Consumer-generated content Ad for Self-enjoyment

There is a distinct shift in communications from a one-way“one-to-many” model represented by traditional advertising toward a many-to-many, interactive model has been well documented. The new communications environment, however, has thrown up even more novel ways to create and deliver value. Focusing on consumer-generated ads, one study identified three main motivations for the creation of such ads: (Berthon et al., 2008)

• “Intrinsic enjoyment,” wherein the focus is on the development of an advertisement created simply for the purpose of self-expression

• “Self-promotion,” whereby consumers draw on a brand to promote themselves

• “Change perceptions,” wherein the goal is to make other consumers view the brand differently.

Here, I would like to share a good example of "intrinsic enjoyment" on Dove’s Youtube Ad.

This is Dove's Commercial Ad

This is a consumer-generated-content Ad imitating Dove's Commercial Ad just for self-enjoyment.

5 ways Google+ could steal music fans from Facebook

Google's social network, Google+, is late. Facebook has a big lead, having ousted MySpace, which in turn deposed Friendster, the site that started us all on this path towards recreating our social fabric as a network of connected personal nodes.

Facebook is an excellent tool for sharing music -- usually in the form of Google's YouTube videos -- but even the developer of the top music app on Facebook says it doesn't do enough, musicwise. Google+ may have a tough time making a dent in the popularity of Facebook. But on at least on the music front it can make a lot of inroads, fast. Fact is that music apps on Facebook are lacking -- and this is a real opportunity for a quick win.

Here, we can spot five ways in which Google could become "besties" with music enthusiasts to Facebook's detriment.

1. Easy sharing

YouTube music videos, which make up many of the most popular videos on YouTube, are all over Facebook in the United States, and from what Google itself told us, the same is true for Spotify song links in Europe.

Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate more tightly with multiple music services, the way it recently did with MOG, but still has a ways to go on that front.

Meanwhile, Google has thousands of engineers, all of whose yearly bonuses will be tied to how "social" they can make its offerings. Clearly, Google+ could give Facebook a run for its money when it comes to sharing music from (and across) all of the music services upon which it depends.

The preponderance of YouTube music on Facebook is an indication that music fans want to use it to share music, so why doesn't Facebook help Google+?

2. Group listening parties

Google+'s online video chatroom can let you know when your friends are hanging out. And if you've yet to sign in to group listening service Turntable.fm, consider how many music fans already love the way the recently-launched service lets them get together to spin music and talk about it.

By combining those two concepts -- with or without the video component -- to create real-time music listening parties with push notifications, Google+ could run "circles" around Facebook in the group listening department.

And music fans would start evangelizing Google+ in order to get their friends involved, the same way they are currently doing with Turntable.fm.

3. Live musicians plus live music

Google+'s Hangout feature could do something else, and surely this one has already occurred to Google engineers pining for that "social bonus."

Hangout could be a great way for stars to hold meet-and-greet sessions with their fans. Plenty of other ways exist for this sort of thing, of course, but Google has money and famous people make appearances in exchange for it. If Google doesn't do this, one has to wonder how else they're spending their money.

And, of course, the company could archive these talks on YouTube, creating valuable content that would still be of interest 20 years from now, in many cases, and which wouldn't appear on Vimeo or any other competitors.

Speaking of YouTube, it's been slowly edging into the live online music business. Clearly, those shows could find a place on Google+, with plenty of social-bonus-friendly features for talking about the show in real time.

4. Google music integration

Google already has its own music storage solution for fans, unlike Facebook, which uploads photos and videos for easy sharing but ignores your music collection.

If Google+ doesn't do something interesting with the service still known as Music Beta by Google, its engineers don't just deserve to miss out on those bonuses; they should probably be fired.

There are many ways to go with this, but for starters, they could make your music collection visible and searchable on Google+, use it as a way to introduce people to each other, work on creating DMCA-compliant streams that would allow people to listen to each other's taste, and should probably use taste-combining algorithms to create stations out of multiple Music Beta by Google accounts too. (Just a thought.)

5. Android apps for the win

Facebook doesn't have a popular smartphone operating system, and Google does. Google's finest should be able to figure out how to use Android APIs for slicker integration between music apps and Google+ than Facebook can manage on mobile platforms it doesn't control.

Luxury brands’ social media strategy: globalization or localization?

