The Marketing Innovation Blog

Late one Friday afternoon our Art Director and I were laughing as he photographed me hitting a Wiffle ball off of a stack of Moxie cans.  As a nod to baseball season for our Moxie ‘Can Do’ series, we were once again doing what it takes to create original content.

In the midst of this, we both had the same thought at the same time: I love and hate the work we do.

The love part is obvious, I mean, how often do you get to crank Wiffle balls off of soda cans in your office? But the hate…well, maybe ‘hate’ is a strong word.  Let me explain.

Social media is fast-paced, often times calling for brand’s to be nimble and reactive in the moment with fresh content and responses to the world around us. Combine that fast pace with the need to have a steady stream of quality content and the restrictions of time and budget and you’ve got quite a challenge on your hands.

In an ideal world, we’d have the time to spend days if not weeks on every project. But take the need for 20-30 pieces of content a month per client, and you just don’t have that luxury.

But in the end, with all the factors involved, content still needs to be top-quality.

Lucky for us, our social media department operates like an agency within an agency, utilizing dedicated design, development, copy and strategy resources. But it’s not just the proper structure. Maintaining quality requires crafty thinking, resourcefulness and a lot of “get it done” mentality. Experience doesn’t hurt either…just sayin’.

Social media content creation is a string of micro-projects tied within an ever-evolving campaign. The world surely isn’t going to wait for us, and we must be timely to maintain relevance to the social conversation.

With that said, here are some of my favorite pieces of original content that we’ve created with our client partners:

Moxie, Health Dialog and Wagamama

Sweet Baby Ray’s and PF Flyers

Luke Garro is the EVP/Director of Social & Experiential at GY&K Antler

Need a little marketing inspiration? We’ve rounded up the best digital campaigns and experiential stunts from April to give you the creative firepower you’ll need to spark the next big idea.

Kit Kat “No Wifi” Zone

Kit Kat turned a popular trend on its head by taking their tagline of “have a break, have a Kit Kat” to the next level. Rather than offering Free WIFI, an omnipresent feature in our lives, Kit Kat created Free “No-WiFi Zones” in various spots around Amsterdam.

They set up stations with large signs that featured small WIFI jammers, blocking all signals within a five-meter radius. The point? To encourage people to enjoy a life free of the Internet in order to read a newspaper, enjoy a good book or simply have a genuine conversation with a friend. This genius campaign garnered PR buzz across top publications, created a memorable experience for passerby’s and seamlessly tied a trend and a product message together into marketing campaign for the ages.

Evan’s Cycle & Chris Hoy Golden Bike Competition

Willy Wonka inspired “Golden Ticket” campaigns are popping up everywhere, and we’re big fans of UK bike shop, Evans Cycle’s, social & experiential take. The shop is partnering with record-holding British Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy for ‘Hoy’s Golden Bikes’. The popular Olympian is hiding three golden bicycles around the UK, giving fans the chance to find them and trade the golden wheels in for a shiny new bike. Fans can access a microsite with clues to the bikes location, or hop over to Twitter for hints from the official @chrishoy account via the hashtag #hoyshiddenbikes.

This offline campaign is 100% supported by digital, allowing those who can’t play along, to follow along, while also adding a layer of unique buzz by partnering with a relevant celebrity.

Volkswagen “Polowers” Twitter Campaign

No one was talking about the Volkswagen Polo, and Volkswagen decided to change that. They launched a Twitter competition like no other—creating the first Twitter race to get people talking. They asked fans to tweet using the #Polowers hashtag to land their name on a virtual racetrack –featured on a microsite that showed your position on the track using your Twitter profile photo. Whoever’s tweet happened to be first when the Polo car stopped, won a brand new Polo.

The campaign landed #Polowers at the #1 trending spot, received over 150,000 tweets, and finally started a conversation—a big one–around the Polo on Twitter.

Urban Outfitters & Converse Vine Contest

Urban Outfitters and Converse are capitalizing on the buzz around Vine with their “Where do your Chuck’s go?” Vine contest. It’s simple: fans have to submit a 6-second video of “A day in the life of your Converse” for the chance to win gift cards, cross country trips and more.

This is a great example of utilizing a strategic brand alliance to amplify a social media campaign and reach a targeted group of consumers. Plus, they’ll likely get great user-generated content to use for the future.

Melanie Cohn is a Social Media & Digital Marketing Manager at GY&K Antler

Brands are constantly thinking up over the top ways to generate buzz and results for their social media pages, without breaking the bank. One international beer brand did just that, for less than $100 BRL.

Heineken – 1 Like = 1 Balão from Casebook Videocases on Vimeo.

Heineken Brazil created an effective campaign both in terms of cost and results. In 2012 the Heineken Brazil Facebook page was hovering on Likes and decided to do something quick and quirky to generate more buzz about their brand. They pledged to blow up a green balloon in their office for every Like they received. The campaign was simply titled “Um Like Um Balao” which in Portuguese translates to “One Like One Balloon”. The campaign was completed in one day, generating thousands of new likes. They made a clever YouTube video, and the campaign was picked up by bloggers and media outlets both in Brazil and America.

Is there anything more fun than an office full of balloons and thousands of new Likes?

Corinna DaCruz is the Social Media Coordinator at GY&K Marketing

We all have personal agendas and do our best not to push them onto others. But, on this occasion of Earth Day 2013, here’s my “Andy Rooney” on a subject near and dear to me. You’ll probably guess what it is when I tell you that I’m the one who hoards plastic food containers after a company party to take to a friend who bakes for charity; or sneaks an empty copy paper box under a new staff person’s desk in hopes it is used for post-consumer waste.

So it’s fitting that I remind everyone of these three simple words:  reduce, reuse, and recycle.

I’m proud to work at a company that embraced the idea to recycle “paper” about 15 years ago. Our recycling efforts have grown considerably since those days of hauling three huge bins from the 20^th floor of our former location and maneuvering them to a back dock in the basement.  Now, we salvage plastic, cans, cardboard, and anything else my small band of recycling recruits manage to pick out of the trash.

And while that’s certainly progress, the reality is, as a society, too many of us aren’t conscientious of what we’re disposing of on a daily basis. Given our busy lives, our mind frame is “convenience” instead of “respect.”

Our focus this year is to further “reduce” our volume of plastic bottles and disposable coffee cups.  In an effort to recruit converts, company president Travis York purchased GY&K water bottles from our friends at National Geographic to use at our filtered taps (yes, city water…imagine that!).  Plus, we’ve got a slew of ceramic coffee mugs with an amusing array of past/current client and media station logos – so no excuse there.

So here’s hoping we all take a step toward reducing, reusing and recycling starting TODAY – not just out of fear you’ll wake up someday and see our White Mountains replaced by plastic mountains – but out of simple respect for our dear Mother Earth.

Gloria Proulx is the VP/Production Manager for GY&K

HP – Photoball (ENG) from AlmapBBDO Internet on Vimeo.

Nowadays, having a Facebook page and Twitter profile is standard practice for most brands (not to mention YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the like). That being said, it’s becoming more of a challenge to rise above the clutter and keep moving forward. One great way to stand out from the crowd is to pull social media into the real world and vice versa.

HP recently activated a campaign that shows how a brand can be successful tying social media to a more traditional tactic like event marketing. In the video above, you can see how they’ve managed to take an object older than the floppy disk – your average beach ball – and made it new, tech-savvy, and socially connected. Not only that, but it’s integrated well into the concert venue as already familiar, becoming a center point of the event and an experience people want to interact with. AND it promotes HP’s services (great photo printing) and new positioning (“making memories last”).

Could a brand ask for more?

Lindsay DeVellis is the Social Media Marketing Manager for GY&K Antler

This year, Adidas unveiled new Zubaz print uniforms for several of its elite college basketball teams. These uniforms created quite a stir (as intended). They disrupted the status quo of what we’ve come to know as acceptable basketball uniforms. Not only did Adidas resurrect this gaudy print from one of sport fashion’s more regrettable time periods, but they also added short sleeves and infrared coloring to the jerseys. The college basketball world hasn’t been subjected to short sleeve jerseys since Evansville University retired their conservative uniforms more than a decade ago.

The social media world exploded upon the release of these short sleeved, fluorescent, Zubaz print uniforms. Basketball fan or not, images of these uniforms demanded your attention.

Upon first sight, I assumed these uniforms were some sort of novelty stint by Adidas.

Zubaz? How cute?

