Louboutin, a French luxury shoe label established by Christian Louboutin in 1991, is well known for its famous signature red sole. There are more than 70 boutiques spread across the world. The products of Louboutin can be bought via the official Louboutin website, selected department stores and the Louboutin boutiques.
The red soles
The signature red sole distinguishes the shoes from other shoe brands. The red sole has become a trademark and will be forever associated with the brand identity of Louboutin. Recently Louboutin won a lawsuit from Yves-Saint Laurent, who wanted to use the red sole image as well. The judge stated that the sole can only be red if the whole shoe is red, in any other case Louboutin has the exclusive right of using the red sole for its shoes.
Due to smart marketing – trademarking the red soles – Christian Louboutin managed to establish a strong brand and a strong brand image. An image that is associated with high fashion status and class.
As quoted by Christian Louboutin: “The shiny red color of the soles has no function other than the identity that they are mine. I selected the color because it is engaging, flirtatious, memorable and the color of passion.”
Christian Louboutin doesn’t believe in advertising because in his opinion he doesn’t need it, he lets the distinctive red color of the soles do the work for him, namely the product itself sells the shoes. Nevertheless in 2009 Christian Louboutin started using small advertising campaigns that resemble shoes as art. These advertisements do not appear on TV but only in some editorial magazines and selected department stores.
Target audience
The customer base of Christian Louboutin exists mostly out of wealthy people – prices of the shoes start at +/- 500$ – and celebrities. The core business exists of shoes and in 2003 the brand was extended with handbags and purses and in 2011 the first men’s footwear collection was launched. The most recent extension of the brand is nail polish, launched in July, 2014. With this latest extension they aim to broaden the customer base to less wealthy people – price of the nail polish is 50$.
The audience targeted through social media are mainly women of all ages who want to look sexy and beautiful and want to make their legs as long as possible.
Social media
The brand Louboutin is active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and a lot of people pin pictures of Louboutin on Pinterest. Louboutin uses social media to engage with his (loyal) fans across the world – to have a global presence – to keep them posted about new product releases and news features. Louboutin tries to tailor the social media to their customers in different parts of the world due to their customers distinctive usage patterns on social media and tries to take note of their consumer behavior.
Through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Louboutin tries to invite the consumers to share their opinions and thoughts instead of forcing them to buy the products – the use of a pull strategy instead of a push strategy. Louboutin tries to stay away from traditional marketing overload and uses attractive visuals. They try to avoid “stalking” their followers and place only a few posts, tweets,… a month.
On YouTube you can find interviews with Chrsitian Louboutin about his passion for shoes, the love for his work and his ongoing efforts in trying to make women feel confident, independent and strong.
The success of Louboutin is translated into digital superiority on social media. From a study conducted by the Digital Luxury Group, Louboutin is the most sought after shoe brand and generates the most Facebook and Twitter engagement.
Some of the aspects of the strategy of Louboutin can be applied on The Hyde Street Journal. It can be a good idea to post or tweet about news events on Facebook and Twitter and try to initiate a discussion, so that people can really take part in it and be able to share their opinions. Even making a movie and placing it on YouTube could raise the attention for the blog.
COCA-COLA is a brand established around the world and it is the third largest global brand. Also almost the whole population of the world knows how a can of Coca-Cola looks. So it is easy to recognize this brand only with the red labeled can. The cause of this is the work of at marketing and year after year of hard investment on marketing.
Coca-cola partnership with Brazil
Coca-Cola invests its money on marketing in many ways. But one with better ROI is partnership. Like the American company did last summer with the World Soccer Cup in Brazil.
The target of the well-known company is a huge range of population, without boundaries of age, race, country or sex. But actually the range that buys more coke is the Latin American population at the age between 15 and 25 years old. Although those numbers Coca-Cola is investing in new products and niches to grow its revenues year per year. And the social media marketing is a tool to multiply marketing results. Lately Coca-Cola used social media tool to increase the result of “share a coke” marketing procedure. This is the second year that the soda company uses this slogan and marketing strategy.
