How Social and Email Helped Mazda's Limited-Edition Preorders Sell Out Crazy Fast Under the hood of the automaker's timely digital promotion 
By Lauren Johnson

May 28, 2014, 12:45 PM EDT

Mazda bet big on social and email to tap into the classic roadster’s fervid fan base for its first all-digital pre-sale event to build buzz around a line of limited-edition MX-5 Miata cars.

In April, Mazda announced the sale of 100 25th anniversary Miata models at the New York International Auto Show. The brand quickly started churning out Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus posts to point consumers to a microsite where they could sign up to preorder the sporty car beginning on May 20. So, did these organic efforts pay off? Well, orders on the microsite filled up within 10 minutes, indicating that the digital work leading up to the promotion did indeed pan out for Mazda.

"We wanted to get the message out in a very concise way, so after we did the initial mass launch via the Auto Show announcement in New York, we then started talking it out in all of our social and digital channels,” said Russell Wager, vp of marketing at Mazda.

The Helloworld-powered site rolled out on May 1 with a countdown clock, asking car enthusiasts to type in their email addresses. Consumers could then sign up for an email reminder when the site went live, resulting in 1,600 email captures, Wager said.

A total of 250 sales leads were collected in the first 10 minutes of the promotion. Since only 100 cars were up for grabs, the additional 150 entries were gathered as back-ups in case some of the initial winners didn’t want to go through with buying the car.

The site generated 9,231 visits leading up to the promotion, and pulled in 6,519 clicks from May 20-26.

Mazda had intended to keep the microsite open for 10 days to turn out these 100 qualified sales leads, and credits some of the direct response-heavy social and digital efforts leading up to the promo as significant in triggering the the instant flood of responses.

The car brand has more than 1.5 million Facebook “likes,” a little more than 130,000 Twitter followers and roughly 820,000 Google Plus followers.

Between April 16 and May 20, Mazda posted a total of 11 Google Plus posts, 19 tweets and seven calls-to-action on Facebook. May 12 seemed to be the sweet spot in terms of engagement on Twitter and Facebook. Mazda’s tweet about the anniversary car was the brand's most retweeted tweet of the day, and a Facebook post the same day with almost 2,500 “likes” was shared more than 160 times.

“We have a huge enthusiast fan base first for Mazda, and second, specifically for the MX-5 Miata,” Wager said. “On any given weekend in the U.S., more people are racing in Mazdas than any other vehicle, and the majority of them are MX-5 Miatas.”

The Irvine, Calif.-based automaker now plans to follow up with the remaining 150 consumers who did not receive a car with information about upcoming product launches and offers as part of a push to ramp up CRM and loyalty efforts.

The microsite also now features a call-to-action to sign up for Mazda’s email newsletters.

"We’re actually using this as a little bit of a test case," Wager explained. "Maybe there will be some other limited-editions for other vehicles, maybe specific interior configurations [or] specific colors, but we’re definitely going to take this as a learning [tool] and we’re going to look to do this again in the future."

Infographic: The myths of social sharing

POSTED BY ISHBEL MACLEOD

Almost three quarters (72 per cent) of all sharing is still copy and paste, research from RadiumOne has found.

The research looks to expose the myths of social sharing, and discovered that vanity URLs increase average click volumes by 25 per cent.

It was also found, perhaps surprisingly, that millennials are least likely to engage with brand content of all age groups.

What's in the Giant Locker? Nissan and Amazon partner to promote Nissan Rogue in San Francisco

 POSTED BY STEPHEN LEPITAK

Nissan and Amazon came together this week when they placed a mysterious giant locker in front of the Ferry Building in San Francisco with no explanation.

The locker was large enough to hold a Nissan Rogue inside, as well as various other prizes, which could only be accessed through special codes.

What's in the Giant Locker? Nissan and Amazon partner to promote

The public was encouraged to tweet, comment or post photos about the locker on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook using the hash tag #GiantLocker, which would see them earn a code to open one of the doors. One code would open the giant door to allow the winner to gain access to the car inside.

Behind the campaign idea was TBWA\ Chiat Day LA, which last year ran another partnership between Nissan and Amazon where the Versa Note car was delivered in a large Amazon box. Pictures of the box being delivered was shared across 38 countries as people discussed what could be in the box.

