Millennials are portrayed as being the ‘experts’ at using Social Media and have a thorough understanding of digital marketing aspects.  However need to comprehend the terminology of ‘facts first, opinions last’. Just because one is young doesn’t gratify them as a specialist in the field of social media marketing. Millennials may enjoy using social media but you can’t assume you’re an expert because you’re young, we are all just learning. That doesn’t mean we can’t take opportunities and work our way up from there but we have to remain humble about it and accept the fact that we are all still learning how to use Social Media, as Social Media itself is continuously growing, changing and developing before us. We can’t become an expert in a non-traditional form of advertising media as such. We will constantly be learning throughout it.

My dad loves to glorify his generation infront of me. Saying that they were the ‘doers’, they created the web, they created facebook etc. they had the ideas and the logic and understand the method they worked hard to grasp. Whereas my generation of millennials is given the title ‘users’, we are extremely good at using social media as its all we know and yes we may find it easier to use than the ‘doers’. But as ‘users’ do we truly understand and know how to create content or are we just all following a trend and due to privilege believe we are the experts?

What makes a creative memorable, on brief and personable?

Consistency

Coherence

Continuity

Complementary

Communication Channels

Channeling a specific Target Audience

these are the strategical C behind the creative, within the campaign.

A campaign won’t be effective if it’s just a pretty image on the page, it needs to fulfil the briefs requirements and appeal to the clients directions not your own personal interest.

A creative brief should look like this:

COMM2659 CAMPAIGN STRATEGY – CREATIVE BRIEF: CAMPAIGN 2 (2018)                   

TEAM NAME: The Team	DATE: 17/9/2018
Student names: Nakita Podreka, Gemma Rio, Jared Blode, Will Mantesso, Xanthe Doran	CLIENT: Australian Red Cross Blood Service – PLASMA

                                                                                                                                  

1A. CATEGORY INSIGHTS: What is the big picture?

While the Red Cross Blood Service is the only charity in which people can donate blood in Australia, there are many successful charities competing for the attention of empathetic Australians.  In 2017, the Australian Red Cross ranked 19 out of 40 in an AMR Australia report about charity reputation. This was a 4 rank drop compared to 2016 with the RSPCA taking its former place, and the charity is one below the Ronald McDonald House Charities Australia. In first place was the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia and in second place was the St John Ambulance service. Just below Australian Red Cross sits the Leukaemia Foundation of Australia and in last place was Greenpeace Australia Pacific.  The Australian Red Cross’s positioning compared to its competitors is that it is life giving and focuses on life after illness. This contrasts to the two top competitors in the category, which both present themselves as aged and reliable, having been present as an Australian service for a long time. It also contrasts to competitors ranked more closely such as the RSPCA and Ronald McDonald House Charities Australia, charities which use an abundance of emotive imagery such as sick children and animals and tiles personal stories.  In 2016, it was reported that money in donations to Australian Charities is increasing, but the number of donors are decreasing (Giving Australia, 2016). Along with this, it was reported that most donors (60.5%) are likely to do so spontaneously as opposed to planned donation. However, those making planned donations were known to give significantly more.

1B. BRAND INSIGHTS: What is the problem/opportunity for your Clients brand/product?

Plasma donations are used in eighteen life giving ways for patients in need. The Australian Red Cross does not have enough plasma donors or people donating plasma frequently enough. The brand needs to gain plasma donors and increase donation frequency.

2. COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVES: What do we want to specifically achieve?

– Gain 18,000 new plasma donors over 12 months – Increase donation frequency from 4 to 6 times per year

3A. TARGET AUDIENCE (TA): Who are we talking to? Current users, competitor users, new users?