2.- SHARE A COKE, CAN OF COCA COLA WITH PERSONAL NAMES AND NICKNAMES.
Coca-cola social media strategy
3.- COCA COLA LIFE, LESS CALORIES MADE OF NATURAL PRODUCTS.
Coca-Cola new product: Coca-Cola Life
“Coca-Cola Life is our newest innovation that provides consumers with an option with less sugar and fewer calories and that is sweetened from natural sources. It has been really well received in Argentina and Chile, and we think that consumers in GB will love it too.” Coca-Cola Company
GROWING NICHE:
Coca-Cola is not shying away from soda market, indeed is investing double and a addition to 1 billion in advertising through 2016. Even though Americans are drinking less these days, Coca-Cola’s big bet might not be a bad idea.
If it can get its marketing right, Coke expects forthcoming low-calorie products sold in smaller sizes and using new sweeteners will appeal to people who’ve been avoiding soda. The company is already selling a stevia-sweetened Coca-Cola Life, launched last year in Chile and Argentina. That might be enough to bring recent soda abstainers back to the vending machine.
Soda Market Sales Forecast
RESULTS OF MEDIA MARKETING:
A Coca-Cola Co. study finds online buzz has no measurable impact on short-term sales, but online display ads work about as well as TV, said a company executive in a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation’s think 2013 conference in New York today.
It’s a stunning admission for a company whose flagship brand has 82 million fans, more than any other brand on Facebook. But Eric Schmidt, senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola, is not giving up on buzz problem.
Now Mr. Schmidt said Coke is looking to refine how it measures buzz. In example, by getting a better idea of how many people buzz actually reaches rather than, just counting the raw publicly available comments from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube.
Coca-cola social media effect
One problem Coca-Cola has is determining whether buzz is actually positive or negative in the first place. “When we say it’s positive, the machine about 21% of the time says it’s negative,” he said. Machines have the most trouble judging sentiment in longer posts such as those in blogs or Facebook and do much better on Twitter, he said.
But the good point is what Coca-Cola as a brand learns from their strategy:
Build central campaigns
Crowd-source, involve consumers
Interact directly with costumers
Embrace new mediums
Measure success
Is there evidence this strategy is working or will work in the future? Provide examples.
Coca-Cola has 2.4 million followers worldwide at Twitter. In the last month, @cocacola has Tweeted 1,994 times. It means more than 60 Tweets per day and created over 1 billion potential impressions the last 30 days.
Examples provided (campaign “share your coke”): The results across every medium show the campaign to be wildly successful. Those who saw the TV adverts are seven per cent more likely to consider buying Coke than the general population. Consumers who saw the campaign on Twitter are eight per cent more likely to recommend Coke to a friend. Those exposed to the campaign on Facebook are 18 per cent more likely to have a good impression of the brand than other Facebook users.
Through our online focus groups we found that the main reason Share a Coke worked so well is because it reached out to consumers as individuals, but at the same time didn’t exclude anyone. Some participants expressed disappointment at not finding their names on Coke bottles, but they could still get excited about the campaign by finding the names of their friends and family.
Coca-cola revenue per year
But comparing 2013 Ad result with 2014 now it is not working anymore. Coca-Cola’s definition of “Share a Coke” strategy:
“The concept of the ‘Share a Coke’ scheme is to bring friends and family together during social event over the summer. Have people been sharing the news about the personalized Coke’s comeback? Their Recommend score in 2013 started at 2.1 and ended up with an average score of 7.9 until the end of the scheme. However, we see a different pattern this year. Its score dropped from 3.6 on 15 June to -5.0 on 19 July, averaging at -0.9. Similarly, Diet Coke averaged at 7.9 in 2013’s campaign but figures dropped to -0.9 since 14 June”.
How can we apply their strategy to a small business or a blog like The Hyde Street Journal? Provide examples.
We could apply Coca-Cola strategy to a small business or our blog doing work at social medias as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. We will advise to our followers every time we have new posts in our blog. Or ask for their interests and do a basic newsletter one time per week or month.
