[1.] World cup 2014: 3 ways to use social data to extend engagement

My name is Jack Holt, CEO from a software company in San Francisco called Mattr. Many of our clients are thinking about the World Cup or have already started their campaigns. I thought Id share some lessons weve learned along the way using social data in innovative ways.

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Before we talk about the World Cup, Id like to introduce John. John is a strategist for Ford. His mission well talk about a little today was to launch the new Ford Mustang Globally in 6 cities around the world.

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John and his team had a massive challenge: get people talking about the car outside the typical Mustang buyer. The campaign launch was only 36 hours but, in todays viral social media market, where anything can happen, is a lifetime of opportunity or risk.

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Like most all creative marketers, John is an intuitive. But hes quite innovative in how much he loves data. He relies on data to fuel his intuition rather than replace it. In everything he does, he looks for that elegant solution: his idea of a perfect Mustang is one that is so exquisitely engineered that it can drive the Nurburgring in 7 minutes and have a fuel rating of only 2 liters per 100 kilometers.

So he wanted to try leveraging their social data as the campaign was running. Remember: he had just 36 hours to make it count.

Would social data tell him anything special? If so, would the insight be compelling enough to convince his bosses to take action on it?

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You may be wondering what this case history, the launching of an american muscle car, has to do with World Cup advertising. Well, John took advantage of one of the data points well talk about today that youll be able to use to break through the noise of the World Cup.

Heres your challenge:

[6.] Brands will spend 1.1 billion euros on the world cup

With this much money flying around how do you cut through the noise and stand out? We think the answer is in your social data - your consumers are telling you so much about themselves that you just need to listen to them.

The good news is that there is so much of this data. The bad news? Theres so much this data! Youll have to be as precise as an automobile engineer designing a supercar. You must plan extensively and execute accurately. In short, you must remove as much of the guesswork as possible while improving every chance to succeed.

If you have the 80 million euros to spend on the World Cup theres absolutely nothing wrong with the traditional approach to plan your campaign. But I like the Ford approach. Johns approach. Its so beautifully simple. Give me an elegant, efficient solution. If it costs less, great, but for me? I really want results.

[7]. 4 Steps: 1. Find a benchmark; Segment engaged 2 Determine where their eyes are 3 Learn who they listen to 4 Tone your content so theyll respond

To properly research your campaign, you should first figure out who you want to target. Remember - youre being precise. Our clients only profile people who have actually engaged - that way you know theyre real people and not robots and theyre willing to speak out.

Then you find where their eyes and wallets are, which celebrities they listen to, and how to create content that appeals specifically to them.

[8.] Use Fifaworldcup as a benchmark

Why dont we use Fifas most engaged persona as an example? This is from Twitter, by the way - hundreds of thousands of people each day talk about the World Cup on Twitter.

The most engaged persona is male, 25-34 years old and single. If you were to read all of their tweets, not just those about the World Cup, youd see that they respond to simplicity, straight talk, openness, and emotion. Youd also see that they are repelled by ambiguity, complexity, and blandness. This brand personality type is called Wholesome by the researchers. More on that later.

Now lets figure out where their eyes are:

[9] Media: Ranked by Popularity

CNN, The NY Times, BBC. No surprises there, right? Everyone is nodding their head because this offers us no surprise.

[10] Media: Ranked by Uniqueness

For the World Cup fan, take a look at Grantland. Its ranked #44 in Popular media but is #4 in Unique for the most engaged World Cup blabber mouth. Andy Borowitz blog is ranked 33rd most popular but #8 in Unique!

Do you see that weve uncovered one part of the elegant solution? In these unique media there is a higher concentration of your target persona. Your chances of catching their eyes is far better than with CNN or BBC.

Here is where you can point your Public Relations people or where you can place your advertisements and improve your efficiency.

Lets go one step further and look at another channel for engagement, celebrities.

[11] Popular influencers: sports

Youd have to spend a ton of money to get an Andy Murray, Jack Wilshere, or Rio Ferdinand to endorse your campaign. But like Media, there are celebrities who have high concentrations of your target audience.

[12] Unique influencers

Now weve come to the data point John from Ford used. Remember I told you hes an Intuitive but also a technical geek?

This is how you make an efficient influencer choice: look at Clint Dempsey, a US soccer player; Jessica Ennis-Hill is an Olympic athlete. Rory Mcilroy is a pro golfer. These people may be more accessible than the big money stars. And we know the people you want to reach listen when they talk.