Our Target Audience is Males aged between 20-29 that are new or existing plasma donors. The ideal candidate for a plasma donation is someone who is brave and selfless enough to give up 2 hours of his time in order to complete a donation. This man also needs to be able to frequently donate plasma 6 times per year, not just donate once for the sake of self righteousness. A member of the target audience is someone who is socially aware about the needs of others and has the capacity to be empathetic, but has barriers holding them back from making a donation.  For example, Lachie is a member of the target audience. He is 21 years old, plays footy on the weekend with his local friends from high school and works as a plumber during the week. He likes to go out on a Saturday night for drinks with his friends or to watch sporting matches. Lachie still lives at home while he is saving up for a house and finds it hard to find time during the week to spend time with his girlfriend while he works long days. Lachie is active on social media (particularly Snapchat and Instagram) and loves posting funny videos of his mates having a laugh together.

3B. CURRENT PERCEPTIONS: What do the target audience think/feel/do about our brand NOW?

Currently, some of the target audience acknowledge that they would be an eligible donor, but have barriers holding them back form donation such as a fear of needles or they do not feel as if they have enough time to donate plasma. Therefore, they do not donate to the Australian Red Cross. Alternately, some of the target audience are already occasionally donating plasma a couple of times a year, and therefore feel happy with themselves for sacrificing their time and effort. These donors stick to their current routines and do not increase donations.

3C. DESIRED RESPONSE: What do we want the target audience (TA) to think/feel/do?

The target audience will think that they should be donating plasma as it would be a brave and important thing to do.This will make them feel good about themselves, and turn them to action as they will begin donating plasma.  The other identified target audience will recognise that there is more demand for plasma donating than what is being currently donated. They will feel bad for not giving enough, and in turn increase their plasma donating to 6 times per year.

4A. STRATEGY FOUNDATION: What is the single-minded proposition (SMP)?

Donating plasma is a brave and important life-giving contribution to the wellbeing of others.

4B. SUPPORT: What are the supporting facts and reasons that underpin the SMP?

On the Australian Red Cross’ website, it is easy to learn about how donating plasma can help others. It is listed that there are eighteen ways in which plasma can be medically utilised, such as for burn and nerve disease treatment.  The process of donating plasma is more lengthy than donating blood, as an appointment can last up to 1.5 hours with 45 minutes of blood extraction. This means that donors must be courageous and not afraid of needles or blood extraction.

5. BRAND PERSONALITY: What tone of voice should we adopt?

For our brand we want to take on an encouraging and impassioned tone that will inspire our target audience to contribute to our cause. We want consumers to feel empowered by our tone and enthusiastic towards our message.

6. MANDATORIES: What are the branding properties?

The Australian Red Cross Blood Service logo according to specifications.

7A. MEDIA: Which media are likely to be involved?

Digital media (e.g a powerful video to be shared on social media in order to gain earned media) but avoiding Instagram – Social media apps such as Snapchat could be used for it is a popular app with the target audience – It could be used to create an interactive experience that educates the TA on what plasma is and its use in saving lives Outdoor media (e.g signage on the Australian Red Cross donation centre, advertisements on bus shelters, potential ambient advertising) – Outdoor media in the form of signage and possibly animation or video will reinforce the message of the campaign through being more engaging with the target audience  Traditional media that will reach large audiences (e.g posters and magazine ads)

7B. BUDGET: What is the budget?

The $1.5 Million budget will be strategically allocated over 3 mediums to maximise the effectiveness of the campaign. Digital Media – $1 Million Outdoor Media – $300,000  Traditional Media – $200,000

8. TIMING: What is the deadline?

Strategy sign off: 11 September 2018 Execution concept sign off: 17 September 2018 Approved FA submission: 7 October 2018 Production: 10 October – 1 November 2018 On air: 6 November 2018 Campaign end: Beginning of February 2019

Having a thought out strategy that drives the creative is the element of success every campaign is derived from.

Mobile phones are one of the most common forms of technology used by individuals all over the world as it features three needed moments for the user; its a personal device, a catalyst for a two way interaction and relieves the notion of being constantly connected.

Mobile in itself has taken off and is happening much faster than our internal predictions as quoted in 2011 by Eric Schmidt. As Apples very first iphone took only 2 years to formulate 50 million users, therefore a smartphone was clearly extremely desired and needed compared to the original mobile phones which took an extensive 12 years to gain a following of 50 million users.

Common features of successful apps include, solving a problem, easy to use, updates frequently, built for native platform, make a business, kind to phone battery and free download.

