I recently stepped outside of the Oxford Circus tube station and for some reason a power box fixed to a wall caught my attention. Well actually it was the collage of really cool stickers plastered all over the box that fixed my eyes.
One particular one stuck that out was Urban Nerds, what a cool logo I thought to my-self. Also what a great place to position your brand, trendy West-End of London where all the fashion-conscious work and pass through everyday.
It would be expensive to buy some quality outdoor advertising in a location like this, however to the right people a small sticker is enough to draw the right attention.
I got to the office and decided to Google the brand name, they’re an underground group of hip-hop DJ’s. I dug deeper and in Facebook they have 2493 fans. Good work! They also seem to be using the group to post news releases and market their gigs and activities. Their website also seems to have the right look, feel and functionality for the audience they’re trying to reach.
What I like about the whole approach to their marketing is that it is clever through both offline and online, the advertiser really knows their audience and how to target them.
Whether this marketing strategy was well thought out or combined on the off chance through luck we do not know. Brands need to be innovative across whole their whole advertising schedule if they want social media strategies to work to their fullest extent.
Brands going down the social networking route should also be working to do something innovative with their offline activity too. It’s no good trying to appear informal, cool and helpful within a social networking environment if your offline advertising screams uniform above the line communication, people see this first and then become dismissive of any social media/networking initiatives introduced to them at later stages.
People have always preached uniformity across holistic marketing campaigns when it comes to messaging and approach, the introduction of social media/networking to a businesses marketing mix should not change this.
If your goal is too seek maximum benefits from social media then other parts of your marketing mix should be geared to support this.
For example if your goal is to help people via posting information into relevant social network groups then ensure your offline media communicates a message of how your brand is geared towards helping people, with this pre-notification people in social environments will receive your contributions with more warmth and engage with initiatives more positively.
