Company: Meteor Solutions
Agencies: MTV
Networks, Publicis
Executives Involved: Ben Straley, CEO, Taddy Hall, CEO
Brief: Subway Fresh Buzz
Meteor Solutions: Linking Influencers with Brands and Activating Them to Share
Introduction
What happens when MTV Networks and Subway team up to launch an innovative
social media aimed at 18-35 year olds? The duo ignited a viral firestorm,
encouraging influential brand advocates to share content across their social
graphs – dramatically extending brand reach, boosting Subway restaurant sales,
and increasing MTV viewership.
“The objective for us at MTVN was to integrate elements of pop-culture with the
Subway brand to engage the target audience and stimulate viral sharing,” said
MTVN’s David Iudica.
The Approach
MTVN and Subway built the Fresh Buzz website showcasing up-and-coming
musicians, comedians, and performers, such as Trevor Hall, Midnight Masses, Pow
Wow, Quest Crew, etc… Once the site was running, MTVN and Subway used several
social marketing methods to “activate” the fan base and encourage as much
sharing as possible. Activities included rewards for sharing, such as free
Subway cards, signed posters of talent, CDs, and more.
The Challenge
One of the biggest challenges with the Fresh Buzz viral campaign was how to
measure the impact sharing had on overall traffic to the site. MTVN and Subway
could see when traffic peaked on the site, but wanted to know if those traffic
surges were a result of consumers sharing the Fresh Buzz URL with friends via
Facebook, Twitter, on their blogs, via email etc. They also wanted to
accurately compare the impact sharing had on campaign traffic and conversion
compared to traditional paid media buys. MTVN and Subway used social media analysis
and activation technology from Meteor Solutions to accurately pinpoint:
• WHO are the individual brand advocates driving the most word of mouth
activity?
• WHAT is the engaging content driving the most sharing?
• WHERE is the most sharing taking place?
• HOW is sharing impacting overall traffic to the site, conversion, and brand
recognition?
The Results
By identifying their most influential brand advocates – the people who shared
the Fresh Buzz campaign the most often and most widely with their social graph
– and then activating them to share through special incentives, MTVN and Subway
created one of the most successful social media branding campaigns in recent
history. Using Meteor Solutions, they found that just 0.4% of site visitors
were responsible, through their sharing activities, for over 70% of overall
site traffic. That means that a tiny sliver of highly influential people –
sharing the Fresh Buzz content with friends online – drove over 2/3 of all
traffic to the website! When compared with banner ads, search, and other costly
paid media buys, this result is nothing short of astounding – especially since
the word of mouth marketing provided by these influencers was entirely free.
What the Fresh Buzz campaign proved is that key brand advocates are worth their
weight in gold.
“Across campaigns and categories, we routinely see 1%-2% of site visitors
driving 20%-40% of total traffic and an even higher share of desired outcomes –
or conversions” commented Meteor’s Taddy Hall. “At first, we looked at the
results with disbelief. It was only after repeated experience and consultation
with the academic literature on Power Laws that we began to understand what our
software was capturing.”
The Implications
We now have the ability to identify the tiny population of influential brand
advocates and activate them. “We could see WHAT was working, WHOM it was
working with, and HOW it was happening” concluded Iudica, “and it allows us to
be more strategic about how we use social media to expand the reach of our
campaigns.”
Best Practices
Reviewing the Subway Fresh Buzz findings in combination with data from dozens
of other Meteor client deployments, the following transferable takeaways
emerge:
1. Link Influencer data with other data. Smart clients don’t want another data
silo or even another zippy dashboard. They want integration, and Influencer
data makes many existing investments much richer; such as Listening, Web
Analytics, Ad Effectiveness Studies, Log-in/Registration data, Ad Server data,
Demographic/psychographic, etc
2. Link Insights to action. We see four primary ways that marketers apply
Influencer data:
• Media Planning
• Digital PR (seeding, blogger outreach, syndication strategies, publisher
partnerships, etc.)
• Offer and Content Optimization
• Direct Engagement – Recognize, Engage, Reward Influencers for their Advocacy
3. Start small and build on success
Link to Your Creative
Materials: Powerpoint
