Honda Targets Pinterest Users, Asks Them to Take a Day Off

With the launch of its official Pinterest page less than a week ago and a new social-media campaign targeting Pinterest users, Honda is one of a few auto brands to make a big marketing push on the platform.

“It’s such a fast-growing social-media network and seemed like a really good, different, creative outlet for us and a chance to use a visual medium to promote our cars,” Lauren Ebner, assistant manager of social media at American Honda Motor Co., told Ad Age.

She added that Honda “wanted to have the opportunity to put images of our cars on there … as a way to drive people back to our website. Most of our images link back to the Honda.com website and [users] can find out more about the car that way.”

Beyond making its foray onto the site, Honda has just launched a new Pinterest-focused campaign with the help of its longtime agency, Santa Monica-based RPA. They’ve identified top “pinners” and offered each one $500 to take a “Pintermission” — a 24-hour break from Pinterest — to get out and actually visit some of the places they’ve been pinning about or purchase some of the products they’ve pinned. So far, one plans to use the money towards a trip to London, and another towards a trip to Hawaii, Ms. Ebner said. (www.adage.com)

Five Tips for Building Your Brand’s Social Personality

Here are five observations from the social track at Tuesday’s conference.

Customers Have a Different Understanding of Brands Today
Understanding how consumer behavior has changed will significantly affect how brands activate in the social realm, said Mr. Brown. Brands are breaking the “fourth wall” and talking to customers directly, while customers have a strong voice and consciousness of marketing. “They can say, ‘I know what you’re doing, brand,’ ” said Mr. Brown, and that “changes the game.”

Defining Your Social Purpose and Behavior Has to Be the First Step
As Gatorade began its brand refresh, it needed to shift consumer perception from the drink as a “hangover cure” to something that boosted athletic performance from the inside. “My brand’s purpose is my social purpose,” Mr. Brown said. But once it figured out its purpose, it had to decide what type of behavior it was going to follow in social media. Mr. Brown gave the example of two starkly different models of behavior — Snooki vs. Mother Teresa — to illustrate the point that the right choice isn’t always obvious. If you’re a nightclub brand, for example, you might choose to emulate Snooki’s behavior.

Create a Regimented Calendar of Social Engagement
Every brand has to program itself for consumer relationships, said Mr. Brown. “Have a regimented, planned-out calendar of engagement, which is different from your social-campaign calendar,” he said. And then practice test-based experimentation. Give your core customer group a certain type of content, then find out if it works. “Form hypotheses, define your variables, test and experiment,” Mr. Brown said.

Brands Naturally Find it Difficult to Get into Social
Mr. Brier said that social is natural to human beings because our tweets and Facebook updates are the “breadcrumbs” of our daily activities. Something like that is difficult for brands to learn and replicate.

Maintain a Balance Between Selling and Non-Selling Messages
Mr. Brier shared his stock vs. flow analogy. “Stock” are the durable observations that brands can make — the high-production-value messages that brands are already good at producing. “Flow,” on the other hand, is more fleeting, the “breadcrumbs” that brands aren’t good at getting a handle on. While stock attracts new customers, flow is what keeps them engaged. The challenge is to find a balance between both of them, said Mr. Brier. “What we do in marketing is sell stuff,” he said. “So when you think about your social content, you have to think about how you’re going to break down the selling and the non-selling.” (www.adage.com)

These shoes will make you hurt and ruin your life, and that’s how runners like it

These shoes will ruin your life.

I’m not a runner, but I imagine runners will appreciate the new batch of ads from K-Swiss and ad agency Mile 9. They’re wry and hardboiled, unpatronizing to an almost absurd degree. They treat their audience almost with disdain, and in so doing become just another obstacle that serious runners, in their upside-down world view, will welcome—just as regular people tend to prefer (though they would deny it) a more obsequious tone in advertising.

“They will drag you out the door and on to the lazy morning streets,” says the sardonic male voiceover in one of the four spots. “They will make you hammer yourself until you think your legs and lungs are going to burst. They have no sympathy for fatigue, or whatever your inner voice is clamoring on about. Blades by K-Swiss. These shoes do not care about your issues.”

The flat, dismissive aspect of the spots is amusing and melds attitude with (broadly speaking) the product pitch. It’s also designed to flatter runners, who like to see themselves as ruthlessly self-sufficient—in no need of luxuries like friendliness or promises of comfort. (Some might not be flattered—they might see through the ploy and find the ads manipulative and cynical—but I’m guessing most will enjoy them for at least demonstrating an understanding of the runner’s mind-set.) (www.adweek.com)

Marketers Find a Friend in Pinterest

IN an age of fat data plans and broadband access, Pinterest has a message for the media: a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s about seven Twitter posts.

Magazines like Real Simple and Better Homes and Gardens and marketers like Whole Foods and West Elm have been quick to embrace Pinterest, the social media start-up firm that allows its users to share images by “pinning” them.

Andrew Lipsman, the vice president for industry analysis at the research firm comScore, called the site’s popularity among brands one more example of “the rise of the visual Web,” along with Instagram (which was recently acquired by Facebook) and Facebook’s timeline feature, which is heavily driven by images instead of text.

