RIA Journal

I worked on a couple of aspects of the original Refresh Everything project that Pepsi did for it’s Dear Mr. President campaign.

Less than a year ago, Pepsi caught consumers and the advertising industry off guard with its announcement that it would bypass the Super Bowl in favor of a cause campaign, Pepsi Refresh Project. At the time, the effort was considered a social-media experiment, a test case that could shape the way other major companies approached marketing.

No longer.

Today, Pepsi officially moves past the experiment stage, with the announcement that it will expand the Pepsi Refresh Project to Europe, Latin America and Asia, as well as continue to fund the project in the U.S. and Canada. “When you look at the powerful movement that we are creating, there’s no question that we have on our hands something big,” said Ami Irazabal, marketing director at Pepsi. “Good ideas need to expand. They cannot be encapsulated, especially when something is working for the brand.”

The brand plans to roll out the project worldwide in 2011, though many of the local market details have yet to be decided. For example, it’s not been determined how many countries will launch the project or how much funding individual markets will set aside for the program.

In the U.S., $1.3 million per month has been allocated to the Pepsi Refresh Project this year and that figure will be carried into 2011, raising the question of whether Pepsi will pour additional millions into the Super Bowl TV spots it bypassed last year. Ms. Irazabal didn’t rule out a return to the Super Bowl in 2011, saying that the big game is a “great platform.”

The core of the project will be unchanged in 2011, though there could be changes in execution. In the coming weeks, Pepsi will query Facebook users — its fans now number more than 1 million, up from 225,000 before the project launched — for ideas on how to evolve the program. That’s one way Ms. Irazabal says the brand will keep fickle consumers interested month after month.

Thus far, Pepsi says consumer interest has only continued to rise, with votes and the numbers of ideas submitted rising month after month. To date, the project has tallied nearly 45 million votes. On average, Ms. Irazabal says the project generates six to 12 new media reports per day, along with “endless” conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

Ms. Irazabal also said that key brand attributes have improved since the Pepsi Refresh Project launched in January. And the effort could be giving the brand an edge over its nemesis, Coke, though the brand declined to quantify the project’s effect on sales. “Sales are driven by many variables, and I can tell you that when you are aware of the Pepsi Refresh Project, it’s one of the things you factor in to choose the right cola,” she said.

Any impact has yet to make a dent in Coke’s market share, however. According to Beverage Digest, Pepsi lost 0.4 volume share in the first half of 2010, compared to Coke’s 0.1 volume share loss. The data covers supermarkets, c-stores, drug stores and non-Walmart mass merchandisers.

As in the U.S., brand teams’ budgets, not Pepsi Foundation monies, will fund both the grants and the communications efforts around the project. Ms. Irazabal said she doesn’t have specifics on how much money will be allocated to grants internationally, though she expects it will be an “important” number.

“Pepsi Refresh Project is going to be an integral part of the brand going forward,” Ms. Irazabal said. “Each market is going to execute it differently, but it is a global branding platform.”

In the U.S., TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles is Pepsi’s creative and advertising agency. Weber Shandwick and Edelman are handling social media around Refresh Project and OMD is handling media. Huge designed the Refresh Project site, www.refresheverything.com, Outside of the U.S., BBDO handles creative for brand Pepsi.

Virtual checkins (websites, tv shows, etc) are the wave of the future. Being able to checkin to a website or a show allows you to show brand loyalty…

You can now check in to TV shows like you can to your corner bar. But what’s a check-in worth to networks if they can’t send viewers buy one, get one free happy-hour specials?

The new breed of check-in apps aim to take the behavior made popular by Foursquare — in short, tapping a button to say, “I’m here” — to entertainment properties like TV shows, movies and even books. Just like location apps, the list of check-in start-ups for content is already long: Miso, Philo, Starling and GetGlue have snagged deals with media companies as a means to cross-promote, build brands and reward loyal viewers.

GetGlue, which reports 200,000 total check-ins per day, will be launching a program with Fox where the network will promote new series to viewers of its existing shows. Viewers that check-in to the popular series “Glee” will get notices on its new comedy “Raising Hope,” while viewers of “Bones” will get an alert on the new drama “Lone Star.” When fans check in and unlock stickers (an incentive equivalent to Foursquare’s badge) for existing shows, they can earn an additional sticker for watching a trailer for a new series.

These apps are also shaping into loyalty programs where networks can reward their super fans. “Checking in is a repetitive behavior that demonstrates continuity,” said Alex Iskold, GetGlue founder-CEO. “I can like ‘True Blood’ on Facebook, or I can check in to ‘True Blood’ every Sunday night, religiously. It demonstrates I’m a better fan that just someone who Likes.”

