Would you vote for David Beckham to go #uncovered?

by Lilly Birdsong

By now, we’ve probably all seen David Beckham in his underwear.  Let’s be honest – nearly-naked Beckham is everywhere!  But is there something we can learn from the pervasive H&M campaign?

I think so.

David Beckham photograph for H&M

Gearing up for the Superbowl this year, many marketing teams were probably sitting around tables trying to figure out what their innovative hashtag could be.  How can we do something memorable? Fun? Sharable?

What made H&M different was that they decided to go a step further.  Rather than trying to just get people to mention their hashtag, they got people to choose which one they liked.

When they started filming commercial spots for the Superbowl, rather than simply filming a single ad, they decided to film an ad with alternate endings.  Let’s be honest – how many of us read those Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid?  What made those books fun?  Well, the nice thing about it was that we could choose our own ending.  Instead of simply reading the ending the author chose to write, we could pick the ending that most suited our own personalities.

So, H&M’s team sat around and said, hey, how can we get our audience involved?  Let’s let them choose the ending!  Not only that, but they did it with hashtags.

The campaign itself had its own hashtag –

#BeckhamForHM

But then fans could vote for how they wanted to see Beckham – #covered or #uncovered!  I know which one I would choose…

Beckham #Covered #Uncovered campaign #BeckhamHM

But back to the issue at hand.

This is one of the first advertising campaigns to be “interactive”.  In other words, the actions of the user determine the outcome.  That sounds pretty cool to me!

This campaign went cross-platform on different channels.  You could see it:

• On their website
• On Facebook, Twitter
• On YouTube
• And ultimately, at the Superbowl

H&M Website

They had two clear business goals before the campaign started: 1) to increase brand awareness, and 2) to generate increased foot-traffic in their stores.

What was interesting to me about the response to this campaign is that it appealed mainly to women and gay men, according to some of the tweets that I found on Twitter.  But also, this can appeal to men who want to be like Beckham, and attract the ladies.  Besides, who does most of the shopping anyway?  Women, right?  How often do we buy our guys underwear for Christmas, because they’re too lazy to go buy it themselves…

They even had Guy Ritchie direct a YouTube video which garnered over 10 Million views so far:

I’d call that pretty successful for brand awareness.  In terms of foot traffic?  Well, we can look at H&M’s financial reports to get an idea of their sales.  In Q1, they increased 13% YY.  Q2 sales were up 20% YY.  Wow!  Now of course, we can’t attribute this solely to a marketing campaign, but one thing’s for sure – they’re on the right track.

I think we can all take lessons from the #uncovered campaign – get your audience involved!

Everyone’s Doing it. You know, social media marketing!

Everyone’s Doing It – Social Media Marketing

by Lilly Vogelesang

“Everyone’s doing it.”

How many times have you heard someone say that when talking about social media marketing?

In between attending trade shows, talking with customers, working with designers, web analysts, and reporting to management – how does the modern marketer have time to breathe, much less to pick up new skills?

I had that same thought myself. I honestly wondered, just because everyone is doing it, does that mean we should too?  Not wanting to get left behind in the pack, I stocked up on coffee, set my alarm to go off an extra half hour early, and started to teach myself.

Twitter?  Got it.  Facebook?  Yeah, okay, I use that for personal stuff – I can do that too.  YouTube?  Sure.  LinkedIn?  Ummm… yeah, okay, I can learn that one.  Google+?  Does anyone even use that?  Why bother?  Tumblr?  Are you serious?  Well, okay for my business, maybe we need it…

I realized soon that I felt like I was drowning.

In fact, I was probably drowning before I’d even gotten started.  Then, I did a deep dive without any air.

Bad idea.

I decided I needed to take a class, for a couple of reasons.

1.  Accountability.  If I’m required to do homework, that means I’m actively learning from one week to another.
2.  Group Discussions.  The best thing about learning in a class is being able to see things from other people’s point of view.

In a classroom, when you’re sitting there with other marketing gurus, there’s a little bit of magic that happens.  Someone might say something, and it sparks inspiration.  It’s like all the wires in my brain light up at once, synapses firing, and ideas spawn new ideas until I have to try to contain my excitement.

For example, when Jessie Sternthal came in to our class to talk about writing, she said, “Write like nobody’s watching.  Write like you’re dancing in the kitchen.  Write like you’re singing in the car at a red light.”  Not only did it make sense, but it resonated with me.

Jessie also spoke about giving your brand a voice, a personality.  Harriet Cummings, a copy editor, wrote this amazing article to help develop voice.

I had been so blinded by sifting through amazing resources on writing for SEO that I forgot that at the end of the day, it’s about speaking to your audience, adding value, and having a meaningful conversation with them.

I got my life vest, thanks to McGill.