Critical insights of online campaigns and campaign creatives through Hungarian examples from someone who feels the pulse of digital marketing. Easy-to-digest length of posts.
It could have been the title of my recent post about the online promotions. But in that case it would have been a call while this time, it is an exclamation.
Honestly, I am so tired about the lack of ideas in online promotions. Finally, I may highlight something original that made my day. Okay, it is not very original rather an original mashup of ideas already working on different fields. The communication platform is … eerm … sex, I would say. I’m sure though that the creative agency used something like summer adventures in their presentation to client. Hehh…
The activation is regional and looks like Hungary is the leading country. Interesting. By the way, it is about voting the most sexy girls onto a party boat where the lucky winners also may participate. Check this out:
Now, here comes the critical part. The execution is very very poor. However there are music and video content on the website, the navigation, the web ergonomy, the structure, the design does not fit into the great conception. I mean, I know that Rauch does not have the possibility to spend Unilever’s online budget, but still.
However, why I like this conception, I give them a suggestion for free how to save money: My video capture starts with the display campaign creative appearing on the entry page of Hungary’s most popular social networking portal. A social networking portal always have database targeting possibilities.
Now this campaign’s TA is rather boys than girls (I’m pretty sure most girls don’t vote to see other girls naked by passion) so, why don’t they target the appearance only for boys? The money they saved could go to the production.
As I promised, here you can read my insights about the running promos of this summer. I needed some time to collect the materials for this post. And I mean it, my fingers are not enough to count the online promos of FMCG companies running at the same time and are based on some kind of a code redemption via online.
However the platform is the same (buy product, get a code and redeem it for rewards), the solutions and online media strategies worth to consider.
I will go in alphabetical order, but to keep this post’s short normal length, I won’t go into deep analysis, will focus on the specialties.
I. 7up.hu
Pepsi co’s 7up brandsite after last years’ ‘upload your photo with Fido‘ activation (not very original, is it?) stresses the mental refreshment 7up can gives you by short quizzes you may take. If you are good enough, you can register for the prize drawing. They created a full flash site with a poor navigation and not very exciting additional services like message wall, or a v-card with your photo. The campaign creatives are also very common display ones.
Special note: Oops, no code redemption. Don’t see why product consumption is not needed to participate in the promotion. Drink Sprite and win 7up prizes then! (jerk!)
Promotion period: 3 months (June-August)
II. Coke.hu Coca-Cola continues a promotion started last year concentrating on giving music content and daily/weekly prizes for cap code points. Seems that music is an internationalplatform but this year the promotion is extended with dedicated Coke Light and Coke Zero prizes. The content supply is wider therefore and structuring it with customizable skin is a good idea. Coca-Cola may talk to different target groups with this.
Special note: It is interesting that Coca-Cola doesn’t communicate the promotional prizes, they rather focus on the music content incommunication as well.
Promotion period: 10 months - March-December
III. Magnumcsokimisztikum.hu Very nice design and good concept. But Unilever Hungary has very well organized former activations so I am sure their agency has an easy job to sell a good online conception for them. I have two concerns though:
1. For the target audience navigation is a bit complicated. I wouldn’t develop a full flash site for supporting such a complex promotion with story and video uploads.
2. The domain is too long to remember. If you place it in print/TV copies, no one will remember it. It requires therefore continuos online support to get the users coming back.
Promotion period: 4,5 months - April-August
IV. Momentcity.hu Momentcity by Nescafé has started last year and was renewed this spring. Momentcity 2 pretends to be an entertainment portal by offering music and video content, chat and online games besides a webstore where you can buy goods for points collected with Nescafé product codes. Navigation on this site is really slow due to the big flash files that make the experience poor. However, I guess it offers the biggest content supply, I don’t think it can be successful on a long-term basis as returning/loyal users will get bored with the navigation process.
Special note: In movie section I have found embedded Youtube videos as Momentcity content. I am sure Nescafé has the rights to do that, isn’t they?!
Promotion period: 4 months - April-July
V. Sportszelet.hu
It is a special Hungarian chocolate brand that is on the market for more the 50 years. They also had a promotion last year with user video uploads (like 7up) but this year the promotion mechanism is not any better, really. Tough, the execution is again very entertaining. Both the text and the design. My advice for them is to try harder, work more on the conception, because design and format is just not enough in such an ad noise.
