Brands and open conversations

October 16, 2012 at 10:11 by BridgetComments

We see more and more brands starting open conversations and video responses in the social space – reacting and interacting with fans and trending topics.  Bodyform is the latest to pull through with a very well crafted video response that reveals ”the truth” about feminine hygiene advertising.  You can read an article on mashable about the original post that prompted the video from “CEO Caroline Williams”.

Perhaps my favourite detail is the attention given to the YouTUBE description.  In addition to the great craft skills it’s great to see that Bodyform clearly positions this as fiction.  Often it’s the blur between real and fake that makes or breaks these kinds of stunts.

If Facebook had a “love” button, we’d have clicked it. But it doesn’t. So we’ve made you a video instead. Unfortunately Bodyform doesn’t have a CEO. But if it did she’d be called Caroline Williams. And she’d say this.

I’ve seen a couple of other examples of brands and open conversations that are worth sharing.  Samsunghit a home run with a custom designed one-of-a-kind Galaxy S, which came out of a facebook conversation that went viral.

Tide Detergent showed the onion that they could play ball.  Responding to an article on the onion about a “cool new viral video that was blowing up all over the internet” — they turned fiction into reality.  They actually made the fictitious video the onion had dreamt up within 48 hours.

La Redoute picked up a gold PR lion at Cannes this year for fulling assuming the #fail around the naked man in the La Redoute catalogues.

EA sports has to be one of the pioneers in this space with the “Tiger woods walks on water” commercial.  It’s old, but I still love this ad.

Conclusions?  Social intelligence is becoming more and more important for brands to tap into conversations and trends.  The trick is being able to react quick enough before the conversation goes dead.