Social Media Engagement
The Objectives:
- Create an out of the box digital marketing campaign that connects a strong positioned brand with a new market demographic
- Target the new market demographic within the digital space
- Spend no additional marketing dollars on the digital media portion of the promotion mix
- Measure return on investment by sales and earned media value.
The Solution: Social Media as a form of Branded Content
Create a unique digital persona that connects with Portland’s highly affluent urban creative segment. Build the marketing campaign so that it extends the new persona beyond the digital space and into a spokes personality that promotes the value proposition of the brand to the market.
The RoseWarrior:
The RoseWarrior twitter profile was created as a fictional luchadore character, training in preparation for the City’s first outdoor lucha libre wrestling event. To become true branded content, the wrestling event was added as new feature to Portland’s largest attended cultural event, the Cinco de Mayo Festival.
- The RoseWarrior twitter personality interacted with targeted profiles which have a high degree of influence within the market
- The RoseWarrior dressed in full lucha libre costume made physical appearances within the city
- The “real” luchadore’s built on the RoseWarrior hype through a series of on-air appearance wrestling television personalities
George Brands was privileged to provide the following consulting services to Portland’s most attended and longest running cultural event, Cinco de Mayo
- Social Media Campaign
- Event Sponsorship Development and Sales
- Public Relations Planning, Writing and Pitching
- Brand Planning and Positioning
Augmented Reality Event 2011
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- The Auggies
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- Ori Inbar
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- ROI Grid
George Brands was charged with delivering an integrated marketing communications solutions for the world’s largest augmented reality event. We were humbled, honored and excited to work alongside some of the brighest minds in the world from Ori Inabr to Tish Shute and Bruce Sterling to Vernon Vigne. It was a marketing ride we will not soon forget.
The Objective
Delivering a marketing experience that energizes the brightest minds in technology and the most forward thinking marketing strategists in engagement branding. Deliver this experience in way that drives press, mazimizes sponsor value, online mentions, social interaction and are2011 event revenue.
The Solution:
Tell the story of how Augmented Reality Fiction has become Augmented Reality Fact. Bruce Sterlings visions of the future, Vernon Vignes science fiction, the mind of Atari creator Jaron Lanier and the gaming genius of Will Wright. Combine this technology vision with the big brand’s power to engage a market as discovered by PepsiCo. Tell this story of science fiction becoming science fact. Bringing meaning to Pure AR Goodness.
The Results:
- Front page business coverage within USA Today
- Blog posts within Wired, Read Write Web, The NY Times and GigaOM
- A Facebook community reaching over 40,000 users
- A twitter base of over 2,200 followers.
- Facebook campaign reaching over 1.3 million targeted users
- Guerrilla and Viral Video Content Curation: ARE 2011 is disrupted by the Space Liberation Front!
George Learning: Connect the storytellers with the story distributors.
Elements Naturals – What a Messy BRAND it Could Have Been
Straight Talk with George.
A series of interviews with leaders behind the brands. First up a talk with the CEO of Elements Naturals
As I continue to evolve my hopefully somewhat unique and effective approach to world of marketing, I draw both ideas and inspiration from the entrepreneurs who take their remarkable idea to market with the goal of winning hearts and minds. I’ve been lucky to work alongside bright minds and highly energetic creative leaders and for the next couple months, I’ll be spending some time to capture their thoughts through “Straight Talk with George”.
My first conversation is with Linda Naerheim who is the Founder and CEO of Elements Naturals. (Perhaps the best word combination for a brand name since Federal Express).
If you were part of the HOMS marketing team with Linda (a.k.a “Muraski”) back in the day you’ve already experienced the strengths that have allowed her to launch a national brand. You’ve experienced her creative talent, her combination of patience and scary directness as well as her genuinely caring personality. Sounds like a good combination for creating a line of sustainable baby products. And if you have not worked alongside Linda you will get a glimpse at her approach to our marketing world in this interview.
Please enjoy, be kind to my skype editing ability, say Howdy to Linda and be sure to pick up a few packages of Elements Naturals 100% Natural and Compostable baby wipes.
