to go to for advertising ideas because they always stay true to who they are and have campaigns that make you feel like you are doing good for the environment when you buy from them.