Nissan Immortalizes Your Car And Family In A 3D Portrait

Brand Is Promoting Owners' Emotional Relationships With Their Vehicles

Editor's Pick

In Japan, Nissan is presenting some of its car owners with a 3D-printed replica of their old car (and their loved ones) when they trade it in for a new vehicle, in a program created to mark the brand's 80th anniversary.

Nissan owners who tweet out their "love stories" with their vehicles will get a chance to win a mini 3D replica of their cars, along with miniature versions of themselves. The brand hopes to underline the idea that a car (particuarly one you've owned for years) is almost like a part of your family and is promoting the program via this emotional web documentary in which a family sees its daughter off to start a new life in Tokyo.

AgencyTBWA/Hakuhodo claims it has already increased the numbers of people renewing their cars "dramatically" since its launch. Other Nissan owners in Japan can submit their own "love stories" until August 31 via Twitter and Facebook and on the dedicated contest site.

See video here: http://creativity-online.com/work/nissan-japan-my-car-forever/34554

Sony Creates 'Social Media Broadcast Channel' for World Cup

Soccer Tournament Expected To Dominate 60% of All Tweets For An Entire Month

By Emma Hall.

Sony has created a single online platform, called One Stadium Live, to bring together conversations and content across Twitter, Facebook and Google+ before and during the World Cup.

One Stadium Live starts May 1 and is part of Sony's tier one sponsorship of the FIFA tournament in Brazil. The mobile-first website at will highlight hot topics to give fans a snapshot of how the whole world is feeling about games, players, tactics, gossip -- and the inevitable controversies -- surrounding the World Cup 2014.

The platform is designed for mobile devices first.

Nick Bailey, CEO and executive creative director of IsobarU.K., which created One Stadium Live, said that Twitter expects 60% of all tweets during matches will be World Cup-related during the month-long soccer tournament, which starts on June 12.

Mr. Bailey described One Stadium Live as being "like a social broadcast channel for football." He added, "It will be like turning social content into TV content. You'll be able to tune in and see what people are saying, but in an engaging and entertaining way. It won't feel like just a load of Twitter hashtags – it will be a snapshot of what the world is feeling."

One Stadium Live will use analyze the meaning of posts, rather than just key words, to group fan posts together, while the technology will also remove bots and retweets from the conversation.

Isobar has set up a newsroom in its London office to bring an editorial layer to One Stadium Live. A team of moderators will be working round the clock, across six time zones, to push out the best conversations. Moderators will be there to safeguard Sony and keep things like racism and drugs out of the conversation. The site will also carry profiles and statistics on all 32 teams and their players, and news feeds to keep fans up to date in six languages.

The last tournament in 2010 attracted two billion TV viewers, and since then internet use has increased by 53%, Twitter use by 13,500%, and Facebook has gone from 300 million to one billion users, according to Isobar.

Trials held during recent friendly international matches demonstrated the variety of conversations around soccer, from pundits and tactics to team colors and whether or not individual players were "hot." Mr. Bailey said, "There is such a rich texture of conversation. We want it to feel like a big carnival of football, to create a wonderful ripple effect around games so that the whole world becomes a stadium."

One Stadium Live feeds into Sony's "One Sony" drive, which is attempting to unify the diverse Japanese company under one brand identity.

Sony calls its approach "From the lens to the living room," to capture the way the brand shares in the user experience, from the cameras that film the matches, to its Bravia TVs used to watch them, and Sony Xperia tablets and smartphones used to share the experience. Exclusive FIFA archive footage will also be available on Sony Entertainment Network.

Mr. Bailey said, "Our insight was that Sony brings fans closer to the detail of what's on the pitch -- closer to the visceral action -- so that we can make every fan's experience a bit more like being in a stadium." A spot promoting One Stadium Live, also by Isobar, will run on Sony's own channels and websites.

Once the World Cup is over, Isobar hopes to be able to adapt the One Stadium Live technology to create a second-screen experience across other big sports events, and for global shows such as the Academy Awards.

Social Media Marketing Lessons Learned from Ford

Ford currently occupies the enviable position of being the UK’s biggest car and commercial vehicle brand. Such a valuable reputation must be carefully protected and developed, especially in the social media savvy world of 2014. In a recent article in The Guardian, Scott Monty, Global Head of Social Media at Ford Motor Company shared some of the company’s social media secrets.

1. Spread the word through other people

Online marketing is about engaging the communities who might be interested in your product or offering. Get them on your side and you have powerful allies who will tell your story for you. Ford tested this theory in 2009 when it gave one hundred regular social media users a Ford Fiesta for six months. In return, they had to create and upload a themed video to social media sites to create  a ‘buzz’ about the car.

