Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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The benefits of social media marketing
By and large Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs were the top four social media tools
used by marketers, with Twitter leading the pack by only a hair. As clearly visible the most
important benefit of social media marketing is it creates exposure of the business and
visibility for the brand by improving traffic on the site
Great definition was put forward by Michael Fauschette: “Social CRM is the tools and
processes that encourage better, more effective customer interaction and leverage the
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collective intelligence of the broader customer community with the intended result of
increasing intimacy between an organization and its prospects and customers. The goal is to
make the relationship with the customer more intimate and tied to the company by building a
public ecosystem to better understand what they want and how they interact with the various
company touchpoints like sales, customer service etc…”
http://mashable.com/2010/05/21/social-crm/
Given the right strategy, integrating social media technologies into your business allows you
to maximize customer value:
• Increase the quality and quantity of interactions with customers, suppliers and
partners.
• Boost your company's reputation and overall brand loyalty.
• Improve the feedback loop between you and your customers.
• Leverage new forms of media to meet the needs of your company with increased sales
and improved customer satisfaction.
• Get a step up on your competition by being one of the first in your industry to
embrace and reap the benefits of social media.
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Social CRM Maturity Framework
Horizontaly the framework try to define the stages of the dedication level. In each dedication
level organizational activities go through the three stages. Initiate, Analyse and Act. These
are iterative stages and keep on evolving as their maturity level increase.
Initiate: At this level of stage Organisation plan to start the communication with the
customer and potential customer.
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Analyse: Evaluating the initiative, finding the loophole in the initiated activity and building
the decision model for the rectification. The whole purpose of this stage is to capture the
intensity of involvement, level of discussion and plan accordingly to make your effort
successful. The dynamics of social web world make it mandatory stage at all level of
involvement.
Vertically the communication level of social CRM of the organization, it shows the various
levels which company indulges in depending upon their commitment level. Order is not
definite in case of Announcement and Listening. Anyone event can occur first.
Announcement: The purpose of the communication is just to bring a point to the notice of
the people. It is a one way communication tool with the primary purpose to done just to
convey a message to internet users.
Listening: The Company tries to know all the communications happening about it in the web
world. And then tries to separate the relevant & irrelevant communication. Further the
relevant communication is separated into various buckets based on the relevance & the
priority level of communication.
Dialogue: The Company develops a meaningful & helpful communication with its
perspective consumers. Now companies can’t bear the delay in response as, one blogger can
affect your brand value. Therefore, rapid responses from the organizations are required.
Engage: In this stage the company develops a higher level of involvement with its customer.
In some cases organisations start involving its employees for the direct communication with
the customers. Usually social networking sites present as a major platform for such
engagement.
Strategize: Adopt the CRM policy as part of its long term perspective i.e. uses it as a core
business policy by inducing it in the company’s business values. But, doing so, without
proper goal defined can null the whole effort. Few examples of these involvements are to find
proactive lead for sale, finding vendor and recruiting employees.
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Examples of Maturity Level Analysis as Per Framework
Website
The main website is www.statebankofindia.com. It is not a very flashy website and not
suitable to attract new customers based on the website alone. However you get most of the
functionalities that can be expected in a bank’s website.
• statebankofindia
o 95,959 visits per day
o Worldwide Rank – 11,852
o Indian Rank – 89
o External Websites linking to it – 452
o New user visits amount to 9.85% of total on an average
• onlinesbi
o 354,735 visits per day
o Worldwide Rank – 1905
o Indian Rank – 77
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o External Websites linking to it – 115
o Non-brand Keywords – core banking, loan, insurance
o New user visits amount to 3.42% of total on an average
SBI has two working accounts on twitter both aimed at a different clientele. Some points
regarding the two accounts:
• sbitweets
More traditional
Plain information
To the point
More like a news forum
• SBIconnex
More Fun
Youth Oriented
Speaks Netlingo – emoticons and short forms, etc.
