Why I Wasn’t Impressed with Oreo’s Super Bowl Blackout Tweet

Posted by Jon Thomas, 06 Feb 2013

I’m going to say it: I wasn’t impressed by Oreo’s blackout tweet. 

As I brace for the backlash, I’ll try to explain myself. I do realize that Oreo is making all the brands that invested $4 million for 30 seconds of interruption look foolish. Oreo is the talk of the town, and it’s not because of its own quite funny Super Bowl commercial (that’s right: I’m not going to call it the Big Game or El Plato Supreme) or it's impressive efforts on Instagram re-creating photos sent by fans out of either Oreo cookie or Oreo cream, which I insist marketers would be talking about today if there hadn't been a blackout. No, it’s because of a single tweet (I realize that it was also a Facebook post, but let’s call it a tweet for simplicity’s sake). It was a photo of an Oreo cookie in a pool of light surrounded by darkness and the words “You can still dunk in the dark”—and it was re-tweeted more than 15,000 times.

It was timely, on-brand and a much faster real-time response than any other brand (though brands like Tide and Audi had some great responses as well). If you were scouring the online marketing rags on Monday morning, you couldn’t click twice without running into an article about Oreo’s success.

But I wasn’t impressed by the tweet.

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4 Brands Winning Big in Social Media with Surprise and Delight

Posted by Jon Thomas, 09 Jan 2013

This past weekend I had the joy of throwing a surprise birthday party for my wife. And by joy I mean massive amounts of stress and that sick feeling in my stomach I get when I have to withhold the truth from my wife (which is infrequent, I swear!).

After I took her out for lunch and a spa treatment, we returned to the house, where the guests were huddling in the rear hallway. When we pulled into the driveway, my wife noticed that one of the trash barrels had been moved to the side porch (to make it easier to clean up after the party). Even though I begged her to take care of it later, she had to put the barrel back in its place. This would mean we’d enter from the side door, not the front door, as had been intended.

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Grey Poupon’s Facebook Page Spreads a Lesson in Brand Storytelling

Posted by Jon Thomas, 26 Sep 2012

I hate mustard.

I’ve always been a picky eater, though my palate has developed as I’ve gotten older. I used to avoid nearly all condiments and toppings. I’d eat salads without dressing, sandwiches without mayo, and whatever you put mustard on, I didn’t. I’ve come around on some of those. Any salad is better with ranch.  I need mayo on my tuna sandwiches.

I still hate mustard, though.

Hello. My name is Jon, and I’m a fan of Grey Poupon on Facebook.

It makes little sense, allowing a brand I have no intention of ever buying into my precious Facebook timeline. If my wife sneaked it into a sandwich, I’d spit it out like a petulant child. But Grey Poupon took an approach to building a community on Facebook that was so unusual, so exclusive, that I had to become a fan (or at least try). 

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What’s the Point of Paid Media in Post-Advertising?

Posted by Jon Thomas, 25 Jun 2012

Paid, earned and owned media are integral parts of any brand’s media strategy. While owned and earned media have flourished during the evolution of the marketing and advertising landscape in the past two decades, paid media has had a tumultuous ride. It has been the catalyst (broadly speaking) for obnoxious and interruptive advertising—pre-roll ads, billboards, banner ads; the kind of advertising we love to point out and lambaste—which makes it an easy target for ridicule by marketers trying to sell owned- and earned-media strategies into brands. But is it fair to ship paid media off to the Island of Misfit Toys? Is it a big mistake to ignore an effective paid-media strategy?

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Why Celebrity Ads Fail

Posted by Katie Edmondson, 20 Jun 2012

According to a new infographic from Crowdtap, “consumers trust recommendations from peers over all other forms of advertising.”

That’s right. Earned media—a suggestion from his neighbor, his college buddy or even his dentist’s cousin—will influence Mr. Consumer more than  a high-budget television, print or online banner ad. This is echoed by another recent study, this one by Nielsen, which also found that consumers trust online opinions (read: those of complete strangers) more than they trust any other form of editorial content, ads or sponsorships (and second only to recommendations from people they know). The full results below:

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Brand Storytelling in Social Media

Why “Tweet First, Ask Questions Last” Doesn’t Work

Posted by Jon Thomas, 19 Apr 2011
Social Media hasn't just exploded — it has taken off into the stratosphere. Companies and brands are stampeding towards WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter faster than someone with 100 Twitter followers can call themselves a Social Media Expert. But while you may be able to lead a horse to water you can't make it drink. Simply leading a brand to HootSuite doesn't mean they have anything great to say.
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Welcome to the Future of Advertising

Posted by Andrea Fjeld, 23 Mar 2011

The post-advertising age is complex. Consumers controlling brands, optimizing search, utilizing paid, earned, and owned media…all aspects can seem pretty confusing. So what’s a poor brand to do? Never fear: Help is on the way!

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Ready, Set, Tweet!

Posted by Karen Nagy, 30 Dec 2010
In a new social media campaign supporting its first ever Super Bowl ad, Mercedes-Benz has announced “the world’s first Twitter-fueled race," in which four teams will race suped-up autos from New York, LA, Chicago, or Tampa to the 2011 Super Bowl in Dallas. The grand prize is a 2012 C-Class Coupe and tickets to the Super Bowl. Here's the catch: it will take more than just speed to win. Racers will have to complete to-be-announced challenges along the way and garner Facebook likes and tweets (according to Mercedes-Benz, the winners will need “gallons of Tweets”). Sure, Facebook and Twitter are great marketing tools, but does this make any sense?
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The Three Most Important Words in Advertising

Posted by Luke Dringoli, 29 Oct 2010
"There is angst in ad land over the complexity of media," writes Story Worldwide CEO Kirk Cheyfitz in his latest article for the Huffington Post. You can say that again! Luckily, everything that follows this introductory sentence serves to unravel the complexity in this "how-to and how-come piece" about Paid, Owned, and Earned media. There's been a lot of talk about those three categories lately, and yet, they're still pretty confusing. What follows is the ultimate demystifier.
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Paid, Earned, Owned Media: Defining Your Brand Online

Posted by Ryan Saghir, 25 Oct 2010
If you've been involved with interactive marketing in the past year, you've undoubtedly heard the terms "paid, earned and owned" media. Breaking down an online brand presence into these three categories can help define your marketing efforts, but how should you prioritize them?
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