Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /data/user2/2019/300/14752/wordpress/.c358fd9b46b9fddccddd7a427e522f9b/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598

Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /data/user2/2019/300/14752/wordpress/.c358fd9b46b9fddccddd7a427e522f9b/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598

Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /data/user2/2019/300/14752/wordpress/.c358fd9b46b9fddccddd7a427e522f9b/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598

Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /data/user2/2019/300/14752/wordpress/.c358fd9b46b9fddccddd7a427e522f9b/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598

Notice: Undefined index: ssba_bar_buttons in /data/user2/2019/300/14752/wordpress/.c358fd9b46b9fddccddd7a427e522f9b/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/php/class-buttons.php on line 598

What do a liquor company, sports brand, and a body deodorant have in common?

Smirnoff, Nike, and Lynx are all examples of brands in Asia/Pacific that are working with my employer Avenue A | Razorfish to embrace Social Influence Marketing, or employing social media and social influencers to achieve one’s marketing and business objectives. I recently gathered these and more examples for some research here at Avenue A | Razorfish. The experience opened my eyes to the international phenomenon of Social Influence Marketing. I hope these examples help you think more globally about marketing:

Smirnoff

The Avenue A | Razorfish Sydney office — known in Australia as Amnesia Group — is helping Smirnoff employ social media to build buzz for the Smirnoff Experience Secret Party. According to the Amnesia Group blog, Smirnoff is conducting a “treasure hunt to give away tickets to the Smirnoff Experience Secret Party 2008. Clues are released on a blog to tickets hidden across Australia. There is also a Facebook group which gives help and exclusive clues to ticket hunters. If that’s not enough cyber-fun, there’s also a GPS ticket tracker, which his switched on from time to time.” Want to read more? Check it out here.

Nike

The Avenue A | Razorfish Hong Kong office — known in China as e-Crusade — worked with Nike to create a mobile game that promotes the Nike Air Force One. You can experience more of that here. Two things stand out for me on this one: 1) use of mobile devices and 2) integration with offline.

Nike Women “This Is Love” Facebook Premiere Show Ticket Application

e-Crusade built this application to promote the Nike Women movie, Find Love. Facebookers were encouraged to send Premiere Show Tickets to their friends and show their love for them. The effective use of social media brought more than 4,000 Facebookers to watch the movie online. More details here.

Lynx

Lynx is the name in Australia for the Axe brand of male personal care products manufactured by Unilever. The target audience is the Gen Y male. If you know anything about the Axe/Lynx brand, you know that Unilever employs an in-your-face risqué approach to build brand with young men. Lynx is no exception. Basically the message is this: guys, Lynx will make you more attractive to women. I think this comes through in the Lynx MySpace page.

This is an example of linking Social Influence Marketing to other forms of branding. In addition to creating the MySpace page, Amnesia Group also designed the Lynx Effect, which won a Webby award a few weeks ago. Together the Lynx MySpace page and Lynx Effect website show how a firm can take advantage of the engaging nature of digital (and win a Webby for content that, if created for your personal use, would probably prompt a visit from HR).

In both instances, Lynx sends the same message: our product is all about making you more attractive to women. But in the digital world, you can convey that message through an experience, as evidenced by the games, polls, videos, and other content on the site. What’s more, you can take the experience with you on your mobile phone and download content on to your desk top.

ninemsn

To build brand and usage for ninemsn, Amnesia Group launched the Prize Rush campaign, described again on the Amnesia Group blog: The approach: use a trivia game to generate Live Search queries. More than 4,000 Prize Rush members were recruited across MySpace, Facebook, and ninemsn spaces, creating more than 11,000 posts. More than 68 million search queries were generated in a time span of 8 weeks. I like this one because the campaign met objectives for both marketing (build buzz for ninemsn) and business (generate Live Search queries).

Down the road, I will post Social Influence Marketing examples from Europe. Meantime, I welcome your comments and questions.