Case study presented at Open Dialogue's third annual social media conference on how Polar Ice Vodka echoed through social media
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1. Case Study:How Polar Ice Vodka Echoed through Social Media
to Reach Fun Seekers Feb 25 / 2010
2. What well cover today
Introduction
Background on Polar Ice Vodka
Our digital task
Finding & creating the right digital mix
Results
Whats next
3. About Me
Follow me here:
twitter.com/phryl
burningthebacon.com
linkedin.com/in/phryl
slideshare.net/phryl
Phil Barrett (.mobi)
VP Digital & Mobile
CMA Digital Council
Mobile Evangelist
360 Marketer
BSTREET Communications
Toronto & London, UK
4.
Speaks to your most valuable consumers
Travels across all marketing disciplines
Optimizes your marketing spend
Drives equity, sales and market share
SmartIdeas TM BSTREET is a marketing communications agency
dedicated to creating for your brand. 5. 6. About Polar Ice
Vodka
Like the live music scene in the East, the cosmopolitan
cocktail scene in the West, and the gotta be seen dance clubs in
our downtown cores, Polar Ice is a true contemporary Canadian
vodka.
Quadruple distilled and triple filtered for a legendary clean,
smooth taste, Polar Ice is the largest selling Canadian vodka
brand
Bronze Medal Winner - the Beverage Testing Institute 2008
Double Gold Medal Winner - the San Francisco World Spirits
Competition 2003
7. Background
BSTREET hired to redevelop visual identity system for the brand
in 2008
Targeting 19-25 funseekers
Vis had to live across retail, trade, print and online
No existing website or online presence
8. Our Digital Task
Establish online consumer position as a brand site / bring to
life the PIV identity system that can also support ongoing
promotions
Extend online experience to other social media tools in order
to engage fun seekers
Incorporate unique position as Canadian vodka with specific
content to differentiate from other vodka sites
Create an experience that will create word of mouth (WOM)
buzz
9. 10. Finding the right Digital Mix 11. BSTREET Media Mix
Philosophy(from last year) 12. 13. Twitter Content Plan
Weekly content schedule that focused on lifestyle not just
product
Content was pre-loaded weeks in advanced & auto-published
using free twitter tools
#musicmonday
#martinimonday
#filmreviewfriday
#WhatEverHappenedTo
Featured drink recipes
Misc quotes, questions, and statements that resonate with the
fu seeker
14. 15. Extending to facebook
Launched facebook fan page at the same time as the PIV website
(as opposed to creating a group or Application)
Site became extension of website & incorporated many of the
same design elements
Strong call to action back to the website
Product & recipe content also lives on the fan page
Overall the facebook experience needs to be relevant, timely,
and aligned with other channels
16. 17. 18. Other Vodkas on Facebook
637 fans
2,952 fans
897 fans
19. Social Media Summary
Both channels are proving to be effective in reaching our
target demographic in the channel of their choice
WOM is helping with acceleration of fans
Small investment in social ads resulted in huge exposure for
brand on facebook
20. Website
Our assignment? Create a brand site that goes beyond what the
category has done traditionally by integrating social media
extensions into the website experience
21. Our Inspiration 22. Lessons learned from Skittles
Over 2000% increase in traffic in one week
Massive social media buzz & word of mouth although much of
it was not positive
Although bold & successful in many ways, they
lostALLcontrol of the brand
They didnt really engage / join the conversation so didnt
follow the true spirit of social media
23. More Inspiration 24. The Smart Idea: Syndication vs
Stickiness
Go beyond a traditional flash only brand / promotional
website
Create an EXPERIENCE that will interest fun seekers and
Engage them in ways they are already familiar with in social
media
Overall create content and experience that will syndicate
across multiple channels
25. Make the PIV Experience Social
The socialscape created for the PIV website will echo tweets
from the twitterverse
Pre-filtered / formatted tweets with common words (brand
attributes, fun seeker attributes) will appear to echo from the
landscape and in real-time
User can input their own words
Link to PIV twitter page
This allows us to leverage user generated content and social
media while maintaining control of the brand
Content can be seeded
Content can come from a specific event to correspond with on
trade activities
Users can enter their own words to change stream
26. Other features
User can change / choose from ~5 different socialscapes that
are specific to regions of Canada
Fun seeker can change the music loop that starts playing when
they land on the website
Incorporated sharing widgets & easy links to facebook and
twitter channels
27. 28. LIVE DEMO 29. Other results 30. 31. Key Insights
Content is king allocate more to content than programming &
design
Experience that syndicates allows us to engage the target
market in the channel of their choice
Employing our 70 / 20 / 10 digital marketing mix enabled
innovation while still delivering a platform that met
objectives
The echo tool resonated with everybody but was too much of an
Easter egg
Facebook was the most cost effective channel and had the most
engagement
32. BSTREET Media Mix Philosophy (Updated Jan 2010) 33. WHATS
NEXT (live demo) 34. QUESTIONS?