Comments on: Product Red Shows How Social Media Marketing Should Be Done

By: Social Media Optimization » Social Media Optimization (SMO) in 2007

Social Media Optimization » Social Media Optimization (SMO) in 2007 — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 12:57:01 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: David Wilson

David Wilson — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 18:59:25 +0000

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.

By: Natasha Robinson

Natasha Robinson — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:54:11 +0000

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.”

By: Natasha Robinson

Natasha Robinson — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:45:50 +0000

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?