Smell Like a Sucess

So far, previous posts have been discussing social technology implementation in businesses. However, this post will cover the benefits of Return on Investment (ROI) on the use of social technology. Marketing School (2012) revealed as traditional way of marketing such as print, broadcast, direct mail and telephone has become less attractive to customers, businesses are turning towards social media to communicate with consumers. Surveyed by Hall & Lerner (2009) believed that social media tools help increase the ROI of a company. However, the success of social media tools relies on the business capability to utilise it to achieve the business goals.

In this topic, we will discuss on case study that has an impact on the ROI in their business. I am sure that we all have heard or seen Old Spice campaign that was a big success in 2010. Old Spice is an American product brand focusing on men grooming products and also a part of P&G company product line. In 2010, the company took a new direction in marketing. They launched a video campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” for their body wash product. Instantly, the video became viral and watched by millions of people all around the world. How did they do this?

We need to acknowledge that our society has become more aware of social technology. Old Spice utilise social tools such as YouTube for their main source of campaign. Subsequently, once the video is online, it then becomes the job of viewer to share and distribute the video to their respective social platforms, which include Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many more. An exact ROI figure can't be shown in regards to the campaign however intangible and tangible benefit of Old Spice can be drawn from events happened after it.  

Here are some of the benefits since the campaign was released:

The company sees a grow of sales up to 55%

One month, the sales was up to 107% with the help of social response from Twitter

The campaign has generated 1.4B impressions

Facebook interaction increased to 800%

Twitter follower increased 2700%

However, the campaign did not go as smoothly as planned for Old Spice. A few articles mentioned that the company suffer a lost of 7% in sales. However, another article such as Forbes magazine (2010) further explained that the lost of sales was only accounted for 1 product line. An overall, Old Spice sees a rise of 8% in sales. Therefore it is crucial to measure the ROI of a company too early, because the impact taken might need to develop for a few months or years. (Zaidi, 2010)

 Reference:

Digital Buzz. (2010). Old Spice social campaign case study video. Digital Buzz. Retrieved from http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/old-spice-social-campaign-case-study-video/

Marketing Schools. (2012). Traditional Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/traditional-marketing.html

Zaidi, A. (2010). Is it too early to analyse ROI from the Old Spice campaign? Econsultancy Achieve Digital Excellence. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/blog/6305-is-it-too-early-to-analyse-roi-from-the-old-spice-campaign#i.1d5atso1ajmfhw

Hall, B. H. & Lerner, J. (2009). The financing of R&D and innovation. Handbook of the Economics of Innovation. Retrieved from http://eml.berkeley.edu/~bhhall/papers/HallLerner09_rndfin_chapter_draft.pdf

Bruno, K. (2010). Old Spice mixes social media and web ads. Forbes Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/15/old-spice-youtube-procter-gamble-twitter-facebook-cmo-network-social-media-advertising.html

Download Overload

P&G was established in 1837 offering a wide range of products from beauty, hair, grooming, health care, etc. The company has set its name to be the world biggest consumer products and advance in the industry. They also set their aim high towards a better life with goals on environment sustainability and social responsibility. Environment sustainability comprise of the conservation of resources, renewable resources and worth from waste. In addition, their social responsibility goal focuses on supporting communities, health and hygiene and comforts of home.

Company’s success is determined by the people who work and put their effort to achieve the company’s goal. However, there are also external and internal issues that involve during the business process. In this example, we will look at the internal issue that comes from the employees. The issue arise from the overused of social technology within the company. Newspaper article by Stampler (2012) reported that P&G employees accessed up to 50,000 YouTube videos download and watching them during work hours. In addition, these access included to Pandora, a music library that enable to listen to music after downloading the music to the device. Quickly, we are able to identify the concern of Enterprise 2.0 that affect productivity. These actions have brought the company to a loss since the productivity of employees decrease because the above actions didn’t have any contribution to job description. It also brought an issue in regards to being ethical, because an ethical worker should be able to use technology appropriately (Yeaman, 2004). Moreover, with the increase of Internet access that means that company spend more money for Internet bandwidth. As quoted by Business Insider Australia (2012), the company could be paying up to $15M for Internet consumption. And of course, looking from the business perspective it is a loss since it doesn’t involve any work activity.

What the company could do?

P&G need to take action by either blocking or creating limitation on the access to social media from company’s network. However, blocking is a critical action because the company need to take into consideration the use of social technology for other purpose within the company. P&G need to recognise that not all access to social technology doesn’t involve work activity. There are still some departments that require the access to social technology for their part of the job. Therefore, creating limitation on some area is preferable.

Reference:

Procter and Gamble. (2014). Making Everyday Life Better. Retrieved from http://www.pg.com/en_US/sustainability/overview/index.shtml

Stampler, L. (2004). Procter and Gamble bans staff from using netflix and pandora. Business Insider Australia. Retrived from http://www.businessinsider.com.au/procter-and-gamble-bans-netflix-and-pandora-2012-4

Yeaman, A. R. J. (2004). The misuse of technology. TechTrends, 48(5), 14-16,83. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/874024715?accountid=13380

Coffee shop with a big name (Starbucks)

Starbucks is an American coffee house that was established in 1971. This Seattle based coffee shop started off from a small coffeehouse that served roasted coffee. Until now it is one of the biggest coffee retailers in the world and has over 21000 stores in 65 countries. The company don’t limit themselves by offering traditional coffee, they also served a wide variety of coffee mix from hot to cold, tea, chocolate and foods.  And of course, with the ever-changing time and technology, Starbucks also took part into social technology frenzy where it makes it easier to connect with the customers.

Innovation is extremely important for business that want to make a breakthrough in the industry. It allows creativity and imagination to take part in shaping the business strategy. Starbucks is an example of business that create innovation in its marketing strategy. The company entered the online media since 2008 where they created a Facebook fan page. The company used the fan pages greatly because on the fan page, people are able to search not only locations of Starbucks stores but also information for job within the stores. Thus makes it easier for the company to indirectly communicate with their customer. According to McKinsey (2012) communication or interaction mechanism in a business plays an important part because it create a close relationship between customer and the company. Customer able to gives feedback and support to make the company better. 

In addition, the company also expand themselves in online media through twitter. As an example, Starbuck has a few twitter that are based on different countries such as @StarbucksAu @StarbucksCanada @StarbucksGer, etc.  Starbucks customer can mentioned the Starbucks account for feedback or just sharing about their experience with Starbucks. In return, lucky followers will be able to see reposting of pictures they shared. Hence enabled them to reach more of their customer while sharing info on news about the company.

And as for Instagram, the company utilise it as a way to appreciate their customer such as reposting the pictures that people shared about Starbucks coffee. The practices of these social technology tools are the same, it has a goal to expand and market Starbucks Company worldwide and to interact more with the customer. Because the company able to recognise the importance of interaction between company and customer.

Reference 

Starbucks. (2014). Our heritage. Retrieved September 5, 2014 from 
http://www.starbucks.com/about-us/our-heritage

Facebook. (2014). Starbucks. Retrieved September 5, 2014 from https://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

Twitter. (2014). Starbucks. Retrieved September 5, 2014 from https://twitter.com/Starbucks