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How Brands Using Social Media Numbers, Please Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth Measurement of Paid Social Media Appears Solid But Are the Metrics for Organic Social Overstated? Gian M. Fulgoni Editors’ Note: Warc, the London-based publisher of the Journal of the Advertising Research (JAR), comScore, Inc. annually selects a panel of marketing experts to review case-study submissions for its Warc Prize for Social Strategy.1 Gian Fulgoni, co-founder and chairman emeritus of comScore, Inc. (and JAR columnist) was one of the 2015 Warc judges.2 In the pages that follow, Fulgoni shares the insights he gained as a judge reviewing 33 finalist case studies3 submitted by firms around the world in competition for the Warc Prize for Social Strategy. Winners were announced in June. The 2015 Warc Prize for Social Strategy is a com- • Social as a Substitute for media spend petition that asks marketers to demonstrate how • Social as a Savior effectively they had used social media in their • Social as a Soft Metric of effectiveness marketing efforts. Each case was judged using five • Social as a Sales Driver. percentage-weighted criteria:123 Social as a Supplement to Media Spend • Insight and strategic thinking (20 percent) There are two types of branded social media com- • Implementation (10 percent) munications: “organic” and “paid.” Organic social • Social effects (15 percent) media consists of brand communications that are • Business effects (45 percent) created by the advertiser on a social platform. The • Can other marketers learn from this case study? advertiser/sponsor doesn’t pay for it, and it can (10 percent) lead to “earned” media where the consumer shares the communication with others—either online or The shortlisted entries came from 11 different mar- via word of mouth. “Paid” content is as it sounds: kets around the world—a mix of creative agencies, The advertiser pays for the content. Both of these media networks, digital, and social specialists. The types of social communications are used as supple- United Kingdom supplied the largest number of ments to existing media programs, and this is prob- shortlisted entries (10), ahead of the United States ably the most common way that social marketing (7) and Australia (5). is used today. In part, this reflects the reality that As a judge, I was struck by the creative use of building high reach on social media using organic social media and the positive impact it had on alone has become increasingly difficult due to algo- many business results. My thoughts can be crystal- rithmic changes to social newsfeeds that favor paid ized into five dimensions—what I call the “Five S’s over organic brand communications. Research published by Facebook4 in late 2014 of Social Marketing”: • Social as a Supplement to media spend “The Warc Prize for Social Strategy,” Warc 2015. http://www.warc. com/Topics/WarcSocialPrize2015.topic 2 “The Warc Prize for Social Strategy — Judges,” Warc 2015. http:// www.warc.com/Awards/WarcSocialPrize2015/judges.info 3 “The Warc Prize for Social Strategy — Shortlist,” Warc 2015. http:// warc.me/PrF9u3 1 232 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH September 2015 showed that consumers wanted to see more stories from friends and from the Facebook brand pages they cared about. They also reported that they desired less promotional content. It is interesting to “An Update to News Feed: What it Means for Businesses.” (2014, November 14). Retrieved from Facebook for Business website: https:// www.facebook.com/business/news/update-to-facebook-news-feed 4 DOI: 10.2501/JAR-2015-004 How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth thearf.org As a judge, I was struck by the creative Game” (released after the campaign) the Navy first found that its target segment— use of social media and the positive impact what the Navy referred to as the “brightest cryptology minds”—could not “resist the it had on many business results. aroma of a nearly impossible puzzle.” With this as a foundation, the Navy designed an alternative reality game to note, however, that Facebook reported that entry put it well: “Start a fire and then rely connect with its target. It used posts on much of the content people identified as on our social tribes to fan the flames.” Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr “too promotional” were organic posts from The second supplemental approach to initiate and propagate a digital puzzle brands that they have “Liked” rather than turned the first on its head: It called for by sending out a series of coded clues, separately placed paid advertisements. the use of paid, owned, and earned social tips, and updates. Earned media amplified Facebook long has had controls both media to build awareness of the campaign the campaign. for the number of paid advertisements a to a level where “earned” television cov- The results were impressive. Accord- person sees on a “newsfeed”—the area erage (i.e., television coverage not paid ing to Facebook Analytics, the campaign on a user’s home page where new posts for by the brand) brought further value to reached 113,494 unique individuals—that’s from friends or brands they have “liked” the brand. This worked well for a number 87 prospects for every cryptologist enlist- are posted—and also to manage the qual- of campaigns in the Warc challenge—for ment needed. And, without