Marketing Centerline.
Installment 3: The Importance Of “Making”
I’ve referenced the Oreo Super Bowl Tweet — a single Tweet from more than 2 years ago — several times over the last couple of weeks. It’s something that I thought was ancient news. Apparently it was an indication of the future instead.
First, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the story. In short, the lights went out in the Super Dome during the third quarter of Super Bowl XLVII (2013). Within 10 minutes of the incident, and while the lights were still out and the commentators were killing air time, this post went out on Facebook and Twitter:
The simple joke by a cookie company garnered 15,000 retweets and 20,000 likes on Facebook before the end of the game. Think about it… once the lights went out, nothing was happening in the game. People watching the game on TV turned to their second (or third) screen and started engaging. Oreo took advantage with speed and cultural relevance. And in so doing, they took over the “brand game” within the football game without paying for the $1,000,000+ thirty-second spot. (Even tough they had run one earlier in the game.)
The key to making it happen? “Turns out they had a 15-person social media team at the ready to respond to whatever happened online in response to the Super Bowl — whether it was a mind-blowing play or half the lights shutting off.”
They had strategists, social media community managers, copywriters and artists all sitting together in a room ready to take action based on opportunity. They had the ability to handle all aspects of content creation and activation sitting together and ready to go.
That may not sound revolutionary… it sounds a lot like common sense. But there are plenty of agencies (and internal marketing organizations) that don’t have all the talent available to execute in this way. Centerline does. It’s one of the traits that make us unique and powerful. Especially as the future of marketing — real-time marketing — rapidly becomes more… real.
Charles likes to compare it to Saturday Night Live. Much of the content in SNL is put together in less than a week. And it has to happen that way because culture moves that fast. They base their content on what’s most top of mind for the viewers — the context of the situational sketches are what bring laughs. It’s a read-and-react mentality. And methodology.
That’s why being able to “make” is so important to who we are as an organization. The ability to make what we determine is right — most relevant in terms of business goal and message and channel — means our clients’ content will have the greatest effect. The process isn’t mired in agency hand-offs or the misunderstandings that go along with that.
The importance of making relevant content quickly will only grow. As channels continue to proliferate… as the speed of communication continues to accelerate… as the expectation of agencies change, with CMOs demanding partners who can think and act as they themselves would do if they could… our standing as makers will grow in importance as a differentiating factor.
For those of you paying close attention, I know I said the next post was going to be on People, Process and Content. But plans must be agile, so that topic will now be Installment 4… or maybe not.
