Tuesday, October 2, 2007

The Power of Emotion

When I see good examples of companies using social media marketing, my first inclination is typically to think about how I can apply that to my domain: corporate B2B marketing. This past weekend though I was fortunate enough to share a plane ride with a great bunch of kids who reminded me of the power of creating an emotional connection with the customer.

The kids of the Wild Orchard clan from Santa Cruz, CA were top five finalists in the Oreo Cookie Jingle contest. For Nabisco’s Oreo brand, this was a pretty straight forward play: get customers to put their own spin on Oreo’s famous jingle and if you’re in the top five – you get a free weekend trip to Fox Studios in New York. If you win, you get ten grand and more Oreo memorabilia than you can shake a stick at.



Well, the Wild Orchards came in second place, but that wasn’t really important to them. What was important was that from Santa Cruz, CA – they found a contest online, made a video, and had a blast doing it. It wasn’t just a contest to them, it was art and the exercise created an emotional connection to the Oreo brand. Their video entry on YouTube has 1300 hits, they got a trip to NY for the first time in their lives, got to meet Carson Daly, and are now the coolest kids in Santa Cruz. Happiness doesn’t begin to describe what these kids were feeling.

Much like the people who came up with the idea for the Oreo Cookie Jingle Contest, my job is to think of ways to promote my company and my company’s products in ways that connect to the customer. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take a minute to appreciate the satisfaction someone gets in a well thought out contest entry. Hopefully, the creative folks who entered my contest felt the same way.

No comments: