Snap This, Snap That!

Snapchat has grown in popularity in recent years. For those of you who don't know, Snapchat was invented by three Stanford University students; Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown. Snapchat is a photo sharing application where users can take and share photos, videos, and illustrations to a selected group of people for no longer than ten seconds. In my own experience, I have noticed that Snapchat is the new Facebook of this time. A feature that I believe has caused the growth in popularity is the "My Story" option.

Here is a notification from Snapchat explaining what a Snapchat My Story is:

Snapchat stories have created much more of an interaction between Snapchat friends because you are able to send your story items to all of your Snapchat friends in one click of a button. Snapchat stories have also created new ventures for Snapchat.

Snapchat now has the option to create sponsored stories to send to every Snapchat user. Snapchat now creates collaborative Our Story events that users can add their photos and videos to. The first Our Story was in June for the Electric Daisy Carnival dance music festival. Anyone within the arena in Las Vegas could add their experiences to the story. Our Story Events that I remember personally seeing from my account include; College Football, National Dog Show, Base Jumping, and many more. Each event includes a personalized illustration or logo from the event. Here are some examples:  

Snapchat's newest "money makers" are sponsored Snapchat stories. The first sponsored story was a collaboration with Samsung at the American Music Awards. This story included photos and videos of celebrities, the show, and behind the scenes of the show with a sponsored illustration of the AMA's and the Samsung Galaxy Logo. I personally think this is a genius advertising strategy because you are not throwing it in the users face. For example, if they don't want to watch the story, they simply don't. Here are some screen shots from the first sponsored Snapchat story.

A great strategy that Snapchat has is that not all of the Our Stories are sponsored events. For example, no company is paying them to create a story about National Hot Air Balloon Day, but it creates an interest from the audience. I think this is a great new way to advertise to users through Snapchat.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/23/snapchat-sponsored-our-story/

Black Friday or Black Thursday?

For as long as I can remember, the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) has always been the day that I avoid going to the mall to stay away from the chaos of thousands of people running through the stores to find the best deals for the holiday season. I personally feel that Thanksgiving should be a relaxing time where you spend time with your family and eat as much as you possibly can. However, there are many people who spend Thanksgiving cutting out coupons and planning their route around the mall. While there are two different kinds of people who view Black Friday in different ways, theres retailers who support Black Friday and who do not support Black Friday. In recent years, stores have been opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Day. It seems that it is no longer considered Black Friday, but Black Thursday instead.

An article from The New York Times titled "Some Retailers Promote Decision to Remain Closed on Thanksgiving", provides the different views that the leaders of these companies have on this issue. This issue has been known as the open-versus-shut debate. The retailers believe that they will be open on Thanksgiving Day to please their customers, or they will remain closed to promote the importance of the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Retailers that will be open on Thanksgiving Day include: Walmart, Kmart, Macy's, Target, and Radio Shack. Retailers choosing to stay closed on Thanksgiving Day include: Costco, Marshalls, Gamestop, TJ Maxx, Barnes and Noble, Bed Bath and Beyond, Burlington Coat Factory, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, Patagonia, Dillards, and more.

Richard Galanti, the vice president and CFO of Costco says, “It’s an important holiday in the U.S., and our employees work hard during the holiday season, and we believe they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving Day with their family and friends. We’ve never opened on Thanksgiving, and when the trend to do so occurred in the last couple or three years, we chose not to because we thought it was the right thing to do for our employees.” Other retailers don't have the same opinion on this issue as Richard. A mall near Buffalo, NY is planning on charging retailers $200 per hour if they don't open by 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

There is even a petition on change.org with over 55,000 signatures supporting Target to remain closed on Thanksgiving Day and a Facebook page titled Boycott Black Thursday with over 87,000 likes. Would you sign the petition? What is more important to businesses, spending time with your family or increasing profits and sales by opening on Thanksgiving Day? 


Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/business/some-retailers-are-promoting-their-decision-to-remain-closed-on-thanksgiving.html?_r=0

Are McDonald's Nuggets Really Made From Pink Goo?

In class, we watched this following McDonald's campaign which is a part of their new mission to be transparent with their consumers and put an end to the bad food reputation that they have been attacked with in recent years. 

I think McDonald's new transparency campaign is a great idea because of the recent popularity in healthy food. As we also discussed in class, other brands like Coca Cola are coming out with alternative options to their brand that promote a healthy lifestyle. Coca Cola is offering a soda that is naturally sweetened by stevia instead of artificial sugars. After we talked about McDonald's in class, I was scrolling through the newsfeed on my Facebook page when I saw this promoted ad from McDonald's:

This advertisement sparked my interest, and I took the action of clicking on the link in the sponsored post. I was thoroughly impressed by the steps that McDonald's is taking to become more transparent with their consumers. The link brought me to a page where it had every possible rumor about McDonald's food that I have ever heard. From the authenticity of there 100% beef patties to the contends of the McRib. Each rumor had a detailed explanation of the truth along with a video. I think that consumers will really appreciate their honesty and give them the reassurance that McDonald's food really isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Clearly, McDonald's is not considered to be "healthy", but the rumors that are spread about their food can completely turn consumers away from eating at McDonald's. 

The most famous rumor that I have seen spread through different social media channels and the interned is that the chicken McNuggets are made from a light pink play dough like substance. The image completely turned me away from wanting to eat their nuggets. However, the following video from McDonalds Canada directly answers the infamous rumor about how their nuggets are made.

Honestly is a popular new trend in successful campaigns. The consumers appreciate the honesty and it makes it easier to trust the brand that you are investing in.

Daredevil Nik Wallenda Floods Social Media

Earlier today, I was scrolling trough my Twitter feed when I saw a sponsored advertisement from the Discovery Channel promoting the live event that they broadcasted tonight featuring Nik Wallenda. For those of you who don't know, Nik Wallenda is a member of The Flying Wallenda family. This circus family had been pushing the acrobatic limits over the years performing and attempting some of the craziest stunts known to man. Seven members of the family have died while attempting these extreme challenges. Nik Wallenda has already conquered walking across the Grand Canyon  on a tightrope with absolutely no safety net. Tonight, he conquered another extreme challenge of walking in between skyscrapers in Chicago, BLINDFOLDED!

This was an example of how social media plays such a large role in spreading awareness about something. For instance, I saw this promoted tweet from the Discovery Channel, then I told my roommates about it. This resulted in us gathered around the television biting our fingernails from being so nervous watching this insane attempt on live television. Throughout the program, the reporters kept encouraging people to tweet the hashtag #watchwallenda. Not only did this encourage viewers to interact with the program and share the awareness to their followers, but there was even a sweepstakes involved.

This sweepstakes was known as the "Skyscraper Live Tweetstakes." All people had to do was tweet throughout the program with the #watchwallenda, and they were automatically enrolled in the sweepstakes to win a special edition Nik Wallenda JR Terrascope watch. This was a great opportunity for the watch company to create awareness. Nik Wallenda has such a large following and this was a great opportunity for potential customers to interact with the company with the incentive of winning a nice watch. Here is a photo of the special edition watch that features Nik walking on a tightrope:

Watching this program tonight made me wonder, what were things like before social media? Social media is incorporated and integrated into so many things that we do. I think it is a very good opportunity for companies, but I constantly wonder what will social media do next to take things to the next level?