Video content was uploaded unedited and unfiltered – a real life, real time review of the car by unbiased people who would be most likely to use it. Ford felt confident enough in their product to allow ‘real people’ to present it online. It worked. The campaign received around 132,000 requests for more information, of which 82% were new to Ford.

2. Commit to social media – don’t use it for ‘one-offs’

Ford knows the power of sticking around on social media sites to extend the conversation and build up a following. They created their Social hub as a place for consumers to receive information, interact with other users and leave their own feedback and suggestions. Ford committed to reading the suggestions, entering the conversation and acting on any suitable ideas.

As it turned out, around 40% of all user-submitted ideas were already in the pipeline at Ford. Ford developed a ‘badge’ system for users to share online badges on their own blogs and social media networks, that linked directly to Ford’s website and social media outlets. This enabled the firm to target potential customers direct and deliver only the most relevant, tailored content to them, based on the type of badges selected.

3. Involving paid, owned and earned media increases impact

In 2010, Ford launched its new Explorer model. This was done in an innovative way, using Facebook as the main media outlet to drip feed videos, news snippets and interviews with the design team. The chief engineer was also involved, presenting virtual behind-the-scenes ‘tours’ to interested fans via Facebook.

This activity was backed up simultaneously with paid for targeted digital ads and planned events around the country. The Ford marketing team was instructed to integrate all their paid and earned media activity with the Facebook campaign. results were impressive with 100 million impressions on Facebook recorded on the day of the launch, 4400 million browser impressions and an overall reach of 66 million Americans.

4. Use distinct personalities to engage an audience online

According to Monty, the Ford Focus was starting to lose impact in the automotive sector as people turned to its competitors. In 2011, the marketing team made a concerted effort to draw interest back. They came up with a novelty spokesperson in the guise of an orange sock puppet named Doug. Along with his sidekick John, Doug fronted a series of successful videos that were posted online, aimed at males in their 20s and extolling the virtues of the Ford Focus.

The approach was a success. The videos were both entertaining and engaging and, above all, they spoke the customers’ own language. An astounding 4 million views were recorded for the videos that year, and opinion of the Focus rose by 77%. The consideration rate rose too, to a solid 66%.

5. Follow your users’ lead when it comes to social media platforms

After Doug was so well received, Ford tried another web-based video campaign the following year, named ‘Escape My Life’. This time, a female production assistant was given a Ford Escape, which came with an irritating product specialist who followed and commented on her every move. The series of eight videos were distributed not through Facebook this time, but through YouTube, as research showed that the desired target market were turning more and more to these media to watch videos online.

The annoying product specialist, who, we found out, was called ‘Barry’, was also the star of a parodied Tumblr blog, in which he avidly followed the social media trends of the day by creating memes and discussed zombie attacks. Again, the creation of characters who the public could not only identify with, but who also used the same social media platforms as them was a good move on Ford’s part. The campaign scored 1.5 million hits, the majority of which came via Tumblr.

http://www.dealerbuzz.co.uk/social-media-marketing-lessons-learned-ford/

CASE STUDY

Chevrolet Drives Brand Awareness for Its New Traverse

THE RUNDOWN

When it came time to promote the 2014 Traverse, Chevrolet implemented a comprehensive cross-channel, cross-device strategy, running campaigns across Google platforms. In particular, Chevrolet used YouTube to show off the new Traverse in an engaging, impactful way: It created an interactive YouTube video that ran as a TrueView ad, a YouTube homepage masthead, a YouTube mobile roadblock, and a Lightbox Ad on Google Display. Affinity Segments helped the brand zero in on the most valuable customers. The Lightbox Ad alone received more than half a million engagements over 14 weeks, with each lasting 19 seconds on average. Collectively, that’s one-third of a year.

Full article & Case Study here

Instagram Is The King Of Social Engagement

Posted by Nate Elliott 

Recently, Forrester studied more than 3 million user interactions with more than 2,500 brand posts on seven social networks and confirmed what marketers have long suspected: People don’t engage with branded social content very often.

On six of the seven social networks, the brands we studied achieved an engagement rate of less than 0.1%. For every 1 million Facebook fans those brands had collected, each of their posts received only about 700 likes, comments, and shares. On Twitter, the ratio was about 300 interactions per 1 million followers.