According to “The World’s Ten Most Powerful Luxury Brands: 2011 Edition” (http://fashionista.com/2011/05/the-worlds-ten-most-powerful-luxury-brands-2011/2/), Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Gucci rank Top 3, and other famous brands such as Chanel, Cartier, Rolex, etc. are also so powerful that are ranked from 4 to 10. Research shows the contribution of more than half of these 10 brands can be traced directly to Asia especially by the renewed interest in China, which include Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Cartier, Hennessy, Fendi, and Burberry, as can be seen in the following table.

Top 10 Luxury Brands (2011)		Compare with the ranking of last year	Global social media platform (i.e. Facebook)	Asian market (especially China) contribute most to this ranking	Local social media platform (i.e. Sina Weibo in China)
1	Louis Vuitton	→	√	√	√
2	Hermès	→	√	√	×
3	Gucci	→	√	×	√
4	Chanel	→	√	×	×
5	Cartier	↑	√	√	×
6	Rolex	→	√	×	×
7	Hennessy	↓	√	√	×
8	Moët & Chandon	↓	√	×	×
9	Fendi	→	√	√	×
10	Burberry	↑Up 86% unranked last year	√	√	√

As shown in the table, compared with last year, all brands have more or less some gains with the exception of only two. Two reasons for this include great appetite for luxury in Asia, especially in China, and the increasing enthusiasm for social media. Luxury brands are wary of the social realm for fear that it will dilute their exclusivity, but many have successfully made the foray into social marketing this year. As a result, all these Top 10 brands have their pages on Facebook. But does this world-wide social media platform really work well for Asia? The answer is not exactly.

Whether going globalization or localization as social media marketing strategy for these Top 10 luxury brands is an issue that I will discuss. As mentioned in previous blogs, almost every world-wide social media is restricted in China. What really widely spreading in China is Sina Weibo, which has gained much popularity in China since 2010, attracting millions of users who have extended its use beyond social networking and turned it into a media platform. But searching Sina Weibo, I have only found three brands set up their pages there, which are Louis Vuitton, Gucci, as well as Burberry. Similar to what can be found in their Facebook pages, what these brands put mostly on Sina Weibo are new products introduction, brand history popularization, commercial photography and also various brands dynamic. Among these three brands, Burberry owns the largest amount of followers in Sina Weibo, which are 182,250 while Louis Vuitton owns 113, 500 and Gucci owns 53,040. As clearly shown in the above table, Burberry shoots greatly up by 86% though it is new to the list this year. And obviously its sales profit mainly come from China, so we can boldly assume that the innovative way Burberry localise its social media platform by making good us of the social media that enjoys the greatest popularity among the locals is one of the reasons that drive its status this year.

How to go localization? The significant step is to find the social media platform that is locally popular in order to draw enough attention to the brand. Besides what is put up should be carefully edited about brand-related information to meet both global interest and local taste so as to make good combination of localization and globalization.

Social media and luxury brands

A luxury brand is a brand of which a majority of its products are luxury goods associated with luxury, high price, and high quality. Another market characteristic of luxury goods is their very high sensitivity to economic upturns and downturns, with high profit margins, and very tightly controlled brands.

With the development of technology, social media marketing is becoming an increasing important part of brand creation and maintenance process. Luxury brands are definitely keeping up with the Joneses when it comes to recognize the importance of a strong, online identity and integrate social media into their marketing mix. More and more luxury brands turn to the Internet and technology to build brand through social media for growth and profits. 

Social media channels offer the chance to create instant connections with consumers. Luxury brands are combining streaming video, blog & chat room technology to offer customers exclusive access to content in a way that is most relevant & natural for them, through their established online social network. By creating online personas through established social media channels like Twitter & Facebook, luxury brands are giving consumers quick and easy access to the brand and an opportunity to experience the brand personality first hand. Consumers are increasingly sharing their thoughts and experiences within their own social network, which has a great impact on perception among peer groups. Consumers’ discovering new products through their own peer communities online reflect on the relevance of brands and product purchases through social media. The value of peer to peer recommendation in the purchase decision process is well known and well documented!

According to a survey in 2010, Wealthy Individuals Use Social Media More Than Most Americans (http://www.seic.com/enUS/about/4206.htm), conducted by SEI Wealth Network, "70 percent of high-net-worth individuals (with more than $5 million in invested assets) use Facebook and other social media sites."

How to draw the wealthy customers' attraction to luxury brands through social media is a great challenge!

I am thinking whether these luxury brands can emulate the iPhone/iPad application of Starbucks eXpresso Lite, which let these wealthy individuals opt for their desired goods online when they use Facebook and iPhone/iPad applications.