More colourful & Lively
Links to useful sites other than banks own
Retweets feedback
Answers querries
Addresses problems of customers
Always active – tweets simple one-liners when they have nothing important to
tweet
More entertaining
• Since SBI is not a very popular brand except for India, I feel they do not need to
monitor conversations on social networking sites and respond accordingly. Instead
they can monitor a few sites like consumercomplaints.com, consumercourt.com,
consumercourtforum.com, etc. where most disgruntled consumers voice their
opinion.
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• Using Linkedin can be very beneficial due to the large size of the organization. An
internal community of CRM employees like Relationship Managers can discuss their
problems on a social context. Also a two-way communication can be handled with a
few professional clients present on Linkedin.
• Facebook will be effective for providing information to the net-savvy generation.
Also one facebook page can be easily managed without any extra cost. This could
double up as a complaints section or an FAQ section. Actually, chatting or live
customer care is also an option
• Being a banking organization, they can develop certain apps on their website that can
probably calculate the return on a fixed deposit or interest on a loan, etc. – something
which is automated and helps the consumer in some way
• SBI is largely a consumer bank and therefore its operations are consumer-centric
although its strategies might not be so. CRM is something that will help the bank run
smoothly or even survive in the long run.
References:
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2.Coca Cola
Social CRM is something Coca Cola is taking very seriously. It has been a part of the
marketing strategy for the firm for a few years now. The whole outlook of Coke is consumer-
centric and they came to understand very soon that social networking is something which is
very cheap and easy to exploit to their advantage.
Two of the major marketing events that they are organizing now with social CRM in mind
are:
This is a concept that was innovated three years back. Every year, Coke gets a group of
teenagers into a small area where they have fun activities to do. This year it was much more
than just a group meeting at an interesting place. With the help of Facebook, Promarket and
Publicis E Dologic, they came up with a totally new concept keeping social networking as
their focus. They organised the event in Israel. To register for a three-day vacation in the
Coca-Cola village, Israeli teens were asked to sign up on the Coca-Cola village Facebook
page, gather a group of 8 friends and 10x8 Coca-Cola caps and pay a nominal fee of 199
shekels per each of the kids. The activities started on July 14. Promarket provided residents
with RFID bracelets (Radio Frequency Identification) to help them share their experiences on
Facebook. Teens were able to put a digital ‘like’ on their choice of forty facilities in the
camp, from the pool, the spa, to the extreme activities and sport section. If photographed by
one of the official photographers, the RFID technology would automatically tag everyone in
the photo and upload it to the relevant Facebook profiles. Every time you swiped, it instantly
updated your status with what you were doing at the event, keeping your friends up to date in
real time.
Real world Liking resulted in up to 35,000 posts per cycle, even though the village only holds
a maximum of 650 at a time. On average each visitor was posting 54 pieces of Coke branded
content to their Facebook profile for their friends to see. They generated 35,000+ posts every
day for the three days totaling over 100,000 posts for the event.
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Expedition 206
This is probably the biggest social networking-marketing campaign anyone has ever done.
Coca-Cola is going big, real big, with this campaign. They are giving three people the chance
of a lifetime to travel for 365 days to 206 destinations (these are the countries where Coke is
available) with only one mission: to search for and share the happiness of coca-cola with
everyone they meet during their journey.
The Expedition 206 started their journey on New Years Eve in Madrid and has already
visited 70 countries; sharing their findings on what makes people happy and their experiences
in the country through their updates on various social networks, from pictures and videos on
Youtube and Flickr to blog posts and tweets on their corresponding accounts. Given the team
member’s backgrounds, they each share their experiences in their own native tongue making
the experience a truly global campaign that is relayed in three languages, English, French,
and Spanish (between the 3 of them they speak 8 languages) which surely helps the campaign
gain exposure to a wider audience.
The whole experience is aggregated on the campaign’s website allowing for a one stop shop
for all the experiences and feeds that you need to keep up with the team and people are
encouraged to interact with the team and help them out in their journey.
• The website should be much better. Some basic things I felt was required in the
website are:
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o Faster download
o Some interesting apps or games
o Links to the wonderful marketing events currently being organized by Coke
• A twitter account is a must. Twitter has taken off like anything and Coke has to jump
on the bandwagon or it’s going to remain by the wayside. Also Coke has to respond to
their followers, even if it has nothing to do with the product and maybe personal.
