3 posts tagged “naked communications”
Adam Ferrier, Managing Partner of Naked Communications, discusses the widely talked about Witchery Man campaign, how it was brought to life, the challenges and key learnings.
Last night marked Sydney's first official Social Media Club meet-up at the Oxford Hotel in Darlinghurst. Despite having our Anzac Day public holiday stripped from us this year, the party vibe last night made me question whether all the other agency folk were still out celebrating from a long bender of a weekend.
Based on last night's huge turn out (close to 300 people turned up), I am assuming that Social Media Club Sydney will continue to run these monthly meetings. The intended forum is to use these sessions to present social media case studies and examples of what has and what has not worked.
There is one rule and one rule only (it's kind of like Fight Club :) ) - "no pitch/ no sell"! What does this mean? Those presenters who are clearly trying to flog a product or a service will have to face the consequences.
Last night's session was about two recent social media events in this country: the success of the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account and the Naked Communications Witchery Man campaign. These cases were presented by Adam Ferrier (Managing Partner of Naked Communications) and Leslie Nassar (Telstra employee and the 'fake' Stephen Conroy).
I enjoyed last night's meet-up, particularly Adam's account of the Witchery Man campaign and the seed behind developing the woman with the jacket love story.
A lot of people have been and are still carrying on about the importance of ethics and moral accountability in client service in general and when developing social media campaigns such as these. I have to agree to an extent but Adam made a fair point last night. We are all in a creative game whether it be advertising, public relations or marketing. Our job, for the large part, consists of creating myths and storytelling in a way that makes consumers want to connect with a brand. This is exactly what the Witchery Man campaign did.
Was it successful? Well, yes it was. The campaign objective was to drive talkability and that's exactly what it did. People are still talking (look at me - case and point)! If the client is happy and the agency involved isn't losing business as a result of the campaign, than I think it's fair game.
I'm sure others out there are just wishing they had done it first!
It was only last week that I was talking about the use of social media and viral videos in particular to promote a brand and cause.
I was specifically drawing a comparison between Tourism Queensland's fake viral video that appeared on YouTube with a woman getting a tattoo of the 'dream job' advertisement on her arm and comparing it with the video of Heidi Clarke, the woman with a jacket to return to a mysterious man that she met in the Sydney CBD.
Early last week it hadn't been confirmed whether this last video was a fake but now it has been revealed that it indeed is a spoof. It has also been revealed that this is the work of Australian strategy consultancy, Naked Communications.
This misleading viral campaign has caused major uproar in social media and has captured many negative comments. These comments are mostly around the idea of using social media to mislead consumers in order to promote a particular cause and also particularly negative comments about the agency itself.
You can read some of these comments here.
Was it a clever video? Yes. Did it get people talking? Yes. So much so that this actually caused a stir in both online and offline world. Would it have caused as much of a stir in social media if Tourism QLD hadn't recently admitted to its hoax video? I'm actually doubtful although I don't necessarily agree with these sorts of covert marketing tactics.
Naked Communications has taken a beating because of its actions. This is a mistake that anyone could have made and one that a lot are probably guilty of but yet to be found out about just yet. Although I caveat this by saying that we are likely to see a domino effect here and I'm sure there are many more dominos that will start to fall now.
We can take a lesson from this. Many savvy marketers are talking about the use of covert marketing and tactics in order to raise brand awareness and eyebrows. Many people believe that this is clever marketing and gets consumer excited. We need to be aware that this is clearly not the case. This sort of behaviour on social media is simpe not acceptable.
Perhaps we need to go right bac to social media 101 again. Do we need to retrain people on the core principles that underpin this very medium? It's all about honesty, authenticity and transparency. And you're most certainly damned if you don't!
Just look at the flack that the likes of Vespa and Sony have attracted in this past year for using covert marketing as a means to promote a cause. Vespa - slammed! Sony Fake Tourist campaign - slammed!
I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on misleading viral campaigns. Do you have any other examples you can share. What other big companies are using covert marketing as a means of promotion?
