Differentiation

David (Under Armour) versus Goliath (Nike)

In February 2013, USA Today reported that sports apparel rival Under Amour is taking on its giant competitor Nike over trademark infringement of the “I Will” slogan. After reading that story, I started wondering if relatively new (1995) to the sports appeal game, Under Amour, could take on the more established (1971 but started earlier) sports apparel behemoth Nike in the fast-paced social media game.

Upon first glance, it would appear that both brands have a similar social media strategy. Each Tweets, posts to Facebook and promotes videos on Youtube. They both use a variety of social networks to engage over a variety of sports related topics, fitness strategies and sports personalities. Both appeal companies have established a variety of engagement channels around specific sports and gender such as Nike Football and Nike Soccer or Under Amour Women.

Where the competitors seem to part ways is in the scale and scope. As you would think, Nike is leading the way on Facebook with 12,627,155 likes, 69,869 talking about this, 11,173 were here as of April 14.  On Twitter, they have 1,024,473 followers and more than 11,000 tweets. An example of the grand scale or scope to which Nike engages through social networks is their 2012 Olympics campaign. This campaign celebrated every day athletes and according to Socialbakers’ CheerMeter there were more than 16,000 tweets associating Nike with the word Olympic between July 27 and August 2. In addition. Nike attracted 166,718 new Facebook fans during the Games.

In comparison, Under Amour only has 186,966 Twitter followers and a little more than 6,500 tweets. On Facebook, they have 2,313,156 likes, 19,685 talking about this and a mere 1,060 were here. It would appear that Under Amour is out of its league trying to play on the same field as its larger, more seasoned competition Nike. I would contend there is more to the story and Under Armour while having the smaller numbers is laser focused on their target audience. “Our goal overall — when I got here a year ago — was to look at growing the audience and making sure we’re getting the right audience, which is 12- to 24-year-olds,” says Digital Media Director Dan Mecchi. To do so, “we activate our athletes — Michael Phelps, Lindsey Vonn — around our teams, whether they’re high school, college or the Ravens or Patriots.” Mecchi says this approach gets people involved with Under Armour in a cost-effective way.

An example of how Under Armour is engaging with their target audience in a more cost effective way than Nike is their Ultimate Intern campaign which they asked college students to blog, video and interview athletes to compete for two internship opportunities. The finalists were interviewed via Skype. Another example of Under Amour competing on a smaller scale is their sponsorship of the 2012 NFL Combine were potential young NFL candidate display their athletic talents to potential teams for draft day. This campaign included letting industry insiders actually tweet their experiences of the day on behalf of @underamour. In my opinion, these simply campaigns have garnered Under Amour under estimated brand power and credibility with their target audience.

In comparing these two companies, Nike has far more followers and fans, however I contend that Under Amour is more engaged with their limited targeted audience. They are doing more engagement with less resources and brand recognition. My argument may be validated by the recent announcement that Nike would be taking their social media in-house as an effort to get closer to its fans.

Sounds like Nike may be stealing a play from Under Armour’s social media playbook.

 

References

Miller, M., (2011) Under Armour. Brand Channel. Retrieved April 13 from http://www.brandchannel.com/features_webwatch.asp?ww_id=520

Weissman, S., (2013). Under Armour’s social media internship challenge, Retrieved April 13 from http://www.digiday.com/brands/under-armours-social-media-internship-challenge/

Drell, L., (2012) 5 fitness brands kicking butt on social media, Retrieved on April 14 from http://mashable.com/2012/01/06/fitness-brands-social-media/

Laird, S., (2012) How Under Armour wants to socially dominate the NFL draft combine, Retrieved April 13 from http://mashable.com/2012/02/24/under-armour-nfl-draft-combine/

Sallow, E., (2011) How Nike Outruns the social media competition, Retrieved April 13 from http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/nike-social-media/

Ruiz, J., (2013) SoMolo marketing: a Nike case study. Retrieved April 14 from http://socialmediatoday.com/joseph-ruiz/1188271/somolo-marketing-nike-case-study

Joseph, S. (2013) Nike takes social media in house. Marketing Week. Retrieved April 14 from http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/sectors/sport/nike-takes-social-media-in-house/4005240.article

 

MickeyD’s Got Jacked

Developing a successful social media campaign for any company can be pretty tricky. Social media strategists have to consider so many variables like budget, desired results, ROI, frequency and customer relationships and reaction. Even the best company with the best intentions and best content managers can stumble. The biggest brands occasionally miss the mark. In social media, every campaign has the potential to create bad press, aggravate the customer and add unexpected risk. There is a fine line to reaching the right balance of push and pull. In addition, customers often have the upper hand in social media they can respond quickly and control the discussion before a company even relies there is an issue or a problem. In early 2012, McDonald’s, America’s fast food giant and one of the most respected and iconic brands discovered how social media can increase risk and expo the company to negative reactions.

