Heineken

Finding a subject for my last blog was very hard. I wanted to write about something great. I have been looking for over three hours on the internet, and asked anyone possible if they knew something. Finally, I came up with something: Heineken.

Although I am not a beer-fan, I am a fan of the commercials of Heineken. I think they build a great image, which is recognizable for everyone. Here some slogans:
- Biertje?
- Heerlijk, Helder, Heineken.
- Serving the planet.

These are some simple sentences, but when hearing them most people immediately think of Heineken! But the best of the advertising policy are the telivision commercials. I found some very popular and some more unknown:

Heineken, official drink of Jamaica


Jennifer Aniston or a Heineken beer?


Very sad


The most famous one


My personal favourite


So. This is it. I hope you enjoyed my last blog. I did not expected this to be fun, but I have to admit: this assignment, using Twitter, Blogger and Google Analytics, has been a discovering experience where I have learned a lot about social media use and surprising campaigns from different organizations.

Vriendelijk Verkeer

One campaign that really surprised me last week, was the commercial ad from the Fietsersbond. They are pleading for more friendly traffic. People should be more kind while driving, cycling and walking. This could be done by better watching, signing, showing what you are going to do and giving other users time and space. The Fietsersbond designed a great interactive website where people can do tests, see tips, watch funny movies and win bicycles. There is also a tool on the website where you can declare if you support the action. Right now there are just 165 people who do support this, which I think could be improved. Here the funny ad that surprised me:



This ad is based on the television program Blik Op De Weg, but with a funny twist. Instead of two cops giving a fine ticket to a driver who behaved very badly on the road, an unsuspectingly driver gets a compliment for his good driving behavior. I did not expected this on the beginning of the ad. This commercial will surprise people, and I hope the campaign reaches the goal!

Diesel goes stupid

I am sure a lot of people have noticed the new diesel advertisements. The picture beneath is the one you see in lots of magazines in the Netherlands right now:

I was a bit confused the first time I saw this. Just glazing at this page I did not recognized the brand Diesel in it, until the logo appeared in front of my eye. Surely, the advertisement suprised me and got my attention. Just the goal of the advertisement, I think?

Later, I found out this 'Stupid' advertisement was a part of a 'Stupid' campaign. Diesel has created a new philosophy: Be stupid. They looked for 100 Diesel Lovers. These persons were selected from an enormous amount of posted ideas of being stupid. From pictures to videos and just ordinary drawings. These 100 people had the chance to dance and act in the Diesel social fashion tagged music video. In this video they act stupid while wearing Diesel clothes. The funny thing about the video, is that you can pause it whenever you want and click on the clothes to see more details. You can call it a video-catalogue. A very innovative idea if you asked me. Here is the link where you can experience for yourself: http://www.diesel.com/ahundredlovers/

This is a quote from a interview with the Diesel company: "the global jeans manufacturer is assuring that there is nothing dumb about being stupid.
it is sure that the brightest ideas appear in the heads of those who are not afraid to express
themselves. at first, these ideas may seem stupid, but over decades they start to rule the world."
It is a suprising philosophy for a jeans brand, but in a way very appropriate for Diesel and the feeling customers have with the brand. I always saw Diesel as a crazy, innovative and very outstanding with a lot of colours.

Dancing for H&M

Although I think most of you guys are familiar with flashmobs, I will give a short explanation. A flashmob is an event where a large group of people suddenly appear in a public place to perform or do something. This event is mostly arranged with the use of internet. I knew that flashmobbing was an hype, but I never heard of it as a publicity tool for organizations.

H&M, the well-known clothing company, got some great publicity due to this by them organized event. They arranged a group of kids from a dance school to perform in a flashmob, dressed in clothes from H&M Kids. The group suddenly appeared at the San Fransisco's Union Square. In the youtube video you can see the surprised faces of the people on the street.



After seeing this video I started googling for some more examples. It appeared that flashmobs are often used as publicity for a company or organization. H&M wasn't even the first one with this idea, T-Mobile organized a similar event a year ago, for the Life's for sharing campaign. Around 350 people broke into a choreographed dance routine in London's Liverpool Street Station.



In my opinion this kind of publicity is exactly what attracts people to a brand and creates a great brand image!

Gaming is good advertising

When logging in to my hyves profile this morning, the amount of advertising which I was confronted with surprised me. Normally it does not bug me, but looking for another subject for my blog it hit me in one time! Different banners, invitations from brands, invitations to play games from brands.. especially the last one sounds interesting to me.

To conduct some good investigation ;) I tried to play the "Maffe Marathonspel" from the Bijenkorf.

A popup came up with the game (beautifully designed though). I clicked on "Start het spel" to begin, and an explanation of the game appeared. In this game, a lot of products which are offered during the real Maffe Marathon appeared. At the end, you needed to fill in a form with your personal information and the option to receive a newsletter from the Bijenkorf was already clicked on. After filling in this form the possibility to open the productbrochure of the Maffe Marathon came available.

In my eyes, the whole game is a advertising opportunity. Showing your products, getting customers familiar with the name and the event, signing them up for newsletters; everything is advertising, but just wrapped up as a nice game. This is just one example of all the "advertising games". I think it is a good way to get some attention for a product or event, even when customers don't sign up or don't buy the product; at least they know it exists and they can tell it to their (hyves) friends!

Get a girl with Axe

I had a very hard time coming up with a new subject for my blog. I brainstormed until my whole brain was devastated and I could not come up with one interesting fact. So I tried to make a list of nice advertising campaigns I could remember and thus made an impression on me.

The first one which came up were the campaigns of Axe. Overall, especially their advertising on television, the campaigns are very successful, funny and rememberable. Axe is worldwide known as a successful brand of deodorant, douchegel and aftershave. From the start it has been positioned as a product for (young) men, and use of Axe will lead them to success with the girls.




