Brands have and always will try to reach for the benefits in making connections with their consumers. Personal connections, connections that engage on a more meaningful level are the golden tickets that run against the grain of mass media marketing. Spending time, money and general advertising resources on winning one particular individual isn’t the way its done. But one thing that has allowed these experiences between brand and consumer to become all the more engaging is the openness of personal information we are experiencing in the ‘Facebook Age’.
It is anything but surprising that big brands are trying to make the most of the willingness being shown by users to hand over personal info and the results are already showing that the concept of Immersive Social Narratives (I.S.N.) is one that can be developed by brand after brand.
To explain my meaning of Immersive Social Narratives (I.S.N. to you and me), Myspace fan video is an example of just that. Myspace have created a number of stories that pretty much put YOU into the narrative. From 50 Cent lovingly admiring a framed photo of you in his cooler than cool crib to Pixie Lott and Co. swooning over a snap of you on her digital camera. These perfectly executed narratives make full use of the most basic of Facebook/Myspace data; the profile pic. The genius of the campaign was a mighty collaboration of BBH London, Pulse Films, Absolut Post and Domani studios. BBH Labs have explained in there own words why they believe this example works better than the average ‘personalised video app’ and I couldn’t agree more. Read the article here.
With the Myspace Fan Videos, the magic isn’t in the tech. It’s in the moment when 50 Cent hangs a picture of you on his wall, or Alicia Keys sings you a song. Sure the magic is tech-fuelled, but it’s the twisted cultural content, the playful reference to things I love or hate, that really makes it. Tech is the means, not a magical end in itself. Tech magic is out. Loveable magic is in.
Taken from BBH Labs
The Myspace Fan Video example is one that seems to make use of the most limited amount of bespoke user information but in turn has created an experience that causes an automatic response of ‘how the fuck!?…’ and this seems to be one of the powerful reasons of the success of I.S.N. campaigns. Just like any new platform for engaging with consumers, the medium will only impress for so long so it really comes down to how creative you can be in using it.
So we’re aware that brands have access, once they have gained the trust of the user to some pretty potent data, but its how this is utilised that can make or break a campaign. The Myspace Fan video example shows us how with the most basic user info, a brilliantly handled rich media campaign can engage the user in an extremely personal and surprising online experience. So what information is available to us and how can we use it….? The automatic well to dip into would be Facebook. With access to a record of social activity, an immensely strong persona narrative can be built. Here are the types of data Facebook could assist brands in gaining:
The personal information mined from Facebook profiles mentioned above has already played a part in ‘Campfire NYC’s’ amazing campaign for ‘Discovery’s Shark Week’. Making use of Facebook data such as photos, birthdays and other profile info, a complexly bespoke narrative is weaved before the users’ eyes. Watch the video below to see the full campaign at work.
What if the info that Facebook allows is not enough? This will obviously be an issue as users become de-sensitized to and possibly bored of seeing these presently ‘jaw-dropping’ personalised experiences. The mining for user information doesn’t have to stop at good ol’ Facebook.
The technical pitfalls and restrictions aside, sites such as last.fm could also be used to help create some seriously impressive approaches to online marketing. The powers of sites such as last.fm rely on the co-operation of its users, allowing the site to get to know your tastes, social activities and listening habits. The last.fm experience has already been tapped into for Google’s Fastball quiz game, but the information stored could continue to create amazingly tailored experiences for its users.
The google quiz game currently uses fairly generic data from the vast last.fm database of music, but with such effective information based on musical tastes, campaigns that get to know your likes and dislikes, and carry on ‘getting to know you’ would be a really powerful thing. From music, to hobbies, to fitness regimes, the users’ everyday habits can be utilised to present them with brand relationships that are much less of an interference, and more of an invited conversation.
It is hard to discuss such a topic without the need to mention something so powerful as Google Maps. The data a tool such as this holds is ready and waiting to be adopted in an infinite number of creative ways. One recent knock out that makes use of personally entered data relating to location on Google Maps is the Arcade Fire interactive Video. Experience the video for yourself here or watch an interview from ABC News with a couple of the creators from Google Labs here. (The video below shows the interactive video in action).
As much as the experiences discussed above are ‘engaging’ in a virtual sense, the real step forward on from digital brand narratives is to take the stories into the real world. The surprise and impact of a campaign that aims to directly hit the emotion of the individual consumer can increase rapidly by stepping from our online experiences to our everyday life within the outside world. One recent example of a campaign that’s stepping into our everyday and becoming aware of our ‘Likes’ is the Bing/Jay Z collaboration.
Jay Z has been pulled in to seemingly add some credibility to Microsoft’s Bing Maps marketing campaign, marrying with his ‘Decoded’ book launch. Here is a quick intro into the concept of the campaign taken from mashable.com:
Here’s how it works: Pages from the book will be physically placed around the world with a majority in the New York area, in locations related to specific content featured on Bing — specifically Bing Mapsand Bing Entertainment. Five to 10 new pages from the book will be revealed each day, and participating fans who visit Bing.com/Jay-Zwill be able to find these pages either online or in person.
The image above shows a screenshot from the Jay Z Fan page stream where ‘Nadia J.’ has tracked down one of the pages from the streets of New York. Users who find and ‘Decode’ a page are entered into a prize draw for concert tickets as well as receiving a signed copy of the page they find.
The campaign, although only early to say, seems to merge the online excitement of the book launch with the physical history of the Jay Z ‘story’. Droga5 the agency who have developed the campaign have struck the right balance of digital world/real world experiences and seemed to have chosen the correct type of project for this specific execution. More than anything, Bing have surely exposed a whole new audience to their services and added some much needed ‘cool’ to their image.
There seems to be a niggling worry while discussing most of the campaigns above. The worry is mainly about the privacy of such personal info, but to be honest this sort of data will be used within the ‘Facebook Age’ whatsoever and its just a case of creating something engaging and fulfilling with it. With any new platform as already pointed out, its all about creating something new and unexpected. These will be the concepts remembered and cherished by the individuals we are attempting to engage.