The mega brand created what should have been a fun and basic Twitter campaign. The goal of the campaign was to share with millions of consumers who were the producers of McDonald’s food. With the hashtag #MeetTheFarmers, the world was set to learn about the fresh produce and local farmers who are the partners with McDonald’s. The campaign was moving along when the social strategists decided to add a new hashtag to the campaign. As an extension for the MeetTheFarmers hastag the marketers started tweeting with a new hashtag McDStories. McDonald’s used the hashtag #McDStories to promote video content of their suppliers talking about McDonald’s ingredients.

Unfortunately for MickeyDs the campaign was twitterjacked by consumers complaining about the company’s service and the quality of the food. Thousands of negative stories filled the twitter account of McDonalds. Consumers we complaining about everything from stale food to poor customer service.

Where did McDonald’s go wrong and how did the company respond?

One of the main reason’s the twitter campaign was easily hijacked was because the hashtag #McDStories played off of the company’s name recognition leaving the company easily exposed. In contrast the hashtag #MeetTheFarmers was very generic and not associated with McDonald’s name. In response to the negative tweets, the campaign managers started to delete the posts and ignored the rest. These tactics only fuels more negative posts leading to greater risk. The “groundswell” continued for months.

The iconic brand can navigate print media, but struggled with responding to the new technology. The best way to respond to negative feedback on social technologies is to respond honestly and often with humour when the situation is appropriate. McDonald’s could have responded with self deprecating humour and offered discounts for positive stories.

As McDonald’s discovered being an effective social media communicator takes more than a clever idea. The effective communicator has to fully understand how consumers respond in social media and plan for the best and worst responses. Social media can be powerful and positive technology — but McDonald’s learned the hard way that it also has its risks.

References

Retrieved from http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/11056-the-top-10-social-media-fails-of-2012

Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/hollis-thomases/mcdonalds-mcdstories-twitter-mess.html

Retrieved from http://investorplace.com/2012/01/mcdonalds-mcd-big-twitter-fail-meetthefarmers-mcdstories/

 

You’re Fired

I love social media, I like being connected to family and friends, I like reading funny posts, I’m learning to love pinning and laughing a funny situations. My smiles turned to frowns when my manager asked me to write the social media policy for my company.

This task seemed completely daunting as I started to read through the endless recommendations from legal advisors, human resources professionals and industry consultants. The more I read, the more confused I became. The National Labor Relations Board has made several ruling that have left employers scrambling to understand the rules. Did you know your employer might be able to fire you for ranting about the company on Facebook? Did you know your employer CANNOT fire you for discussing salary and work conditions with other employees on Facebook or any other network? When it comes to talking about workplace activities on your social networks the key word is CAUTION! Here are a few simply guidelines that will likely keep you out of trouble at work.

1. Never discuss proprietary information online. If you feel the need to discuss company secrets go have a physical conversation with one of your co-workers. Disclosing trademarked company information could earn you a pink slip.

2. Don’t talk poorly about your boss or other employees. While you may not be fired, you sure won’t win friends or influence people. Most of the time having success at work, means getting along with others and being a team player.

3. Always disclose. Be transparent. If you are responding to a post or a blog about your company or industry always let the other readers know who you work for and that you are not an official spokesperson for the company.

4. You are responsible for your posts. Remember, defamation and slander laws could apply. You can still be sued.

5. Avoid using company property to Tweet, Facebook or communicate to social networks. The company supplies you a PC, Laptop, MacBook and Blackberry to help you complete your tasks. It is likely your employee can and will monitor your activity. Read your company handbook to completely understand the policy.

6. Don’t call in sick then post your vacation pictures. No explanation required, right?

7. When in doubt, do without.

8. Free speech is free, until it cost you your job.

Most companies recognize that employees, vendors and partners are participating in online conversations. We should all be committed to ensuring that everyone participates the right way. It is important to use common sense and best practices.

http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2012/10/nlrb-social-media-policy-ruling-sets.html

http://www.nlrb.gov/news/acting-general-counsel-releases-report-social-media-cases