• Chatting is something that can be added to their website for that personal touch
References:
3. http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/microsoft-research-coca-cola
4. http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/video/5158.html
5. http://pc.ign.com/articles/111/1115612p1.html
6. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/coca-cola-happiness-factory/id320424092?mt=8
7. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/12/03/coca-cola-uses-photo-recognition-app-to-
promote-zero/
8. http://www.dmnews.com/coca-cola-kicks-off-social-media-earth-day-effort-with-
ocean-conservancy/article/167963/
9. http://se.swat.cokezero.com/en_SE/games.html
10. http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2010/coca-cola-village-like-facebook/
11. http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/facebook-integration-at-the-coca-cola-village/
12. http://www.expedition206.com/
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3.StarBucks
Current Stage: Strategize
Facebook application for customers to access and manage their Starbucks cards, Essentially
the application provides a virtual way to complete any card-related activity and even view a
record of all transactions.Users can register (or unregister cards), check their balance, reload
cards and edit profile information. The app also includes relevant rewards program
information so frequent customers can check their status levels and benefits.
Starbucks will introduce functionality that will let users reload a Facebook friend’s Starbucks
card as a gift through the application.
The Starbucks Card Mobile iPad App puts your Starbucks card right onto your iPod and iPad
so you can check your balance and even add to it whenever you want. And, in select
Starbucks locations, you can even use your iPod Touch or your iPhone to even pay for your
coffee! The developers are currently in the works trying to find a way to make this type of
mobile payment available in all Starbucks coffee shops.
• It is clear from the activities above that CRM holds a special place in Starbucks’
agenda. The path it took to do it was to build a community for its consumers in order
to be in connection with them continuously. Various challenges faced in this regard
and solutions that Starbucks came up with are as follows:
• Starbucks, the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world, wanted to
take its culture of listening to its customers online and build a community that would
let it engage with customers and partners (employees) in a dynamic way
• Required community management tools to track and implement the best ideas
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• Needed a technology platform on which to quickly roll out an innovative “I’m in,”
campaign that would integrate with the company’s 10,000 physical stores; social
media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and digg; and the HandsOn Network of volunteers
Solution
References:
http://twitter.com/starbucks
http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2009/09/15/follow-me-on-the-road.aspx
http://crm2.blogspot.com/2008/02/starbucks-stores-closing-temporarily.html
http://www.crm-daily.com/story.xhtml?story_id=030002SR5C4C
http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/e-commerce/starbucks-revamped-crm-program-clever-but-
new-web-effort-misses-the-mark/
http://www.bnet.com/article/starbucks-give-your-customers-free-stuff-for-a-price/322691
http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/2006/08/03/on-starbucks-crm-coffee-shops-and-customer-
service-part-i.asp
http://blog.tmcnet.com/telecom-crm/2007/02/26/crm-at-starbucks-retaining-the-right-
customers.asp
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http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/3085.html
http://www.salesforce.com/customers/distribution-retail/starbucks.jsp
http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/0912/theres-a-lot-to-learn-from-starbucks/
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kevin-ohannessian/not-quite-conversation/customer-service-
and-word-mouth
http://marketing.blogs.ie.edu/archives/2007/12/the_word_of_mou.php
http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/0912/theres-a-lot-to-learn-from-starbucks/
http://news.starbucks.com/about+starbucks/myths+facts/militarydonations.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth+business/starbucks
http://www.crm2day.com/content/t6_librarynews_1.php?news_id=109481
http://www.linkedin.com/companies/2271?dcpa=&trk=coact_tab
http://www.applerepo.com/starbucks-card-mobile-for-the-ipod-touch/
http://mashable.com/2010/04/30/starbucks-facebook-app/
http://www.talkiphone.com/starbucks-expands-use-of-its-starbucks-card-mobile-app-to-1000-
target-stores-3685/
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4.Nike
Professional Websites
There are more than 16000 followers to Nike’s Linkedin account but no major CRM related
activity or post is visible on the account, only employee elated information is shared which
proves that company is not at all utilizing this front.
The True City gives you the insider lowdown on the Nike events, products and locations.