However, when innocent fans (such as myself) fell victim to these uniforms during the Big East Championship game between Notre Dame and Louisville (the final Big East championship game in the history of this storied conference, mind you), I was forced to take my first baby step past denial and started to inch my way toward acceptance. But still, my eyes refused to accept what I was seeing as reality.

The uniforms were undeniably hideous, in my opinion.

Curiously enough, the presence of these uniforms in high profile games over a short period of time quickly lent an odd amount of credibility to the style.

Earlier this week, Louisville took center stage once again. They faced Michigan in the national championship game. This game took place merely weeks after the Big East Championship. And, somehow, in that amount of time, I had been desensitized by the whacky Adidas uniforms. I didn’t even bat an eyelash as the Louisville players cut down the nets wearing their Zubaz print uniforms. Adidas managed to weasel Zubaz back into mainstream America, and now this style will forever have a place in Louisville’s national championship.

Michigan (also an Adidas school) took a different approach. They elected to leave their Zubaz print at home, and instead wore their more traditional (neon) yellow uniforms. I’m assuming they did so because this game was for a national championship, and winning a championship is a timeless accomplishment. They probably didn’t want to risk having that achievement overshadowed in the future by the presence of a short-lived fad.

So, here lies the question, could Louisville’s championship lend enough credibility to this style of uniform that it will transcend its “fad” status and secure its presence in the basketball world as the norm? Or, will we look back on this championship team with a tinge of embarrassment and ironically scoff at their ridiculous uniforms?

Luke Bonner is the Marketing Coordinator at GY&K Marketing

I’m staring at my computer screen and there are no amazing ideas coming to me.

Oh nice, Moosejaw is having an end of season sale – I love a deal. I should check my email. Actually I need a soda. brb.

I’m back. Staring at my screen again. Surfing the web for inspiration and trolling stock photo sites. I’ve still got nothing. Daily deals, email, instant messenger, YouTube… Computers are too distracting for us creative types.

Wait a minute, remember the hours spent so intimately with the rapidograph pens freshman year?

No?

I do.

It’s time to pick up a pen and really do some thinking.

Sharpies have now replaced my rapidograph set, but a mouse has yet to replace my Sharpie. After all these years, sometimes I still forget that the ideas flow better with ink. It’s not like I’m drawing anything amazing —mostly stick people, boxes, scribbles and random thoughts. But I always arrive at better ideas when I start with pen and paper.

My advice. Turn of your monitor and pick up a Sharpie (I’m not above stealing them from co-workers). Let the ideas flow. This is when we should be teaming up with our clients, letting them in on our creative process and developing amazing ideas together.

Nichole Collins is the Senior Art Director at GY&K Marketing

We’re all familiar with the barrage of various insurance company commercials. Some are funny, some have talking animals, some take the heart-strings approach, but all focus on the same thing: great coverage for home, auto and life with the personal attention you deserve. But with the general corporate distrust of the times, how’s a consumer supposed to know who is really great, and who just runs great ads?

About two years ago, through the unfortunate experience of an acquaintance, I learned that Liberty Mutual, and their “Responsibility. What’s your policy?” tagline is something they stand behind.

This acquaintance and his fiancé lived in an older home and had a pellet-burning stove to heat their house. Something happened while they were both at work, and the stove caused a house fire that quickly raged out of control. The fire not only burned the house to the ground, but killed their two dogs inside. He and his fiancé were absolutely devastated and understandably so. How do you wrap your head around that level of loss? Your home. Your pets. Your life. All gone in an instant.

In the following days, myself and others would cautiously ask how they were doing, where they were in the rebuilding process, how things were going with the insurance company…

And this is where the shocking part comes in. Most of us, at some point in our lives, have had a not-so-pleasant run in with an insurance company. Whether car insurance, cell phone insurance, health insurance, you name it. Someone, somewhere, has likely hassled you about something you had insured. This was not the case with Liberty Mutual.

After the fire, a representative from the company was out there the very next day, assessing the damages, answering questions, and more importantly, reassuring the homeowner and his fiancé that life would be normal again. In the days and weeks that followed, the process went just as smoothly. Checks came in, building supplies were purchased, appliances were picked out, and slowly but surely their home was put back together.

While the devastating experience would probably take months to heal from emotionally, Liberty Mutual and their commitment to “do what is right” helped make the whole process a little less painful. The homeowners were able to look forward to the future, instead of stressing over how and if they could move on from this loss.

