As part of our partnership with Marketing magazine we spark debate amongst senior members of The Marketing Society. This week we ask, is there a danger teaser campaigns will be killed off by social media?
NO
ANDREW HAWKINS, Managing Director, DCH
Follow the rules of attraction: don’t show too much too soon, and when you do, it had better be worth it.
Using all the advantages of social media, your teaser can be ignited through rapid sharing. It’s the perfect way to increase reach, initiate expectation and deliver a high-impact launch for your campaign.
But you need to plan. A Facebook page with video content dumped on it won’t be a success. Hard graft and good ideas go into social media as much as brand advertising campaigns.
You must nurture your followers. Replace your few big campaigns with smaller, interactive activity. Nike’s ‘Write the future’ is a great example: trailers were released via Nike’s official social channels, fuelling conversation, distribution and, importantly, excitement in the run-up to the Champions League Final.
The conversation has continued throughout the World Cup. This clamour for more would never have been achieved without social media. The reveal was good, too.
NO
MARC NOHR, Managing Partner, Kitcatt Nohr
The question suggests there is a tension between these two things – social media and teasers – but I don’t think there is. Teaser campaigns have traditionally been deployed to build context, anticipation and get people talking about what’s coming. What better way to do all of that than social media?
When campaigns exist outside the construct of ‘marketing’ and find a place in people’s lives and their conversations, they are rendered more meaningful. What consumers say about those brands, however, is another matter – we still need to earn their trust with imaginative and rewarding communications.
Imagine the delight of the MyWaitrose member who received a hamper of ingredients and a recipe, only to then see Delia Smith making the very same meal in a TV commercial. No need to imagine – the customer and many like her went online that evening and told anyone who cared to listen how much they enjoyed the hamper, the recipe and the TV spot.
NO
STEPHEN WOODFORD, Chief Executive, DDB UK
Social media is actually augmenting teaser campaigns, making them better by unleashing their potential and vastly extending their reach. Now your teasers don’t just get consumers telling one or two friends about your brand or product – they tell their whole social network, show them a picture and a video and link them to your website. Essentially, social media has a multiplier effect on campaign value.
Brands must be flexible and listen to what is going on in social media. If your teaser is leaked and consumers are interested, give them more.
Carefully planned releases of information can make the pre-launch experience a lot richer and build anticipation right up until the day your product hits the stores.
The brands that embrace and understand social media will harness enormous power. The instantaneous nature of social media means one clever idea that taps into the zeitgeist can propel a brand to great heights.
MAYBE
CHRIS WARREN, Chief Executive, Tullo Marshall Warren
If you want a teaser campaign to deliver a message to an unwitting and uninformed mass, keep a secret and have total control of the message – forget it. However, if you use a teaser campaign as an intriguing way to encourage consumers to join in and have fun, then social media is likely to enhance the experience.
Finding out what it’s all about can become a form of reward, and social media makes it possible for people to share in the intrigue surrounding the campaign. The key to making it work is using the right tone of voice so that people feel good being part of a secret and don’t want to spoil it for others.
However, there is one way in which social media could kill teaser campaigns, at least on an individual campaign basis. It provides the perfect means to measure interest and gauge whether people are talking about the teaser campaign – if they’re not, then it hasn’t worked.
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