Users can share also share same kind of information with the community.
Apart from this app. there are various games that Nike creates to engage its
customers. As discussed earlier Nike focuses on making the communication as interactive as
possible. One of the famous games includes dressing the figures with your favourite Nike
apparels and footwear.
Strategise:
Nike is looking for ways to do more with online advertising as a brand communication
medium. Leveraging their TV creative and giving it impact online. Nike is doing a lot more
with services and tools that enhance their brand from a value-added service point. For
instance, Nike is offering a running log tool which enables you, as a runner, to track your
daily miles or your training schedule. Nike is also continuing to offer consumers the ability to
personalize and customize Nike product with Nike ID.
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NikeLab.com
It’s Nike’s destination for product innovation online. It’s a showplace of Nike innovation.
Nike brings to life the stories on a number of key products. Nike found artists in the digital
space and presented them with products and benefits, and let that be their inspiration to create
a new innovative digital experience. They provided impressive interpretations of Nike’s
product benefits – everything from games to art pieces controlled by the users’ own
respiration. It’s also one of the more in-depth product experiences you can have on the Web,
in terms of product demonstration. Nike utilized both TV and print media to drive the
campaign. Nike also received a large portion of our traffic from message boards, design sites,
places where people who are interested in this type of innovation live online. Nike found that
consumers are spending a strong amount of time within an individual experience, and that
they’re coming back for more.
References:
http://www.nike.com/nikeos/p/nikecricket/en_IN/galli_challenges
http://rfptemplates.technologyevaluation.com/rfp/for/nike-crm.html
http://www.allbusiness.com/retail-trade/miscellaneous-retail-miscellaneous/4458809-1.html
http://schrivers.blogspot.com/2007/09/nike-dont-listen-to-customers-nike.html
http://www.marketingteacher.com/swot/nike-swot.html
http://www.beet.tv/2008/08/nike-launches-i.html
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5.Nokia
Current Stage: Strategize
Looking at the extensive presence of Nokia on Social Media it is quite clear that it is not a fly
by night operation. This is a part of larger strategy of using social media on a much larger
scale in future. Let’s look at Nokia’s Social Media touchpoints available for users:
• Nokia Website
• Ovi Website
• Forum Nokia (For App Developers)
• Nokia Conversations (Official Nokia Blog)
• Nokia Nseries Blog
• Ovi Blog
• Messaging Blog
• Facebook
o Messaging
o Ovi Music
• Twitter
o Messaging
o Ovi Music
• Music Millionaire Website
• Youtube Channels
By looking at the sheer number of touch points, it can be easily said that Social CRM is part
of larger game wherein Nokia is looking to engage its consumers and build brand loyalty
amongst its existing users.
References
[1]http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nokia.co.in
[2] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ovi.com
[3] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/canon.co.in
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6.Canon
Current Stage: Startegise
Canon has a dedicated website for each country in which it has presence. Its India specific
website http://www.canon.co.in/ is the primary touch point for prospective customers in
India. There are no India specific Facebook or Twitter accounts but it has its own platform
for engaging its customers on a long term basis.
www.CanonEdge.com
o This is a discussion forum for photography enthusiasts. Users on this forum are
categorized into three types:
First time Canon product buyers
People who have bought Canon products more than once
People seeking information about Canon products
o This platform is being managed by a third party organization, NetCarrots
o NetCarrots is an organization which specializes in Relationship and Loyalty marketing,
especially for online websites.
o Users who are members are again divided into 4 membership levels, viz Platinum, Gold,
Silver and Blue.
o Platinum Membership: Eligibility and Rewards
“Customers who buy a Canon EOS Digital camera from a Canon India authorized
reseller can enroll as a Platinum member by registering the product” [1]
o Gold membership: Eligibility and Rewards
“Customers who buy any Canon Ixus or Canon Power Shot digital camera from a
Canon India authorized reseller can enroll as a Gold member by registering the
product.”[2]
o Silver membership: Eligibility and Rewards
“Customers who buy any Canon printer, scanner, multifunction device and projector
from a Canon India authorized reseller can enroll as a Silver member by registering
the product.” [3]
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o Blue Membership: Eligibility and Rewards
“Visitors to the CanonEdge website who are interested in Canon products can become
a Blue member.”[4]
Looking at Canon Edge, it can be said that Social CRM is definitely a part of Canon’s long
term strategy. Though they may not be utilizing Social Netwroking websites like Facebook
and Twitter affectively, they are using their own Customer Loyalty platform, Canon Edge to
great effect.