But one social network absolutely blew the others away when it came to delivering engagement: Instagram. Our study found that top brands’ Instagram posts generated a per-follower engagement rate of 4.21%. That means Instagram delivered these brands 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.

What does this higher engagement rate look like in practice? Last month, Red Bull posted a video of a unique snowboarding half-pipe on both Facebook and Instagram. A few days later, we noted that the brand’s 43 million Facebook fans had liked the video just 2,600 times (a 0.006% likes-per-fan rate), while its 1.2 million Instagram followers had liked the video more than 36,000 times (a 3% likes-per-follower rate).

           

And Instagram doesn’t only work for youth-focused brands like Red Bull; we’ve also seen great engagement for more pedestrian brands like Ford Fiesta and General Electric. 

If your brand is looking for social engagement — and if you’re not finding it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks — you should start using Instagram today.

For more detail on why Instagram delivers such strong engagement rates and how you can most effectively use the site, check out our new report, Use Instagram Now.

Join a Conversation Headed for Catastrophe in Honda's Anti-Texting Ad A cautionary tale, told through emoji ByAlfred Maskeroni

April 15, 2014, 12:49 PM EDT

On the heels of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's sobering scenario announcing National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Honda and agency RPA bring us the latest campaign in the effort to curb texting and driving. 

This spot (and accompanying print ad, below) pull the viewer into a text conversation happening on a mobile device, presumably on a road somewhere in America. 

The dialogue is an authentic glimpse into the life of a young adult, replete with the usual shorthand and emojis common in casual banter. Without spoiling exactly what happens next, the ad succeeds in creating a unique message that is graphically smart, simple and powerful. 

CREDITS
Client: Honda

Peugeot shuns TV for social media launching RCZ R campaign on Vine

POSTED BY GILLIAN WEST

Peugeot has shunned TV advertising by choosing to launch its RCZ R campaign using Vine.

The social media platform was chosen by the brand as it mirrors the 0-60mph capability of the new model, with the campaign itself developed by creative agency BD Network.

Of the campaign, BD Network business director, Shelia Buchet, said: “We wanted to break with conventions and create a new design code for the car that would provide customers with a new and surprising memory of the Peugeot brand. The R-rated campaign is about pushing life to the limits and we feel that as a team we embraced this. We hope consumers embrace it too.”

A teaser campaign, made up of a series of nine 5.9” videos, showcases the cars 0-60mph rate. Of those nine videos, the first four don’t even feature the car, but instead focus on artists/performers working within their field of expertise as an emotional expression of the RCZ R.

The boxer symbolises power and performance; the artist, design and technique; beauty and seduction is represented by the dancers, and the chef stands for expertise and precision. The following five teasers focus on a key stylistic or performance attribute of the car, filmed from a tightly cropped angle.

In addition to the six second Vine executions Peugeot has also created 15 second iterations for Instagram, both giving glimpses of the car but never showing it in its entirety as the whole car will be revealed in a 60” film airing on YouTube on 11 February.

BD Network designed the videos with sharing across social channels specifically in mind, though the videos will also feature in the Peugeot online showroom.

If Facebook becomes like PayPal these will be the two big winners

By Leo Mirani

Facebook is “only weeks away” from getting regulatory approval to become a payment and remittance processor, reports the Financial Times (paywall). Once the central bank of Ireland—where Facebook’s non-US business is registered and headquartered—approves Facebook as “electronic money institution,” its users will be able to send money to each other, or to online sellers. It’s unclear whether the service will be available only in Europe or everywhere outside the United States. (Facebook declined to comment and declined to offer reasons why.)

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Facebook Credits, a now defunct payment system the company used for about a year between 2011 and 2012, was an unmitigated flop. But while Facebook users could spend Credits only on apps and virtual items, the new system would allow them to send money to each other too. That makes it more appealing, and means it has two big beneficiaries:

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1) You

Ever since Kenya’s mobile money transfer service, M-Pesa, became a byword for financial inclusion, companies and states across the world have striven to reproduce its success. Three-quarters of Kenya’s population uses the services and roughly a third of the country’s GDP flows through its servers. But these numbers have never been replicated anywhere else.

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There are two main reasons. First, Kenya’s central bank took a remarkably farsighted view of regulation and allowed M-Pesa to grow unfettered. Those that would bring it to other developing countries, such as India, have to deal with active, cautious central banks. Second, the western world had little need for something like M-Pesa. Europe is a world-leader in online banking; North Americans rely on services such as PayPal.