Promotion period: 5,5 months, April-October
VI. Tictactuti.hu
This is a very special one. They are one of the early birds that believed internet is a good channel for brandbuilding. They started a community back in 2005. They had an advantage then but couldn’t live with it. They chose a wrong platform by kept trying to build and maintain a community:
1. Community market has become very tough, even in Hungary. A brand with same community services cannot compete with communities belong to a media owner.
2. Tictac as a freshmint candy brand of Ferrero will never have such a strong engagement that can fanatize people to be the member of that community.
3. A community needs continuos animation that requires a big budget. From small money you cannot build and keep a community.
Anyway, this summer the portal has got a facelift, but they are still pushing this community thing. According to their own counter there are 8 thousand registered members, which means they have a lot to do, especially if they want to keep these members.
Promotion period: N/A
+ The extra one is Pepsi. But not because they had such a special promotion. The reason is that their movement how they acquired their own medium and linked the brand to football is brilliant. They now have to work on how they crosspromote the brand content and football-related one, as it wasn’t ideal over their promotion period. Using this synergy is important for them as Coca-Cola’s online activities has been very impressive.
Just in case you want to see Pepsi’s promotional online message:
I have to add that this list is very subjective, and doesn’t contain all the promotions running online in Hungary (eg: no beer code collection promotions covered, however there are running at least two at the moment). But, as Hungarians are playful people, with strong traditions in promotions, advertisers has to follow the afterlife of their activitieshere and everywhere else. There is also a new market growing, changing, selling and buying the codes. Funny.
As a summary, have a look on the promotions ranking - according to Google (the ones that are not on the shot below have no data available).
I am so keen on writing about this topic, but it just won’t fit into one post. As more and more promos go online, attempts of standing out of the promo noise has been becoming more and more desparate. What are the advantages of an online-based promotion?
1. Sending codes online is easier for consumers and cheaper for them than getting consumers to cut a piece of barcode, put in an envelope and send it via post.
2. Building a database is much easier via online than collecting and process flyers.
3. Measuring and evaluating results is more simple than in an offline promo.
4. Keep contact with the so called ‘loyal customers’ is more simple and cheaper.
The only problem is that many Advertiser doesn’t take it seriously. Online world is too mystifying for them so they are not sure what to do. They start thinking of the promotion with their offline approach anyway. The main difference between online and offline approach is that online promotions need continuous animation. And yes, continuous media support. A general Internet user visits the same 6-8 sites eighty percently, so a new site/portal may aim the rest 20. And trust me, even if you get them to visit your site one time, next time they won’t remember.
As an online expert I have experienced many times that Advertisers don’t have the submission to investigate into their target groups’ online consuming habits, they just go for the easier way. Agencies could navigate them, but they are not motivated for testing and experiment the best ways for communication. They are pushed to deliver media plan and creative conception on time as the promotion has to start with no delay.
It is a though situation that many times end up with bad results and failures caused by unprepared or copied conceptions. What I am planning here is to highlight all some of them. The ones that are intesting. It seems to have a hot summer.
Another automotive banner… too bad, ain’t it?! I am really sorry, but I need to highlight it. At least here we have new problems.
This experience really takes me back to the early years of online advertising. We have a static picture on a banner placement. OK, you can say that Jaguar is so luxurious that they are allowed not to use flash animations such as switching on the lights… or a TV copy videobanner is even more cheap so let’s say it is elegant. So is the headline by the way: Explore the XF and some arrows to get visitors to click.
Before I go and see what happens after clicking, I have to have some words about the targeting… again. This banner appeared in Lake Balaton temporary section of [origo]. Honestly, I haven’t seen it anywhere else. This shows to me that whoever booked this ad thought that they can reach the trendy fans of sailing. Sailing at lake Balaton is getting to be trendier and trendier over the past few years. I might take it wrong however as couldn’t find the ad other Balaton related content, that might be much popular then this one. Like here, or here. But I even have a better option the reach sailing lovers, guess what, sailing.hu. Such a surprise?!
If my guess about targeting is wrong then I am really curious about a better one.
But getting back to the fantastic headline, as wanting to explore the new XF, I clicked on the banner. See for yourself what happened:
I know the resolution is not perfect. So here is what happened. After clicking, I got an error message. Then after refreshing, it happened again. Then after reloading the whole page and clicking the same page reloaded with the same Jaguar banner. To summarize my experience with Jaguar XF:
boring elegant banner
simple but attractive call-to-action
error message after clicking
no satisfaction.
