HotHouse makes brands work for people online

In this month’s HotHouse podcast, Yooster founder Justin Kirby talks about how the company helped Australian natural healthcare company Blackmores create word of mouth for one of its supplements aimed at arthritis sufferers.

Yooster recruited 1,000 people to try samples of the product, and by the end of the campaign 85% were converted to the product – and all of those converts had told their friends and family and had convinced at least one person to use the product. This niche product, which was not suitable for traditional advertising, had a noticeable lift in sales as a result of the campaign.

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By Simon van Wyk

Following on from last week’s post about blogger engagement, here are summaries and/or links to some case studies of successful blogger engagement programs and campaigns. We’ll also post House Party’s case studies over the coming months.

HP: (Case study summarised from the book “Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications”) The computer behemoth enjoyed a 10% increase in PC sales in one month simply by leveraging the blogging community to promote its HDX Dragon computer system in 2008. HP sent a new computer system to 31 bloggers it had identified as influential to their business, offering to let them give the computers away in competitions among their readers.

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By Simon van Wyk

Bob Garfield may be the most high-profile advertising sceptic at the moment, but he’s by no means the only one.

Guess who said this? “The advertising business is going down the drain. It’s being pulled down by the people who create it, who don’t know how to sell anything, who have never sold anything in their lives …. who despise selling, whose mission in life is to be clever show-offs and con clients into giving them money to display originality and genius.” read more

By Simon van Wyk

Following on from this month’s podcast, I decided to look at the arguments for and against the death of advertising. This week’s post looks at the evidence that advertising is not in its death throes.

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“The Chaos Scenario” had its genesis in a presentation Bob made to colleagues at an Ad Age editorial conference. Fuelled, he says, by a night of heavy drinking at the conference, he had an epiphany while preparing his presentation.

After years of observing the rise of the digital media and the reaction to it by traditional media and advertising, he realised that “If these trends continue, it’s not just a disruption, but the doom of the industry.

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Things are getting ugly for traditional advertising and marketing, but there’s a new order coming from the chaos, as Simon van Wyk writes.

People have been chronicling the disruptive influence of the digital media on traditional media and advertising ever since the World Wide Web first appeared. But no one has articulated the effect so comprehensively or so bluntly as Bob Garfield, ad critic and columnist for Ad Age.

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HotHouse managing director Simon van Wyk talks to Bob Garfield, advertising critic for Ad Age and author of “The Chaos Scenario”. Bob delivers the last rites for the traditional advertising and media industries, declaring that “no one has ever clicked on a banner ad – ever – at least not on purpose.” He talks about both the end of times and also the re-birth of marketing in a “delicious new ecosystem.”

Listen to the podcast below.

 

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Hothouse has recently launched its social media pitch to Toyota. Check out the Lego criminals take off from a robbery with a stolen Yaris on Youtube.
You can also win a shiny new Yaris just by adding your comments and rating the video.
The chase happens here.

By Simon van Wyk

In this month’s podcast marketing consultant Jonathan Salem Baskin discusses the importance of being able to measure behaviour and activity in the sales funnel. He cites the work of strategic marketing consultant James Lenskold as a stand-out example of someone who is applying hard numbers to a largely intangible measure: finding the value of marketing and branding activities.

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By Simon van Wyk

I’ve been on my soapbox for a long time about the need for advertising and marketing to focus on delivering commercial value and not rely on vague concepts like “brand dialogue” (see, for example, my rant on interactive agencies trying to be ad agencies).

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