Bob Dylan message cards – right idea, wrong generation?
Most people (above a certain age) will recognize Dylan’s iconic 1965 video Subterranean Homesick Blues. To promote the release of Dylan’s greatest hits, the cue card sequence has been adapted so users can generate their own messages and send them to friends. Try it - it’s very neatly done.
So, will it work? My gut feeling is no. The average Dylan fan is around my dad’s age – and not computer savvy enough to send messages to friends through a pop video, however old the video is. No doubt the greatest hits album is aimed at new fans and people who simply want some Dylan in their collection, so the target audience for the ad campaign is not die-hard Dylan fans. But still, I’m not convinced. There are plenty of artists out there whose videos would be ripped by the million - but we’re looking at another generation.
By the way, I found out about this at MediaSoon – a great place to find out how the advertising industry is using new media and adapting old.
October 9th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Did you know that this is also a Facebook appication? I had it for a while on my profile, and used it to abuse a friend!
When I checked a minute ago there were just 616 daily active users. However, I suspect many more have had it on their profile and then gotten rid of it once the joke has worn thin.
TechCrunch and Mashable both gave it a lot of good press. Maybe you’re right though, and that Dylan isn’t the right choice of artist for cutting edge guerilla marketing.
October 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Hmm. 616 isn’t a huge amount of active daily users. But the good press on well-known and respected sites like TechCrunch and Mashable will help. Let’s wait and see.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
According to Sony/BMG the effort got over 100,000 individual viral creations within 4 weeks of launch and a three-fold increase in Internet searches for his name. Not a bad result in anybody’s book.
As part of a larger marketing effort, IMO it’s a classic viral campaign designed to hit the younger end of Dylan’s market. The younger end is definitely there - music savvy Radio 6 type listeners. I’m absolutely sure most people going to eg Glasto would know the original Dylan film sequence.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hey, Paul. Thanks for the update.
Nice to know I’m not always right!
October 10th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Response/click rates are standard measurements of marketing campaign effectiveness and the viral creation numbers that Paul quote lead me to believe that this campaign would be considered a success. Therefore, I agree with Paul that this campaign is a success by those measurements. However, I’m always dubious of these types of success measurement unless I can see the numbers of the ultimate goal of most my clients - the purchasing of their product/service/solution.
Target market activity and increased involvement is obvioulsy great and a desired result in itself. A key benefit is the increase in brand awareness and prospects’ willingness to receive and act upon subsequent campaigns. Used as part of an overall marketing campaign, viral marketing can be quite effective. However, my feeling is the ultimate goal of this individual campaign was to increase sales of Dylans greatest hits. Unless purchases of the Dylan’s greatest hits albums increased due to this campaign, I’d say the campaign wasn’t a success where it really counted.
Obviously, I could be wrong and that this campaign was but one piece of an overall campaign.
IMO unless brand awareness/strengthening is the goal of a campaign or the product/service/solution is complex, requiring customer education and a longer buying cycle, I want to see the correlation between my campaigns and overall purchases of my product. At the very least, I’d want to see that my campaign moved my suspect/prospect further down the buying cycle or motivated them to buy my product now. I’d also prefer a clear call to action that will lead to these goals in the shortest amount of time. Obviously, these desired outcomes need to be balanced against the need to be creative in reaching and motivating the target market.
So…what’s my point? I believe both Paul and Dan are correct. The viral creations concept seemed to be a creative way of reaching and motivating the target market. Yet the click and viral creation rates are not definitive success indicators in my opinion. Until I see the correlation between these rates and the purchase rates of the product (or am told that this was one piece of an overall campaign strategy), the jury is still out in determining was this campaign the best use of my marketing dollar. Or more importantly, was this campaign the best use of my clients’ money to increase their sales?
October 10th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
The viral execution is most certainly part of a bigger campaign. Comparable measurement metrics across all media is a laudable goal but in reality one that’s only going to be achieved if you’ve got really big brands and big budgets. It’s only happening properly at the moment with one experiment in the US backed by Coke, P&G, Unilever, Nielsen etc. It’s called Project Apollo.
Isolating advertising effects in a complex mixed media campaign is as near as damn it impossible, especially in smaller markets where ad messages are constantly overlapping and interfering with each other. Not to mention newer communication effects like social media, blogs etc.
Rejecting innovative media on the basis of it not producing comparable metrics puts you in a silo and restricts you to traditional media forms and traditional media measurement.
Great media campaigns are often a balance of the measured and trusted and the innovative and experimental. And yes of course the end result has to include evidence of sales success. But don’t count on tracking it back to one particular item on the communications schedule.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
I’ve just did a quick scan of websites commenting on the Dylan messaging site (which is perhaps something I should have done before making my initial post). It seems that positive comments are flowing for it and have been for a while.
As both Paul and Derek point out, judging the success of a campaign like this (especially as its part of a larger campaign) is difficult, to say the least. But whatever the return in sales, the amount of noise the campaign has generated is quite impressive.
On another note, my girlfriend’s reaction to the concept was somewhat different. She simply said: “And Dylan let them do that?”
Mind you, he might not have had much say in the matter.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:35 am
You might be surprised what Dylan gets up to these days, Dan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq7W7icd-Fc
btw I expect he ultimately signs off on every major piece of marketing.