• They have more than 75,000 members on Canon Edge
• They have more than 20,000 Platinum Members on Canon Edge
References:
[1] http://edge.canon.co.in/AboutUs.aspx#PlatinumMember
[2] http://edge.canon.co.in/AboutUs.aspx#GoldMember
[3] http://edge.canon.co.in/AboutUs.aspx#SilverMember
[4] http://edge.canon.co.in/AboutUs.aspx#BlueMember
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7. 3M
Current Stage: Startegise
Website
1 website for the entire world. No country specific separate websites
3M is in the Strategize phase of the social CRM.3M already has a strong social CRM in place
and they look forward to make it even more effective by making each form of publicity even
more aggressive.
LinkedIn
3M has strong presence in LinkedIn. It uses LinkedIn to gather information about its future
employees i.e. to advertise about its job openings at various positions and locations. Some of
its popular accounts in linkedIn are:
• 3M
• 3m-sumon
• jobs/at-3M
• 3m-health-information-systems
3M has strong presence on facebook as well. Like twitter it uses multiple accounts on
facebook for its different verticals. Some of its most popular facebook accounts are
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• 3MGlobal
• 3MCareers
• 3MGraphics
• 3M-DI-NOC
• 3M-Automotive
• 3MLibrarySystems
• 3M-Clean-Water-Solutions
• 3M-Sales-Careers
3M Championship
The purse for the 2010 tournament was US$1,750,000, with $262,500 going to the winner.
The tournament was founded in 1993 as the Burnet Senior Classic, and was originally held
in the neighbouring city of Coon Rapids, Minnesota at the Bunker Hills Golf Course.
Applications
This TMI gifting application allows friends and family to alert each other to the presence of
TMI and chronic TMIers within their social network. It is not meant to be funny or jovial or
used for cheap thrills in between meetings and while driving cars, riding bicycles or playing
softball with your best buddies ever.
H1N1Alerts
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Recommendations
Blog is something which they should look into to make the CRM even more effective.
Companies like Google has extensively used blogs (Google webmasters blog) to inform
people about how the search engine indexes a website and what are the do’s and don’ts of a
good website. Similarly 3M should have an official blog where it can have two way
communication with its customers about its releases.
Google Groups: 3M has no google group or its google group is in private mode which cannot
be searched in search engines. Google groups can also be used as an effective CRM medium.
References
1. http://www.3mchampionship.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1535
2. http://www.3mchampionship.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1536
3. http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=187936670828
4. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/3m.com#
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8. Nestle
Current Stage: Engaging
Website
Nestle has many country specific websites. The following data is of Nestle global website.
NESTLÉ is the official sponsor to Wembley Stadium. As part of the relationship, NESTLÉ
will be the exclusive provider of all confectionery, water, ice-cream and hot beverages to
visitors to the stadium. NESTLÉ will also have exclusive rights in its category to promote its
association with the national stadium over the course of the agreement.
The alliance brings together one of the world’s leading sports and entertainment venue with
one of the world’s leading food and beverage companies. Like Wembley Stadium, NESTLÉ
brands have extremely strong heritage and are household names in the UK. The deal means
that fans visiting the stadium will be able to buy brands from its market leading range and
flagship number one brands including NESCAFÉ®, BUXTON® and KITKAT®
Applications
■There are over 1,500 recipes! arranged by category, ingredients, keywords, and
cooking time!
■One can search for recipes in various ways, such as by calorie-count, situation,
difficulty-level, and amount of sodium. All recipes are supervised by food
professionals who have expert knowledge of nutrition.
●One can see the list of recipes which match your search conditions, cooking
instructions, and flow-charts within the screen of the iPad, you can enjoy cooking
easily.
