No one likes flight delays. But when storms struck the northeast this summer, the social team at JetBlue took it as an opportunity to engage their fans and raise awareness about the effects of weather on operations. The result was an outpouring of support from customers, and one of their most engaging Page posts of the year. We spoke with JetBlue communications senior analyst Allison Steinberg to learn more.

 

Those clouds look pretty ominous.

This summer, the thunderstorms affecting operations were top of mind for everyone, including those travelling with us. Rob Vecchio, one of our ground operations crew members, snapped a great shot of the storm clouds coming in. We thought, what better way to show our customers why their plane might be delayed. How could a plane take off with severe weather coming? The picture really is worth a thousand words.

 

How did the photo make it from a ground operations crew member and onto the JetBlue Facebook Page so quickly?

We have a communications inbox where our crewmembers can send photos and observations from the frontline to be shared more broadly, whether it’s informing customers of operational updates, a fun story about something that just happened, or something we share internally.  

 

This photo was submitted very early in the morning, and I knew when I saw it that it would resonate. We’re strategic with our social media calendar and have a plan for engaging our fans, but we’re also always open to things that may come up that are of the moment.  There is a small group of us that work very closely on our Facebook channel. We had a brief meeting on how to share this photo that morning and then were able to turn it around quickly.

 

It’s really cool that team members outside of marketing know and feel empowered to send photos and stories to the social team.

We have a strong relationship with all of our crew.  The communication channels are very much open and transparent. I think it is a product of our company culture, that kind of two-way dialogue that we have across departments and functions. Part of it is also is that we make sure our internal teams know about our social channels, and know that they have a way of actively contributing content by submitting to the inbox.

 

The ability for us to listen to our customers online and get that information back to our crew also helps set up our operations teams for success. So it definitely works both ways: We establish a chain by giving them information and then they are able to reach back out and say hey, here’s something I saw on the frontline that would be great to share.

 

Listening to our customers and what’s going on in the world in general is also key to what we do. The other thing that was interesting about this post is that during this period of the storm, especially in New York where the storm was centered, we saw a spike of people posting really captivating pictures of the storm clouds. So not only did this post give us an opportunity to show what it meant to our operations, it also gave us an opportunity to enter the conversation that was going on in the world as it was happening.

 

 

 

JetBlue’s marketing and communications teams help give a voice to JetBlue’s 14,500 crewmembers. Pictured (from left to right): Allison Steinberg, Communications; Rob Vecchio, JFK Ground Operations; Sean Williams, Marketing.

 

In this new series, we’re reaching out to the copy editors, community managers and creatives behind some of the best page publishing to come across our news feed. Know any brands or agencies you want featured? Post your ideas in the comments or drop us a line.

In an election year marked by roller coaster primaries and strong political discourse, how can people move beyond the rhetoric and focus on the issues that matter to them?

During a 24-hour hackathon held on January 19, a group of creatives, developers, product managers and engineers from R/GA, Facebook and Thomson Reuters teamed up to tackle this challenge. The result is a socially-driven, lightweight application that measures which political issues matter most to people during this election year. The non-partisan “What Matters Most 2012” polls and app can be found at the Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/2012matters. It combines Facebook, mobile and digital out-of-home media.

The hackathon demonstrated the idea of “moving fast” when it comes to creativity and technology. Agencies are increasingly using technology and multiple platforms to create unique and useful experiences for consumers, and the day (and night) was a great illustration of this.

Answer what matters most to you here and share the polls with your friends.

It seems like it’s hard to go wrong with anything Justin Bieber-related, but The Branding Farm really took it to the next level with the “Never Say Never” DVD release campaign. NSN Weekend was all about getting psyched to watch the DVD together with your friends. The campaign saw more than 36,000 RSVPs to the global event, over 7,000 individual viewing parties created through Facebook Events, 22,000 shares and 242 million social impressions. To top it off, the campaign achieved a 10 percent conversion rate on clicks to buy. Hill Salomon, The Branding Farm’s founder and Creative Director, talks about how they made Bieber even bigger. 

It started with the recognition that the most important thing for us to deliver was a real world experience. We came to that realization by listening; we looked at the Bieber Facebook page and what was going on there, and across other social media following the buzz surrounding the release of the film. We wanted to find something that the fans were passionate about, and that we could make more engaging and valuable for them than standard DVD promotion. What we found was that fans were excited about getting together and having viewing parties. So we focused on creating a highly social, real-world event centered on the connections they share with their friends, and the fun that they’re going to have when they watch the DVD together.

Selling physical DVDs to digitally-oriented tweens isn’t the easiest task. We felt like we could best address the challenge by focusing on the real world event and amplifying the experience of watching the film with friends.

Once we knew we were going to focus the campaign on viewing parties, the next question was how. We knew that planning the viewing party and related activities were going to play a big part in the event. We saw fans talking about what they were going to eat, what they were going to wear and what games they were going to play. So we came up with ideas for cool activities that fans could do together to plan for the event itself, like making purple “Bieber-berry” cupcakes before the party. We offered a new piece of content each day for seven days leading up to the release, which resulted in return visits and increased awareness. 