the support of ity of those advertisements (based on example, those that used humor and/or any paid media, the Navy met its recruit- engagement, hiding advertisements, etc.). celebrities and, therefore, were entertain- ing objective ahead of schedule. But those same controls weren’t as closely ing for television to cover, or those that It was a popular case study with the monitored for promotional posts (i.e., focused on reducing crime in society and, Warc judges as well, as the effort took organic communications from a brand). therefore, worthy of being included in tel- home best-in-show gold-prize honors in Therefore, Facebook introduced new vol- evision news coverage. A strong case in the 2015 Prize for Social Strategy ume and content controls for promotional point: The use of Tinder, the dating app, posts that would allow consumers to see by the Immigrant Council of Ireland for Social as a Savior more of what they wanted from brands. its campaign to raise awareness about sex- On a surprising number of occasions, This meant that brands would have to rely trafficking (See “Social as a Savior”, right). social was the centerpiece of an effort to more on paid social than previously had breathe life into a failing—or even dying— Social as a Substitute for brand. In some cases, it was clear that the Media Spend brand’s prior marketing strategies had finalists in the 2015 Warc Prize for Social In some situations—especially where the failed abysmally. In others, it appeared that Strategy competition, brand managers brand was struggling financially—social the brand essentially had been abandoned used two diametrically different types of media could substitute for media spend. by its owners. In such instances, neces- supplemental social strategies: campaigns SPC, an Australian fruit processor, found sity became the mother of invention, and that supported television and campaigns itself in such a perilous position that it was impressive creative tactics involving social that were amplified by television. just months away from closure. The com- were implemented (leaving me to wonder been the case. It is interesting that in all the case-studies Traditional media spend quickly was pany was able to use influencers, Tweets, why it took being on the brink of disaster used to seed a campaign, often supporting direct messages, and Facebook posts to unleash creative social juices). Perhaps, the notion that nothing yet beats television quickly to rally sympathetic support from because social is still unproven at many for generating high reach in a very short Australians across the country to purchase companies, it took precisely that kind of a period of time. And, social amplification its products and save a 100-year-old brand. situation to persuade senior management was implemented to further build reach The power of social media also helped to invest in social marketing. Clearly, all and frequency beyond television alone. A the U.S. Navy—faced with government variation on the same strategy involved the spending cuts—recruit 1,291 cryptolo- Also intriguing were the cases that fea- use of paid social media to fuel earned and gists without a media budget. In a brilliant tured global-marketing strategies that owned social communications. One brand adaptation of the movie “The Imitation completely failed to be effective in some else had failed. September 2015 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 233 How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth individual countries, leaving the brand in a the Irish Government published a new its specific impact from that of the other very vulnerable position in those markets. Criminal Law (Sexual Offenses) Bill. elements of the marketing mix. It would In such instances, social marketing became especially relevant in a brand’s rebuilding appear that this was not easy to accom• Check One Two (United Kingdom) plish, largely because many of the case efforts because it essentially demanded Testicular cancer is the most common studies failed to cite a rigorous approach. that brand managers understand the cancer in men ages 25–49 years. But, if When analytics were used, some form of nuances of a particular local market and diagnosed at an early stage, it has the attribution modeling was preferred. It tailor their communications appropriately. highest cure rate of all cancers. Check appeared that most of this was not based In an age of globalization, it’s important One Two’s mission was to promote on models built at the individual person that marketers think global but act local. awareness and prevention of testicular or household level but, rather, on the use And social can be used in a very cost- cancer through a comedy campaign it of an aggregate approach. effective manner as a key part of the local called #FeelingNuts developed by the The accurate measurement of the impact marketing approach. digital agency, Jam. The effort initially of organic social communications is far In some cases, the brand was believed to targeted online influencers, such as more challenging than it is for paid social. lack an affinity with millennials, and social Alpha M (a leading influencer for men’s It became clear, for example, in many understandably was as a key tactic to use health, style, and grooming advice) and of the 2015 Prize for Social Strategy case to reengage that target audience with the Daz Black (a top “Vineographer”— studies, that