Besides this, the best idea in one-to-one marketing is to be close to the costumer, like Coca-Cola does in Twitter. This tactic is employed both as a customer-service method, and to show some love for fans that show love to the brand:
The Company makes certain commitments concerning how we interact with the public and each other, and these commitments apply to interactions that occur on social media platforms as well. We expect the same commitments from all Company representatives, including Company associates and associates of our agencies, vendors and suppliers:
Coca-Cola will be transparent in every social media engagement.
Coca-Cola will protect our consumers’ privacy in compliance with applicable Privacy Policies, IT Security Policies, and laws, rules, and regulations.
Coca-Cola will respect copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity, and other third-party rights.
Coca-Cola will be responsible in our use of technology and will not knowingly align our Company with any organizations or Web sites that use excessive tracking software, adware, malware or spyware.
Coca-Cola will reasonably monitor our behavior in the social media space, establish appropriate protocols for establishing our social media presence, and keep appropriate records of our participation as dictated by law and/or industry best practices.
COMPANY AND AGENCY ASSOCIATES’ SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITIES
The Company respects the rights of its associates and its authorized agencies’ associates to use blogs and other social media tools not only as a form of self-expression, but also as a means to further the Company’s business. It is important our associates and our agencies are aware of the implications of engaging in social media and online conversations that reference the Company, its brands, or its business, and that they recognize when the Company might be held responsible for their behavior. Our expectations for personal and professional/official use of social media are set forth separately below.
PERSONAL USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: OUR EXPECTATIONS
Whether you are an authorized Company spokesperson or not, when you’re talking about our Company, our brands, or our business on your personal social networks, keep in mind that:
Our Company’s Information Protection Policy, Insider Trading Policy, and other policies still apply.
You are responsible for your actions. We encourage you to get online and have fun, but use sound judgment and common sense.
You are an important ambassador for our Company’s brands, and you’re encouraged to promote them as long as you make sure you disclose that you are affiliated with the Company. How you disclose can depend on the platform, but the disclosure should be clear and in proximity to the message itself.
When you see posts or commentary on topics that require subject matter expertise, such as ingredients, obesity, the Company’s environmental impacts, or the Company’s financial performance, avoid the temptation to respond to these directly unless you respond with approved messaging the Company has prepared for those topics. When in doubt, contact your local Public Affairs and Communications director.
Be conscientious when mixing your business and personal lives; be sure to know your work group’s policies regarding personal use of social media at work or on Company devices.
Volkswagen AG is the biggest German company with a worldwide sales revenue of about $250bn and a vehicle production of more then 9.25 million per year.
The Facebook-Page of Volkswagen (general) has gotten about 1.5 million likes and a very structured design with a lot of information. They post only one time a day to be sure that there followers don’t feel spammed. The Posts are about VW-events, new cars or its just a beautiful or a cool picture. They promote especially the cars for young customers like the UP!, Golf, Scirocco or Polo because this is still the main group using Facebook. They also use the possibility of links to their homepage or other social media accounts and hashtags. Volkswagen has many other Facebook-Pages for special products or special countries for example the VW USA page has nearly 3 million likes. The Posts from every page are different depending on the kind of customers that like it who like it. In the USA , rallies are much more popular than in Germany so there are much more Posts about this topic.
The Twitter-Page is similar but contains more small tweets because there is another way to use this social media also there are a lot of different accounts like on Facebook the same for Youtube, Google+ and Instagram. On Youtube there are mainly presentations of new cars or for example a campaign to promote the e-cars.
The target audience of their social media strategy is clear. They accommodate there appearance to the users of the social media sites so its different from the customer base of the company. The most people using social media are young and the most people who buy new cars are old so this kind of advertisement doesn’t really reach the main customer base of the company but there are so many customers only in the niches the pages that it makes sense to create an own page for every niche.
Every company should create accounts on social media sites. It’s not a lot of work and a very good way to keep possible costumers in the mind of possible customers. It’s a cheap way to inform the people and for example on Facebook it’s very easy for small companies to get new customers because also the friends of persons who are interested in your page or company will see a link to your site so it’s sharing on his own for free.