For one, Facebook offers access to a huge portion of Justin Bieber’s audience. But what we particularly liked in this case was the ability to create events. When we honed in on the idea of NSN Weekend, we wanted to create something that had wide reach and accessibility. We created a Facebook event as a base for the NSN weekend concept and enabled people to RSVP with one-click. It also meant we could have a nice bridge between Justin’s existing presence on Facebook, where at the time he had about 24 million fans, and the NSN Weekend microsite. A landing tab on Justin’s Facebook page linked to the microsite. We used the events API to manage RSVPs to the global viewing event and also allowed users to create their own personal event and invite friends via Facebook. Through the platform, we were able to create a nice interplay between Justin’s page and the NSN weekend event.

It was of real strategic importance that we offer multiple ways for fans to engage with the campaign. We attempt to do that with all of our campaigns; we never assume it’s a one-size-fits-all for every fan. More dedicated fans may want to host their own viewing parties while others might just RSVP to the global viewing party and then sign-up for reminders of when the DVD drops. 

Obviously DVD sales were the primary goal and the CTR on the purchase button was the highest we’ve ever seen; that was a clear indicator of success. While that’s an extremely important figure and we’re really excited about it, we also try to look at a wide range of data to provide a comprehensive overview of what happened over the course of the campaign. Not only how many people RSVP’d and created their own viewing parties, but also how many people shared the content and then the way that content travelled. We use a combination of analytical tools, including Facebook Insights, to help capture and represent the ultimate visibility of the campaign as it spread through friends. We try to look at it as a four-step process: connections, activity, social impressions and then re-integration or response. Something like click to buy is one metric within one of those categories.

We recognized what the fans were looking for and provided something of tangible value in response. This was important to Justin Bieber and his team, too, so that became one of the central strategic imperatives. Overall, we tried to make the campaign meaningful. While it might sound a bit lofty to say, the reason that 800 million people are on Facebook everyday is because it adds meaning to their lives. A meaningful experience might come in the form of entertainment, or utility but if it can be authentic and provide some kind of valuable engagement, that’s where we like to start. 

Hill Salomon is founder and Creative Director of The Branding Farm.

Time: Thursday, January 12th from 9:30-11am PST (12:30pm EST, 5:30pm GMT) 

Location: http://on.fb.me/facebookstudiolive

From 9:30-11am PST (12:30pm EST, 5:30pm GMT), we will be streaming live from CES in Las Vegas. Please RSVP and post any questions you'd like answered during the Q&A section of our Creatives Talk below.

Tune in to watch a recorded version of Wednesday evening's Brand Keynote Panel with Carolyn Everson, Facebook's Vice President of Global Marketing Solutions. She will be joined by AT&T's David Christopher, General Electric's (GE) Beth Comstock, Walmart's Stephen Quinn, Hyundai's Steve Shannon and Unilever's Keith Weed. For more information, click here.

Tune in to hear Avi Savar, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a pure-play social media agency serving large brands, discuss trends from CES 2012. Avi will be sharing his thoughts on how these new technologies will impact marketers and the ingredients of the most successful social campaigns.

Please RSVP on our event page.

Agencies are doing amazing work on Facebook. We created Facebook Studio to help showcase all of that great work from around the world. We know the creative community appreciates being recognized for their innovative work, so it seemed like a natural way to recognize great creativity built on the Facebook platform.

Agencies are raising the bar for the entire industry, and we're dedicated to recognizing the people that are behind it. If you have campaigns you didn’t get in before the end of the year, we just extended the deadline to January 15 to give everyone a little extra time to submit their best campaigns from 2011.

We knew we wanted a cross section of creative leaders from across the industry. This is truly a global award—agencies from more than 40 countries have work published on Facebook Studio—and we wanted to make sure that the jury reflected that as well. We’re thrilled to have an amazing group on board including Jeff Benjamin from CP+B, Susan Credle of Leo Burnett, Steven Goldblatt of EVB, Nick Law of R/GA, David Sable of Y&R and Mark D’Arcy, Facebook’s director of global creative solutions.

We started by looking at the campaigns that we know have been really successful and thought about what makes them different. For example, we know that the best campaigns are based on a social insight—the reason to share the campaign is built into the campaign from the beginning. The criteria are also the same points we think about when working with clients and agencies, and for vetting our own ideas. They’re really the guiding principles for everything we do, and represent the fundamentals for what we believe leads to successful campaigns on Facebook.

Definitely think about the assets you're giving us. The more you can tell us, and the more descriptive you can be, the better. Video is one of the easiest ways to communicate a lot quickly, so we strongly recommend including a video that describes the work you did on Facebook.  If video isn’t an option, images that really show the experience will help tell the story as well. Also think about the criteria as you write your campaign descriptions. Make sure to tell us about the social insight behind your campaign, and how the campaign delivered on the client objective.

As the New Year approaches, it’s a perfect time to reflect on everything you’ve accomplished for your agency and your clients in 2011. Don’t miss these two opportunities to get recognized for your best work with Facebook.

