Companies are starting to realise that they need to access their customers as individuals.
This is according to Pierre Cassuto, executive producer at Ogilvy Interactive. Speaking at Microsoft's Intervate conference, Cassuto said social media provides a way for brands to engage with their customers. He said the recent Hippo Insurance campaign, carried out by Native, is an example of brands doing exactly this.
For the campaign, the company's mascot, a hippo, surprises consumers with a “random act of kindness” based on something they had tweeted. For example, when Hulisani Ravele tweeted that she was “burning the midnight oil”, the hippo surprised her with a spa treatment.
According to Craig Hannabus, content team technical lead at Native, social media was chosen for the campaign to create a personality for the hippo that the public could interact with. “We wanted to take a character that did not have a strong personality and endear him to a community and give him a fan base. The only way to do that was using social media,” he explains. According to Hannabus, the public responded to the hippo as if he were a real person.
Hannabus says the campaign was successful, with Hippo Insurance's Facebook fan page following growing to over 7 500 in a three-month period. He points out that this was also done on a modest budget.
He argues that more brands will use social media in the future, adding that brands need to communicate with the public. “The fact is that it is the public that owns the brand, and not people sitting around a boardroom table,” he says.
Hannabus adds that brands will lose popularity if they do not listen to what the consumer is saying. “The market is becoming more and more competitive, and the only way to get the edge over your competition is to have a personal relationship with your customer,” he concludes.
Watch the video of Ravele's surprise visit here.
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