Ever since the Super Bowl, all eyes have been on Oreo during major tent-pole events as we waited for them to deliver more real-time Twitter marketing. Audiences were surprised and delighted by the company’s initial, simple tweet, which was really nothing more than an existing piece of art with some clever copy added in. Since Oreo’s success with real-time Twitter advertising, brands and agencies have been trying to capture the magic of “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark”—but though many have tried, few have succeeded. So what was it about that otherwise ordinary and forgettable tweet that took the world by storm?
My parents and many of my friends still don’t understand what it is I do every day. They envision me frolicking in the fields of Facebook and Twitter, swapping gossip and sharing funny memes. They must think I have the best job in the world because my profession is social media—exactly the tool used by everyone else to procrastinate and avoid doing their real job.
The combination of social media and storytelling, the term social media storytelling could be the holy grail of buzzwords. Half emerging technology that everyone said would either rule the world or totally fail, half proven method of transferring emotion and knowledge since the dawn of humanity, social media storytelling is a relatively new and an oft-misunderstood term. Nearly every digital agency claims that they’re “storytellers,” and if the client is interested in a social media activation, then they’ve magically become “social media storytellers” as well.
My mom and dad are clueless about what “social media storytelling” means, and that’s okay. But I fear there are other agencies and brands that are misunderstood, and that can be dangerous for audiences.
This post originally appeared in our February Issue of “Live Report from the Future of Marketing,” our monthly Post-Advertising newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The blanket of snow that fell across the UK a few weeks ago reminded me of one of my favourite marketing campaigns in recent years. If you haven’t seen this fantastic piece of opportunistic advertising before, the Polo Snow Stamp was pressed into thick snow on cars, park benches and roads across London, creating a perfect replica of the iconic white mint with the hole.
As a brand, it's not enough just to draw in traffic; you need to help create, maintain and support a community. And to do that, you need to know how to answer a few simple questions:
Pardon another post about our company, Story Worldwide, but this afternoon we launched something really cool for Ram, our client through Chrysler, and we couldn’t help but tell you about it. It’s exactly the kind of stuff we talk about here on Post Advertising.
