A collection of social media theories and case analysis of Fiat, Volkswagen, and Toyota.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA THEORIES BEHIND THE SCENES A COLLECTION OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS EXPLAINING THE SUCCESFUL MARKETING

2. MARKETING IS NOT ABOUT SELLING STUFF, IT’S ABOUT GIVING THE PARTICIPANT A REASON TO BUY STUFF. Source: slideshare.net/helgetenno/post-digital-marketing-2009

3. Be interesting Stand out Listen & react THREE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESFUL SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTION Source: PatrikPersson, Great Works

4. Product Place Price Promotion P P P P E E E E Experience Everyplace Exchange Evangelism THE ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY: 4 E’s OF MARKETING Source: ogilvy.com/on-our-minds/articles/the_4e_-are_in.aspx

5. Marketing HR Sales Board R&D PR Client service SOCIAL MEDIA AND DIGITAL INTERACTION SHOULD INITIALLY BREAK THE SILOS AND MAKE ALL THE FUNCTIONS OF THE ORGANIZATION TO COLLIBRATE

6. BRANDS NEED TO SEE THEMSELVES AS VALUE CREATORS, ADDING VALUE TO CONTEXTS WHERE THEIR VALUE IS APPRECIATED AND NEEDED. THE NEW MARKETING ECONOMY IS ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT AND ADDING DELIBERATE VALUE Source: slideshare.net/helgetenno/context-value-the-new-marketing-economy

7. THE STRUCTURES OF COOPERATIVE DIGITAL ARENAS ARE TRANSFORMING CONTENT PRODUCERS TO CONTEXT PRODUCERS THE NEW MARKETING ECONOMY IS ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT AND ADDING DELIBERATE VALUE Source: slideshare.net/helgetenno/a-bigger-idea-branded-context-and-brand-situations

8. Source: slideshare.net/helgetenno/when-the-marketing-becomes-the-product

9. TO BE SUCCESSFUL A BRAND’S STORY MUST CONNECT WITH A LARGER CONVERSATION THAT’S HAPPENING IN THE CULTURE Source: (Alex Bogusky & John Winsor, Bakedin)

10. HOW THE BUSINESSES DID IT? A ROUGH COMPARISON OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND BUSINESSES APPEARANCE VOL 1: CAR MANUFACTURERS FIAT, VOLKSWAGEN, AND TOYOTA.

11. GENERALLY FIAT ONLINE APPEARANCE IS EXTENSIVE, ALTHOUGH BIT LIMITED BY CONTENT DIVERSITY. HOWEVER, THE CONTENT SPLITS UP IN TWO CONCEPTS: GENERIC SOCIAL MEDIA UTILIZATION AND THE ECODRIVE CONCEPT. LATTER REPRESENTS AN INTERESTING APPROACH TO CONNECT THE PHYSICAL WORLD (A CAR) TO ONLINE AND SOCIAL COMMUNITY.

12. EcoDrive concept EcoDrive Fleet (B2B) YouTube videos Ecoville community EcoDrive @ FB Corporate page Car introductions Collects SoMe feeds Fiat.com Fiat on the Web Fiat @FB Fiat @Twitter Campaign pages Fiat @YouTube Fiat @Flickr Photos from car sport eventsand consumer events mainly Car sport and motor showvideo content mainly Regular updates Mainly linking own content No specific updates Fans writing on the wall Car model specificpages, e.g. fiat500.com

13. EcoDrive is an interesting and so far unique innovative concept connecting industrial products(a car) to online experience and community. However neither EcoDrive nor Fiat main brand show attitude towards collaboration. Yes, there exists Ecoville community for EcoDrive users. But otherwise e.g. FB wall comments seem quite unnoticed by Fiat. 2/3 Product to Experience: Fiat EcoDrive seems to aim creating a value beyond traditional cars. Place to Everyplace: theoretically your laptop makes EcoDrive everyplace. But in practice? Price to Exchange: people still pay for the cars and services. Don’t they? Promotion to Evangelism: FB followers ain’t evangelists. Ecoville could be a promising platform. P P P P 1/4 Fiat EcoDrive seems to be a step towards cross-silo co-operation, as the EcoDrive requires aUSB plug-in in the car and up-to-date car software. Furthermore, EcoDrive mentions that thesoftware can be updated by the official Fiat car service. 1/1 E E E E Indeed the EcoDrive story connects to a larger conversion: CO2 emissions and global warming.Whether it’s a passé or a must by now, will not be considered here. LARGER CONVERSATION 1/1 EcoDrive manages to create some additional value simply by providing a chance to learn tobecome better (read environment friendly) driver. Or learning to save fuel. So a stand point for actual and monetary, not only “happy feeling” value exists. 1/1 VALUE CREATION Total points 6/10

14. GENERALLY, VW IS RELATIVELY ACTIVE IN SOCIAL MEDIA, BUT AT THE SAME TIME THEIR WEB PRESENCE IS CONFUSING. LOCALIZED COUNTRY PAGES ARE FOLLOWED BY SEVERAL DIFFERENT CAMPAIGN SITES WITH MORE OR LESS SOCIAL ELEMENTS. LANDING RANDOMLY ON A SITE MAKES YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING. BUT THE ELEMENTS OF INTERESTING COLLABORATION AND ADDED VALUE MIGHT EXIST THERE.