HBO has used GetGlue more than other services that it’s tested, including Tunerfish and Clicker.com. Its check-in programs, for shows such as “Entourage” and “Hung,” are primarily badge-based and focus on rewarding check-in behavior or watching at a certain time.

“Rewarding brand ambassadors is a key component of our social-media strategy and this is one way we do that,” said Sabrina Caluori, HBO director-marketing and social media. “Rewards can be as simple as holding somebody up in an exalted position or re-tweeting from the official ‘True Blood’ Twitter handle. When a fan engages in behavior that helps us spread the word, we try to encourage that behavior.”

These content-specific apps are still too small for Kristin Frank, general manager for MTV and VH1 Digital. She says Twitter or Facebook, which recently acquired check-in-to-anything service Hot Potato, would make more sense for TV check-ins because they have the level of users that better match the mass audiences of TV. “The big question is who ends up being able to harness the mainstream,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s realistic that people are going to go to separate products to do that.”

While MTV has launched a number of check-in programs with Foursquare, which reports 3 million users, the network has not yet experimented with the check-in apps specifically for TV.

To date, MTV’s programs have focused on extending content into the real world rather than keeping the check-in about what’s on screen. A recently launched program for its Video Music Awards gives a Moonman badge to users that check in to music venues, along with a chance to win tickets to the show.

“Social media, in general, certainly has its marketing opportunities with the right messaging,” Ms. Frank said, adding that MTV has decided to separate social-media outreach groups from marketing. “The difference is that we create content and editorialize things. It’s a further way to extend our programming reach.”

GetGlue’s Mr. Iskold also sees check-in apps as a window into the “taste graph of entertainment.” “Think about the aggregate information on how people are consuming entertainment,” he said. “How many people are reading a book and seeing a certain movie? What are the patterns that can emerge when you look at fans of ‘True Blood’?” Though, at this point, HBO’s Ms. Caluori said she hasn’t seen any GetGlue data that’s new to her.

One coming social media for TV app, Starling, is less concerned with the check-in altogether. Cofounders Kevin Slavin and Kenny Miller are betting that check-in apps will be more than just marketing devices. Out in October, Starling will concentrate on extending TV programming into social media. “Trying to treat a TV event as if it were a Starbucks and giving badges for walking through the door is misunderstanding what a TV show is about,” Mr. Miller said. That reasoning will also see networks’ advertisers extend into social media, too. “There are interesting new opportunities to empower networks to find new ad dollars in this space,” Mr. Miller added, though he declined to provide any specifics. “Not only are we innovating on the user experience, we’re also innovating ad-supported models.”

Booking a flight? Go on Facebook. Running late to the hotel? Send a tweet.

Hotels, airlines and other segments of the multibillion-dollar travel industry are aggressively tapping into social media, ramping up their use of online sites such as Facebook and Twitter to build loyalty to their brands.

Airlines are maintaining a presence on YouTube and offering deals through social-mapping networks such as Loopt. Hotels are promoting their properties through bloggers, and they’re using social-networking sites to gather feedback, monitor trends and provide concierge services.

“I definitely think that social media is about to change the way we do things entirely,” says Jill Fletcher, social media and communications manager for Virgin America. “We’re able to admit over social media if we’ve made a mistake or if there’s a weather delay. So we’re able to communicate much faster and more effectively.”

Social media are being incorporated at a rapid rate into every part of a journey, from making the reservation to finding out where to eat. For instance:

•As of August, Delta passengers can buy tickets on Delta’s Facebook page.

•Southwest has three staffers dedicated to monitoring and responding to queries made through social-media channels.

•Marriott is launching its Marriott Courtyard Facebook page Tuesday to issue messages about the chain and related information that might interest customers.

•Hyatt Hotels launched a Twitter account last year to serve as a virtual concierge. Staffers, based in Omaha, Australia and Mumbai, are instructed to respond to requests and questions within an hour, and are fielding queries ranging from where to find good sushi to alerts that a guest will be checking in late. The account has 12,000 followers. Hilton has a similar Twitter account.

Compared with other industries, the travel and hospitality sector is ahead of the curve in engaging social media, says Carl Howe, a director with the Yankee Group, a telecommunication market research firm.

It’s “mainly because there is so much concern about consumer perception,” he says. “There are a lot more choices for hotels than there are for cable providers, and the same is true for airlines.”

Seeking return visitors

A key goal of staking a claim in the social-media space is to build a base of devoted followers who will keep coming back.