Mobile searches are more local and on the go, producing an immediate need for searching in the now and needing to know the answer now.

Which makes sense as to why the app Pokemon Go reached 50 million users in only 19 days, compared to Facebook reaching 50 million in 4 years.

In another class of mine, Advertising Industry Practice, we have been looking at how to strategise and brief back an app to an agency with a Campaign Pitch. The app my creative team has been looking at is Arevo.

Arevo functions like Uber but caters to so much more, it also shows times and routes for all public transport options, cycling, running… while also catering to your need to see how long to get to your destination via all these alternate routes you could take and even how many calories can be burned per route.

This is an app that I believe can become very successful as it caters to all the different thoughts and stresses we share in trying to get to a certain place on time yet is easy to use, free to download, solves problems and location sensitive.

This week we’ve been looking at the theories behind Digital Business Models which in definition terms is a set of planned activities designed to result in a profit in a marketplace (Laudon and Traver 2007). Therefore when thinking about Business the key factor is CUSTOMER VALUE and Digital Businesses like every other business focus on this same value, the only difference is this value needs to be translated onto a different interface.

With this in mind the Digital Business Model, THE MERCHANT MODEL, particularly stood out to me. This model is a combination of retail store and online component.

I do freelance social media consulting for companies that are interested in learning how to improve and further accelerate their online presence and online consumers. The biggest question I get asked is ‘How can I target my Social Media consumers to come into my store?’….Yes this is an important question but I ask them have you also tried using Social Media as your store too?  WOAH MIND BLOWN I KNOW !!!!!

So the vintage store I consulted ‘A perfect Match’ located on Johnston street, Fitzroy needed an example and I gave the business ‘THE DROBE’….

The Drobe has a physical store, online store and also Instagram account. However predominantly the business makes majority of their sales via Instagram. This occurs through their high following and simple post uploads that is ‘trendy’ on social media. The post features a girl who’s headless through cropping techniques wearing the sale item in an interesting pose with a simple background and clean editing tools.  The caption reveals the name of clothing item and initial bidding price. From here a bidding war begins through a chain of comments with a time limit of how long one can be bidding for. The final bidder receives a comment to invite them to private DM the account to go into details of purchasing etc.

Meaning . Social Media today isn’t the collaborative, pretty picture . posting creative it initially established itself to be. It’s now a place businesses can thrive and connect to their customers at ‘in time’ rates and directly sell to them through the simplicity of an image.

Social Media is understood as a Web 2.0 buzzword indicating that the idea of the platform is Collaborative. The Media shouldn’t persevere a passive experience therefore encourage consumers not to just consume but to engage in commentary, to share, to create and produce your own collaborative material also.

Yet why does Social Media posses the option to hide comments, likes etc. if the whole experience should be regarded as SOCIAL!!!???

Instagram has recently released an update that hides the amount of likes a post can receive. Therefore in a business sense consumers can no longer understand the popularity of a brand yet brands owning these accounts can still see the likes they receive and attention but their followers no longer have this common understanding. Shifting the idea of ‘likes’ as a more personal and organic process as consumers now take interest in liking the pictures purely on liking them not based on whats popular in their explore or feed, the experience is natural and more real. However for some brands this idea of Instagram tackling the ‘Insecurity of Social Media’ problem can have an affect on some businesses relying on popularity likes and influencers that are well known names simply for their names such as ‘Kylie Jenner’ etc.  Yet the idea furthermore is seen as confusing as users can still see accounts followings yet not their likes? Will this one day change also?

However although I’ve introduced this thought as a negative impact it will be rewarding for the smaller, underground more niche business accounts on social media. They don’t have to follow a stereotype and reciprocate posts that are regarded popular to gain likes and followers. Brands small which administer this can now have the niche market the always aimed toward grow bigger in number as ‘coolness’ and ‘popularity’ is hidden from the public. So will this take a big hit on accounts with large following, large amount of likes that ‘attempt’ to stay on ‘trend’? Or will they finally embrace and find their voice and grow organically to resume their ‘want and need’ on Social Media?