In a world of dissatisfied customers and corporate dishonesty, isn’t it nice to hear about a company doing the right thing?

Meagan Southmayd is an Account Coordinator at GY&K Marketing

As we gear up to head out to the Natural Products Expo West in Los Angeles,  Luke Garro  has a write up on the Antler blog highlighting a few recent campaigns from Natural & Eco-friendly brands that span from social & viral to OOH & experiential.

Natural Brands Think Outside the Biodegradable Box

It’s March, and to me that means two things: college basketball madness and SXSW craziness. This year is no exception.

Over the past several months, I’ve been organizing a showcase called Sneakers and Speakers (SNS) that will be going down next Wednesday (12:00-6:00PM) at Club Deville in Austin, TX. Wednesday is the first day of the music portion of SXSW, and this event will serve to launch the Rock On Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on enhancing communities through increased athletic and artistic opportunities. This event boasts a talented line-up that includes:

• Chuck Inglish (from The Cool Kids)
• Dallas Green (City and Colour)
• Stak5
• The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band
• Feathers
• Oh No Oh My

GY&K has helped this event come to life, and our collective experience in the beverage space (Anheuser Busch, Guiness, Moxie, The New Hampshire Liquor Commission, Magner’s Irish Cider, MillerCoors, vitaminwater, and many more) made working with three of the top Austin based beverage companies for this event a no brainer.

Sweet Leaf Tea, (512) Brewing Company, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka will all be present at this event. (512) Brewing Company will be providing free samples of their (512) IPA, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka and Sweet Leaf Tea will be collaborating to provide a limited amount of complimentary custom made cocktails.

I recently chatted with Meghan Conboy, Associate Marketing Manager at Sweet Leaf Tea, asking a few questions:

1. How do you guys make your tea? What makes Sweet Leaf Tea the best tea out there?
Granny’s recipe called for premium tea leaves and pure cane sugar. Following her instructions, the first big batches of Sweet Leaf Tea were made using pillowcases as tea bags and crawfish pots for brew tanks. Present day, Sweet Leaf Tea still implements the same core values when brewing this premium brand of tea, focusing on simple, premium ingredients we can pronounce. Offering these bottles of homemade goodness using Organic green and black tea allows us to deliver a bold, crisp and downright tasty treat that is good for the taste buds and the spirit.

2. How did Sweet Leaf Tea begin?
Sweet Leaf Tea was founded in 1998, based on a desire to create a delicious, ready-to-drink bottled tea with the quality and comfort of home. Inspired by Granny, Sweet Leaf Tea was always made using premium tea leaves and organic cane sugar. Sweet Leaf Tea became a hit locally, in Austin, but the brand’s first big victory came at the Austin City Limits music festival in 2002 where over 10,000 bottles were sold. With nationwide availability, Sweet Leaf Tea is one of the fastest-growing beverage brands in the U.S. Throughout all of their success and growth, one thing has remained the same: the company’s passion for making great-tasting, quality iced tea…minus the pillowcases.

3. Why are you guys based out of Austin? What does Austin mean to you?
Home is where the heart is, and Austin is our home. This is where we gain our sense of originality because this is where we began. We have the utmost dedication to Austin, based on the bond that our brand has built with the community since we first started. Austin is one of our largest retail markets in which we continue to see an increase in support from our consumers. As a company so deeply passionate about its roots, Sweet Leaf Tea is committed to continuing its support in the Austin community.

4. Why is SXSW the place to be?
Sweet Leaf Tea has deep roots in music festivals, so participating in a major event like SXSW was practically second nature to the brand. SXSW is an amazing event that provides fans with the opportunity to fully emerge themselves in the sounds and feelings of good authentic music. Sweet Leaf Tea has chosen to participate in SXSW because of the homemade goodness we can provide to attendees, that plays off the mood of the festival.

5. What will you be sampling at the Sneakers & Speakers showcase?
Sweet Leaf Tea will provide select premium organic, all-natural black and green teas as refreshments. Flavors include The Original Sweet Tea, Raspberry Iced Tea, and Mint & Honey Green Tea and others.

If you’re interested in attending SNS, check out the Eventbrite page HERE and like the Rock On Foundation on Facebook.

Luke Bonner is the Marketing Coordinator at GY&K Marketing.