Author: Alex Birch
This is what we love to do, this image explains the journey in such a simple way.
To take hardcore data, organise and implement effectively. It’s a powerful tool for any brand/product or client. I also love the simplicity of the process and how it’s visualised.
Data is the best insight any brand could ask for and it’s often staring us all in the face. You just need to know how to capitalise.
The Polar London team was onboarded as Sun Life Vietnam’s non-roster agency in February 2021, driving the brand’s digital mandate including their always-on social content.
In less than 5 months, Polar London has grown the community, elevated the creative content, and increased interaction across the board, using our in-house dedicated creative content team.
With a people-centric approach, we have been able to drive a significant upward shift on the brand’s key owned channel, Facebook.
Some comparative results in the B2C insurance industry in Vietnam:
- Sun Life Việt Nam showed the highest fan growth of 66.08%
- Sun Life Việt Nam had the highest PTAT of 10.92% as a percentage of its average number of Fans during this period.
- Sun Life Việt Nam had the highest average engagement, with a score of 7.715.
- Sun Life Việt Nam got the most number of Comments (17,653)
Here is a quick look at some of our work:
Here is a snapshot of the most relevant trends covered in our latest report – Some great thought starters to consider for your marketing strategies as Vietnam goes into its biggest lockdown so far.
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What do ice cream, kittens, and high diving all have in common? We love to be inspired by best-in-class social media campaigns from around the world. Our team has cherry-picked our top 7 examples to help inspire your next one.
1. Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream activism
The ice-cream maker does not shy away from controversial subjects and emphasises education and action make a difference in the world.
In one particular campaign, Ben & Jerry debuted “Save our Swirled,” a flavour advocating for climate change reform, in 2015. To launch the flavour, Ben & Jerry partnered with Tesla Motors, a clean-energy vehicle producer, launching a U.S. tour to bring climate action to people’s doorsteps.
2. The “Curry Comeback” – Kingfisher social campaign
3. Always #LikeAGirl Campaign
They started by asking ‘people’ what it means to them to “run like a girl” and what we saw was a stereotype response…
Now for the clever part: They then asked the same question to young girls – who showed what it really means to run like a girl! The strength in this campaign is the truth & insight that it strikes back to the audience, a powerful message that was deserving of a viral social impact.
4. Jeni’s – Everything Bagel ice cream
This small independent ice-cream business launched ‘Jeni’s Everything Bagel ice cream’ via https://jenis.com/
What’s better than a food item that sounds gross but actually tastes delicious?
Jeni’s Everything Bagel ice cream was delivered in the brand’s creative campaign to launch the unique flavour, sending pints to top social media influencers and every news outlet going. The flavour plays off the current popularity of Trader Joe’s “Everything but the Bagel” seasoning, which is a staple in many millennial and Gen Z kitchens.
Consumers could watch their favourite food influencers try the sweet treat, but they had to wait to get their own hands on the ice cream which sold out in mins.
5. Red Bull – Cliff diving
Red Bull is a masterful brand when it comes to social activation. The cliff diving initiative is one to be admired when it comes to generating rich content for the brand to associate with.
It hosts a variety of events for extreme athletes across the world, including skydivers, skiers, snowboarders, cyclists, and climbers. However, unique to the brand are its cliff-diving competitions. The event’s Instagram account, which boasts over 100k followers, is dedicated to reposting content from Red Bull athletes and original coverage of competitions. Each post receives thousands of views and likes.
Getting the sporting heroes to post via their own channels continues to grow their exposure. Well played Red Bull!
6. Starbucks – #WhatsYourName
Another powerful insight baked into a topical and truthful campaign idea.
Starbucks welcomes you, whoever you are and whomever you want to be. Starbucks #whatsyourname campaign celebrates this signature act and the significance it can have for some transgender and gender-diverse people as they use their new name in public.
The advert was inspired by real-life experiences of people who were transitioning. We discovered that they found Starbucks stores to be a safe space, where their new name was accepted, and they could be recognised as who they are.
7. Friskies and BuzzFeed: Dear Kitten
There is one thing the internet loves more than anything… cats!
