Strangely, my first post doesn’t have anything to do with being social, but everything to do with being able to react tactically to real time trends and patterns:
In theory, everyone should have seen it by now. The video of the dog let loose in Richmond Park to terrorise the local deer population while his owner shouts frustrated obscenities. It’s currently had 2.2 million views on the original video and countless parodies have been created as the meme has gained momentum.
But there is an opportunity here that no one (yet) is exploiting. During the spike of interest over the videos, thousands of people would have been searching Fenton (initially thought to be Benton) related terms on Google to find the videos and news stories. Just do a quick search in Google Insights to see the spike in searches. Many will be dog owners themselves and will know that feeling of losing control of their dog in a public space all to well.
This is a perfect opportunity for a quick thinking pet store, dog training centre or supermarket to create a disruptive and amusing adword campaign to gain some exposure and sales out of the buzz created by the naughty canine (or maybe the Royal Parks could do a cheeky ad to remind dog owners to keep them under control).
A quickly thrown together mock up. The copy needs work!
This kind of rapid, tactical planning is nothing new at all…B&Q ran an AdWord campaign after cricketer Matt Prior threw his bat through a changing room window…but it’s not something that can always be done in real time by a lot of brands and agencies. All that copywriting and budget sign off. By the time most brands are ready to go live, the moment will have passed and we will all be going back to videos of cats while we wait for someone to have a bad tram experience.
It needs a brand which trusts their agency and a brand which is not afraid to try something different, coupled with an agency that has a finger firmly on the pulse and is ready to launch into action when the right opportunity comes along. Of course there is also the need for extra budget to be allocated, or existing PPC budget to be moved…but if done right, it can be a great quick win.
It’s a really good point. Being tactically agile enough to be on topic allows brands to actually move from standing on the outside of culture to actually being part of it. Essentially what people have been saying social can do for years, but most brands have failed to do. Ironic that the best mechanism to date for it is advertising.
If you haven’t seen it, check out Converse Domination, it’s a great case study: http://vimeo.com/8254341
Also, great to see a blog from your fine self.
Thanks for the comment. That’s a nice case study, and I guess it takes things a step further. Rather than waiting for something to happen and jumping on it, planning ahead and being ready when the time comes. And like you said…being part of the culture.
Hi there… interesting article. The problem with this idea is that the CTRs on your paid ad, if you’re bidding on keywords related to viral videos, are likely to be very very low. This can impact your quality score negatively, so you can end up paying the price (account-wide) for thinking originally.
Thanks for the comment…and for the information. I have to admit that quality scoring is not something I know a lot about. Can I assume that a possible way around this would be to set up a separate, temporary account to run the ads through, so as not to effect the usual ad campaign? I have some bed time reading to do now