Marketers muse about MySpace
TheStar.com - Marketers muse about MySpace
Sep. 4, 2006. 09:35 AM
TARA PERKINS
BUSINESS REPORTER
"You're a square, and you have more than 81,000 friends, WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE WORLD"?
—Posting on MySpace.com,
Aug. 26, 7:15 a.m.
Who is this popular square?
According to his profile, his name is Smart, he lives in New York and he's 28. Smart is single, but wants to have kids one day. He also wants to meet Angelina Jolie. And his hero is Dave Thomas.
Smart is a square-shaped mascot, created by Wendy's International Inc., the U.S. hamburger chain that is spinning off its ownership stake in Tim Hortons and that shook up its marketing department this summer to focus on innovation.
Wendy's created a profile page for Smart — who is shaped like the chain's square burger patties — on MySpace, the popular networking site bought by media firm News Corp. for more than $500 million (U.S.) last year.
As of Friday, Smart had 81,015 "friends," other MySpace users who can connect their profile to Smart's and leave comments on his page.
Companies can post profiles on MySpace for free or, like Wendy's, work with Fox Interactive Media to develop a site with a price tag ranging from about $100,000 to more than $1 million.
"Whether through a customized profile or a marketing campaign, brands and advertisers such as Disney, Toyota, Gillette, Pepsi, even the U.S. Marine Corps, have the opportunity to engage users, ultimately allowing the community to become brand ambassadors to their network of friends," says a fact sheet handed out by Fox Interactive, which runs MySpace.
Canadian companies have recently been experimenting with MySpace and similar social networking sites, but experts warn that caution is required. Pitfalls include negative comments posted to the profile page, criticism from those who feel that posting a profile on MySpace to advertise is deceptive, and posting a profile that just isn't embraced by the company's target demographic.
Last week Hitwise, an online researcher, said that MySpace.com accounted for 2.53 per cent of all U.S. upstream visits to shopping and classified sites for the week ending Aug. 26, nearly double its percentage from six months earlier.
By comparison, Google.com was responsible for 14.93 per cent of U.S. upstream visits to shopping and classified sites, followed by Yahoo at 4.69 per cent.
"With the growth of MySpace and others, online retailers should expand their focus beyond search to consider social networking sites as a source of additional traffic," stated Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise.
MySpace ranked as the sixth most popular site on the Web in July, according to Fox Interactive which cites comScore Media Metrix.
Windsor's Motor City Community Credit Union is among the Canadian organizations with a profile on MySpace.
Mike Quinlan, the marketing director of the credit union, said he was aware of the dangers, but the experience has been more successful than he hoped.
"It came about because of listening to my eldest daughter, who was 24. (She) lived in Ireland for a year and had her own blog, which was kind of new for me as a communication channel," Quinlan said.
"So then, I was trying to come up with ideas to penetrate the youth market, I did some research, and I found MySpace."
The credit union hired "a couple of twenty-somethings" to help, for their "familiarity with talking the talk," he said.
The profile site is intended to give young people a forum to learn about and discuss financial issues, he said. "It's a great channel, it's very cost-efficient.
"It's too early to say it's a raving success, but we are really encouraged," he said. "We thought that if we could get 100 friends within the first two or three months we'd be really happy, and we're already over 200."
Quinlan did have some concerns before the credit union, which has about 17,000 members, set up its profile.
"MySpace has, obviously, all types of users with all types of subjects," he said. "Our concern was that if the MySpace aura itself was getting bad publicity, we would be wrapped in. Like, if they were saying it's nothing more than a pornographic channel," he said.
While the Wendy's profile page for Smart is filled with comments like, "Your {sic} the man square, I know if you run for Prime minister I'll vote you in :)," it also has complaints about service at the restaurant and lines of profanities.
And some critics are calling commercial profiles on MySpace "deceptive." An article by CNET News.com titled "MySpace blurs line between friends and flacks" quoted experts who say that younger teens who thrive on social networks may not be skeptical enough of this "new, seductive form of advertising."
MySpace attracts profiles from individuals, music and entertainment artists, non-profit organizations and corporations around the world. "Why these diverse groups join is not that different — it's all in the name of shameless self-promotion," said an industry newsletter put out by Canadian youth marketing firm Youthography earlier this year.
The music industry began using the site early, and other companies are now following suit.
Youthography warns, "There are definitely risks that come along with creating a branded corporate MySpace page. First off, there's no control over the comments users leave on your page, aside from deleting the comment entirely.
"Corporations that join should expect to see profanity, nudity and all around vulgarity. If your brand is sensitive to this and isn't comfortable with these associations, then MySpace might not be for you."
A second caution is the need to raise "the creative bar," Youthography says.
A Tim Hortons profile on MySpace has a dark background featuring coffee mugs that makes it very difficult to read the overlying font. Tim Hortons is described as a 42-year-old male from Hamilton, and the site features ads for iced cappuccinos and strawberry tarts.
The company was unable to confirm whether it posted the profile.
September 4, 2006 at 12:26 PM in Online Marketing | Permalink
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