●Kitchen Timer
Thanks to the built-in timer function, you don't have to quit the app when you use the
Kitchen Timer.
It’s an app that helps you in the kitchen. Some of its features are
- Recipes search
- Save your top recipes
- Shopping list of your top recipes
- Nestlé top recipes
Recommendations
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• Google groups creation for mailing advertisements/promotions
• Engaging more actively in areas other than events sponsorship like social cause etc.
References
1. http://www.ifreeware.net/download-nestle-recipe-for-ipad.html
2. http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=222136570931
3. http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-nestle-nestleandroid-CBBi.aspx
4. http://www.nestle.com/MediaCenter/MediaCenter.htm
5. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nestle.com#
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9. AXE
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http://twitter.com/AXE : Not only it acts as a platform for discussing about products
for men, it also acts as an information source for events, news, giveaways and hot new
offerings.
http://twitter.com/axeangelsclub : Caters to young crowd. Consists of witty one-liners
and gossips.
Twitter is used as a medium for responding, where users are encouraged to share their
experience in the form of tweets.
With 286,783 likes, facebook page of AXE serves as an effective way of establishing
dialogue with customers.
The Axe Facebook page features brand information, a "what's new" section, a sports
ticket giveaway featuring NFL quarterback Matthew Stafford and news on upcoming
Axe events. It serves the dual purpose of informing about the new products and
facilitating the discussion amongst the users. The users can share their experience
with the products, can express their views about the products and can also take part in
various competitions and get freebies. Users can post their queries and seek
suggestions from other visitors. Also they can post their opinion about features of
various products.
Creative Campaigns
Its TV creative for deodorants featured separate spots showing BMXer Adam Jones
and professional skateboarder Ryan Sheckler each performing airborne "double pits to
chesty" -- in English, a mid-flight spray under the armpits and across the chest. Last
summer, it launched Axe Instinct, a leather-inspired scent, with creative that was
alternately funny or sexy but either way tagged "The Power of Leather." And in
January 2010, Axe introduced the "Clean Your Balls" campaign for the Axe Detailer
Shower Tool and Shower Gel on Facebook, YouTube and the recently launched
AXECYB.com. The "Cleans Your Balls" video is a three-minute HSN spoof filled
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with double entenders that stress the importance of maintaining clean "equipment," all
while demonstrating the product.
Its YouTube channel features recent videos relating to Axe products, particularly the
"Double Pits to Chesty" skating and BMX trick.
Axe ran a number of brand integrations within shows. It was a featured sponsor of the
College Humor prank segment on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, for example, and
bought brand mentions on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and The CW's "Life
Unexpected."
Online Advertising
Axe ran banners promoting the "CYB" campaign on sites such as Adult Swim,
CBSSports.com, PGA TOUR, The Smoking Gun, CBS College Sports,
CBSSports.com, comingsoon.net, Rivals.com and Yahoo!
Branded Websites
In addition to their social media presences, Axe had multiple brand website
destinations.
The Axe home page is currently featuring the Axe Rise Dirty Morning Test, a pop-up
site that promotes the company's new scent, Axe Rise. Axe Futbol, part of the
company's Hispanic web presence, features a "find the differences" photo-hunt game.
Axe CYB is a page on Break.com featuring the full 3-minute mock-infomercial for
the Axe Detailer Shower Tool.
Some Suggestions
• Though the company is using a multi-channel approach to reach to the
customers, by making its presence felt on facebook, twitter along with the
official website, yet there is a need for some distinct content for each of the
interface. By customizing content for each of these sites, company can get
more benefit from its online presence.
• By adding more consumer value beyond basic product info. In-market buyers
can not only get product specifications on the brand site but also other
consumers perspectives and answers.
References:
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http://everyjoe.com/work/the-axe-effect-double-pits-to-chesty/
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=143066
http://www.aboutus.org/TheAxeEffect.com
A Brief Background
When Tata DOCOMO was planning to enter the Indian market as the 9th GSM
operator, the telecom industry was already overcrowded. It faced strong brand
communication barriers from other telecom operators. So it was imperative for Tata
DOCOMO to cut through the clutter through pure innovation and do something
‘New’.