“Most travel organizations are actually looking for something more than a transaction,” Howe says. “They’re looking for loyalty, and that means a long-term engagement.”

Still, deals, incentives and freebies offered on social-media channels are a way airlines and hotels cultivate new customers.

United, for instance, has “twares,” fare specials offered exclusively through Twitter, the micro-messaging channel. In July, AirTran introduced its “Facebook Friday Fares,” which give its Facebook fans unique deals.

Joe Palma, a chef at Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert at The Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., uses Twitter to send messages about specials, restaurant news and holiday hours, and to ask fans what they would like to see on the seasonal menu. Last year, he held a contest to select a new fall dessert menu item, and the winner received dinner for two.

LuxuryLink.com and FamilyGetaway.com, which sell hotel packages, have launched “mystery auctions,” in which customers bid for hotel packages at discounted rates without knowing the property’s identity. To increase followers, the sites began issuing clues about the hotels only through their Facebook and Twitter pages.

Travel businesses are seeking out social-media mavens and bloggers to sing their praises.

As Country Inns & Suites By Carlson prepared to open its 500th hotel in College Station, Texas, earlier this year, it offered free seven-day trips to three bloggers active in social-media sites.

Aurora Toth, vice president of marketing for Carlson Hotels, says the bloggers and their families were assigned to drive to College Station in vehicles with Country Inn decals, stop in seven states, blog and post messages on Facebook and Twitter along the way. Country Inn received local news coverage, and the bloggers helped spread word of the new hotel to their followers. “We learned the power of what we can do,” Toth says.

Marriott is launching a campaign in October that will invite loyalty program members with large Facebook and Twitter followings to help spread the word about its SpringHill Suites chain. They’ll get free stays and other incentives in return for positive messages sent to followers.

To replace convention business that shrank during the recession, Westin St. Maarten is contacting wedding bloggers and offering their readers a sweepstakes drawing for a ceremony or honeymoon at the resort. “We couldn’t have found those people any other simpler way,” says Karen Gee-McAuley, whose public relations firm Blaze helped the hotel develop the strategy.

Social networking and mobile technology are a new advertising frontier, and it makes sense for the travel industry to jump on board, some say.

“We’re a traditional advertising company, and looking at venturing out into social media and mobile phone applications wasn’t really something that we were considering,” says Toby Sturek, president of Clear Channel Airports. “But with the needs of the traveler, we felt we needed to continue to innovate.”

Customer relations

Airlines are using the tools and channels to try to ease travel, enabling passengers to book trips and find out if there is a delay without picking up a phone.

Instead of going to Delta.com, where 19 million domestic tickets are booked a year, passengers can make reservations on the airline’s Facebook page. The carrier will also let passengers peruse other websites and still be able to buy tickets by clicking on a Delta banner ad.

“Our strategy is, in channels where our customers are engaging, we want to be there for them and with them,” says Bob Kupbens, Delta’s vice president of e-commerce.

The airline’s website and traditional e-mail continue to be key, he says. But, he says, “these other channels are opportunities to be where the site isn’t. You’re not standing in line in security with your laptop open. But you are there with your mobile phone.”

A social-media presence has become essential for any company that wants to bond with a younger generation that will hopefully remain loyal for years.

“For most of the people in that 18-to-24 (year-old) demographic, e-mail is old school,” says Howe. “That’s something that their parents do. If you want to reach them, you have to communicate in the ways they feel most comfortable, and that’s mostly Facebook and texting.”

AirTran’s “AirTran U” program, which allows 18-to-24-year-olds to fly standby for a discounted fare, has its own Facebook page. One of its promotions, “AirTran U Creeper,” flashes photos submitted by users at midnight. The first person to spot his or her picture and alert the airline wins a prize.

“It does help build the brand,” says AirTran spokesman Christopher White. “We know some people will read our website. Some people will read the newspaper. But this is a unique channel. And the 18-to-24 crowd really is not tuning into the radio ad. They’re living their lives via social media, and if you’re not in that space getting your message out where they can hear it, they’re simply not hearing it.”

Last week, some mobile users who downloaded an iPhone app from the social-mapping network Loopt found out about a special offer from Virgin America promoting its new service to Mexico. If they made their way to the airport in San Francisco or Los Angeles, or to a local taco truck, they had the chance to get two tickets for the price of one to Los Cabos or Cancun.

Jamie Swartz, 29, who is getting married in Cancun in February, says that it’s been tough for some of her guests to find direct flights. When she heard about the Loopt Star download, she sent a message to everyone she knew and headed to a taco truck on Hollywood Boulevard. She and a bridesmaid each snagged the two-for-one deal.