Leaders who transform organizations do so by tapping into people’s minds and hearts. They powerfully communicate their vision but know that what they do has a more lasting impact than what they say…
-John P. Kotter (in Harvard Business Review July-August 2010)
About Elements Naturals:
Elements Naturals, LLC develops products with both babies and the environment in mind. The company’s first product, 100% Natural and Compostable Baby Wipes, are the first fully compostable, 100% plant derived wipe on the market. Elements Naturals baby wipes are made from Ingeo (TM) fibers, the world’s first man-made fiber created from 100% annually renewable plant resources. They are free of harsh synthetic chemicals and preservatives, and their production requires significantly less fossil fuels and produces fewer greenhouse gases than traditional oil based brands. An ethical and socially responsible company, Elements Naturals products are never tested on animals and a portion of their proceeds goes to 1 % FOR THE PLANET, an organization that encourages businesses to contribute 1% of sales to environmental groups to drive positive environmental change around the world. The company is also a proud signer of The Compact for Safe Cosmetics.
For more information, visit www.elementsnaturals.com
Aflac Duckumentary
In 1955 in Columbus Georgia three brothers, John, Paul and Bill Amos set out to change how people were protected if the windy road of life threw you a couple rough patches. Ultimately changing the life’s of over 40 million people world wide.
Now in 2009, the AFLAC Duck, one of America’s most loved icons hits the road to duckument the life’s of the people who have been put under his wing.
The Aflac Duckumentaries chronicles the Duck’s travels and the real stories of real people from the east coast to the west coast from the northern lakes to the southern gulfs of America.
In a quest of the Duck’s love for his customers, his compassion for humanity and his unique zeal for pursuing life no matter what is thrown his way. His journey and the stories of the people on his travels will bring lasting inspiration to each of us.
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Edge – V6 – A Brand Promise
The Edge delivers a simple idea, a quick piece of news, a little insight or a marketing opportunity to forward thinking business leaders. The Edge will arrive whenever we come across a piece of information to bring you that sharpness of being on the leading edge.
This edition’s edge:
This edition of the edge will focus on the concept of owning “it” to get your edge and build world class marketing. First rule will be introducing the concept of the Big Promise to your branding efforts and then with our edge TV segment we will introduce the trick of awareness building by owning a time slot with the head of sales for Portland’s most listened to classic rock station. Rock On!
The Big Promise:
The concept of the Big Promise is both simple and the hardest concept to execute as a marketer. The Big Promise takes discipline, clarity and the ability to relentlessly stay the course. Those are three hard things for companies to do because inherently we want our brand to be all things to all people and if we don’t see instant results we change course.
The fundamentals of the Big Promise:
- Finding the one thing that your brand promises to do for your customer better than any other brand.
- Developing a story that tells how the experience of your big promise provides both rational and emotional value to your audience.
- Religiously communicating your big promise.
Companies with the edge develop their Big Promise. If the idea of defining your brand and building a story to drive sales interest you give me a ring, it is my favorite marketing exercise and successful companies spend time evaluating their brands.
Subway our Real World Example:
The Big Promise: Healthier than fast food.
Rational benefit: The calories in the sub.
Emotional benefit: Jarred with those big pants that no longer fit.
Resource book:
- Check out the concept of the Big Promise in Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith
Owning Your Media
I figured once you have your Big Promise story all polished up and ready to go you need an effective way to tell your market.
So in the edge TV segment we literally busted into Entercom radio (a side story for later but I got a great interview with Airborne Toxic Event: DM me for the video) and asked our second favorite radio maven for one simple idea that a company can use to be truly effective in radio advertising.
Pam’s answer was right on, again simple, easy to execute and could be amazingly light on your marketing wallet.
Happy Marketing
ryan
Brand Planning
George has been busy building brands for companies of all sizes, types and resource levels. George’s approach to brand planning is a combination of learnings we received from Gina Kida, in our opinion one the world’s most talented brand planners, working along side TWBIA/Chiat Day’s brand planning team while I was at Homestore.com and the talented brand leaders at Magneto brand advertising in Portland
George has been involved in the branding process for move.com, namesinstone.com, the Ultimate Open House, the NW Natural Street of Dreams, Homebuilder.com, BuilderBooks.com, and REALTOR.com.
Brand Identity Framework