social’s organic reach was brand. My takeaway was that some mar- i.e., heavily-followed user on Vine, the being grossly overestimated. This occurred keters somehow ignore millennials—or, at video-sharing site owned by Twitter). because the reach of an organic post or a minimum, fail to realize how different YouTube, Vine, and Instagram subse- Tweet was being computed as the simple their behavior and communication pat- quently helped spread the message to a aggregate of the number of followers or terns are—until it’s almost too late. With wider community. Awareness surged— friends. This is a problem in that it cannot disaster at hand, some of the marketers in with the added benefit that no media be assumed that an organic communica- the Warc group of 33 finalists came up with budget was required. tion is ever “in view” to all followers or imaginatively creative ways in which to friends. Moreover, there’s no deduplica- establish the relevance of the brand among Social as a Soft Metric of tion of the same person across followers. this important demo segment. Effectiveness It’s very likely, in fact, that the true reach of “Social as a savior” is a particularly The use of social media can produce a diz- an organic post is far lower than the simple apt descriptor of how some not-for-profit zying array of metrics, such as “Likes,” aggregation of followers. organizations have been able to use social re-Tweets, posts, shares, impressions (i.e., The impact of paid social, by contrast, marketing to achieve their goals. The fol- the number of times a communication was can be assessed more accurately because lowing are two examples from the Warc list seen), etc. a social-media platform is able to identify of finalists: But it can be challenging to relate these all of the consumers who were exposed (or “soft” metrics to hard measures of brand not exposed) to a paid piece of social com- impact (i.e., sales lift), and, thereby, fully munications. An effective way to measure The campaign objective was to raise evaluate the true impact of social mar- the impact of paid social is to use an A/B awareness of sex trafficking by utiliz- keting. Of course, if no other tactics were design, where the in-store buying behavior ing Tinder, the dating/social mobile used in the marketing mix, then it would of the exposed consumers is compared to app. The campaign was the brainchild be a simple matter to assign all credit for that of a balanced unexposed group. Behav- of the Irish ad agency, eightytwenty, any positive brand impact to social. And, iorally tracked research panels—those that and involved creating a number of fake indeed, there were a number of Warc case- use a sample of consumers—originally were profiles of women on Tinder. The first study submissions in which social market- used in such analyses.5 Current practices, profile picture began looking normal ing was used exclusively and the power of however, tend to prefer “cookie matching” (enticing men to match or click further), social was evident. 5 • Immigrant Council of Ireland and the subsequent photos proceeded In the majority of cases, however, social to tell a story of an abused woman. was used as a supplement to paid media, Three weeks after the campaign ended, and it required analytical work to isolate 234 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH September 2015 “The Power of Like2: How Social Marketing Works,” comScore, June 12, 2012. Retrieved on July 27, 2015, from http://www.comscore.com/ Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2012/ The-Power-of-Like-2-How-Social-Marketing-Works How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth thearf.org The 2015 Warc Price for Social Strategy Oscar Mayer campaign benchmarks and case studies contained many examples that of the bacon phenomenon by creat- included social, and lifted brand sales with the invention since whatever came before successfully put the brand at the center ing, as USA Today observed, “The best sliced bread.”6 combined effort of an overall campaign. • Coca-Cola: “Share-a-Coke US” One of the key aspects of social is shar- over research panels. In this analytical The role of paid and earned social was ing, and Coca-Cola provided teenagers approach, many of the consumers who are critical. It began with well-known food with something very personal to share. exposed to paid social communications bloggers sharing their creations, thereby The Coca-Cola brand name was taken have their “social cookies” anonymously helping build awareness and providing off of 20-ounce bottles and replaced linked to the cookies used to identify their inspiration. Then, a carefully selected with 250 of the most common teen in-store buying through retailer loyalty- consumer segment was targeted and names. The campaign originally was card data. No research panel is needed asked to “create, snap, and share” its created by Ogilvy in Australia. Coca- with this approach. Another advantage: own creations on social platforms. Insta Cola knew from running the Share-a- Cookie-matching provides the benefit of gram, Facebook, and Twitter were the Coke campaign in various countries data-sample sizes that can be as many as three main social channels. The results that a teenager could be persuaded to 1,000-times larger than one would obtain were impressive. buy a bottle of Coke with her or her with a research panel. own name on it. But in this U.S. cam• Oscar Mayer: “Wake Up and