It’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of Toyota’s third-generation Prius ads. “Harmony,” as it’s dubbed, features over a million people in costumes, who supply the landscape of which the Prius is featured.
It’s simply marketing genius.
As the behind-the-scenes footage shows, Toyota’s goal was to embrace the car, landscape, and a community of people — all in one marketing campaign. Not only does this do it effectively, but it also gives a relaxing look and feel to the commercials, and grabs the audience’s attention, as it’s something that’s unique and really that’s never been done before.
In addition, the campaign is carried out through Toyota’s mini-site for the Prius, and also with Facebook and Twitter pages. Overall, it’s a great (not to mention, effective) media marketing campaign.
We’ve all heard of Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. YouTube. The list goes on. But now businesses are getting in the game, and trying to figure out how social networks can draw in customers and help their brand image.
Companies might start a Twitter help account, that can respond to users’ questions and comments. Facebook might serve as a way to distribute coupons or spread further brand awareness. YouTube could take over giving instructions to customers who just bought a new product.
Take a case in point. When I co-started GR Grub at the beginning of August, we had no brand awareness. No one knew who we were, what we were doing, or even that we existed. When we launched our website, we needed to get the word out. Our first attack was through Facebook. We achieved over 100 followers in less than 24 hours. That number is now over 350, and includes people that neither of us know. With Twitter, we took more of a conservative measure, and that number didn’t reach 100 until last week.
Either way, to have that many fans and followers in a short amount of time can be influential to your brand’s awareness. But at the same time, the content needs to speak for itself too.
Since we’ve launched our Twitter and Facebook pages, we have consistently been posting articles from other sources regarding all types of food news. By doing this, we create a larger community, and (hopefully) some of our articles get re-posted as well.
All of it leads to one thing — better brand awareness, and more online success. By taking advantage of social networks, you’re increasing your search engine presence, and essentially drawing more visitors to your website.
After a few weeks of hectic WordPress theming, I’ve finally unveiled my latest project — Grand Rapids Grub. The website, http://www.grgrub.com, features restaurant reviews from around West Michigan, as well as event listings and an “On the Road” section for reviews from other locations. The project is a collaboration between myself and Rob Kirkbride.
The WordPress theme is a heavily coded magazine theme to fit our tastes. It features user polls, several ways to share articles, and will soon feature the ability to rank restaurants on a star system, as well as other collaborative items. In our first 24 hours online, we received over 100 followers on Facebook, and are now well over 300.
In addition to the website, I produced a logo based off of an orange and dark red color scheme that fits well with the rest of the site.
Anyways, I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding this, so go check out the website and let me know what you think! http://www.grgrub.com
Update: Be sure to follow GR Grub on Facebook and Twitter too!