15. Volkswagen international Corporate page Car introductions App contest VW @ Twitter The people’s reviewer Collaboration campaign Active commenting,linking own content Social media campaign … VW.com Volkswagen.co.uk Country pages Model campaign pages Country pages Model campaign pages VW @ YouTube Newest vids mainly US ads from punch buggy campaign Campaign elements E.g. blog and Twitter feed VW @ FB VW @ FB other page VW @ FB by fans Most professional andover 368.000 likes Active wall posting anddiscussion Significant amount ofpage likes / fans

16. Several campaigns (that also utilize social media functionalities) could be argued to be innovative and interesting- but only from advertising or message discipline perspective. Collaboration does not occur site and business wide, but there are some good examples (App contest, People’s reviewer, and active FB & Twitter commenting) of steps taken towards making consumers to participate. 2/3 Product to Experience: marketing activities themselves won’t change the (car) user experience. Place to Everyplace: experience still occurs between the car seat and the wheel. Price to Exchange: competition winners could be rewarded with a car, but not in those cases found. Promotion to Evangelism: Having extensive FB pages created by fans is a great step towards future. P P P P 1/4 No breaking of the silos can be seen. App contest provides developers with API to data fetched from individual cars. However this seems like just put together by an engineer for the marketing people, having no actual functionality between the silos. No actual cross-silo marketing activity exists so far. 0/1 E E E E Again, from advertising and message perspective VW manages to connect the story to bigger picture (e.g. FB & soccer, People’s reviewer & consumerism). However, the big picture - the product does not connect to larger conversation by the marketing activities reviewed for this slideshow. LARGER CONVERSATION 0/1 Where a strong brand might create a psychological value for a dude driving a VW, the marketing activities reviewed here could be described as value creators. Maybe closest try is by People’s reviewer campaign, where a person thinking of buying a VW Tiguan might have gotten useful peer comments and insights for their purchase. But that’s nothing that Google would have not done. 0/1 VALUE CREATION Total points 3/10

17. AFTER GOOGLING TOYOTA AROUND, YOU DEFINITELY GET AN AMERICAN FLAVOUR. TOYOTA ONLINE PRESENCE SEEMS TIDY AND FORMAL, SUPPOSEDLY AFTER SOME SOCIAL MEDIA HEADACHES (bit.ly/bSbQUV). DISCUSSION PLATFORMS, YOUTUBE AND TWITTER ALL SEEM SILENT AND GENERIC, BUT SEVERAL CAR MODELS OCCUPY A FACEBOOK PAGE. CONSUMERS AND TOYOTA FANS SEEM ACTIVE IN POSTING ON THE WALL. BUT WHERE IS TOYOTA? APPEARING YES ON GAMES, APPS, AND RANDOM GIFTS, BUT… PARTICIPATION?

18. Toyota @ YouTube Toyota.com Mainly ads & PR vids US page for Toyota cars Toyota conversations Behind the wheel Discussion forum moderatedby Toyota, content mainly news Blog style content / news,no possibility to participate Toyota @ Twitter Toyota @ FB Mainly news and info Several official FB pages Corolla Toyota USA 4runner Basic FB page withactive fan posts Adventure Finder app.Active fan posts Active fan commenting,but no Toyota postings Yaris (Thailand) Siena Prius Seems to be activefans posting on the wall Theme irrelevant gameActive fan posts Ask an expert, games & gifts, active fan posts

19. Collaboration will be waiting in the future, but an active FB wall posting by fans is a good start. Annoying enough, Toyota does not participate or agitate the conversation. Otherwise the presence online is more or less static, lacking totally passion and innovative ideas (when looking beyond the advertising messages). 1/3 Product to Experience: 4runner FB app for finding a driving adventure places is a small step toward E. Place to Everyplace: a PriusiPhone application doesn’t provide the driving experience at everyplace. Price to Exchange: Might be too large step to be taken. Promotion to Evangelism: Not yet there, but FB fans and their activity create a huge potential. P P P P 1/4 No signals of “silo-wide” co-operation. All the installations found online are straight-forward marketing and advertising. In fact, having official FB pages for each car model suggests that the organization might have strong walls even between the marketing managers of different models. But who knows, extensive FB presence might be also a clever strategy. 0/1 E E E E The larger cultural link does not exists - at least when browsing the material used for this analysis. At micro level for example 4runner FB page application takes small initiative of talking to 4WD owners. But that is called understanding the target group insight, rather than understanding the culture. LARGER CONVERSATION 1/1 Manufacturing “fairly priced and reliable” cars might be a value itself, but definitely the marketing efforts won’t add any concrete value for the end user. Although the 4runner FB app might be a small step towards value creation, to be realistic that people would travel all around the world bringing their 4WD’s with them to have some great mud-driving experiences? 0/1 VALUE CREATION Total points 3/10

20. AGREE? IF NOT, COMMENT AND SUGGEST HOW YOU WOULD HAVE APPROACHED THE TOPIC. OR CONTRIBUTE TO BETTER ANALYSIS WITH A HELPFUL INSIGHTS IF YOU REALIZE SOMETHING MISSING. THIS SLIDESHOW AND THE ROUGH ANALYSIS IS A BACKGROUND MATERIAL FOR AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE MEDIA AGENCY DAGMAR NEWLETTER IN JULY 2010.

21. COMMENT AT SLIHESHARE.NET/ROOPE FOLLOW AT TWITTER.COM/RUOTSALAINENR DAGMAR - MEDIA AGENCY ROOPE RUOTSALAINEN // roope.ruotsalainen@dagmar.fi // tel. +358 9 693 011