If Jaguar does not want to look an expensive Ford Mondeo (some may think it is anyway) then it really has to do it harder. Whenever it appears, in TV, in print and in online, they have to make sure they are charming enough for the target audience who have many many other choices. An appearance like this does not help to bring back the ancient glitter of Jaguar.
Euro2008. 16 teams. 14 languages. Make it 15 even though there is no participant from the UK.
Adidas is sponsoring a Euro2008 section on a very mannish portal, fn.hu.
They also placed a banner ad on the opening page:
It says in Hungarian ‘Dare to dream’ and ‘Impossible is nothing’ while ends with a Hungarian link. Adidas.hu/foci. But when you click on the banner or on the header you get directed to an English language football portal that has no other language option. I am really interested what is the bounce rate of Hungarian users.
Nike also had an impressive integrated campaign before the Euro2008 that was really engaging and had Hungarian creatives and an international landing portal without Hungarian language option. But at least Euro2008 participants found their own version.
Now Adidas’ way is clear. They decided to have one portal only in English, whoever speaks may understand, English is the no. 1. language in the world anyway… but I don’t understand Nike’s decision, once they create a CMS that has different languge versions and they run a big integrated campaign with sponsored channels on videosharing portals, print and TV ads why don’t they spend a couple of thousand USDs for the local version?! You know what they miss is a deeper engagement with their consumers.
Ok, you can say that Hungary with its 10mln population is a small market, but trust me there are enough local content for users not to spend too much time on branded stuff in English. Nestle and Coca-Cola know that.
Branded brands are not unique in Hungary either. But, what I just show you here is, I think.
Sex and the City is the new star in the Hungarian movies since 5th of June. Of course, its core target audience are women (rather 25-39 urban style). But there are many brands that want to reach the same group and would happy to take advantage on what Carrie Bradshow means to these people.
On this shot I have for you today (actually was captured on cotcot.hu, that also pretend to be a very trendy portal for young women), you can find two banner ads that are co-branded with Sex and the City.
The one on the top of the page is about an international promotion by Mercedes - which is a cool thing as for some strange reason Mercedes doesn’t use online media here in Hungary too often.
The other one is also a joint promotion by Mars Delight. So, Sex and the City is a sexy thing, on this very portal, too sexy.
Sponsoring the Olympic Games costs a fortune. But ones you are a sponsor, you have the privilage to place your ad next to widely consumed official content. However, there are only a few media in every country who can broadcast or provide multimedia content of the Olympic Games. And there are many many more who can create their own olympic section without using the official logo, videos, audios or pictures but can still expect a bigger traffic… and sell more ad space.
Here in Hungary the national TV and its sport portal have the rights. But of course all the leading online media players will create its olympic content. As in Europe the Football EC is the current leading sporting event, the media owners are just getting prepared to Beijing. But there is one who already started its content and get the first unofficial sponsor. I’m really curious what people think about unofficial sponsors. Because if for them it doesn’t really make any difference, then there is no worth to burn money to get the official sponsor status as you have many alternative ways to co-brand your brand with the olympic games. I know it’s cheap and have no added value, but it would be interesting to see the size of the unofficial sponsor market…
If you don’t know what is the current situation in Hungary, you may learn it from here or from here. But if you want to hear a Hungarian insider’s opinion, here you can have it: There is an impotent government with a moron opposition and all they do is fighting with each other no matter what happens in the country and what people think about them.
Now the problem is that they let talented youngsters (the future of the country) to choose from two choices:
1. They either leave this whole thing and settle down in an other country where their neighbours are not frustrated by paying one of the highest taxes in Europe and get bad healthcare, lack of highways and low salaries in exchange… or
2. They try to find alternative ways to get the most out of their salaries… and I told you that Hungarians are creative. So they look for options not paying taxes or at least not all of them.
Some of them vote for the first opion and many of them the second. Both are bad for the government but the second is worse as government misses this high income and that is the easier way for people who don’t want to leave Hungary. So they worked out an action plan to change the behaviour of these people against paying taxes. The name of the action plan is ‘Új Magyarország’ which means ‘New Hungary’.
They created a website where they put on impressive figures about how much damages these unpaid taxes and affixes cause.
And they have a strong communication that says: ‘Tax Evasion. <with glamour animation> no matter how you gild it this is a fact. Est. yearly HUF 1400 bln is the loss. Fair play in playing taxes as well!’
