Volvo Proves They’re Not Just Safety On Wheels

Long seen as the safest “box on four wheels”, Volvo wants people to know they have some pretty solid performance design chops and can make their way around the track plenty fast, thank you very much. In order to do so, they’ve commissioned a game developer to develop a high intensity online game called “Volvo-The Game” 

Despite the lackluster name, I think this is going to be a brilliant way to bring Volvo, and specifically the S60 concept, to the forefront for a more performance-minded audience — and an audience that may never have considered the purchase of a Volvo otherwise. By offering the game up for free on their website and encouraging consumers to compete for real prizes, Volvo has effectively ensured that this game will go viral.

I’m not sure what else Volvo has planned for the game, but this would be a perfect opportunity to engage with the auto enthusiast community through social media — blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. It would also likely be good to support the game with a presence at automotive events like races and auto shows, where consumers can take a test-drive of the new game for prizes. Really, the ideas on how to maximize the effectiveness and reach of this effort are endless.

All told, this could be a much more economical (yet more effective) alternative to a mass market advertising campaign. Want to explore viral games for your brand? I know a company that has put together a few shining examples of the games they've put together HERE, HERE and HERE.

by Garret Ohm

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Interactive Ed — Organ/Tissue Donation

If your main marketing goal is to educate or raise awareness, I’ve got a great site I think you should check out as inspiration. A good friend of mine, @jojoreed on Twitter, passed along a link for a site that does a really great job of providing information and awareness on the critical issue of organ donation. Check it out HERE. Not only does it provide a captivating (yet somewhat graphic) look at the different organs and tissues that can be donated, but it also allows users to join the movement, learn interesting facts and share the message with their peers. You can even watch transplant videos, if you’re so inclined. 

The only thing that’s a little perplexing to me is that there is no form of social media support built in for this campaign. There’s no Twitter account, no Facebook account that I can find, and you can’t share the site on any other social networks, potentially limiting the reach of the campaign. Perhaps that’s why they’re only 12% of the way to their goal of 15,000 members.

Want to see some other examples of interactive presentations that serve to educate and raise awareness? Check out these projects we did for NASA, including one that’s actually a bit reminiscent of the Recycleme site: Nasa Home & City and NASA 101

by Garret Ohm

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Quality Over Quantity

There are a number of people in the social media scene that would tell you that it’s of the utmost importance to maximize the number of people you interact with in order to be successful. They may even try to sell you on a magical system that will increase your follower count on Twitter overnight.

Ugh.

These people are missing the point. Social media is so much more than just broadcasting a message to as many people as you can. The real value comes from meaningful interactions, each of which together allow consumers to formulate conscious and subconscious opinions and feelings toward a brand, product, service, organization, person etc. If you place the focus on the quality of these interactions (content), you give your message an enormous opportunity to go viral.

A perfect example is the post I wrote about KFC using guerilla tactics instead of mass media to extend their brand. I wrote that post after reading a news article because I thought it was worth sharing with our prospects and clients as an example of innovative marketing strategy—inspiration if you will. After writing the post I sent out a tweet to my 1900 or so followers, mainly in the Washington DC / Maryland area, inviting them to read all about it.

The result – over 5,000 hits on our blog in one day, and nearly 20,000 that week from all over the world (we typically have about 200 hits per day). Had I written a blog post about what I ate for breakfast that morning, my message would have only been heard by the people that regularly read this blog and those that follow me on Twitter. Instead, people loved what I wrote about and wanted to share it with others, so they either Re-tweeted me or submitted the page to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon. By placing the emphasis on good content, my message reached ten times more people than I originally communicated with.

Looking for a firm to help you harness the power of consumer conversation? CLICK ME

by Garret Ohm

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Smart Promotion From Smart

Living just over the Washington DC border in Maryland I see my fair share of Smart Cars. I can’t say that I honestly like the vehicles they produce, but they certainly serve a purpose—to fit places where other regular size cars can’t. Smart has always been proud of its positioning and it has been the focus of all of their marketing efforts to date—which is why the Smart-branded URL shortener found at http://url.so-smart.be/ makes so much sense. Although there must be over a hundred URL shorteners in existence, this is one of the first commercial applications that I've seen that makes sense and serves to drive home a brand's core positioning. 

Judging by the .be domain and the corresponding microsite, http://so-smart.be, this campaign looks to be focused on Europe where citizens are much more receptive to micro-cars. Even still, the positioning is strong and if they continue to drive home the benefits of having a small, purpose-built car in an urban area, I think they’ll sell a lot of these.

by Garret Ohm

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Namechk

I’ve talked before about how important it is to reserve your name or your company’s name on social media sites, regardless of whether or not you decide to participate in the conversation. I just found out about a new site that makes the process of checking the availability of your desired name incredibly easy. Namechk allows you to type in your desired username once and does the work of searching all the popular social media sites for you. Use it to see what outlets your favorite brands are using to communicate, find the right username for you, or to remind you of sites you should probably visit to grab your name. 

Judging by all the green on this page, it looks like I've got some work to do to reserve "GarretOhm." ; )

by Garret Ohm

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