Social Media Presence of Brands was nascent at that time and provided a potential
opportunity which had not yet been realized by most Indian brands in June 2009,
leave alone the telecom operators. Social presence was unchartered and entailed some
risk. However, it had the wow element and was clearly fulfilling the brand promise.
So Tata DOCOMO drew up an extensive strategy to harness the power of Social
Media and build the brand with its consumers.
Mission:
Do the New
Products:
Telecom Service, Prepaid Mobile, Postpaid Mobile
Website: http://tatadocomo.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/tatadocomo
Orkut Page: http://orkut.com/tatadocomo
Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/tatadocomo
Youtube : http://youtube.com/user/tatadocomo
Statistics
Visitors to the site spend approximately four minutes per visit to the site and 48
seconds per page-view. Almost all visitors to the site come from India, where it has
attained a traffic rank of 898. The fraction of visits to Tatadocomo.com referred by
search engines is roughly 23%.
Visitors Snapshot
Based on internet averages, tatadocomo.com is visited more frequently by males who
are in the age range 18-24, have no children and are graduate school educated.
4. Being Social
From the start the Tata DOCOMO website was built to be participative.
• It was one of the few corporate websites to open each web page for
customer feedback and rating. Tens of thousands of visitors have shared
their views, opinions and criticism.
• Integrated Bookmarking to allow sharing of content across their social
networks.
• From the first day of launch the website was linked to Twitter, Facebook
and Orkut accounts encouraging visitors to stay connected with the brand
through social networks.
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The Tata DOCOMO brand is all about co-creation and user participation. The website
has kept pace by extending itself onto a large number of programs through specific
sections.
Create.tatadocomo.com
• The create platform was created to allow users to co-create various aspects of
the brand communication. The platform was launched with the create
animation contest which encouraged users to submit brand animation films
with the winners entry being televised on national television. The platform
provided full Youtube like functionality and was a huge hit in the animator
community with almost a thousand entries.
• The platform was immediately extended to create merchandise where users
submitted merchandising ideas and then to create music. The users submitted
variations of the brand signature tune. The create platform has been a huge
success for Tata DOCOMO in its effort to allow users to be co-creators of
brand communication.
Site characteristics
• Unconventional design, simple UI with minimum clutter
• Focus on brand promise while designing the site
• Innovative customer engagement tools facilitating co-creation and customer
involvement.
• Along with the basic functionalities like online recharge, customer care details it had
applications which enabled users to get the most suitable tariff plan as per their needs.
• Probably the only website of Indian company, which not only allowed users to post
comment, rate the page but also gave them access to newsletter, promising them
firsthand information and thereby going a long way in ensuring their loyalty.
The execution
A dedicated Social Media team at Interface was built to execute the plan. Twitter,
Facebook, Orkut, You-tube accounts were opened up and optimized even before the
brand launch took place. The website itself actively solicited visitors to sign-up to the
Tata DOCOMO communities’ months before it became a fad for others. The Social
Media team set about targeting each of the Social Media platforms differently.
Twitter typically has a more evolved and techy audience that other Social Media
platforms. Tata DOCOMO acknowledged the importance of these thought leaders and
made sure they got their worth by following the brand. All products, offers and
schemes were first announced to our Twitter followers before they were allowed on
any other media. On many occasions Twitter followers were given teasers and
prelaunch feelers much before the product was even in a state of launch readiness.
Today Tata DOCOMO has more than 8600 followers. Also more than 6720 tweets in
such a short span is an indication of regular interaction and information exchange
with the followers. This medium is used for solving the telecom problems, passing on
the messages to relevant people in the company and bringing about resolutions or
simply saying hello when someone is missing in action for an extended period of
time.
Facebook clearly has a large influential community that was identified right at the
start as being a major influencer of brand advocacy. Tata DOCOMO set about
creating conversations among its fans on Facebook.
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Like Twitter a one-on-one communication was maintained with all its fans helping
resolve problems, providing information and escalating issues. The community was
kept engaged through a variety of status updated including discussions on TV
commercials, jingles, product service launches and fun and games.
Along with the official commercials, video page on facebook allows users to post
their own videos online.
