The last time I wrote, many people were still unsure if Bros Icing Bros was a genius piece of viral marketing or a consumer trend that grew organically with the help of the internet. The rate at which Bros Icing Bros grew (less than two months from glimmer in a frat boy’s eye to an article in the New York Times) definitely made it seem like there was some sort of viral element to the game. However, I expressed serious doubts that any alcohol brand would desire association with (a) binge drinking and (b) people being forced to drink their beverage because of how terrible they think it is.
The Bros Icing Bros website disappeared two days ago; it’s replaced with a mostly blank page that says only “We had a good run Bros…” Some people speculated that the owner of brosicingbros.com voluntarily took the domain down because the joke was getting stale. In fact, Smirnoff owner Diageo confirms it was partially responsible for the take down of the website.
Smirnoff has to walk a tight line here. On one hand, it’s essential for the long term viability of their brand to avoid association with drinking games, binge drinking, and bad behavior. But this game, regardless of the creator, has created so much buzz around the Smirnoff Ice brand. Check out this chart on Google Trends of Smirnoff search volume versus two of the brand’s primary competitors, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Bacardi Breezer.
There is one way for Smirnoff to indirectly capitalize on the trend of icing while still distancing themselves from the binge drinking element. Presumably, if you iced someone or were iced by someone, you know that person pretty well. You probably even consider them a friend. The key here is that you were not iced by a complete stranger. If you iced or were iced, you took part in a social phenomenon that was shared by you, your friend, and all of America – and Smirnoff Ice was the catalyst.
The brand is damaged, don’t get me wrong. But tons of guys who never drank Smirnoff Ice (because they thought it for girls) now partially associate the brand with their friends and with having fun. There’s almost an indefinite amount of potential advertising Smirnoff can create to spoof the phenomenon. So what are your thoughts on this? Do you think Smirnoff Ice is irrparably damaged, or do you think the brand can bounce back even stronger than ever?
Tagged as:
branding,
viral
The relative failure of Smirnoff Ice with the male market probably has less to do with the taste of the drink than with the perceived emasculating nature of the drink. We’re told that Smirnoff Ice is for girls, people of a barely-legal drinking age, and those who can’t “handle” real drinks. The makers of Bud, Miller, Coors, et al spend millions every year convincing men that drinking their beer can make them a real man. In this hyper-masculinized environment, is there anything worse for your manhood than to drink a Smirnoff Ice in front of the guys?
The answer is yes. The only thing worse than drinking Smirnoff Ice in front of the guys is for a man to decline a challenge from another man to drop everything and chug a Smirnoff Ice as fast as he can. That’s the thinking, anyway, behind a brilliant piece of viral media and/or cultural commentary called Bros Icing Bros.
The rules are simple: hand a Smirnoff Ice (the warmer/more disgusting the flavor, the better) to a friend (your “bro”), and he must get down on one knee and chug the malt beverage, regardless of location and situational appropriateness. HOWEVER. If said friend happens to have a Smirnoff Ice on his person, then the bro who initiated the battle has to chug BOTH Ices.
Source: The Awl
Smirnoff is no stranger to viral spots: back in 2006 they surreptitiously released a rap music video called “Tea Partay” that only name dropped the brand once. But I’m still unsure any alcohol brand wants to be associated with forcing your friends to drink your product as fast as possible.
If Smirnoff wants relevance with males, the brand must speak their language. For the type of males this campaign is targeting, the only thing that’s worse than drinking a “girly drink” is ignoring your friends daring you to do so. But is this is a viral marketing stunt or simply an incredible piece of cultural commentary? And the real question: is there even a difference between a successful viral piece and strong cultural commentary?
Tagged as:
culture,
viral
Coffee by bike. Photo via Kickstand Coffee.
Gourmet food carts are propping up all over the country, notably in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Portland, OR. I recently read an article and interview over at Free Williamsburg about a New York-based mobile coffee shop called that travels around the city by bicycle. The business is appropriately named Kickstand.
Besides the obvious novelty of transporting their entire shop by a bicycle rather than by a truck, there are plenty of other areas for innovation. As the founders of Kickstand note, a bicycle is the quickest way to get around New York. Then there is added benefit and perception that Kickstand is more green than other competitors simply by virtue of their method of transit. I don’t think that being green is their USP, but added attention to their environmental consciousness can’t hurt.
So what is their unique selling proposition? In my opinion, it’s fresh-brewed coffee from anywhere their target customer is – so city parks, music festivals, busy streets. Currently, Kickstart doesn’t even have a street vending permit and must set up their stand inside a park. I think this can only help the brand. A Starbucks loyalist who finds themselves in a park with the Kickstand team may try the coffee because it is closer than the nearest retail Starbucks shop. And because Kickstand is (hypothetically) always moving around the city, it creates a gotta-have-it-now feeling among customers whenever they see the stand.