“I totally missed the big Twitter boom,” says Swartz, a marketing associate in West Hollywood. “I was late to join Facebook.”

But she says she was impressed enough by the creativity of the Loopt promotion to keep Virgin America in mind for future trips. “I think it (was) a great idea,” she said.

Where are you?

Hotels are seeking ways to take advantage of the latest twist in the social-media sphere: location-based service software which uses the GPS in smartphones to provide hotels information about their customers’ whereabouts.

InterContinental is working with start-up company Topguest. People who sign up at Topguest’s website can walk into any hotel, restaurant or bar operated by InterContinental and receive a small allowance of the hotel company’s loyalty points. To receive the points, they must alert their “friends” on Foursquare or Facebook Places, two of the most popular location-based social-networking tools.

For hotels, it’s a way to promote their loyalty programs, increase sales during off hours and learn more about which of their customers are the “most influential” members in social-media circles, says Geoff Lewis, CEO of Topguest.

Virgin America’s Loopt promotion helped the airline see its fifth-highest-grossing sales day this year. Hotel executives say it’s too early to tell if their social-media efforts are beefing up the bottom line. But some report encouraging signs.

Vero Beach Hotel & Spa, run by Kimpton, began occasionally issuing codes last summer for a 15% discount on its best available rates. In measuring their redemptions, the hotel learned that the codes generated 270 more room nights this year. “It’s still too early for return-on-investment (analysis). But we’ve seen some benefits here and there,” says Niki Leondakis, president of Kimpton Hotels.

For all the merits of social media, some industry watchers warn that the industry shouldn’t forget about the older generations that aren’t tech savvy and still need to be engaged.

“The Boomer generation … we’re the ones that are going to travel and will have the money to travel, and we’re probably not going to be the ones on Twitter and Facebook,” says Terry Trippler, founder of airline information website RulesToKnow.com.

Jim Black, 58, a data network engineer in Ventura, Calif., who’s on the road about 30 weeks a year, says technology can never replace another person’s input.

“Twitter creates the appearance of human contact but it lacks the actual human touch,” says Black, who barely updates his Facebook page and isn’t interested in any special deals offered via Twitter. “To substitute social media for human contact is incrementally a step down in customer service.”

I feel like all I’ve written about the past few weeks is Facebook’s need for a new social dynamic. Specifically, I want Facebook to break their social graph into two: those people who you are friends with, and those who you follow — for sharing purposes. It seems that Facebook may be testing something like that out — well sort of, maybe.

Facebook appears to be testing out a new feature called “Subscribe.” A source who supposedly has it enabled, tells All Facebook that “by subscribing you don’t miss any updates from people you subscribe to.” While on the face of it, this would seem to be a lot like the idea of “follow” it’s not clear from that wording if you actually already need to be friends with a person in order to follow them.

In other words, this may just be another mechanism to ensure you see updates from people you really care about. But if that’s the case, this just adds more confusion to Facebook’s social graph because you can already create lists for that purpose. Though, as All Facebook points out, these update will apparently appear in the notifications drop down.

Instead, what I’m hoping is that this is a proper follow feature that allows you to see other users public updates even if you’re not subscribed to them. And vice versa, obviously. I would love to allow people to subscribe to stuff I share publicly (and have it appear in their stream), but have the option to still share stuff with my actual friends.

But still, maybe that is in the works as well. Baby steps are probably wise here for Facebook so their users don’t lose their minds and scream bloody murder — which will happen anyway.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on this to try and get more clarity on the feature. They’re currently “looking into it.”

Update: Here’s Facebook’s comment:

This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).

“Friends” appears to be the keyword there — as in, this is still only for people you are connected with. But I’ve asked Facebook to clarify that further just to make sure.

Update 2: As expected, Facebook has confirmed that you need to be a friend of someone (or a fan of them) in order to get these notifications. These notifications go into the tab up top and also get sent as an email to you, I’m told.

In other words, no proper “follow” just yet.

Photo by Kristin Hoebermann

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If you’re a singer, you should be following Claudia Friedlander’s blog. The classically-trained, New York-based voice teacher provides sage advice not only for singers for all types, but also for musicians and people in general.

Although at least one of her students sings metal, Friedlander knows virtually nothing about it. I wondered what she would think of some of metal’s most classic male singers – the foundation of the artform. It’s rare to find someone who isn’t familiar with any of these singers. Her perspective would be a fresh one, free of cultural baggage. I sent her five completely unidentified songs. Her comments are below. I have also included initial reactions she sent me immediately upon hearing the singers.