Orkut has a mass user base in India and was identified as an important element in
managing mass sentiment around the brand. The forum has been used both as a
community feedback tool as well as a platform where free discussions were enabled
on specific topics (either product-service related or band related). The platform has
also extensively been used for contests to keep community members engaged.
Youtube has been a central repository for all brand commercials and videos. Tata
DOCOMO has made a departure from the traditional way of only uploading videos
created by the brand to also showcasing user generated content, specifically animation
videos submitted by users at the create.tatadocomo.com platform.
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The Tata DOCOMO strategy with respect to third party blogs and forums were both
proactive and reactive. Everyday 100s and 1000s of blogs and forums were scanned
or any mention of Tata DOCOMO and whenever a user had posted a question,
comment and complaint, the Social Media team made it a point to go and respond to
resolve (wherever necessary) every post or comment.
Tata DOCOMO is probably the only brand in the Indian landscape who have gone
ahead and created official accounts on hundreds of blogs and forums and have always
responded through its official id.
The results
The website was launched towards the end of June 2009 and by December the site
had more than 1 million unique users per month. The growth has been exponential
and along the way left behind many of the incumbents. On a pure subscriber to traffic
ratio (an industry measure to check relative poll of telecom websites) Tata DOCOMO
is ahead of even market leader Airtel. The youth brand that Tata DOCOMO set out to
build has been successfully created in the digital space through a balanced mix of
design, innovation, technology and engagement.
Analysis
Even before the launch of social media engagements, a dedicated customer response
mechanism was laid out for priority resolution of all social media grievances /
enquiries. Top management at Tata DOCOMO has taken great pains to make sure that
literally the buck stops when an issue is raised through social media channels.
By designing the response mechanism and assigning teams especially for the medium,
Tata DOCOMO has been able to establish a personal connect with the users. From
activation problems, network issues, handset settings or billing related matters, every
single issue has been promptly addressed and resolved.
The facebook page seems professionally handled engaging the right kind of people.
With over 1700 fans, lots of pictures and videos, they seem to be engaging the people
very well. It also involved its techy Twitter followers to hack into a social game
launched by Tata DOCOMO as part of the “ageekthing” contest and suggest ways to
prevent others from doing so.
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The social team at Tata DOCOMO has repeatedly interacted with its beta consumers,
collecting feedback about usage, preferences, bounced off product ideas and pretested
concepts to help the product team develop compelling product service offerings.
Many of the recent product service launches like gprs packs and parts of the buddyNet
program have been built on crowd sourcing inputs.
Continuous engagement and proactive problem resolution has helped Tata DOCOMO
build extremely loyal fans on social media
Thus, by integrating the brand values of honesty, transparency and sincerity in its
social media initiatives, Tata DOCOMO’s social presence is not seen as a marketing
gimmick but a genuine effort to connect and engage with every fan and follower with
sincerity and with the authority to solve their problems.
It can be safely concluded that Tata DOCOMO has designed its social media strategy
to differentiate itself from the crowd and has been able to integrate it effectively in its
brand identity. For Tata DOCOMO social CRM initiatives have become one of the
core pillars of marketing and provide it with a strategic advantage.
Recommendations
1) Tata DOCOMO enjoys a sizeable instant audience. By micro communicating with
each individual, it will be able to add a personal touch and therefore a high impact to
messaging.
2) The views of users can be solicited on topics ranging from effectiveness of TV
Commercials to the schemes which they intend to avail through online polls thereby
creating an effective market research mechanism.
References
1. www.interface.co.in/tata-docomo-social-media-case-study.aspx
2. http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-indian-telecom-majors-facebook/
3. http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-of-indian-telecom-majors-part-2-
twitter/
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4. http://microreviews.org/social-media-presence-of-indian-telecom-majors-part-3-
website-a d-blog/
5. www.interface.co.in/tata-docomo-social-media-case-study.aspx
6. http://www.prasanthp.com/2009/12/docomo-and-social-media-marketing/
7. http://2020social.com/social-media-in-india-tata-review/
8. http://www.aboutus.org/TheAxeEffect.com
9. http://www.alexa.com
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