Brand Awareness through the ‘Socialympics’
As the 2012 Summer Olympics begin and millions of viewers tune in to watch the action, another 900 million Facebook and 140 million Twitter users will also serve as a captive audience. Thanks to the soaring popularity of social media and mobile devices, the Olympics can be followed more obsessively than ever before.
Whether engaged in conversation about the latest race, Ryan Lochte, or the creative and innovative campaign/commercials Coca Cola has been running, users continue to buzz about these topics well after the finish line.
Who’s taking advantage of this? Brands are. As a way to also capture this audience, brands have been utilizing their social media channels (in addition to their TV spots) as a way to interact with consumers by saying “You like the Olympics? So do we.”
Take AT&T for example. As a way to interact with their fans, they launched a campaign where people could “like” their favorite USA athlete from a variety of photos – the athlete with the most “likes” would star in their cover photo (as shown below).
Samsung is also interacting with their fans by marketing their Samsung Galaxy S III as the ‘it’ phone of the Olympics. They’ve been using their social media channels to advertise all of the features the phone has to offer – while cleverly relating them to the Olympics.
Whether we see it or not, brands are increasing user awareness and pulling us in to learn more about their new products by incorporating their message into the excitement of the Olympics. Through online contests, giveaways, mobile apps, etc., users can catch up on the latest Olympic news while also getting to know the brand.
What brand’s Olympic campaign is your favorite?
Kelsey Benjamin is an Account Coordinator at Griffin York & Krause.
