A lot of what has been called “social advertising” hasn’t been very imaginative, very effective—or very social.
Simply running display ads on social sites doesn’t make those ads social. What make the social space different and powerful are the connections it creates between people. So unless the ad is also doing that – creating a connection between consumers around whatever the ad is promoting – is it really social advertising?
This week, I shared the stage with Jenn Creegan of Microsoft Advertising at Social Media Week in New York. In a joint presentation we shared our work together on a campaign designed to do just that, to create social advertising through that consumer-to-consumer connection. As part of a back-to-school campaign for Windows 7, Microsoft ran advertising powered by authentic customer word of mouth reviews from real Windows 7 customers across several owned web properties. As detailed in their blog post, “consumers found the Windows 7 ads ‘believable’ and ‘relevant.’” The campaign also drove some big improvements in key areas:
- Ad believability increased 20 points above the market norms for technology ads
- 6.3% lift in purchase intent
- 13.5% lift in unaided brand awareness
When asked which type of information consumers trust most, word of mouth consistently ranks at or near the top. It’s human nature to trust what consumers say about products more than the companies that sell them, and the influence this has at the point of sale is well documented.
Smart companies understand that the power of that influence can and does extend well beyond the point of sale and can be used to create connections between consumers in new ways. Back in 2008, we wrote about how Best Buy was leading the way here, using online customer content in their newspaper circulars. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of cross-channel innovation, but to a large extent, whether through siloed business approaches or just a lack of options to bring them together, advertising and word of mouth have continued to lead very separate lives.
This is why I’m excited that today we announced that Bazaarvoice will team up with Microsoft Advertising to fuel People Powered Stories™, to bring together digital advertising and the powerful influence of word of mouth.
Word of mouth advertising. Consumer-to-consumer connection advertising.
Social advertising.
