Introducing Snapcash

I was on Snapchat today and saw something interesting. I had a snap from Snapchat about a new service they are offering called Snapcash. I decided to look into it further. The popular app struck a deal with Square Cash allowing people to add a debit card and type a dollar amount to instantly send money to a friend.

The future plan for the service may include ecommerce payments to merchants. Someone can see a video from a company and if they like the product, they can buy it instantly. From a marketing standpoint, Snapchat could cross-reference debit card info through Snapchash accounts for ad targeting. This would increase the amount Snapchat charges companies to run advertisements.

There is a video in the link below showing an advertisement for Snapcash.

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It's a Hoax!

The now famous "Alex from Target" was a marketing ploy from the start. Business Insider reports the was staged to help small-content creators spread their work. What was not expected were the results. #AlexfromTarget received worldwide exposure making Alex an overnight celebrity. 

The campaign is yet another indication of the power of social media and its ability to spread a message. I can only expect similar campaigns in the future stealth marketing campaigns to generate word of mouth in social media. 

Link 

Product Backfire?

We have seen product placement in all types of programming and the NFL is no different. Microsoft is reportedly paying the NFL about $400 million over the next five years as part of a wide-ranging partnership. The partnership promotes their Surface tablet and brings NFL content to the Xbox One.

The problem Microsoft faces is that announcers are calling the Surface tablets iPads on national television. The miss-identification has lead Microsoft to coach various announcers on how to refer to the tablets.

As someone who watches football, I have been taking note of the partnership between Microsoft and the NFL during games. I have noticed that as the weeks go by, the Tablets have been receiving less and less air time. Announcers and camera operators are not focusing on them at all.

The intended communications goals are likely not being reached. The only buzz around the partnership I have been hearing is laughter over announcers not being able to tell the difference between an iPad and Surface tablet.


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New Instagram Data Has Marketers Grinning

The power of social media is becoming more and more valuable to companies of all sizes. Instagram has the power of visuals fueling its climb up the social media platform rankings. Major companies are catching on as engagement levels climb at a rapid rate. 

"Simply Measured" studied the Interbrand Top 100 list on Instagram during the third quarter and compared the data to its 2012 and 2013 benchmarks for the same period. 

They shared their findings with AdWeek, 

1. Big players have gotten on board. During 2012 Q3, 54 of the Interbrand top 100 brands had Instagram accounts. By the third quarter this year, that number rose to 86.
2. And they are active. Seventy-three percent of those 86 brands post at least one photo or video per week. Those posting at least once daily tripled year over year in Q3 with the total number jumping to 20.
3. Audiences are blowing up. The number of top 100 brands with more than 10,000 followers grew by 34 year over year in Q3 and now total 62 companies. And the number of brands with greater than 100,000 followers grew from 15 to 34.
4. The Swoosh leads. Fifteen of the brands have more than 1 million followers, with Nike leading the way at 7.3 million.
5. Engagement has generally jumped. The average engagement rate—which tallies comments and likes together—per post rose 415 percent in Q3 2014 compared to the same period 2012. The top brands averaged 18,822 likes and comments. During Q3 2012, they averaged 3,648 engagements.
6. Good posts have a long tail. The brands on the Interbrand list accrued an average of 216 comments, with 50 percent of them coming in the first six hours. While 75 percent of consumer comments were posted during the initial 48 hours, 10 percent of comments came after 13 days.
7. But great posts often kick in a little later. The highest-performing images and videos peak late, with more than 50 percent of their comments arriving after 13 hours of being live.
8. Brief copy is popular. The average caption is 138 characters long, but Simply Measured found no significant correlation between text length and engagement rate.
9. Using @mentions helps big time. On average, posts that entail another user's handle or @mention in the caption get 56 percent more engagement. But only 36 percent of brand posts involve at least one @mention.
10. #brandposts don't go overboard. Eighty-eight percent of posts studied included at least a single hashtag. Yet hashtags are usually few: 91 percent of posts have seven or less.
11. Though, hashtags provide a boost. Posts with at least a single hashtag average 12.6 percent more engagement.
12. Location, location, location. While just 5 percent of Instagram posts tag a location, the ones that do use this feature get 79 percent more engagement.
13. Huge media brands are few, but killing it. Only four media firms from the Interbrand list are active on Instagram, but they average 62 percent more posts per month when compared with other niches in the study. They average 23,906 engagements per post, which adds up to 5,084 more likes and comments per post compared to other sectors.
14. Carmakers are not shy on Instagram. The automotive industry has 13 Interbrand top 100 names on Instagram, beating all other categories.

Source: AdWeek 

Logo Power

Show almost anyone anywhere in the world the Nike Swoosh or McDonald's Golden Arches and they will know what it is. Logos are powerful tools. Good logos need no description or company name to gain attention.

The infographic below shows you how your brain breaks down a logo and how the process can affect your actions.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238484

And The Beat Goes On...

On October 9, 2014 the NFL fined San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones during a press conference. The fine was administered due to the promotion of a product not sponsored by the NFL. According to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, players only allowed to wear headsets made by NFL sponsor Bose during interviews. The rule lasts 90 minutes following the end of a game.

What does this mean for a marketer?

Image.

The market for headphones over $100 was worth more than $1 billion last year, according to research firm NPD Group. Beats holds 61 percent market share, while Bose holds 22 percent market share. I know I would not have guessed that. Bose has been around decades longer and has a sophisticated image. Beats is more edgy and appeals to a younger demographic. This sort of rebellion and personality expressed by Kaepernick plays well into the image of Beats. It is also a source of free publicity as people write about it (you're welcome). 

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-10/getting-banned-by-the-nfl-is-great-for-beats?campaign_id=yhoo 

The Power of Emotion

The average chocolate bar is a simple, inexpensive snack food. What makes a good chocolate bar? The ingredients? The packaging? In the short clip below from AMC's Mad Men, Don Draper shows the power of emotion associated with a product as simple as a chocolate bar.

Both stories shared by Don are proof that a Hershey's bar is more than just an average chocolate bar. It is a symbol of his childhood representing brief moments of happiness. What is happiness? In season 6 Don describes it as "a moment before you need more happiness." People have strong emotional ties to products that drive high and low involvement purchases. Marketers use this to their advantage. They assist in creating and reminding consumers of relationships with different products.