In today’s world of social media and immediate comment, marketers are becoming more proficient in “real-time marketing;” taking promotional advantage of news events as they happen. This is another way book marketers can get the word out on appropriate frontlist and backlist titles.
Advertising Age (@adage) reports that “when Sunday night's Super Bowl was interrupted by a prolonged power outage, brands took to Twitter to riff on the extended delay.”
Bud Light and Speed Stick quickly bid on promoted tweets linked to the words "power outage"; Oreo and Tide posted graphics linked to the blackout; and Audi tweeted an offer to send some LEDs to the Superdome, which it noted was sponsored by fellow luxury auto brand Mercedes-Benz.
BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) explains how Oreo was able to react so quickly:
At 8:48 pm Sunday night, Oreo tweeted this ad http://twitter.com/Oreo/status/298246571718483968 with the caption "Power out? No problem." Since then, it's been retweeted more than 14,000 times (and the same image on Facebook has gotten more than 20,000 likes) — meaning that the most powerful bit of marketing during the advertising industry's most expensive day may have been free.
"We had a mission control set up at our office with the brand and 360i, and when the blackout happened, the team looked at it as an opportunity," 360i (@360i) agency president Sarah Hofstetter told BuzzFeed. "Because the brand team was there, it was easy to get approvals and get it up in minutes."
The key? Having Oreo executives in the room, ready to pull the trigger.
PBS also maximized #SuperBowlBlackOut with a tweet inviting Super Bowl viewers to change the channel immediately to watch Downton Abbey, as reported by paidContent (@paidContent):
According to marketing and communications director, Kevin Dando, the timing was fortuitous because PBS was already in the midst of a weekly discussion in which Downton lovers gather on social media to discuss the show. When Dando tweeted the invitation for SuperBowl viewers to come on over, he says his phone almost blew up.
“Within seconds, we saw hundreds, then thousands of retweets,” said Dando,
The goal of real-time marketing is to capitalize on people helping to spread the word (word-of-mouth marketing). The Wall Street Journal’s article, “Costly Super Bowl Ads Pay Publicity Dividend” explains how “Super Bowl advertisers continue to cite earned media — unpaid publicity from news, entertainment, and social outlets — as justifying their growing investments in the big game. Mercedes-Benz values all the talk about its commercial at $20 million, for example, up from Pepsi's estimate of the $10 million benefit it got from the 2002 game."
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