But it seems they forget two things:
1. People who don’t pay taxes have done this for 10-15 years, and it has become a chic
2. Governments for 18 years has been managing badly this country’s economy and people have no trust that they can spend their money carefully.
This communication is really unilateral so it won’t work like this. Even though the meaning of the domain address: Let’s do it together.
They expect that people should be loyal to their leaders while they do nothing more than before. Don’t take me wrong. I belive that this communication could be successful (at least I wanna believe it) but only if they show to people that they work with enthusiasm and want to get back people’s trust. They should place their daily schedule, video reports what they have done today for us and use all the channels that provides the opportunity to have a dialogue with people.
In the meantime, they hang on to their privileges like benefits without payoffs and taxes, messy rules in public procurements and central financial system, so this communication is illegitim and will have no positive effect. Just another waste of money. Our money.
I had this post about Volvo. It was not fair so I need to correct it. It was not fair because not only Volvo’s online creatives are clueless then about 80% of the big auto brands are. For today I brought a collection of BMW, Citroen, Renault and Lexus display creatives.
You may challenge me whether the automotive brands need creativity in online advertising. As they just need wide reach and the traditions - potential customers have - and brand value will sell the product anyway. Well, is that a good enough excuse not to create entertaining interactive ads?
The first one is BMW. They have this 5 series commercial that contain a 150pixel wide and 50pixel high product and some properties that are not unique at all as most of the middle class cars have all this.
It says that this BMW 5 Exclusive Edition offers leather carpet, lightweight alloy wheel rims and metal paint. Wow, that makes me buy this right now! I’m sure the copywiter didn’t read all the PR stuff BMW created - if you don’t have a good creative idea at least try to write a good copy. This is actually what Lexus did for 450h. It has the same clueless visualization, but at least there is a unique message:
Lower emissions, better performance… not in the future… now! And then the branding.
But I want to highlight another harmful Hungarian online ad for the BMW image:
The only message here is that: BMW Premium Selection. We help you to choose. Don’t they need someone that help optimizing their online campaigns?
Here is another issue I may raise as it shows that the automotive sector has a serious lag in the online communication. They use their TVCs in their banners. That is so poor and takes us back to the past when the first videobanners appeared. I shot this yesterday from Renault. It is 100% the same as they run in the TV:
Why do they think that people want to see a 30sec TVC in a 300×250 pixel size billboard?
People at Citroen thought that yeah… it is embarrassing to use only the TVC so mix it with flash animation. Is it more exciting though?
Automotive companies burn a lot on advertising, here in Hungary as well. Why don’t they hack the online community with entertaining online advertising then? Just turn around and see what others do or adopt excellent international ideas.
This is a very interesting and complex theme. Try to be straight to the topic then.
Let’s see first, what is the most popular online entertainment activity (source: WIP 2007 Hungary):
Guess you knew that anyway, but marketers need charts and diagrams to be able to make decisions so there you go. In the meantime offer legal and free (???) music online seems to be a success whatever you do over the communication. The art is to link your brand to it.
Now, we know that Coca-Cola and iTunes teamed up last year. What you don’t know is that iTunesis not available from Hungary (or at least limited usage). So Coca-Cola Hungary lost the opportunity to co-brand Coke with the trendy Apple brand. And the second thing is - as in my previous post I wrote for another field - that this market is way over-regulated so there is a huge unnecessary administrative cost for the Advertiser if they want to provide music legally.
Isn’t it great the Coca-Cola Hungary still made it with Coke.hu? I really want to know how big budget they have. Their newest attraction is that they offer exclusive Rihanna content:
I found their ad on music portals so it seems that they use only thematic targeting. Well, they don’t risk too much.
Vodafone Live! is a successful project here in Hungary. In our country, the mobile internet market is not liberated so they are not really in a though situation. Your opening WAP page is either t-zones (T-Mobile), Pannon W@p (Telenor) or Vodafone Live! depending on which mobile provider connect you to your beloved ones. Today there was a big expandable VL display ad on the most popular news portal’s main page offering Madonna content:
It opens only when you click which is a pity (you lose clicks as visitors need to click once again to reach the landing page) it would be better by mouse-over but it is really impressive.
Why this communication is worth to mention is that is has a music link and secondly because mobile providers’ campaigns are usually focusing on their tariffs or newest devices. Even though we have here a Sony Ericsson screen and additional offer this campaign is an interesting one.
Anyhow, music seems to be a good choice to invest in.
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