Oreo’s cookies has been on the market for about a hundred years and it’s a traditional brand in the United States, but also, the brand has conquered customers all over the world. The company’s image is very positive, they give the idea that people who eat Oreo’s cookies have a happy and fun day.
Oreo grew a lot in the past years and now the brand has a big extension of their products. It is possible to find ice cream with Oreo at Mc Donald’s, Oreo Cheesecake at Cheesecake factoring and etc. However to make this brand extension work, Oreo has to have a great marketing, so their customers can know about it.
Therefore, the brand has an excellent marketing to advertise its products and it is doing a great job with social media. Oreo’s company has been advertising on twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google plus and others and it’s working well. On Facebook they have overall 37 millions likes on their pages, on Instagram they have 203 thousand followers and on Twitter it’s 435 thousand followers.
The advertisement on these three Social Media are different, but it has the same meaning. They are all creative advertisement with a lot of sense of humor and delicious items that can be made with Oreo. Also they share videos with different ways to eat the cookie, and in addition to, when the brand does an extension with another company they also share on the Social Media. Another kind of sharing that Oreo’s do is to create fun image for a typical holiday, for example, for the gay pride and christmas.
The company has a different target audience when advertising on Social Media. It is focused on young people for some reasons. First of all young people spend more time on Facebook and Instagram, also they like to share the content with theirs friends if they like it. Second, young people need to recognize the brand and keep the name Oreo in their mind, so when they think about cookies they can think about Oreo’s cookie. And third, Oreo is a traditional cookie, so the company don’t need to worry so much about the on older people, once they already know and buy the cookies.
For the consumer base, that is the older people, Oreo use another type of advertisement like television because they are not so used to use social media, and also they already know the cookies for a long time so that way the company just needs to advertise to keep the brand on the customer’s minds not to present the brand for them.
Oreo’s online marketing strategy is definitely working and it is possible to prove it. On Facebook most of Oreo’s post has more than 300 share and over 200 comments, depending on what is the content. Usually content that contains videos is more sharable than the one’s that has just funny image, and content that has more images is more sharable than the one’s that has just text. And that is explainable, because people are more interested in things when they don’t need to spend time and energy. So it is easy to watch a video or see an image, than to read a big text.
Since Oreo’s strategy is working well, it is good for other companies, like a small business or a blog to base on their marketing strategy. The Hyde Street Journal could use one of Oreo’s marketing strategies, that is work with more pictures and videos between the texts, so it can be more attractive for those who are reading. Otherwise, when people see a long text without any image or video, they don’t get interested because they think it is going to be boring or that is going to take a long time to read it.
The customer base of Tommy Hilfiger is women, men and children. The Hilfiger followers on different social medias are women and men who seems to have the same age as the modelspresent on the brand web site. Followers and models are in their twenties and thirties.
The fact that the followers and models used by Tommy Hilfiger brand are the same, shows that the brand knows their customers. An other evidence of Tommy Hilfiger working strategy is that we know they have 9,500,000 people who like their facebook page, they have 720,000 followers on Twitter, 364,000 on Intagram, etc… That means a lot of people are following them through the social media and they are connecting with the brand.
But we don’t have enough information to know if their social media strategy is working or not to increase the sales of the brand. We can suppose that Tommy Hilfiger is learning a lot of information through social media about their customers. How they react after a new post, which one they like more, which one they like less, what about their age, gender, country, etc… If this hypothesis is correct, Tommy Hilfiger would have a lot of followers to know which way to go.