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Nonetheless, there could be demand for M-Pesa-like services. In Europe, though single-market laws mandate free movement of goods, services and people across EU borders, moving money—at least where individual bank-account holders are concerned—is far from free. Banks charge onerous rates to move money across borders and are none too hasty about it either.

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The drawback to M-Pesa’s model, however, is that it’s tied to mobile phones, and hence confined to within a country. But a clutch of financial-services start-ups offering cross-border transfers have emerged in what is referred to as the “fintech,” or financial technology, sector. The FT reports that Facebook has conducted talks with at least three of them, including Transferwise, which Quartz profiled here. Their successes have been modest.

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The new thing that Facebook brings to the equation is the world’s biggest directory. As long as people have connected their Facebook accounts to bank accounts, it offers a simple and convenient way of moving money to friends, both within Europe and perhaps beyond its borders—the worldwide M-Pesa that has been so long dreamt of.

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2) Facebook

Facebook has little choice but to get into payments. Its biggest competitors are doing it. Google has been trying to leverage its own half-billion-strong base of Gmail users to push its own email-based payment system. WeChat, an instant-messenger service in China, has long doubled as a payment processor, morphing into a provider of everything from remittances to financial services.

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There would be two big benefits for Facebook. The first is income. Facebook already gets 10% of its revenue from the cut it takes on payments made to providers of apps that require payment. As users can send money to each other and buy more goods on Facebook, the volume of transactions going through the site will grow many-fold. Even at a small percentage of these transactions, Facebook’s income stands to gain substantially.

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Second, payment information is the holy grail for big data collectors like Facebook. If the company can track purchases, it can build richer profiles based not just on browsing patterns but on actual cash spent. Even better is if users end up buying things they’ve seen advertised on Facebook, since it allows the company to prove to advertisers that their ads were worth the money. That would cement Facebook’s position as a “must-buy” for advertisers, and safeguard its future.

10 Trends/Provocations from We Are Social

We Are Social - Future Factors 2014 from We Are Social Singapore

Facebook Announces Partnership with Oculus VR

I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Oculus VR, the leader in virtual reality technology.

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. For the past few years, this has mostly meant building mobile apps that help you share with the people you care about. We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences.

This is where Oculus comes in. They build virtual reality technology, like the Oculus Rift headset. When you put it on, you enter a completely immersive computer-generated environment, like a game or a movie scene or a place far away. The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you're actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it's different from anything they've ever experienced in their lives.

Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences.

Immersive gaming will be the first, and Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing and we hope to accelerate. The Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community, and there's a lot of interest from developers in building for this platform. We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.

But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home.

This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.

These are just some of the potential uses. By working with developers and partners across the industry, together we can build many more. One day, we believe this kind of immersive, augmented reality will become a part of daily life for billions of people.

Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming and we have a chance to build it together. I can't wait to start working with the whole team at Oculus to bring this future to the world, and to unlock new worlds for all of us.

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971

Volvo Car UK celebrates 100,000 Facebook fans milestone with bespoke illustration featuring real-life comments

POSTED BY GILLIAN WEST

Volvo Car UK has marked hitting 100,000 Facebook likes with a specially commissioned artwork from illustrator Matt Johnstone.

The bespoke creation celebrates the social media milestone and uses 100 comments crowdsourced from Volvo Car UK’s Facebook page, highlighting the unique place Volvo enjoys with families and households across the country.

“I was thrilled to work with Volvo on this project, and the live aspect and filming added to the excitement. It was an enjoyable experience working at Volvo’s UK office developing drawings for 100 illustrations into a large piece of artwork. I intended to create an illustration in which people can really study all the different ideas and explore the details on close inspection – and hopefully there is a sense of playfulness too,” said Johnstone.

Kylee Rush, brand manager at Volvo Car UK, added: “We’re really proud to reach this milestone of 100,000 Facebook page likes and wanted to thank our fans for their passion and loyalty. This artwork reflects the rich history of Volvo, its vehicles and its owners, making use of Matt Johnstone’s distinctively fun and quirky style of illustration to really bring it to life in a way that makes our fans feel part of it.”

Volvo Car UK’s social media agency Mindshare collaborated on the illustration which Johnstone created at the car manufacturer’s Maidenhead HQ with the whole process filmed live. The completed film now features on the Volvo Car UK Facebook page with fans invited to enter a competition to win the bespoke creation.