Smell paign, the soft-drink marketer added a Social Driving Sales Success the Bacon” new dimension: encouraging the teen Putting aside the specific contribution of In one of the most creative entries, the target audience also to purchase and social marketing to a brand’s performance, agency 360i built a digital experience for share bottles with their friends’ names it was clear that the 2015 Warc Prize for Oscar Mayer around the unmistakable on them. Social Strategy case studies contained sensory experience of cooking bacon by The campaign intentionally was many examples of campaigns that blending a custom bacon scent, prototyp- launched small in scale, allowing teens ing a device to deliver it, and developing to discover the campaign on their own an accompanying alarm-clock app. terms and take ownership of it. Custom • included social, and • lifted brand sales with the combined effort of an overall campaign. Among the programs I ranked the highest: • Chobani Yogurt: “#PlainInspiring” The device was promoted by a video 20-ounce packaging with 250 popular that parodied contemporary fragrance teen names generated instant interest advertisements, and fans were encour- as word of mouth spread through the aged to apply to win a limited-edition social sphere. The only paid media, at clock. The alarm also was seeded with that point, was search, which was used reporters and influencers, but only to react to organic interest and drive traf- In the Australian yogurt market, Cho- 5,000 were offered to “bacon enthu- fic to ShareaCoke.com. bani was the premium-price brand, but siasts” through a sweepstake on the Television and online video followed its media budget had been reduced to a Oscar Mayer site. Even so, the app was the initial soft launch. The company then level of just 4 percent of previous cam- at the center of the brand’s social com- initiated mass “digital takeovers” — paigns. By introducing a social media munications that involved both paid which use large digital advertisements campaign that promoted yogurt-eating and earned media. to obtain virtually 100 percent share of occasions beyond breakfast (created by Not surprisingly, the campaign the agency Weber Shandwick), the brand became a viral sensation and also gar- was able to grow its sales significantly nered earned television coverage. “Wake and, also important, to maintain its Up and Smell the Bacon”—a campaign premium-price position. with social at its core—exceeded all past voice on participating sites’ home pages. “Wake up with a whiff of bacon,” USA Today, March 5, 2014. Retrieved July 27, 2015, from http://www.usatoday. com/story/tech/columnist/2014/03/05/oscar-mayer-baconalarm-gadget-and-app-tech-now/6072297/ 6 September 2015 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH 235 How Brands Using Social Media Ignite Marketing and Drive Growth It’s especially impressive to see the creative organic efforts—needs further development. Because social generates so applications of social and how it can be used to amplify the impact of traditional media. many intervening metrics, it’s easy to rely on them as evidence of success. It’s clear, however, that some of the metrics being used to evaluate organic social marketing In addition, a creative digital outdoor Summary plan featured interactive human-sized If ever I had any doubt, the 2015 Prize for Coke bottles on bus shelters where teens Social Strategy case studies demonstrated could type in their names, take a photo, that social media has become central to and share it with their friends. the marketing efforts of many brands and Social came back into the mix with organizations. And, in turn, the palette significant paid support behind organic of tools that a marketer can use has been content across Facebook, Instagram, enhanced dramatically by social. are overstated. In the case of paid social media, more and more tools are becoming available to allow marketers to more definitively understand its impact. This especially is important because recent changes in the ranking algorithms of some social platforms have had the effect of favoring paid versus organic communications in terms of Twitter, and Tumblr. Endorsements It’s especially impressive to see the from teens’ favorite online person- creative applications of social and how alities further ignited sharing. All in it can be used to amplify the impact of all, social-centric effort delivered traditional media. I would venture to Gian M. Fulgoni is co-founder and chairman emeritus outstanding results, with U.S. sales say that social can bring marketing crea- of comScore, Inc. Previously he was president/ceo of increasing by 11 percent versus the tivity to life, especially even in those Information Resources, Inc. During a 40-year career at prior year. And the Share-a-Coke cam- instances where media budgets are lim- the c-level of corporate management, he has overseen paign in North America was more ited or nonexistent. the development of many innovative technological reach and frequency. successful in driving sales than in any The only current shortcoming I see other country where the campaign had is that the specific isolation on business advertising effectiveness. He is a regular contributor to been launched. results of the impact of social—especially the Journal of Advertising Research. 236 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH September 2015 methods of measuring consumer behavior and