Brands Go Offline, Get Experiential for Social Media Success

Starbucks, Best Buy and Home Depot are some of the most successful brands in social media.

And one of the secrets to their success can be found offline.

• Starbucks makes sure customers have access to exclusive content through its Starbucks Digital Network.
• Best Buy uses mobile and QR codes to take consumers from the printed circular, online to in-store. Once in-store QR codes continue to help inform the consumer's shopping experience.
• Home Depot's robust how-to channel on YouTube makes easy to see why the brand's in-store demonstrations are a popular way to "turn doing dials up a notch."

These socially-established brands understand the importance of using online and offline to increase customer engagement. The above examples might seem extreme or unrelated to other brands as these three brands have several thousand retail locations between them. So let's look at two, smaller consumer packaged goods examples of using experiential marketing to bring a brand to life.

Peeps Random Acts of Sweetness Tour: Just in time for Easter, the Peepster Volkswagen “chick” is touring "the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest to celebrate its new online store and to connect directly with loyal fans and new fans in select markets."

During the sugar- and marshmallow-fueled road trip, the Peepster will distribute candy and provide photo opps while updating the company's Facebook page. This effort has also resulted in a ton of online buzz in the process.

Little Debbie Million Smile Mission: Little Debbie is going on the road to make one million people smile. It's all thoroughly documented on Facebook.  As the Little Debbie's airstream travels across the nation, it is adding photos to its Million Smile Mosaic and giving away prizes -- including an Airstream.

Why Experiential Works
I've always been a fan of mobile marketing. It builds on a consumer's existing brand experiences and connects them directly with the brand to help create even more experiences. But without an online, social component the experience can start and end at a single event. Twitter and Facebook icons festoon the Airstream and the Volkswagen for a very specific reason.

So which comes first -- online or offline? How often is this a linear process? Regardless of which comes first, don't get so focused on the online efforts that we neglect to connect them to and to intensify them with offline efforts.


Cross-posted to my work blog.

Comments

[Merubin]

92% of Word of Mouth happens offline. Social Media works best when generating an offline action. http://bit.ly/h36TZz

[Kevin Dugan]

Michael - LOVE that stat. And I've permalinked the reference to it. It serves it up perfectly. But there's even discussion among WOMMA members that the focus is too heavily on online. Sex sells when the sex in question is Facebook, right? I don't agree with it. I'm frustrated by it. But your research reminds me as to why it's frustrating. Cheers.

[Nick Stamoulis]

The best marketing approach is one that's diversified. Social media can be a very powerful tool, but it works best when incorporated with other forms of marketing. These are great examples of how to do that.

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[Chelsea Cassudakis]

I've never heard of the Peeps Random Acts of Sweetness or Little Debbie Million Smile Mission. While I feel that social media is such an important tool in public relations, so many people forget about the offline efforts to connect with your publics. It's all about balance. The right amount of social media/online efforts with offline efforts. I love to see brands like Peeps or Red Bull going out into public and directly communicating with the public. As a college student, seeing the Red Bull car pull up anywhere would cause students to flock to the car to receive free drinks. I've never been a big fan of Red Bull, but I would always snag a can or two when the Red Bull car gave them away for free. Now that I've tried it multiple times, I'm beginning to start to like it! It's funny how personal interaction with a company can change public opinions.

[Boutique Website Design]

That sounds like a very interesting study. It’s amazing how social media has such a grip on so many aspects of society.

[Christina Tao]

The successes of big corporations like Starbucks, Home Depot and Best buy have been discussed by PR professionals again and again within the past two years. I didn't know that small companies as you mentioned in this post like Peep can have such creative idea to use offline actions to support their online strategies. Sometimes, people tend to get use to the traditional strategies and would ignore them or take them for granted. As far as I'm concerned, the traditional way of promotion can never be ignored. It's wiser for PR advisor to find a way to combine the online and offline tactics together without gap or overlap. Also, I really enjoy the picture of the chick car!

[AmandaBrocato]

Thanks for this article. These days it seems like clients are really focused on what we can do for them online. The fact is, that while social media is an important element, it really should be just a part of a much larger PR strategy. Too many times we let the hype of something new (and while I am not suggesting that social media is a fade because it can bring a lot of value) lead our strategy. There needs to be a balance and as PR professionals, paid for our experience and expert opinion we it is our job to remind clients of that balance when they push too hard for one tactic or another, social media included. That's easier said than done a lot of times but who wants to miss out on the PR stunts? Not me...I find those to be the most fun.

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