I always cringe when I see the amount of money companies and brands spend on TV advertising in order to blast their message at as many consumers as possible in the hope that something will register in their customers brains so as they buy their products. Don’t get me wrong, TV adverts work and have done so for a lot longer than social media is around but they could just be offering so much more. Why does the advertising have to stop when the money for TV adverts runs out? Companies absolutely need to be thinking about ways in which they can leverage social media to extend the range of their adverts and keep the relationship with the customer going long after the 30 second TV clip is over. Now i can hear readers screaming that lots of people already do this with Facebook.com/companyX type URLs at the end of the ads but do you really think many people click through to those URLs? I don’t.

As always the USA is miles ahead of us on this one and you only have to look at the adverts from the super bowl and not only do they all have links through to social media profiles but they are all measured in how effective the social media element of the advert is. Getting people’s attention is getting harder and harder and you really have to offer them something of real value through social media (think amazing customer service or special discounts) in order to cut through the noise.

A Good Example

This is by no means a great advert but what it does for the restaurant chain it is advertising is that it puts both Facebook and Twitter at the very center of the story line and lets viewers know in no uncertain terms that the restaurant not only has social media profiles but that the users should follow or become fans to benefit from special deals. After the adverts ran (10 Ads on local networks) they saw 1500 new Facebook fans and 150 new followers on Twitter so there was a direct long term benefit there.

A Bad Example

You are probably going to look at the video I have selected and say that I am mad as it is one of the best known adverts of the last year with over 18 million views on YouTube but bear with me. Sure the ad went viral and is known all over the world but can you imagine the power it could have had with a social media element thrown in? The people who love the ad are even crying out for it with a Facebook page created especially for the advert and approaching a half a million fans. That Facebook page is unofficial and has no posts in over a month on the wall which is just shocking. Half a million people wanting to interact with your brand and nobody there to take advantage of that fact. There are millions of ways social media could have been leveraged including video competitions, cute baby photos etc, basically let your imagination run wild! This advert should have been amplified further through social media and Evian could easily have had a couple of million fans to promote future ads and products to.

The Future

All ads will be social in the future, I have no doubt about that. Having a URL at the end of your advert just won’t cut it anymore. Ads will have to evolve. A whole new generation are sitting on their couches watching TV with a laptop on their knees and soon we will be watching videos on our touchscreen devices and interacting with the ads as they play and passing them on to our friends. The days of broadcasting a message out to a couple of million people are nearly over and the smart brands and businesses are already changing and embracing social media in their ads.

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