Here an example of one of the most known television advertisements of Axe:


Spray more, get more. The Axe effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_eLCtRqW4


This is just one of a big number of successful commercials. Even more special is the marketing strategy of the brand in the United Kingdom, where it is called Lynx. The advertise here with the same slogan, the Lynx effect. Lynx designed, together with an advertising company, a website totally dedicated to young men and helping them with flirting and getting girls: http://www.lynxeffect.com/#/home.aspx


This interactive website provides online tips and videoclips about seducing and getting a girl. Further, they developed special apps which also provides these funny tools. I think Axe is very innovating and original!

Spanish Succes Story

I think everybody knows the fashion store Zara, especially girls. Personally, it is one of my favorite shops although not in the weekend. Than it looks like there has been a war between all the customers with clothes as weapons. Okay, back to the subject: Zara is well-known. Last week I was wondering if I had ever seen an advertising campaign in magazines or television from Zara.. and I could not remember anything. I asked a bit around and most of my fellow Zara-fans could not remember a campaign either.

So I started 'googling' and found out that Zara does not advertise. Fashion retailers spend on average 3.5% of revenue on advertising their products, while Zara's parent company Inditex spends just 0.3%. This company believes advertising is pointless distraction. They believe that you can build a brand just by meeting the marked need.

The company's success lies in having total control over every part of the business. Zara designs, produces and distributes everything herself. Another strategy of Zara is they have every product in a limited amount and when you get the chance to buy it, you are lucky. If not, you can wait another week and a whole new collection has arrived. Zara's designers create approximately 40.000 new designs annually, from which 10.000 are selected for production. The clothes are inspired on the high-fashion labels, which are very expensive and exclusive. Zara makes it possible for everyone to own high-fashion designs, although with a less good quality, but for a really appropriate price.

This is the prove that when you really feel the market need, you do not need advertising to build a massive brand!

Special K campaign

In the last few weeks, one ad campaign especially got my attention: Kellogg's Special K. Special K's are presented as healthy but delicious and varied products. There are 5 different breakfast cereals and 5 different healthy snacks. The commercials on television informs potential customers about the Special K products and the personalized health plan Kellogg's designed. They ask for the customer to look on the website.

I was triggered by this commercial (so they did a good job ;)) and looked on the website.

This is the start page:
As you can see, the whole campaign is build on the idea of personalization. "We are all different" "Design your personal plan for FREE". Also more relevant information, like the prices people can win, calculating your BMI are added on the homepage. I think this is a very good campaign. People always like interactivity, to design something personal for free, which they can benefit from.

So i tried to make a plan for myself. You have to answer a few questions and a plan is designed personalized to your answers. I don't think I will follow the plan but their tips were helpful, and at least now I know the different products of Special K and I would like to try some of them!

Euler Hermes' Intranet

My last blog was very skeptical about the use of Twitter in organizations. Last week I spend searching for information, so that maybe i could change my opinion. And... it worked!

This blog will be about the media and ict use in the company Euler Hermes. Euler Hermes is a credit insurance company with global offices all over the world. Right now they are working on a reorganization of the company.

Reorganizations are often paired with a lot of problems, miscommunications, questions and further on. To avoid this, Euler Hermes designed an intranet for their employees.

This is a personalized page for every employee. In the picture above you can see the intranet page of my father. On this page you can easily access news updates from different categories. You can see a calendar, the stock prices of the company, personal reminders and a phonebook. Furthermore, other options are integrated like a search engine (Google) and a translation mechanism. I think this is a very good example of how an appropriate intranet page should look like!

Back to the reorganization.. to avoid all the problems they placed a option to do a video chat with the CEO on the intranet. Here you can ask him questions directly and talk with him about your impressions of the reorganization. I think this is a very good idea, but it is not very accessible. If I was an employee at Euler Hermes, I think that I would be a bit scared to start a video conversation with the CEO. Therefore, I think their other option, use of Twitter, is very appropriate and accessible for this function. Unlike e-mail, Twitter is open for everyone and every employee can see what was written before. Twitter is a very good program to ask questions about the reorganization. The CEO can answer them. Because of the 140 letters limit, the answers and questions should be short and to the point!

So now I found at least one good example of Twitter-use by a company...

Twittermania?!

Me writing this blog, me using twitter: I all blame it on the course Media use in organizations that I am following this semester. Last years I watched the hype around everyone writing blogs and twittering about every little thing they experienced. I consider myself as a modern girl, who can handle technology and is pretty good in working with computers but blogging and twittering was never my cup of tea. So, now i am forced. Well not really, but i really want to pass this course.

I have to admit, now I am a bit settled and i understand the basic principles of blogger.com and Twitter I kind of like it. Still, I am surprised with this Twittermania, as I call it. There are thousands of people who are twittering about the most silly things, like doing groceries, going to sleep, having a drink. Why? Why do people want the world to know everything and, more importantly, why do they think there are people interested in this? It could be my insecurity but I don't feel that people, even my friends, would really want to know when I am going to the toilet or when I am having breakfast. It just not seems interesting.

Nowadays, Twitter is not only used by people in their private lives, even companies are using it. I investigated some background information and googled a bit and found out that companies are using Twitter for a large number of different purposes. Update customers about company deals, offer customer support, to post company news and further on. Of course, I see that it could be useful, but isn't every option already available on the company website? Why use Twitter? When I want to know something about a product, or get help, I first go to the website to find information. I would certainly not search on Twitter for the account of the company. In my opinion, using Twitter for this purposes is useless. For me it has a negative influence on the image of a company. It makes the image look cheap and the companies are really trying to be trendy. Why? What is wrong with just a website? Why following this hype?

But that is just my opinion ;)