“Pinterest is creating sort of a meritocracy of what’s visually appealing,” Mr. Lipsman said. “Brands are scrambling and trying to figure it out. They know it’s going to be big, but they don’t necessarily know the best way to use it.” (www.nytimes.com)

Ads Urge ‘Book People’ to Help Children Read

A new public service campaign seeking to help children read brings together two collections of all-stars: a Who’s Who of literary characters and a lineup of well-known musicians.

The twin gatherings of familiar faces and voices are meant to underline the theme of the campaign, “Book people unite.” The pro bono campaign is on behalf of Reading Is Fundamental, the nonprofit literacy organization founded in 1966.

The campaign is being created by the New York office of Mother — appropriate in that the effort is aimed at mothers with children under the age of 15. Among the other agencies and companies involved are Curious Pictures, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, Green Dot Films, the Mill and Search Party Music.

The campaign is being supported by the Library of Congress and the Advertising Council, which coordinates the public service campaigns produced by Madison Avenue agencies. (www.nytimes.com)

Boise State agrees multi-million dollar Nike deal

Boise State University’s athletic department has agreed a new footwear and apparel deal with sportswear giant Nike worth more than US$6.24 million over its six-year term.

As first reported by Brian Murphy of The Idaho Statesman, under the terms of the multi-sport contract (pages 69-72), which will be back-dated to August 2011 and therefore runs until June 30th 2017, Nike will provide equipment and apparel to all of the university’s sports teams and coaches.

Nike had three separate contracts with Boise State – for football, men’s basketball and the remaining varsity sports – all of which were due to expire between July 2011 and January 2012 but were extended until the new deal is approved by the Idaho State Board of Education. (www.sportspromedia.com)

CBS Interactive Acquires Ad Rights To Top eSports Players

In a bid to take so-called eSports mainstream, CBS Interactive (CBSi) Tuesday revealed exclusive partnerships with TwitchTV and Major League Gaming (MLG) to handle ad sales for both companies.

TwitchTV is an online platform broadcasting live coverage of “eSports,” including competitive video game competitions. MLG is the world’s largest competitive video game league.

As part of the agreements, TwitchTV’s coverage of live gaming competitions and events will be featured on GameSpot.com, CBSi’s flagship gaming site. CBSi will also be the exclusive online broadcaster of MLG’s “Pro Circuit” competitions.

The deals make CBSi the exclusive seller of all advertising, promotions and sponsorships for both TwitchTV and MLG. (www.mediapost.com)
Smoothie King: Write Us A Jingle

Smoothie King is promoting its functional breakfast smoothies with an integrated “We Power Mornings” campaign that includes a Facebook-based UGC contest encouraging fans to write a jingle.

The breakfast smoothies, with vitamins and minerals, are positioned to help customers make healthy choices for the crucial morning meal, and address specific health goals. They include the Lean 1 (“get lean” drinks containing Lean 1 weight-loss powder and 20-30 grams of protein); the Gladiator (“get strong” drinks with 45 grams of protein); the Slim-n-Trim (“slim down” drinks with 300 calories and potassium); and the Yogurt D-Lite (“get going” drinks that are low-fat, all-natural and include protein).

The campaign, from Smoothie King agency Saeger Media Group, includes Facebook ads, direct mail, an email campaign to the brand’s “Kingdom”/loyalty program members, social media and public relations.

The “Better Breakfast Beats” contest, being run in partnership with Universal Music Group, invites Facebook users who “like”the brand to write a jingle about how Smoothie King “powers their mornings.” (www.mediapost.com)
Chevy Touts Volt With Klout

Chevrolet last week launched a program on the influencer-ranking network Klout. The program offers influencers in technology, social media and environmental topics a three-day loan of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt.

In this third partnership with Klout, Chevrolet is targeting six markets nationwide, with Klout influencers required to have a Klout score of 50 or better in social media, technology or the environment and live within a 30-mile radius of the markets.

The effort is in Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle from April through June and Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland from July through September, per Chevrolet.

Last September, Chevy did a test program for Volt on Klout involving the loan of four Volts to 20 Chicago social media influencers. In November, the automaker used Klout to promote the Chevrolet Sonic compact car in five cities with 130 consumer loans in five weeks. Chevrolet says it got 16,000 positive consumer mentions on social media; user-generated videos; three requests to take advantage of a special discount and one confirmed purchase. (www.mediapost.com)
Mitsubishi Hires A Temp So You Can Drive

The way to throw a spear really far is to use an extension, which is kind of a lever that fits on the end of the weapon, so you can really wing it. Mitsubishi Motors North America has one of those. The automaker doesn’t have a big media budget, but it tends to do campaigns that grab attention because they go to extremes in one way or another.

The latest such effort from the Cypress, Calif. company is “Temp Drive,” wherein people get to take a break from work and spend the day à la Ferris Bueller with the new 2012 Outlander Sport (starting at $18,795).

The wacky part of this is that consumers are to go to mitsubishicars.com/tempdrive to apply for a temp to replace them at their job for one day.

And it gets a little stranger. The temps who will perform the duties for the three people Mitzu chooses for the “play day” will not come from Kelly Girl. Instead, they will include an opera singer, magician, deejay, librarian, meteorologist and rocket scientist. (www.mediapost.com)