The last thing well look at is much more subtle and goes back to that Wholesome brand personality I mentioned earlier. Knowing your audiences brand personality can help you tune your content - that message or video in your advertisement or the pitch your Public Relations people use - to remove one more element of guesswork.

Its that data point that can help fuel your intuition; spark your creativity. It can offer you that leaping off point when youre brainstorming ideas for content. Its that last cog in the wheel of your elegant solution.

We looked at 8 weeks of Twitter engagement and determined the most dominant brand personality each week for our FIFA engager:

[13.] Fifaworldcup top brand personalities by week

Let me take you through this slide piece by piece.

Here are 5 brand personalities generally accepted in social market research. You can see that the lead personality for FIFA is shared between Wholesome and Rugged. Wholesome is the heart and Rugged is the flame. They are closely related brand personalities. The others we use are Daring, Reliable, and Sophisticated.

[14] Wholesome People: respond to: simplicity, emotion. Turned off by: ambiguity, hyperbole

Both Wholesome and Rugged people respond to simple, straightforward messages. The big difference is that Rugged people are a bit more candid and less responsive to emotional content. You know - those videos that tug at your heartstrings or try to inflame your passion.

[15.] A Very Rugged Tweet

This is a good example of content a Rugged personality would respond to. In fact, its still the most engaged tweet for Adidas. Its very straightforward and concise. Lead. Dont Copy. The negative tense is ok for the Rugged types. To appeal to a Wholesome type I would change this to: Lead. Stay Original. See the difference? Its very subtle.

[16] FIFAs Top Brand Personality per Week

Lets see how Adidas, and some other brands, have done with matching Fifas brand personality each week we tracked.

Remember: here are FIFAs again. A combination of Rugged and Wholesome types.

Lets see how Adidas matched up to FIFA:

[17] Adidas Matched Fifa 2 / 3 Times

We only looked at weeks with high engagement for each brand. For Adidas, it was the first 3 weeks we tracked. They matched 2 of their 3 top weeks. They did not match Fifas first week of Wholesome.

And now for Coke

[18] Coke only matched one week

Coke only matched one week, the rugged persona in week 2. Not so good.

[19] Nike matched 2 / 3 weeks

Nike matched 2

[20] miller matched 2/3

And last, Miller Lite, an ambush marketer, so called because Budweiser is an official sponsor, matched 2

[21] 7/12 Overall Match

So overall, the brands did pretty well, matching 7/12 or just over half. Again, this is preliminary. I realize that these are very high level metrics. We publish weekly reports and will have a full report with deep data detail in August.

[22] Remove the Guesswork from your campaign. 1. Decide whether you should participate 2. Uncover the unique media and influencers 3. Tone your content correctly

Now weve seen three data points that may help you cut through the noise, including one that John from Ford used in their global Mustang campaign. You have some tools to craft that elegant solution thats beautifully simple - and efficient.

Of course you should look hard at your brand as to whether you should even participate. Are your brand truths too far away from the personas you need to engage? For the World Cup, this would be very rare because there are so many football fans - even in the United States. But, if the content you needed to create seemed inauthentic or dishonest, stay away.

If you do decide to go after World Cup engagers, find those unique media and influencers or celebrities. Tone your content so theyll respond. Remember: remove as much guesswork from your campaigns as possible!

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What about John, from Ford? You already know that he found that surprising influencer while the campaign was running, It was a rapper named Drake. Thats right, a rapper; not a country and western singer. Now imagine the setting in Fords Real Time Content Studio, watching our social data at it was coming in hour by hour.

You have John and his team, who are kind of a cool, hip-looking people, and the Ford executives, a bunch of serious guys in suits and ties. The data - that elegantly simple data, helped John convince them to spend the money to have Drake share a Facebook post during the launch.

[24] Well played, Ford

John and his team gained Ford several hundred thousand- maybe millions of shares from people who were new to the Mustang. And John made believers out of the Ford executives. We all learned a lot from that campaign.

But you have an advantage John didnt. We worked together right before the campaign launched so we could only react once it started. But wouldnt you like to have more than 36 hours to find these elegant insights to help you plan?

If so, you know what to do: leverage your social data and make your campaign as efficient as Johns dream car, that Mustang that goes 300kph with amazing fuel efficiency.

[25] Thank you