This campaign captures the audience into an older cat mentoring a younger kitten. The original 3min video was broken down into bite-size social content, shared, and loved by thousands of internet cat lovers!
So there you have it. In conclusion to what this tells us about how to launch a successful social media campaign:
- Be topical and culturally sensitive
- Consider your audience and what inspires and engages them
- Empathy carries an idea a long way
- Be bold
- Don’t be afraid to stand out
If you like this article, you might be interested in HOW TO PLAN A SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGN, STEP BY STEP.
If you didn’t have time to sit through all the keynote’s at Google I/O, above is a 16 mins highlight reel thus far, we have also shared a short summary of the headlines below.
Google I/O 2021. The consistent message across all product updates is centred around a more contextual experience and personalisation for their users.
LaMDA
Advance developments in language understanding (AI) voice and ML technology, pushing the boundaries of allowing users to have a more empathetic conversation with a chatbot and highlighting the power of ML.
Online shopping
Advancements in Chrome aggregating shopping basket data to your homepage. Google lens helps find products from any photo by scanning and using organic search results to help you shop.
Google Photos
Improved IA features to allow better user experience and navigation of users content, advanced image recognition and grouping of content. (Little patterns).
Google maps
More detailed and contextual information served to the users. i.e: Coffee shops displayed in the morning, restaurants in the evening. Disability filters and deeper considerations to help users travel more effectively. 0ver 100 new AI filters!
Material design / You
Personalisation is the key takeaway, users will be able to change the colour of their apps and background, more intuitive design interface to compliment the users interactions with Google Pixel. Integration of a privacy dashboard to make it easer and quicker for users to manage their own data.
Digital car keys
Android 12 make headway in this space, allowing users to unlock and start their car using their phone, as well as share with friends for access.
Diversity filter
To improve accuracy and image quality the new Android has a powerful upgrade to ensure the user see the best image of them selfs when taking pictures on their phone.
Project star line
Addressing the challenge of everyone being kept apart (covid) Google is building a high processing 3D model maker, to allow a deeper experience for people to connect remotely. The advanced tech will allow the users to feel more like they are sat in the room with someone, tracking individual movements and pushing out in 3D, and even allowing for remote eye contact.
This article will outline the considerations needed to setting out a successful social media marketing campaign. If you are a CMO to a digital marketing exec, then this should prove useful.
What is a social media campaign
A social media campaign is where a brand or an individual posts regular content (via social channels) about a particular topic, subject, opinion or product. Typically with the objective to raise awareness of a brand / product, a movement or to increase an individual status.
Social media platforms are the greatest thing that have been introduced to generation Z, and undoubtedly they are making the most out of these social networking sites. Not only are these sites a source of entertainment and communication, but they have now also become the source of income for many individuals, and a source of marketing for many brands.
90% of consumers say user-generated content influences their buying decisions more than promotional emails, and even search engine results.
What tool kits can I use
There are some great apps that you can plug into social to help with content creation / ideation / dynamic automation.
Check these out:
Zapier for connecting and automating your social channels and content
Linkport for Linkedin to CRM tools
Zopto for linkedin automation
Inflo.ai for aggregating content and writing SEO articles
Sked social – Drag & drop to visualise your Instagram grid
Planning a social media campaign
The trick to a successful social media campaign is all in the planing. Further down in this article we talk more specifically about drafting a social media campaign calendar.
Businesses active on social media are typically trying to achieve more sales, but they would benefit from working backwards from that point in order to help shape the strategy: what is it they can get from social media that will lead to sales further down the line?
Identify your audience and channels
If the content is accurate and designed with your audience in mind, then a marketing campaign is sure to succeed. On the other hand, failure to learn about your audience will result in a disastrous marketing campaign. Therefore, before you get started and begin creating content for your social media, don’t forget to learn everything about your audience.
Start by writing down your client / audience profile, some questions to consider:
- Where do they live
- How old are they
- Whats the demographic
- What channels to do they regularly use and with what purpose
- What are their top interests
- Who else do they follow and why
- In what way will your content benefit them
Nowadays, consumers want to know exactly what they’re going to get before buying anything – whether it’s a product, service, or an experience. And a staggering 92% of consumers are more likely to trust a recommendation from another person over branded content. User-generated content builds a direct relationship with customers and humanizes a brand in an effortless but memorable way. Not only does it increase its value in the market, it also attracts the attention of the customers.
