KLM Suprise – How a Little Social Media Idea Can Make a Difference

Advertisement doesn’t always need to shout out loud. Sometimes little ideas with a small investment can make a difference and be more sympathic. KLM showed how to catch their customers effectively with using social media and ‘simply’ listening. KLM searched passengers who checked in to their KLM flight with Location Based Services like Foursquare or left a message on Twitter. They checked their profile to think about a personalized small travel gift. Then they hunted these passengers at the airport to deliver them the gift.

The KLM case closed the gap between reality and social media and got a REAL smile into passengers face – just with listening and a little present.

 

Original post: here

Best of the Digital Decade

The One Club, a non-profit organization promoting excellence in advertising based in New York, awarded the best interactive online campaigns defining the era from 2000 until 2010. A jury with international digital creatives choose the best out of 75 nominees.

Do you still remember the crazy Subserviant Chicken from Burger King in 2005? The chicken did exactly that what people/ users told them to do. The campaign, which was really huge and had a big impact on interactive digital advertising, is awarded as the best.

What I like a lot is the interactive spot of Arcade Fire, be oNline B.

Considering the next decade, I expect nominations will be different. As the world of media and communication is changing rapidly, I guess we will have a greater social consumer orientaded impact on advertising. There will be not so many spots reminding on traditional TV. It’s maybe entertainment content as well but with more social techniques. The brand will become more like a host or frame for the consumers/ users generating and developing the story.

Thoughts About Digital Planning

I’ve often been asked what you really do in the field of online strategy. Is it about marketing? About PR? About technology? What are the facts characterizing digital planning?

Compared to traditional planning the job is similar and simultaneously different.
A planner in a traditional kind of thinking has to define media-independent insights in a creative process of thinking based on research to develop the big idea for an advertising campaign. The process in digital planning is similar – you have to do creative thinking as well. And you have to find the appropriate infomation and go through cases. But what set it apart is the fact, that you are already in a kind like a medium – the online world. And it’s probably not that one big linear strategy, it often is an intelligent combination of micro-strategies.

A digital strategy is not just about search engine optimization or social media relations or online advertising, but all these things can be part of the strategy. Digital planning is the key to digital brand management: It’s strategic planning, acting and optimizing across all online channels in an integrated way and create a maximum of synergy effects across all marketing efforts targeting the best possible ROI.

So, you have to start thinking from a more media-orientated point of view and bring in the product and the brand. Digital Planning requires both – strategic advertising and PR thinking. You have to know your audience – where, why and how people act online. Then decide on your objectives: So, do you want to talk to people and customers or want to support them (customer support) etc. Now you can set up your strategy in the meaning of figuring out what will be different after you’re done. (I like that term.) Do you want to establish relationship or rather do market reasearch or increase sales or improve the brand image? And when you have set up your strategy, then you can decide on technology.

Important for me is to say, that digital planning doesn’t stop at the “border” to the offline world. You have to have the skills to think beyond. Consider it as understanding, planning and acting in an meaningful sustainable way in the digital world to achive higher brand goals.