The Tommy’s Hilfiger social media strategy could be a source of inspiration for our journal by following simple rules like :
To be on different social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc…
To animate the different media with a daily content, like promoting our articles, our website, our events, etc…
To diversify the content, with text, photos, videos,…
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines was founded October 7, 1919 and has been the flag carrier airline of the Netherlands ever since then. It has flights to 136 destinations worldwide and has 32,505 employees, including around 100 who work at the social media department.[1]
KLM uses different social media platforms: Facebook (6,7m likes), Twitter (1,2m followers), their blog, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+. The first three mentioned are the most used platforms.[2]
The business has a big target audience. Basically everyone who wants or needs to travel is part of this group. You can find that in their social media strategy. For example, they have a broad approach in the use of language. The general language used by the company on social media is English, although you can reach their Twitter account in 10 different languages.[3] This is the main difference between the customer base and the target audience; the customer base consists of mainly people from The Netherlands, with Dutch as their mother tongue, but their social media strategy is mainly in English.
KLM choose to employ a different strategy for every different social media platform. Their Twitter account mostly used for direct contact with customers with questions or concerns. They even promise to answer the questions within 120 minutes, 24 hours a day.[4] Twitter is also used to share links to their blog posts. Another way to directly answer their customers’ questions is Facebook. Besides that, Facebook is also used to share pictures made by customers, share post from their blog and sharing funny/interesting stories related to their company. They decided to link a weblog to KLM, which is quite remarkable, because not many companies use a blog in their social media strategy. The weblog consists of posts about their current campaigns, behind the scenes post and posts written by customers. Most of the time these customers are specifically selected, for example celebrities or other famous travelers.
KLM is known for its successful social media strategy, but what makes it so popular? The first thing is their accent on interaction. As mentioned before, as a customer, you can always reach the company and get a response within a few hours. The next method, which follows the line of interaction, is the use of language in the communication with customers. A good example of this is a question asked by a customer on Facebook, which got a remarkable reaction by one of KLM’s employees. Unfortunately this was in Dutch, so I’ll explain the situation. This customer wanted to book a flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco with spending a few days in New York City in between. So he asked the KLM web care about the best way to book this. However, he wrote this message in a typical Dutch slang used by teenagers. The KLM employee responded in the same kind of language, which isn’t very common among companies, who normally use a more official language. The power of this is that this reaction got so many likes on Facebook that it was shared really fast among the Dutch population. It even became breaking news. In this way, KLM reached a lot of people, without putting much energy in it.
It’s currently a hard time for airlines, so KLM experienced some losses[5], regardless of their exceptional use of social media. This means that their social media strategy will be more and more important in the future.
What we can learn from the social media strategy is the approachability of the company. Customers can choose which social media platform they want to use and they are promised to get an answer in a reasonable amount of time. The kind of language used makes the approachability even more fitted, the KLM employees adapt their language use to their customers (in different languages as well as in different slangs). The last thing we can learn, is to be outstanding, so news about the company will be spread by the customers themselves or even by other companies, for example because they think an update or reaction by the company is funny/interesting or at least worth sharing.
In order for any company to expand,it is essential to reach people’s consciousness. In the 21st century, social is by far the fastest and easiest way toexpand branding, which is why most brands can be found both on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr. Being the world’s second largest retail company (with more than 3,100 stores on 53 markets)1, H&M is no different. The clothing brand even set a goal to expand 10 – 15% every year from now on2. Below is a more detailed explanation of how H&M uses different social media.
Facebook is for much more commercial use, with statements such as “check out the perfect selection of jackets and coats to take you through colder weather, which one will you get?” describing typical commercial pictures. Also, they make more opinion-related posts about living wages, thereby supposedly attracting people who might doubt the way their clothes are being manufactured. A lot of the content from H&M’s Facebook account is copy-pasted on its Google+ account.
Instagram is more classy and appears less sales-related. The pictures don’t contain as many models and full-size looks, but are often cropped to point out details or only showing smaller items such as shoes and jewelry. This way they’re probably deliberately drawing attention to other items than clothing, thus making more people notice the jewelry and they will hopefully buy it.
On H&M’s YouTube channel is a more broad variety of topics. There are videos showing off the different seasons’ collections, but there are also videos explaining environmental (H&M on Water Stewardship) and social (H&M on Fair Living Wages) policies in detail.
