Via Information is Beautiful

As part of the social media film review we have been looking at new benchmarks for successful marketing campaigns by films exploiting the social media space to engage and disseminate information to potential cinema-goers. Dark Knight threw down the gauntlet to potential adopters of viral marketing strategies and the success of the multi-pronged Cloverfield campaign saw a creative and intelligent teaser campaign that involved moviegoers beyond the conversations at the water cooler. However, neither of these used the social phenomenon Twitter as effectively as Quentin Taratino’s Inglourious Basterds.

Recently we have seen correlations drawn between Twitter activity and box office performances. “Twitter sinks Bruno” articles, for example. However, according to Steven Zeitchik at Risky Biz Blog, Inglorious Basterds is the first film that can directly thank Twitter for its opening weekend box office success. A bold statement, indeed, given the proven audience-pulling power of both Pitt and Tarantino.

So, how can we/anyone make the claim that IB has, in fact, tamed the mob that runs the Twitter trending topics thus benefiting hugely from the “Twitter factor”?

The first step of any successful social media campaign is to recognise the medium that suits the project/message, and Twitter definitely facilitates the Tarantino fan. It’s a cult film director, slightly niche yet mainstream and with more one-liners per minute then most. It’s the perfect habitat for Tarantino fans to mingle and create conversations around the latest offering. This, in part, might explain the substantial 7,000+ following already acquired. (The Twitter population demographic breakdown indicates that circa 75% of users are over 25 and male and IB Distributor The Weinstein Company’s exit polling indicated that 58 percent of the audience was male and 72 percent was aged 25 and older.)

So far this summer the “Twitter factor” has been blamed for the poor takings of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno on its second day at the US box office, plummeting almost 40% after the first day, and the unexpected success of low-budget sci-fi tale District 9. And the effect seems to have influenced the success of IB. When analysing the timing of its popularity in relation to the tweets about the movie, like Bruno, the effect can be seen after the first showing so that fans can make their mind up, spread opinion and thus influence those waiting for peer reviews before seeing it themselves.

To support this analytics provider, Crimson Hexagon, has commented that “78% of those who commented on Inglourious Basterds on Twitter gave positive responses, and that may have helped encourage people to see it.”

Prior to its release the film had provoked division among critics but Friday and Saturday tweeting swung it in a decidedly favorable direction. And it picked up momentum as the weekend went on, with Saturday Twitterers enthusiastically tweeting and re-tweeting their approval.

it is interesting, too, to compare positive and anticipatory tweets, given that conventional review sites such as Rotten Tomatoes had rated the film as low as 40%.

Positive tweets – Loved It, Pitt was Great, Have to See It, and Vintage Tarantino – make up 78% of all Twitter coverage, whereas combined negative tweets – Not Tarantino’s Best, Unimpressed – make up only 8%.

With that kind of data, it’s hard not to believe that the overwhelmingly positive response from the Twittersphere convinced at least some moviegoers to check out the movie.

As with Cloverfield and The Dark Knight, below are some statistics on the social media campaign, highlighting the importance of this digital element in marketing one of the most popular social past-times.

Trailer Diggs – 1234
Bebo members – 65
Facebook fans – 60,547
IMDb reviews – 42,837
YouTube views – 2,236,026
Box Office weekend total – $38,054,676
Twitter followers – 7,355

Sources

www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/25/inglourious-basterds-twitter-box-office

www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2611

digg.com/search?s=inglourious+basterds+trailer

mashable.com/2009/08/24/twitter-inglourious-basterds/

www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=7601813869

es-la.facebook.com/inglouriousbasterdsinternational?ref=share&_fb_noscript=1

twitter.com/therealbasterds

www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/20/early-twitter-buzz-inglourious-basterds/

