If you watch the above video by John Oliver you’ll see that corporations have made it a priority to nudge their way into conversations happening between consumers across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc… All is done under the guise of “real time marketing”. The moment really grabbed national advertisers attention during the 2013 Super Bowl between the 49ers and Ravens. Famously, in that game there was a massive blackout, leading to the game being suspended for close to an hour while the stadium regained it’s lights. In that time frame, Oreo tweeted out the below message…
Oreo Super Bowl Tweet
This tweet got a tremendous amount of engagement, leading marketers to believe that their brands had a place during real time moments; and while consumers were having real time conversations. Next thing you know, real time war rooms have been created at Gatorade, Adidas, Taco Bell and pretty much any other major organization; all under the premise that these teams should be monitoring social chatter, and feed content directly to that social chatter as appropriate. But of course, brands cant be trusted in these environments and they just can’t help themselves, leading to some very awkward moments that John Oliver points out in his hilarious diatribe.
It all leads to an interesting question; given the amount of time people spend on social media plus an advertisers intent on integrating into the mediums where people spend the most time; is there any way that advertisers can actually contribute to real time conversations and interject their product and/or brand messaging appropriately? While some marketers have been famously terrible at it, I do still feel like there is a time and place for it. For example, Electronic Arts, which makes Madden (the video game) has famously created a real time gif generator where moments happening during Sundays games are turned into gifs. Those gifs are then distributed across peoples timelines through Twitter’s promoted tweets. The gifs are usually very funny in nature, apply to real time moments, and are highlight shareable. But, this campaign is successful because it is directly in the wheelhouse of what EA and Madden are all about; football and having fun moments with your friends. It’s when brands step outside their jurisdiction where it seems like the problems lie; even if one Oreo tweet happened to do well.
Thoughts?
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