In conclusion, H&M varies its posts/submissions according to the website/app to spread content and divide focus. This might be a helpful strategy for attracting different kinds of customers, which the brand will need in order to reach a 10 – 15% increase every year, especially with the large variety of customers it already has.
Even though it is normal to see mothers with children and boys in H&M stores, the customer base is mainly teenage girls/young women, which is also the group it targets most frequently in social media like Facebook and Instagram. Most pictures are of girls’ clothes and jewelry, but every once in a whilepictures of guys to be found as well. It becomes even more attractive to even more people when the brand starts associating itself with environment-friendly industries and proper working conditions. Aside from the fact that it is the customer base and the brand probably intends to keep as many customers as possible while expanding, it also makes the most sense to appeal to young people through social media, as more young rather than old people are involved with social media. So with a few variations, the target audience of H&M’s social media strategy is more or less the same as its customer base, because this is what makes the most sense.
H&M joined Facebook in 2010. Looking at sales numbers from then until 2013, there has been a 18.5% increase in sales over a period of 3 years, even with the financial crisis still wearing off3. However, from 2006 to 2009, the increase in sales was almost 50%4, which could signal that even with social media strategies to attract customers, H&M is close to having reached maximum customer capacity. This could be the reason why the strategy for 2014 is to penetrate the Asian market, but this doesn’t show in the social media, which could mean that H&M’s social media strategy is to preserve the amount of customers it already has rather than gambling and going for an entirely different target audience.
The brand can only do this because it knows its customer base. It would be hard for a small blog like The Hyde Street Journal, which has a lot of different content, to apply the same strategy to social media because the viewer base is unknown. Even so, advertising it on social media probably wouldn’t hurt, as Facebook posts or tweets attract attention and may just help get more viewers/subscribers to the page.
Analyze their use of social media and how do the Louis Vuitton use Facebook or Twitter … etc?
The social media is that it’s social media needs to be fully integrated within the overall brand strategy. And it cannot be seen as just a trend anymore, nor as a new way to do marketing.
According to the research,they enabled users who are fans of Louis Vuitton to be a part of this exclusive crowd as they live streamed the event on their Facebook page. They succeeded in engaging with their community by living the Louis Vuitton dream.
They first got people excited by releasing a small amount of information about the event through their Facebook fan page:.
They also created an event on Facebook that is similar to an invitation you would receive to go to the actual event.
A Facebook app dedicated to this special event was created on Facebook. This very clever app was live streaming. It offered you the possibility to update your status with news about the event, comment on the video – and thus interact with worldwide users doing the same as you which reinforces the feeling of belonging to a community. The camera icon – as you can see on the image above – allowed you to take pictures from the live show. These pictures were then sent to a new Facebook album created on your profile. What is extremely clever is that this album would – as something new – directly appear on your news feed, exposing your Facebook friends to this incredible, high-quality content.
Social media is not an impossible challenge. With limited costs – regarding the digital part – it achieved amazing results. The one rule to respect is to use social media as a tool to reach a defined aim which is part of the brand’s marketing strategy.
Luxury brands have to understand that people who are Facebook users are not only millennials. Everyone is on Facebook; especially affluent people who are the target audience. Luxury brands need to adapt and build a new kind of relationship with their customers who want to be more engaged with their favorite brand. Social media is a way to create a more one – to – one relationship with your audience as social media is built on people. Louis Vuitton did very well because they understood that social media should not be used as an end in itself, but as a new and extremely powerful communication tool where your community does all the work.
Is there evidence this strategy is working or will work in the future?
Vuitton’s growth has slowed in recent months because luxury-hungry consumers in emerging markets like China are becoming rapidly more sophisticated; in essence, they want subtle leather bags instead of the logo-covered canvas pieces that are Vuitton’s bread and butter, in addition to being the brand’s most visible symbol.
Much of Vuitton’s recent success has been predicated on entry-level luxury consumers’ lust for the brand’s flashy canvas pieces. That group will be the one affected the most by Vuitton’s price-increase strategy because they’re the most price-sensitive segment of Vuitton’s consumer base; in losing some of what the brand seems to consider riff-raff, execs are hoping to gain new customers at the top end of the market. After all, Hermes increases its prices constantly (or at least it feels that way) and is growing at record rates, perhaps because the type of customer the brand attracts doesn’t care about an extra $500 on top of a $5,000 purchase. If Vuitton can’t buy Hermes, it seems hell-bent on trying to become its twin.