www.riskybusinessblog.com/2009/08/inglourious-basterds-twitter.html

mashable.com/2009/07/13/bruno-twitter-reactions/

Jonathan Agnew is a well-respected commentator on BBC radio’s cricket coverage. Will Buckley is a slightly less well-respected senior sports writer for the otherwise excellent UK Sunday newspaper, The Observer. During the recent topsy-turvy, edge-of-your- seat England v Australia Ashes series, over a lunch break at The Oval, Agnew interviewed diminutive English popstrel Lily Allen, herself a surprisingly loyal, and it transpired amusing, devotee of Test cricket and never anything less than an engaging interviewee. The interview was light-hearted, informal and, judging by the days of faux-panic and jocular ribbing between Agnew and his co-commentators in the build up, an unabashed tongue-in-cheek affair. How, his colleagues enquired, amused, would the bumbling Aggers cope when faced with the paparazzi-fodder and darling of the red-tops. They got the joke. Buckley didn’t. After the interview, writing in his column he accused Agnew of unashamed fawning and positioning “himself firmly on the pervy side of things”, a cross “between benevolent uncle and desperate middle-aged man panting on the edge of the dance floor.” Sticks and stones and all that. But…

Agnew, like Allen, and unlike Buckley, is a rapacious Twitterer. He has 22,000 followers. She has nearly 1.3 million. In the ethereal world of social media they are, like a couple of virtual New Jersey hoods, very well connected “tweeple”. In the lead up to the offending interview Agnew tweeted about his nerves, the excitement, the questions he should ask, what he should wear. Allen, too, tweeted how excited she was. It was all very cheerful and sociable. Until Buckley waded in. Agnew expressed his surprise at the tone of the column on Twitter and thanked his followers for expressing their shock, and 140-character support, too. The Observer website was swamped with astonishment. Allen chipped in and voiced surprise. 

And then more people piped up. And more. And more. And still more. A “snide, nasty, small-minded and utterly hyperbolic hatchet job, dripping in meanness” they cried! The hordes gathered at the gates and, fired by his role as slighted quarry, Agnew demanded an apology.

Today, so vociferous has the support for Agnew become, that this atonement now seems imminent. The whole torrid affair has tipped into the mainstream press and Buckley is boxed in, his reputation in tatters. Or twatters.

So, what have we learnt from this tragic tale? Well, it’s not only brands that need to tread carefully, to act responsibly, to listen to the proles. If you want to throw stones at national treasures, be sure to keep in mind that it’s not only they who you damn. You take on legions of pumped-up, digitally-savvy devotees, too, each with a voice. And against such a tsunami of opinion, even august strongholds such as The Observer are dust.
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I read Rory Sutherland’s engaging blog post in Campaign today validating the continuing need for great copy in advertising. The only thing it was missing was a purposeful discussion on the subject within the digital world, so that’s what I’ll attempt here.

In our digital industry, we are seduced by the ever-expanding list of things technology allows us to do. With the emergence of technologies like Natal, Android and ARG, we exist in a wonderland of visual excitement and pioneering knowledge. It’s a great place to be. Even glancing back for a moment, our industry has been one that has up till now been sustained by audiovisual excitement of subservient poultry, wayward balloons and smartphone apps that really do make it look as if you are drinking that beer. We have been the Willy Wonka to the Cadbury factory of the good old traditional ads.

But social media has brought about one fundamental change and dusted down a discipline that I was worried had almost expired within the so-called ‘new media’ agency.

I doubt very much that readers can point to a piece of digital work whose awards were garnered by its masterful use of copy; the Ogilvys, Bernbachs and Abbotts would have little to detain them if they were to be brought into a judging panel for digital work. Yet, when I flick through my social media accounts, there is one thing that exerts a stopping power so great, I feel like a galloping, excited greyhound that’s just forgotten that it was tethered to a concrete wall.

You can see great copy coming. As you flick down the endless retweets and automatic blog posts, it’s almost like your eye sees the great words before your brain has had time to start reading. Beautiful writing never goes out of fashion, and it’s just about to become very important indeed.

On Twitter, there are certain people whose avatars are a prompt to stop scrolling out of pure habit. Charlie Brooker, Richard Herring and Paul Carr are all people who have the power to captivate you with no more than 140 keystrokes. They make you smile, think, flinch or disappear into a fit of giggles. On the other hand, there are people who should hold far more sway in the digital world who are truly undermined by the high volume and low readability of what they put out there. Please take a bow Robert Scoble, Piers Fawkes and Guy Kawasaki. Don’t get me wrong – once I connect with what these people are on about, they are as compelling as anyone, but words aren’t their forte.

