If you have not seen them yet, you Will. @isaiahmustafa the Old Spice Guy has taken @oldspice to new viral heights with over 5.9 million views on Youtube. This campaign has taken the Old Spice Twitter account from 3271 followers on July 11th 2010 to over 77k followers at this present date. The Old Spice Guy has made over 180+ Youtube video responses to his Twitter followers. My favorite so far has to be the one he did for @mrskutcher and @biz. The numbers don’t lie and will eventually create many copy cat type campaigns in due time.
If you don’t know by now the KFC (@kfc_colonel) Free Chicken Meal offer from Oprah (@oprah) is now over. KFC pulled the offer and is now having the President of KFC apologize to America through a youtube video. Both Oprah and KFC should have realized that this type of promotion had the makings of disaster. I was one of the lucky ones to actually redeem my coupon but I could not get the grilled chicken or my choice of sides as advertised on the coupon. I had to settle for a substitution of the original recipe and coleslaw with mashed potatoes. I was not mad at them for the substitution and I really appreciated them still honoring the coupon even though they had run out of the grilled chicken. But I was one of the lucky ones because now there is only a “Rain Check” waiting for anyone willing to bring their Oprah/KFC coupon into a KFC location. Check out the details below.
One good learning experience that came out of this mess for both KFC and Oprah was the marketing impact this offer had on both their brands. This will be an obvious case study on what not to do with a free meal offer.
The Twitter impact was also both good and bad. KFC and Oprah were both top trends for the past few days almost bringing the Twitter platform to a halt. This serge of traffic pushed Oprah’s followers over 900k but only increased KFC to just over 2k.
I in turn got a Tweet from KFC to my @jbrath twitter account saying they would make good on me not getting to sample the Kentucky Grilled Chicken with my free coupon. They instructed me to send them a DM and they would take care of me. So KFC its on you to redeem yourself to me and all those millions of people who were turned away empty handed with no grilled chicken on behalf of Oprah.
I will update this blog post with the KFC answer to my DM.
Marketing Challenge: Distinguish their brand name shared by major bookkeeping software manufacturer and continue to bolster their lead in the online mortgage business.
When you think of Quicken, most immediately think of the best selling bookkeeping software by Intuit. When I did the research for my blog post Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For I mistakenly assumed that Quicken Loans was a part of Intuit. I was then notified by Kelly LaVaute, Senior Copywriter and manage all of their social media that Quicken Loans was a totally separate company from Intuit. The story of how Quicken Loans became the number one online mortgage broker is quite a marvel especially with how much of a crisis the mortgage industry is in right now.
Matt Cardwell, the Director of Web Marketing (@thefitnessnerd) made mention that the company was bought back from Intuit by Dan Gilbert the original founded in July 2002. Gilbert led a small group of investors in purchasing the company back from Intuit, retaining the Quicken Loans name in perpetuity. The company has been privately held since that time.
Customer Service
Quicken Loans prides itself on customer service and has used Twitter as an intricate part of how to communicate with their prospects and customers. Kelly@ Quicken Loans @quickenloans can answer a wide variety of questions regarding mortgages as well as a great fish and chip place to eat in Detroit. Here are a few of her most recent Tweets.
Customer Feedback Qwicken Loans just recently lunched another Twitter account specifically to get user and customer feedback. Cora @feedbackcentral is in charge of organizing live user feedback sessions. Users can share their feedback and get to see results of their suggestions on the quickenloansfeedbackcentral.com site and on Twitter. Check out some of the Tweets from @feedbackcentral
Education Quicken Loans is very conscious of the current state of the economy and looks to help in educating their customers on how to prepare themselves for managing a mortgage. They have setup the Quizzle.com website and @quizzle in order to assist the home buyer and seller with an array of financial tools. These tools include a home value report, a mortgage evaluator, a budgeting tool and a free credit report.
Customer Satisfaction
Quicken Loans has also created a Youtube Channel to capture the unscripted videos of their many satisfied customer experiences with Quicken Loans. Here is one of my favorites.
Bottom Line
Quicken Loans has truly embraced social media and gained a real presence on Twitter. Both Kelly and Matt agree that the key to being successful in communicating through these new forms of social marketing is having the support of their company when uncharted issues-both good and bad-arise. In fact, this Quicken Loans team charged with innovatively building customer relationships is in the unique, empowered position to use social media to with little interference from its legal department. Kelly, Matt, Cora and the rest of the Quicken Loans social media crew are entrusted to be the voice of the company, working in tandem with one common company goal: “Making sure with every client, every time, they deliver on the promise to make it the best mortgage experience ever”.
Marketing Challenge: Market and promote new Social Media Blog ColderICE (Internet Commerce Education)
I met John Lawson about 5 years ago at a SCORE Atlanta conference. Back then John was steadily building his successful eBay business. John is now a Platinum eBay Seller but he still longed for something more. ColderICE was an idea that John shared with me while taping some interviews at his home last year. The ColderICE idea has now become a concept and is fast becoming a full blown reality with the help of Twitter.
John or ColderICE (@colderice) has gone from a handful of followers to 1500+ in less than 6 months. He has also become a Twonster when it comes to tweeting about his ColderICE concept. The ColderICE concept is all about Internet Commerce Education. It started with commerce via eBay and has evolved to all aspects of marketing, selling products and services on the Internet. John is also the host of the ColderICE podcast on his blog Colderice.com where he interviews some of the best in the business of when it comes to doing commerce on the Internet.
This was a fun first show with my good friend John Lawson. John shares some great tips on what he does on a daily basis to promote his blog ColderICE. John stresses that no one wants to be marketed too all day all the time. John uses Twitter to make a difference in someones life by sharing quality content. Creating a Buzz on Twitter is the key for those who want to be successful influencers. John also shares his opinion on why creating value on twitter is not enough. The more you give the more you get back in life as well as on Twitter. So please take a listen to our short conversation and give me your thoughts on how our first show made out.
This is John’s ReTweetability Index.The ReTweetability Index measures and ranks Twitter users based on the infectious power of their tweets. This number accounts for number of followers and Tweets overall, so it is a true indicator of infectiousness.
If you don’t know by now the KFC (
instructed me to send them a DM and they would take care of me. So KFC its on you to redeem yourself to me and all those millions of people who were turned away empty handed with no grilled chicken on behalf of Oprah.
Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For