Planning your content
Your content should reflect the key interests of your demographic audience. If you are looking for your brand to resonate with a younger audience, and an identified interest of this audience was fashion, it would therefore be poignant to create content talking around a key fashion event. This would help to draw attention from the group about a key “shared” topic of interest, and by proxy brings attention back to your brand, engaging in an otherwise potentially missed audience.
AR Filters to Live streaming
Furthermore, when planning how to create your content, consider what media you talk through to reach your target audience. Whether you choose to create an instagram post, reel or story – it is important that the content you share is told in the right way. Key features in social network channels can be utilised, such as AR filters, live streaming, highlights and sound and these should be a consideration of the creative process.
Craft a content calendar
You can start by fairly quickly mapping out a content calendar, months across the top and channels down the side.
Identify key dates that resonate with your audience As important as it is to stay topical and relevant to current affaires. It’s a great idea to plot any key dates / months that the audience will be particularly interested in. e.g. Xmas / Black Friday / Mothers day (dates that also cross over with your brand).
Begin to populate with themed ideas (topics of interest) to share and talk about. Plot out the volume of content per channel.
In conclusion – the key to a successful social media marketing campaign is:
- Understand your audience
- Identify the channels and tool kits
- Plan your content / themes ahead of time
- Creatively explore
- Post regularly to stay front of mind
- Try not to be to precious, content will come and go much like any newspaper headlines
If you found this article interesting, take a quick look at our Top 5 social posts of 2021.
What does it really mean to represent a Healthy. Happy. Digital agency. And how can we really make a difference with brands that we aspire to work with. This is a huge topic and one that captures and inspires the cultural principles we aim to build upon.
Resilience and diversity. This is a really powerful topic for agencies, brands and even countries. Being able to choose to focus on ‘good’ can go a long long way, being and feeling represented in society can really impact how we feel and change the actions we choose to take.
But these are just words that we chose to share, understanding the impact individuals can make, small changes that move us all towards a healthy, happier place inspires us all to do more good!
This is a very powerful piece of content from Dr Lucy Hone who is a leading expert on resilience. It’s worth a watch if you have 5mins and are interested in any of the above.
#diversity#leadership#culture
Polar London are delighted to share that we are now working with the Harvey Nash Group here in the UK. Supporting their continued global brand strategy!
The Harvey Nash Group is a global professional services organisation with three key areas of focus: Technology recruitment, IT solutions and Leadership services.
Alex Birch (Founder of Polar London) say
“Out the back of the successful digital strategy delivered for NashTech, we are delighted to now be supporting the broader group of Harvey Nash. We are excited to bring our strategic digital expertise to the table to help drive the business forward and help realise the strength of their brand proposition.”
#polarlondon #branding #strategy
Alex Birch, Founder and Production Director of Polar London answers the question – Why do you love what you do?
‘I started Polar London by simply bringing together the most talented people that I love to work with from anywhere in the world. Ironically Covid 19 accelerated our growth as it shone a light on how a new era of bespoke built agencies can work.
I have attempted to answer why I love what I do in under 30 seconds.
We love to play in the world of social content and best in class digital creativity, our team pulled together our top 5 inspirational, cool, interesting, new tech, engaging – social posts.
Some amazing quick wins and disruptive thumb stopping ideas. We saved the best until last, keep scrolling, it keeps getting better!
Number 5.
Awesome choreography mashed up with some basic visual rotoscoping.
Number 4
Great glitch style animation sequence.
Number 3
Simple stop motion from Dunkin on Instagram.
Number 2
Outstanding kinetic animation style using typography and illustration at its best.
Number 1
Saving our favourite until last – This TikTok video is awesome…
Some great inspirational content here and there is loads more where that came from!
Polar London are launching our own experimental initiative with some amazing creative talent in the background… Watch this space and keep tuned.
Coming soon…