I have seen precious few brands that have invested in a truly arresting voice.  Typically, their social media efforts are a mixture of platitudes, harmless observations and @answers dripping with well-intentioned banality. Granted, Brooker, Herring and Carr all push the boundaries to certain limits, and brands have reputations to manage.  But these same brands manage to approve the creation of advertising campaigns that are just as provocative and arresting as their social media voice should be. They need to develop a voice that is invested with the same brilliance and power as an ad campaign. Only this time, you add spontaneity. If that terrifies you, then it’s good confirmation of how things have changed. In terms of great examples lighting the way, it’s all a bit limited. Aleksandr_Orlov from Compare The Meerkat is only one I can think of, but I’d love to have some more voices to listen to.

So the recommendation is simple. Talking isn’t enough. Brands should actually pluck up the courage to write something involving, human and compelling. And for heaven’s sake, write it well.

Brands having trouble building a large base of followers on Twitter can now turn to Australian technology firm uSocial.net and pay for connections (full story at Revolution). Surely if a brand wants to get more followers it should simply be interesting in what it has to say. Obviously the first thing any brand needs to do is identify what is the purpose of its twitter feed – it is a mistake to simply treat it as an extension of your PR communications channel.

Some brands have definitely got it right:
Dell Outlet (795,396 followers) – Quite simply an extension of its online outlet offering discounts on products. So far accounted for $3 million of additional sales

Zappos CEO (901,993 followers) – Surely the most followed CEO on twitter. Mixture of him running an amazing business, having a sense of humour and sharing interesting views. E.g.

Interestingly Zappos_service only has only got 1,712. However this only scratches the surface as they still very active. Here is the response I got soon after I recommended them as one of the best #socialbrands:

There are many more (see mashable for a list of top 40) but most seem to be focused on customer services and/or providing interesting information to their customers. Where twitter however has been used as part of a campaign, from what I have seen it has invariably not been successful. Here is the reality for some of those brands that have been lauded for their campaigns on twitter:

Marmite – LoveHate Martmite

The write up
This is a good idea for the Unilever brand in a sector where new marketing strategies can be difficult to get off the ground. Continuing its love/hate theme used across all channels, this Marmite/Twitter mashup has created two hashtags (#lovemarmite and #hatemarmite) that it then collates. The key thing here is that Ollie Parsley and Paul Randall have matched Marmite to micro-blogging in a way that’s appropriate for the brand, but that doesn’t blindly follow the convention of having a Twitter account. Like Skittles, this uses Twitter without having to tweet about an FMCG brand – something that may be of limited interest. This is an unofficial Marmite campaign that Parsley says he and Randell created in four hours and demonstrates what FMCG brands could do if they devoted even a little time to social media (via Revolution)

The reality
Love Marmite mentions – 18
Hate Marmite mentions – 12

Vodafone Live Guy –

The write up
Vodafone announced the launch of its free Lenovo laptop with a campaign that was Where’s Wally? meets social media. Consumers followed Liveguy through blogs and Twitter as he travelled through UK cities, blogging and Tweeting about his surroundings. The aim, for consumers, was to find him in real life to win a Lenovo laptop. This went beyond the standard Twitter models that most brands adhere to, and as a campaign, highlighted a new product in an innovative way. It was more daring than most Twitter brands and built a nice amount of buzz. Vodafone has now wrapped up Live Guy and has turned VodafoneUK into an interactive feed, suggesting that a conversational tone is set to become obvious throughout its Twitter presence.

The reality
244 followers

There have been some successes on the campaign side but personally do not think that this is going to be the main purpose of twitter for brands. Irrespective I do not want to criticize these brands for trying as it is probably only going to be through trial and error that brands are going to find their true voice in this environment. The important thing is that when they do choose to play in the space that they remain authentic, true to their values and be interesting.