Marketing like Viagra…it’s not big and it’s not clever

Some brands are getting it right…others on the other hand are still marketing like those dodgy Viagra pills. And just to clarify when I say getting it right, I’m talking about brands not using social media to just pretty much spam a heap of people.

Starting with the ones that are getting it right, Ikea recently used Facebook’s photo tagging function to give away products from their show room. They created a profile for the store manager and he uploaded some photos of the show room. The first people to tag an item with their name on won it. Awesome..the full details are below.

The second is Toys ‘R’ Us who rewarded friend’s of the brand’s fan page by giving them exclusive mystery deals. Simple, but nice and it’s also solicited.

Now for the ones that that don’t. I’ve mentioned Moonfruit before and despite what some people think, it is not a shining example of using Twitter, but Westfield has almost topped it launching its ‘Win a $10,000 Gift Card’ promotion through Facebook. Essentially you update your status by saying ‘All I want for Christmas is a Westfield Gift Card’ and you get entered into a prize draw, whilst spamming your friends at the same time.

The main differences are…

People want the Macbook not Moonfruit and people want the $10K, not the Westfield Gift Card. It’s a meaningless relationship that have got people wanting and talking about the wrong thing, unlike the Ikea and Toys ‘R’ Us examples. The latter’s products and brand experience are part of their communication.

Moonfruit and Westfield have also got the mechanics wrong. Larger groups benefit with Ikea and Toy ‘R’ Us, not just a handful of individuals. They are essentially marketing to networks of people rather than just applying prize draw tactics learnt in the ‘push’ world. You need to be more inclusive rather than exclusive marketing to networks.

You could argue that Moonfruit and Westfield are playing a numbers game which might be true. These promotions wouldn’t have cost much to execute and less than a 0.5% conversion might make them money, but it is still seen as unsolicited spam, albeit indirectly through my friends. And let’s be honest, if I start getting a friend spamalanche, I won’t be using FB et al that much. This might work for Viagra, but do you really want to market like that?

Tags: Facebook, Ikea, Marketing, Moonfruit, Social Media, Toys 'R' Us, Viagra, Westfield