An "All About Me" World

We all know the type: the person who always has to make everything about themselves. They can't be happy for your recent engagement without bringing up their recent promotion, and no matter how bad your day was, theirs was definitely worse.

It appears brands have taken this strategy on in the digital age. Quite simply, newsjacking is when a brand publiclyshares their views about a current event in order to rack up some free attention for themselves. The ever popular example is Oreo's dunk in the dark tweet during the Super Bowl, but if you look closely, you will see newsjacking is all around.

Oreo's famous tweet from the 2013 Super Bowl

This past June, the United States Supreme Court granted same sex couples equal rights and benefits under federal law bu striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This was an amazing day in our country's history, and people as well as brands took the opportunity to celebrate.

Wait. Were these brands celebrating, or attempting to get media coverage for themselves?

Take MasterCard for example, who shared their support on Twitter and offered incentives for those also sharing their support and engaging in the conversation:

 

Initially this brings warm and fuzzy feelings to see a brand being passionate about such a cause.

But then you learn that MasterCard also currently happened to be running a sweepstakes with the NYC Pride parade. Would they have been so verbal and trying to get so much attention if they did not have a current sweepstakes initiative?

Did it work? Of course it did, everyone was talking about DOMA that day on Twitter and saw MasterCard tweets. In addition, there is no question of whether MasterCard was loyal and supported gay marriage or not because they already had the sweepstakes running, so the brand appeared to be a truthful proponent. My inbox was flooded with advertising industry news about MasterCard's genius tweets, and many other news sources referenced its tweets that day. MasterCard definitely got some attention. 

There is no doubt that newsjacking is effective. Brands get free press if they do it right (or possibly wrong), gain loyalists who also support the cause and have an opportunity to create content.

But, the tactic is new. Some brands haven't caught on. Will newsjacking have any worth when every brand is doing it for every big announcement? If the majority of brands newsjacked DOMA, would any journalists have bothered to write about MasterCard? Will it get to the point that brands aren't even really true or supportive of the news they are jacking because they are just trying to get attention?

Brands, don't be that friend.

More Data, More Problems?

This past weekend at the Legends of Summer concert at Yankee Stadium, Jay Z rapped his famous line "more money, more problems." As I stood there, in the 99 degree heat, watching a man with jewelry on him worth more than all the jewelry I will probably ever own, on stage in front of thousands of his fans, I wondered "did having more money really bring Jay Z more problems?!"

I obviously understand the concept. The more of something you have, the more you have to deal with it and manage it. Same goes for big data. The world suddenly is overwhelmed by all the information available at our fingertips. According to Google's Eric Schmidt, in 2 days, humans can create the same amount of information that it took from the beginning of time until 2003 to create.

As someone who spends most of their day using numbers and results to prove that an ad campaign was effective, or that a target consumer is in X, Y o r Z advertising medium, I was nodding my head while reading the Harvard Business Review article Advertising Analytics 2.0. I was in total agreement with the statement about how all of the new data can take an existing marketing budget but re-allocate it and create a 10-50% performance increase. Too often I see media bought and sold based on what people like or don't like, all while ignoring statistics.

Check out one Big Data Evangelist's POV

But then I read about Netflix knowing "House of Cards" was going to be a huge success before they even began filming, because they had so much data on consumers they knew what it took to make a hit show.

Is this scary?

Well, Netflix has over 30 million subscribers, and knows what those subscribers watch and when they watch and what they like. I'd be concerned if they were just sitting on that data and crossing their fingers hoping for the best financially...especially in this economy.

For a second, I was worried I was being brainwashed by Netflix, and whoever else was targeting me based on my online behavior.

But then I realized: I'm too busy to research the millions of shows and movies and products there are out there. It could legitimately take me a year to research the best volumizing shampoo now that I have Amazon, and can have any brand of shampoo in the world shipped to me. Same goes for TV, I know it takes a few episodes to get hooked, but then if I don't get hooked...that's time I will never get back. If someone else is going to plug in a few numbers, track my behavior and recommend for me within moments what I am going to like best, and in fact I am going to absolutely love it ... maybe I should just thank them.

Summer Love

I cannot go home to Chester County, Pennsylvania without coming across Victory Beer. I don't even need to go to a store or bar to find the beer, just this past weekend I went home to lounge by my best friend's pool, and her brother came home wearing a Victory shirt because he is doing a summer internship there as part of his Tourism & Hospitality Management degree at Temple University.

I'm not much of a beer connoisseur, but there is a cult following for this stuff, which I only discovered after I moved out of PA and found myself face to face with people asking me wide eyed about growing up in the same town as the brewery. People fall hard for this beer - it's no wonder they named their summer ale "Summer Love" - finding Victory beer in a bar outside of PA brings happiness akin to the memory of a first summer love.

MacBook view: victorybeer.com

Victory knows it has a cult like following, which they take full advantage of on their website. The content features a beer finder allowing users to find the bar closest to them that carries Victory (anywhere in the US), an explanation of all of their beers, the restaurant menu, an event calendar and facts and videos about how the beer is made.

On all platforms (laptop, tablet, mobile device) victorybeer.com creates a very classic and traditional American feel by utilizing a red, white and blue color scheme (and of course the name "Victory" helps with American pride as well). But, America is the "new world," just as Victory is a relatively "new" beer, so they remind you that they know what they are doing with the tag line "European Tradition. American Integrity."

If the phrase "American tradition" alone does not let you know you are drinking a quality beer, the website is so aesthetically pleasing (simple, yet artistic) that it just screams "QUALITY!" reminding consumers that paying premium price is worth it for this beer. Good looks go a long way, and the page featuring all of their beers is so creative it feels as though there is something for everyone, from the traditionalists to the day dreamers.

Just a few of the Victory brews! Check out the full list and find what is right for you at http://www.victorybeer.com/beers/

The text is a bit small on the website, but the blue space on the sides of the main content help the eye know where to focus. There is a lot of content on each of the pages, so utilizing all of the space would make it too cluttered.

Find a Victory event near you at http://www.victorybeer.com/events/

iPhone view: victorybeer.com

 If it isn't apparent by now that I think Victory is a great beer with a great marketing strategy, let me tell you about the experience loading their website on my mobile device:  it's brilliant.

Upon opening victorybeer.com on my iPhone I noticed that their main content best viewed on a laptop is downplayed, but easily viewable and most prominent are "Upcoming Events" and the "Beer Finder." Victory knows  that people on the go are pulling up the website because they're trying to find an address of the event Victory is at, or a bar that carries the beer. Brilliant. Plus, their text is huge and easy to scroll, which almost negates my comment about the small text when viewing on a desktop.

Victory does fall short on the iPad experience, where users are not as on the go as an iPhone viewer. The tablet experience appears to be very similar to the desktop experience, which makes sense, until you struggle to hit the arrow keys which are too small for fingers on an iPad. Additionally, the scrolling images are not able to be viewed by swiping a finger across the image, which seems strange to a tablet viewer who navigates by swiping their fingers across the screen. 

Easy to click text on iPhone

iPad view: victorybeer.com

Now, if only Victory would move their social media page links to the top of their website from the bottom, Victory Beer might be successful at achieving world domination.

Victory's Facebook page is pretty cool, despite the fact you can barely see the link on their website

Cheers!