How brands steal the spotlight during events Ditto Labs 2 Contents Finding Your Brand’s Authentic Visual Voice Spontaneous Events Planned Events Summary 3 6 8 10 Finding Your Brand’s Authentic Visual Voice If you’re in marketing, you’ve noticed the extra enthusiastic attempts by brands at “getting in” on social media conversations during trending events - whether planned or spontaneous. But similar to a guest at a party, interjecting your brand into an existing conversation is a delicate art. Land mines to watch out for include: being the last one to the party - like the late comers to the Harlem Shake, inadvertently offensive responses and corny 6 secrets for sparking photo engagement: engaging? Ditto scanned billions 1. Authentic Brand Love 2. Normal Celebrity Moments 3. Guilty Pleasures of images to find themes 4. Pampered Pups associated with the highest 5. Extreme Sports jokes. So how can you be relevant and engagement for social photos with brands and discovered six 6. Trending Events commonalities. In this guide we will dive deeper into our findings. 3 Authentic Brand Love Nothing contributes more to customer advocacy than having a great product. Normal Celebrity Moments Engagement rates are high for photos of celebrities casually interacting with brands during a normal day. Guilty Pleasures Public admissions of not-sohealthy habits, like craving fried foods, garner widespread empathy. 4 Pampered Pups People love to post and share photo evidence of pampered pets joining in on human passions. Trending Events Clever images that authentically position the brand within the context of a shared experience spark the most engagement. Extreme Sport Speaking of passion, logo-clad athletes in racing, snowboarding and other extreme sports earn millions of additional impressions from fans. 5 5 Planned Events Readiness, humor and creativity help brands make an impression. Socially savvy marketers anticipate each holiday and media event and are prepared to capitalize with listening centers and “war rooms” staffed with strategic, creative content producers. Conversation opportunities are abundant with events like Easter, Memorial Day, Father’s Day and “wedding season”. Taking a look back at the first quarter of 2015, a few of the brands that sparked great engagement during events were: Valentine’s Day It was Netflix that stole our hearts during Valentine’s Day with more than 2X as many appearances in #Valentine photos shared on Twitter than the next two highest brands (Diet Coke and Papa John’s). All three seeded the idea with clever tweets promoting the holiday occasion with savings. Regular folks and celebrities alike tweeted photos celebrating the single life by watching movies and eating pizza. 6 St. Patrick’s Day Unsurprisingly, nothing says “St. Patrick’s Day” like our favorite Irish libations. Guinness made the most appearances in Twitter photos this holiday with over 3X the incidence of runner up Jameson. Cheetos Steals Super Bowl Spotlight For many Super Bowl watchers, Katy Perry’s halftime performance was the event to watch — after all she does have the most Twitter followers in the world. While all eyes were on her performance, many wondered if she’d found wardrobe inspiration from Cheetos. Whether it was orchestrated by PepsiCo, the major halftime performance sponsor and owner of brand Cheetos, or a brilliant coincidence, Cheetos stole the spotlight with the brand earning the most visual mentions on Twitter. 7 5 Spontaneous Events Below are examples of brands that captured the public’s attention with their personality by reacting to unexpected and trending events. The #Blizzards of 2015 #Juno, the first blizzard that blanketed the Northeast this year, encouraged stock up shopping, impromptu celebrations and binge viewing. Jim Beam and Sam Adams authentically captured the spirit of the season, with Jim Beam having the highest visual mentions among brands during the January storm. 8 #TheDress Yet, some brands miss major opportunities because they only track text. By listening to photos and text, brands #TheDress was a two day social media phenomenon that seemed to capture everyone’s attention, no matter the demographic. In the example above, Heineken’s social team nailed the debate by coming down on one side of the argument and promoting their product. like Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks could reach out to loyal customers whose business they missed due to inclement weather and engage with customers at high profile events like #SXSW. 9 1.8 Billion photos are shared daily. Of the ones containing brands, Ditto discovered that 85% do not mention the brand in accompanying text. Studies reveal the human brain retains only 20% of text but 80% of visuals. Brands that “listen” to public social photos in addition to text can engage with customers sharing their experiences and leverage these “in the wild” insights to authentically engage in popular conversations. Be the star of the spotlight, not the photo bomb that ruins the picture. Contact us to see what photo insights reveal about your brand. @DittoLabs 10