Product Red Shows How Social Media Marketing Should Be Done
The Product Red initiative (the charity backed by Bono established to raise awareness and money to invest in African AIDS programs) launched recently and it is quickly turning into the poster child for how to successfully advertise on social networks.
Heather Hopkins at Hitwise had some interesting data on the UK success of the Product Red campaign:
MySpace accounted for 89.5% of upstream visits to (PRODUCT) Red last week and MySpace Mail was the #2 referrer of visits, accounting for 3.8% of website visits. Tom’s email directed me (and all other members who accepted Tom’s initial welcome to MySpace) to (RED)’s MySpace profile that includes links to (PRODUCT) Red and other related websites. Last week (PRODUCT) Red was the #18 downstream website from MySpace, which last week ranked #10 based on share of UK internet visits among all categories of websites.
Brands associated with (RED) seem to be benefiting from the MySpace promotion. Converse Online received 9.34% of downstream visits from (PRODUCT) Red last week, Gap received 7.9%, and American Express 2.16%.
Interestingly, the US data from Leeann Prescott showed that:
On the day of Bono’s appearance on Oprah, Hitwise shows that US traffic to the Join (RED) website increased by 2600 percent versus the previous day, and the Oprah website was the source of 20.5 percent of visits to Join (RED) that day. This differs considerably from our UK data which show that MySpace was the lead source of traffic for Join (RED), possibly due to a message sent to MySpace UK users. As a US resident, I did not receive a message from MySpace Tom about (RED) and in the US only 2.6% of Join (RED)’s traffic came from MySpace for the week ending October 14, 2006.
What is most impressive about the Product Red campaign is that 66.3% of visits to Join (RED) continued on to one of the (Product) RED merchandise partner websites for the week ending October 14, 2006. Gap, as the most visible sponsor, was the leading beneficiary of traffic from Join (RED) website, receiving 26.9% of visits to the site last week. Consumers have bought into the concept and are willing to engage with the brands involved in.
Brands are increasingly looking at social networks for opportunities to engage with a younger audience. Product RED offers a best practice case study of how brands can engage with consumers in innovative ways online, whilst contributing to a good cause.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (4) : Oct 24th, 2006
October 24th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
I think what is missing in that analysis is the “oprah factor” - The Red Initiative appeared on Oprah at the same time as the uptick in traffic. Don’t you think that accounts for a whole heap of that traffic as well?
October 24th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
I got the answer to my question in the next post on that blog:
“On the day of Bono’s appearance on Oprah, Hitwise shows that US traffic to the Join (RED) website increased by 2600 percent versus the previous day, and the Oprah website was the source of 20.5 percent of visits to Join (RED) that day. This differs considerably from our UK data which show that MySpace was the lead source of traffic for Join (RED), possibly due to a message sent to MySpace UK users. As a US resident, I did not receive a message from MySpace Tom about (RED) and in the US only 2.6% of Join (RED)’s traffic came from MySpace for the week ending October 14, 2006.”
October 24th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
The appearance on Oprah obviously had an impact on the success of the campaign Natasha as it helped drive people to the Red web site. As part of any successful marketing initiative, the Product Red campaign utilized both online and offline tactics.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:57 am
[...] What I expect to see in 2007 is for more mainstream marketers to move into SMO. The success of the Product Red campaign. The Product Red initiative (the charity backed by Bono established to raise awareness and money to invest in African AIDS programs) launched recently and it quickly turned into the poster child for how to successfully advertise on social networks. [...]