P&G will spend a hundred million dollars for you to push that button…
In the paper version of USA Today, writer Bruce Horowitz gives megabrand, P&G the “early gold medal for social media,” in regard to commercial domination at the winter Olympics in Sochi. Using You Tube views and number of videos made as criteria, so far the Cincinnati based company has garnered just over 27 million views and has “pushed” out 39 videos. Visa and Samsung are tracking a second and third respectively.
Horowitz adds “While each sponsor spends close to $100 million…just to flaunt the Olympic rings, and millions more on TV commercials; it is ultimately the social-media engagement that each sponsor tracks and relishes.” Wrapping up Horowitz’s article, Kevin Burke, the chief marketing officer at Visa is quoted: “Success is measured on how people engage with your content.”
Once again: eyeballs and videos!
Wow. That’s a lot of heavy breathing and big dollars spent chasing after views, likes and followers. Nowhere in Horowitz’s piece does he even mention the impact on these elite sponsors’ businesses. Instead he provides a tip sheet on how to win the sponsorship game, offering advice such as “post early…tell a story…push the tale…and go long (form video).”
Cynicism aside (it’s a tired take anyway), let’s look at the bright side, especially as it pertains to those of us in Adland. Thanks to the overwhelming influence of social media, blue chip advertisers are now salivating and paying out the nose to be merely well liked. Now being humanly relevant and, once again, building brands is considered critical to measuring success.
And that, my friends, is manna from Heaven to the creative department. Wasn’t so long ago ROI was all clients talked about. Generate demand and deliver. Skews, sales and redemptions. Those were the drums that got beaten… over our heads and to a pulp. Trying to do good work on an intuitive level was like jumping through ever-shrinking hoops. Left-brain analytics were killing us.
When was the last time you heard (or said) “ROI” in a conversation about creative? It’s seemingly not about that anymore.
I’m not a fool. Of course it’s still about that.
Yet, it would appear there has been a paradigm shift. So-Me has done what a thousand pleading creative directors could not: convinced advertisers that being well liked is important!