The second segment of Vuitton’s reported growth strategy – emphasizing its subtler, more expensive leather bags and accessories over its famous canvas – indicates that it’d like to at least attempt to become a similar brand, at least in the eyes of the purchasing public.
How can we apply their strategy to a small business or a blog like the The Hyde Street Journal?
In an age of unbridled competition, branding is often what sets businesses apart.
Consider an example: both Louis Vuitton and GAP sell clothes. Yet, Louis Vuitton is able to charge thousands of dollars for a suit, while GAP’s suits will rarely set you back by more than a couple hundred dollars.
This is because the Louis Vuitton brand is perceived as a luxury brand, and thus, can command luxury brand prices. GAP, on the other hand, has consciously positioned itself as a brand for the middle-class urban consumer, hence the lower prices.
Building a brand is often very different from building a business. It involves identifying and communicating the qualities that make your business special. It is largely a marketing enterprise, though to be successful, it must reflect qualities your business truly values.
Creating a successful brand positioning strategy requires a number of steps, such as:
Identify Values: Identify your brand’s primary values. Try to distill these values into a concise ‘mission statement’. Amazon’s mission statement, for instance, is to create ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’.
Identify Competitors: Who are your primary competitors? What values do they espouse? How do they differentiate themselves? Answering these questions will help you understand competition and thus, create your own brand identity.
Differentiate: Identify what makes your brand different from competitors. Maybe you have a larger portfolio of products, maybe you use better ingredients/construction material, or maybe you have better customer service. This is a crucial step as it will dictate much of your brand marketing.
Communicate: The last step is communicating your brand’s values and what makes it different to consumers. This can be done through advertising, PR campaigns, media, etc.
McDonald’s is using a lot of different social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, Snapchat, Instagram and Google Plus (which hasn’tbeen updated since 2011).
According to Tybout Calder, a buyer’s decisions have a lot to do with emotions[1]. It is therefore a good idea, that McDonald’s isusing social media websites like Pinterest and Instagram since they are founded with focus on pictures, which are good for provoking emotions.
However, some can also state, that humans have a need for food and you therefore buy McDonald’s in relation to a functional goal. At some point, that can be true, but I think that people mostly are buying McDonald’s because of the taste, the brand and the reliability of the food.
Due to limitations of this assignment, the text below will only focus on McDonald’s’ use of Facebook.
1)
McDonald’s hasa very broad customer base, as a lot of different types of people are eating their food. This statement is also symbolized in their way of using Facebook, where they have a big differentiation of their posts. Some posts are related to people interested in sport, others to current events and some to kids.
McDonald’s are trying to focusing more on healthy food, because more and more people prefer this. By focusing on the behavior of healthy people, McDonald’s tries target ‘noncategory users’ and convince them to choose McDonald’s. This focus on ‘noncategory users’, calls Tybout Calder, the most effective way of increasing a company’s profit in the long term[2]. McDonald’s challenge for the future are, that the earnings from the unhealthy food are more valuable compared to the healthy variations[3].
Furthermore, each McDonald’s shop has a fanpage on Facebook, where news about the given shop is presented. In this way, McDonald’s can be specific with the posts which probably results in increased engagement from the fans. Moreover, McDonald’s is focusing on current events, for example a special burger in relation to the World Cup in soccer[4].
2)
In overall, McDonald’s strategy is a good one, where they try to be active on a lot of different social media platforms. When that it said, there is space for improvements. They haven’t posted on their Google+ profile in around three years and this is not acceptable for a brand like McDonald’s. If they have an account on a big social media, they have to engage with the users on the platform (even though there areprobably not that many active users), otherwise it is better just to delete the profile.