There are tons of great possibilities with mobile advertising and promotion. The people who are largely supporting the food cart movement (urban 20 and 30 somethings) are also very active on Twitter and Foursquare. Already, plenty of food carts use Twitter to inform their audiences about their current whereabouts. There’s even a Twitter status aggregator for Los Angeles food trucks called Find LA Food Trucks.
Foursquare awards a badge called Ziggy’s Wagon when a user checks into three separate locations called “food truck.” The possibilities for new badges are endless. What about a Kickstand specific badge that is awarded after checking into the stand three times from three separate locations? Or how about some sort of loyalty program based on foursquare badges and checkins? Anything that contributes to the intangible gotta-have-it-now-ness of Kickstand can only help the brand.
Tagged as:
branding,
food,
mobile,
social media
I saw a TV advertisement last night and at the end of the spot saw something that is becoming increasingly common in advertising: displaying the logos of Twitter and Facebook on the screen. But there was no call to action, no “friend us” or “follow us,” and nothing written or spoken about the logos in the spot. The advertiser was Boar’s Head, the maker of meats and cheeses you probably find at your local deli or supermarket.
These days, prevailing wisdom suggests that every company should maintain a presence on social media. The promise of social media is a lot like the early promise of the Internet: your customers are out there, you just need to find them. Now it is slightly different. Every company believes that thousands of people are talking about them online, and that to ignore them is to sacrifice sales and prestige and brand loyalty. To a point, that is true. But frankly I’m not too sure how many people talk about Boar’s Head online (except, clearly, for me). Maybe I’m wrong. But it’s not too encouraging when the first result for a Google search of “boars head twitter” is for an inactive and former account maintained by the company. The second result is for a Kentucky-based Christian blog.
Frankly, I have to give Boar’s Head some credit here. While the number of companies who include Twitter and Facebook logos in their ads seems like it is growing, it’s still pretty uncommon for mainstream products like deli meats and cheeses. Maybe there is a market here that I am overlooking. And the Boar’s Head facebook page seems way more popular than the Twitter page. There’s room to grow, obviously. A printed call to action on the TV spot seems appropriate. Another thing working against Boar’s Head is that there is no clear benefit to follow or friend the brand. This is especially true because the product is bought through a third party (the grocery store). Boar’s Head doesn’t necessarily have a direct relationship with the people who buy their product. Maybe this is what their social media endeavor is trying to accomplish. I’m glad to see that companies are experimenting with social media, even if that means figuring things out as they go along.
Tagged as:
food,
social media,
tv
The Toy Story Ad
Apple’s media event last Thursday received plenty of attention for multitasking and the other new features on iPhone OS 4. But one feature in particular – the iAd advertising platform – has incredible potential to change the way users interact with their iPhones.
The Toy Story ad demonstrated some of the amazing technology now available to advertisers. What I found most striking is that nearly everything in the ad is something that a company would today need an app to accomplish. In fact, save for the downloadable Toy Story app that lived inside the ad, there was scarcely any indication that an app would be required for advertising purposes. Will promotional apps for movies and TV shows remain a necessity, or will advertisers replace them with ads inside the apps their audience already uses?
There are still some unanswered questions about how buying iAds will work – Apple will function as a matchmaker of sorts, but to what end and in what depth? How much control do app developers have over the advertisers who appear in their apps? Or is it advertisers who choose which apps they want their ads to appear in? Either way, app developers are about to get much more familiar with concepts like demographics than they ever have before.
Because iAds are programmed in HTML5 and not in Objective C, like iPhone apps are, your standard everyday web programmer could whip up an ad in no time flat. If iAds are so powerful and so targeted that companies begin using ads in place of specialized apps, and if these ads are easier to create in HTML5 than in Objective C, what will this do to the ecosystem of app developers? Will companies still hire outside app developers, or will the task fall to their web guy or their ad agency? Will developers branch out into creating ads, or will they focus on creating apps to run those ads?
When people talk about the future, they always say “Imagine walking down the street, passing a store, and getting a text message with a coupon to that store.” The future may be here soon. Foursquare could capitalize on this in a big way. Businesses that offer Foursquare discounts to mayors could now use location awareness coupons to steer in new and repeat business. And now that the iPhone offers multitasking, location-based programs like Foursquare and (to a lesser extent) Yelp will always know where you are.
Let me step even further into the hypothetical realm. Imagine “secret apps” that do not exist on the app store but most be found within ads. Imagine a level of targeting that would put Google AdWords to shame – only people currently using the Foursquare app in Brooklyn who are male and 25-28 (doesn’t Apple take this info from you when you register your iPhone?) Imagine the most immersive Alternate Reality Game ever seen, and imagine ads with enough tips and tricks to make you forget you are playing with an ad. The future is here, and it is about to get very interesting.
Tagged as:
advertising,
mobile,
technology