 

We created the Facebook Studio Award to recognize the agencies that are behind some of the best campaigns on Facebook. You’ll find all the information you need here, and can submit your work by clicking the “Submit Your Work” button on the top right-hand of Facebook Studio. All work published to Facebook Studio is automatically in the running. Enter by December 31, 2011 to claim your place among the industry's best.

 

Entries combine Facebook with one or more traditional mediums such as film, print, and out of home in a new and innovative way. Visit the CLIO website for full details including entry guidelines and the 2011 winners.

I always say to the client, don’t brief us for the ad, brief us on the challenge. Kiasma had a problem on its hands. There was a lot of negative buzz surrounding the museum at the time – the public didn’t necessarily see the museum’s value and people weren’t happy about recent exhibition cancellations. Instead of taking the conventional route and apologize for everything, we recommended that Kiasma go on the offensive a bit, but in a clever way.

When we look at contemporary art, we’re often inspired by certain pieces, but sometimes a bit puzzled by others. A common reaction can be summed up by the phrase “My preschooler could have made that.” So we thought, let’s call their bluff and invite these critics to make contemporary art themselves.

Yes, we wanted to engage people, invite them to have a dialog and challenge them to create something positive. Facebook provided a wide-reaching and useful platform that made the dialogue possible. The campaign’s web gallery used Facebook Connect to display all the submitted artwork, and then fans could vote for their favorites by using the Like button. Every piece of communication we put out was a call to action, a challenge to “make a better one yourself then.” We ran posters outdoors that leveraged real critiques from real people. Comments such as “Just like a two-year-old’s scribble,” dared the public to try their hand at creating contemporary art.

Before we launched the campaign, I thought 100 submissions would be a phenomenal response. When all was said and done, there were more than 600 pieces in the online gallery. It was truly astounding. 

To be honest, this type of campaign is always a bit of an unknown. You don’t know exactly what’s going to happen but you just have to be brave. When Kiasma first heard the idea, they fell in love with it. Now they had a solution that not only confronted the problem but also invited people to contribute something positive. We then focused on getting as much attention as possible, and creating ways participants could easily share their engagement with friends. We invited everyone, whether they loved us or hated us, and in the end, we changed people’s mind about Kiasma.

As far as the criticism goes, if people are saying negative things, it’s just their opinion. I think the consumer relationship can grow even deeper with criticism. We need to be bold and we need to give people fantastic content that enables a true dialogue. That’s what makes the campaign social. 

Most refer to the Mad Men era as the golden era of advertising. But for me, today is the golden age of creativity. The advertising industry has never been forced to be as creative as it has to be now. We have all these wonderful instruments - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, you name it – that allow us to deepen the relationship between the brand and the consumer. Audiences are willing to live in an ad if they are provided with the proper content. 

With all the possibilities that these new platforms give us, the advertising opportunities are truly enormous. Facebook is one of the most important tools for opening up real conversations. We just need to be clever and use it the right way. It is clearly the golden age of creativity and we’re having the time of our lives.

** We're delighted to announce the winners of the Facebook Studio Live Chicago hack challenge! Read on for the announcement of the winning team.**

Nearly 49 million Americans—more than 17 percent of American households— live with limited access to regular, quality meals due to a lack of money and other resources. As the largest network of food banks across the U.S., Feeding America’s mission is to end hunger nationwide, and help change perceptions about the issue.

At Facebook Studio Live in November, Chicago’s agency community was challenged to find creative ways for Feeding America to reach, engage and activate more people with its message. Mixed-agency teams competed during a two-hour hackathon to develop initiatives to implement in 2012. Together with members of Facebook, the teams worked to find solutions that use Facebook to inspire people to share Feeding America’s message with their friends, in addition to taking action themselves. Feeding America, the Ad Council and Facebook are delighted to announce that Team 17 won the challenge with its proposal for “Dinner and Dinner.” 

“Dinner and Dinner” centers on a partnership with an online restaurant reservation service. When people make a restaurant reservation they can also make a donation to Feeding America, and at the same time, share their donation with friends via Facebook and invite them to also donate. The partnership could extend to credit card and deals partners, enabling additional opportunities to make donations and encourage friends to do the same. Feeding America is actively looking into partnerships with some of the leading reservation websites to make this idea come to life.

From Stephanie Rath, Director of Marketing for Feeding America: “With one in six Americans at risk of hunger, hunger is an urgent issue in the U.S. today.  We were thrilled with the fresh ideas generated by everyone at the hack.  While we selected ‘Dinner and Dinner’ from Team 17 as the winner, there were many great insights that we hope to integrate into our efforts moving forward. We thank Facebook for their support in raising awareness of this critical issue.” 

Find Feeding America on Facebook to show your support and discover how you can get involved.

“Dinner and Dinner” / Team 17

Christiana Basso, Cramer-Krasselt

Kevin Flatt, Cramer-Krasselt

Katie Schnepf, Digitas

Ian Sohn, Ogilvy

Daniel Verakis, Cramer-Krasselt