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Somewhere on Madison Avenue packaging to your stores. Earned media - you
there is a large vat of Kool-Aid that a fair guessed it, the E - is arguably the new kid on
portion of the industry has been sipping for the block. We used to call it PR and word-of-
the past year. You can recognize those who mouth, but it now takes shape in a variety of
have imbibed by their hundred-mile vacant ways, most notably Likes and +’s. Brands can’t
stare and endless incantations featuring control earned media but they can certainly
POE. Not Edgar Allen, but the media variety - help create, influence, mitigate, harness, and
specifically paid, owned, and earned. POE and distribute it.
its endless variations have become the topic
du jour for countless industry conferences Now you may have noticed that the E has
and articles. In fact, I don’t think a day has received a disproportionate share of the
gone by in the last year without someone industry chatter. Poor P and O often get left
mentioning it to me. I swear my six year old behind, but they are important and do play
whispered “POE” when I put him to bed the a critical role; more on that later. The reason
other night. earned media gets so much attention these
PAID OWNED EARNED Fans are 41% more likely than
Paid media will spark
discoverable
Owned media
shareable
Earned media
will build advocacy
non-fans to recommend a fanned
product.
interest and ensure
drives engagement and favourability,
your owned content
and understanding loyalty and
is discoverable
recommendation
days is primarily down to the 900-million
(and growing) gorilla in the room. In a very
short time, Facebook has created the ultimate
ubiquitous global platform for consumers to
share content and opinions on everything
To those who haven’t indulged in the Kool-Aid from friends to movies to brands. In effect,
let me briefly explain. Paid media - the P - is Facebook has become the ultimate vehicle
the historical inventory brands have bought for word-of-mouth…positive or negative. If
such as TV spots, print ads, and online display you get it right, you can create an army of
banners. It’s the stuff we’ve always done, advocates that will help your brand grow up
just now more digital and on more devices. to 2.5 times more than the category average
Owned media - the O - includes the content (Bain, 2010). According to Syncapse, fans are
and experiences that a brand largely controls, 41% more likely than non-fans to recommend
everything from your Web site to your product a fanned product to friends. Once these
based on aggregate across all brands
% buying having become
47% 62% 59% 58%
aware via family friends
% buying having become 22% 31% 25% 29%
aware via advertising
Index WOM to advertising 216 202 239 199
word of mouth is two times more powerful in driving trial than awareness created by advertising
Source: TNS
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folks become a fan, they spend on average in driving Facebook fan acquisition; just ask
an additional $71.84 more than a non-fan. Old Spice. These days, it’s not uncommon
Recent TNS research found that word-of- to see some sort of social component now
mouth is twice as powerful as advertising baked into all advertising: QR codes on print,
in driving trial. All of this goes some way to Facebook addresses on TV spots, Like and
explaining Facebook’s recent IPO evaluation: + buttons on Yahoo display ads. Paid and
in a world of frictionless sharing, advocacy earned media can happily coexist and thrive
(or the opposite) is more widespread and together.
more important than ever in building brand
equity and sales. A significant side benefit of Confused? You’re not the only one. Frankly, it
this earned media is that it increases visits may be easier getting to grips with quantum
to your owned destinations, whether it’s your physics or David Hasselhoff’s enduring
store, your official YouTube channel or your popularity in Germany.
In a world of frictionless I think there are two simple conclusions you
can reach from this increasingly complex and
sharing, advocacy is more connected media landscape. First, positive
earned media not only leads to more sales,
important than ever. it also helps boost your owned media and
focuses your paid media on where it can
brand Web site, which creates a positive ripple make a real difference. Second, all three forms
effect throughout your marketing efforts. For of media are increasingly dependent on each
example, the more folks who visit your Web other. Mixing and managing them together
site, the higher your Google search rankings, in the right way will simply give you better
which accounts for over 60% of all clicks results. At Mindshare we’ve taken these two
on the search results page. And of course core beliefs to heart and re-engineered our
the better your “natural” performance in entire process to weave social and owned
search, the less you need to pay Google for media throughout our way of working from
search keywords, thus freeing up precious the beginning. It’s required many changes.
paid media to help generate more advocacy
elsewhere. In fact, recent Nielsen research However, there are two specific and simple
found that an intelligent combination of steps worth highlighting as they in particular
paid and earned media within Facebook has help brands easily configure and optimize all
a higher incremental impact on multiple of their POE activity.
brand metrics. Even TV can play a huge role
TV Campaign with Facebook Call To Action
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First, our Connections Architecture process
is a simple, intuitive, and highly-visual
Think information architecture
applied to your entire marketing
ecosystem
way for all stakeholders - clients, agencies,
and publishers - to map out the role,
interdependencies, and the ideal consumer
journey(s) through all of their paid, owned,
Connections Planner
and earned media, assets, and initiatives.
Think information architecture applied to overshadowed by that big, historical “P” of so
your entire marketing ecosystem, both offline many traditional media plans. It’s not only
and online. In short, it connects all the dots a new way of planning your media mix, our
and ensures everyone is on the same page. approach also redefines and broadens media
Second, our Connections Planner enables to include things like packaging and Facebook
our planning teams to use specific historical fans. It’s why initiatives like Nike’s recent
market and brand data to run through various #MAKEITCOUNT have been so successful.
POE scenarios to determine what levels of
For Nike, Mindshare architected an extensive
and integrated POE program that used a
Twitter hashtag across paid and owned
media to generate significant amounts
of earned media. Furthermore, we turned
#MAKEITCOUNT tweets from professional and
amateur athletes into an advocacy program,
featuring their handles and responses in the
advertising itself, thus creating a virtuous
circle. In the end, Nike simply put advocacy
and earned media right at the forefront of
the planning process. When talking about
creative, Facebook call this social by design.
Connections Architecture
In the media world, we prefer to think of it as
activity and investment should generate the social by plan.
highest levels of reach and results. It puts
science behind all of the POE theory, and a
level of predictability and accountability to
that former wild child of earned media. It
also ensures you are squeezing every asset
available to you, and it’s all based on real
data, including industry norms and models
such as Millward Brown’s viral predictability
research.
Both tools go a long way to ensuring that
“E” and “O” are optimized and baked into a
brand’s plans from the beginning, and not
Nike #MAKEITCOUNT Campaign
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