Personally, I am also disappointed that they aren’t trying to get more in touch with their fans. Compared to how big a brand they are, they don’t get much response on their posts. When that is said, it is pleasant that they try using special hashtags, and make the users create a lot of content by referring to this. In these days, they are offering a free coffee in relation to the #sipandtell[5].
3)
By analyzing the social media use of McDonald’s, I think there is more not to learn, than to learn. Compared to The Hyde Street Journal, we should be aware ofnot creating to many profiles on social media platforms. The exact number depends on how many capabilities there are, because the different profiles have to be managed. If they are not updated regularly and users not are getting answers on their questions, then you lose more than if you didn’t have any profile.
It will therefore probably be preferable, starting by using just a few social media platforms and slowly increase the number as the first ones are established. Of course, it can be a good idea just to register the blog’s name on a lot of social media sites, just to be sure that the names are available, but it shouldn’t look like that users can connect with us on the social media site, if we are not active.
[1] Calder, T., Kellogg on Marketing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010, 2nd edition, page 7-8.
[2] Calder, T., Kellogg on Marketing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010, 2nd edition, page 46-49.
Nike is an American multinational corporation that is engaged in the design, manufacturing, development and worldwide marketing of footwear, sport clothes and accessories. The company was founded on January 25, 1964, as Blue Ribbon Sports, by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight , and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971. Today Mark Parker is the chief executive officer of Nike since 2006.
In 2014, Nike has become one of the most famous brand of sport clothes and shoes. This is largely due to its many advertising campaigns
Nike and Social Media:
Nike is present everywhere in the social networks, Facebook, twitter, youtube, printerest, tumblr, goggle +, Instagram, …
In each social media, nike operates in the same manner and show the same kinds of pictures. Nike creates or strengthens the customer’s wishes: to be thin for the girl, muscular for boys. Nike shows us the « perfect » body and sendsus a clear message. We need Nike to be fit and being fit will makes us happy.
Nike’s target audience is principally the young people (14-40) who can and want this « perfect body ». Each advertising show us young fit persons playing sport, every sport. Nike also targets children, the brand made a cartoon which was revealed the day before the WorldCup 2014. In this cartoon called : « Risk everything » Nike shows famous Football players likes : Christiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Wayne Rooney… The brand also use this name to incite the surfers to share their exploits with the Hagshtag #Riskeverything.
Nike gives us a lot of different choices, there is nike for every tastes, for every sports, for everyone! if you just write « Nike » on Goggle, it’s very simple to find what you are looking for. Nike is not only a sport clothes brand, people wear nike shoes with all kinds of clothes. Nike is very increase in the Fashion and make is own tendency.
Does this strategy work? OF COURSE!
Who as a child, has ever dreamt of beinga professional footballer or just famous?
Nike knows it and uses it. Beyoncé, Tiger Woods, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, … Nike also sponsors also teams like the French Football team, FC Barcelona, the basketball team « Miami Heat », ..
This world of famous peopleand competition is a dream for children who will associate the brand with the success of their idol and buy shoes like them.
This marketing strategy is very expensive but it works and will work in the future. Nike spent $2.7 billion globally on advertising and promotions during its most recent fiscal year.
Nike gives us a lot of different choices, there is nike for every taste, for every sport, for everyone! if you just write « Nike » on Goggle, it’s very simple to find what you are looking for. Nike is not only a sport clothes brand, people wear nike shoes with all kinds of clothes. Nike is rising in the Fashion and makes it’s own tendency.
Can we use this strategy for smaller business or blog ?
It depends on the activity of the business, the strategy must be adapted .
First to become famous, people have to speak about the business with Hashtag, link, publication,… The business must be active on the social network
Used the way of the famous people is possible but it’s very expensive.
The person who’s playing in the advertising must be selected meticulously. If the Kardashian family played in an advertisement for the New-York times, it would lose credibility.
For a blog like the « Hyde street journal » , the target audience will be young people
who are looking for fast information with simple and complete explanations.
Nike is a company that has grown significantly these last years and I think they haven’t finished surprising us.
HYDE STREET JOURNAL 