UnMe Jeans: Branding in Web 2.0 1. Is UnMe jeans the right or wrong product/ brand for web 2.0? Why? What are the advantages/ disadvantages disadvantages does it have to be ported using social media? If one thinks of the UnMe brand the brand personality that comes into the minds of the customer has the following characteristics 1. Trendy 2. Has unique identities 3. Appreciation for differences differences of opinion o pinion and taste 4. Teenage girls 12-24 years old Now if one starts mapping out these characteristics with those of Web 2.0 then one can easily say that trendy associates very well with Consumer Co-creation, Social Affiliation & Digital Self Expression. The trendy characteristics changes goes on with the trend so they are more prone to co-create new values, owing to the trendy nature they are more likely to indulge in social affiliation & similarly due to this factor they self-express themselves about various new trends & nature. The unique identity characteristic highly correlates itself with digital self-expression self-expression. Such people want to voice their opinion through social media like blogs. rd
The 3 factor maps with the sharing attribute where people from different segments learn and adopt behaviours from each other. The last characteristic is the Gen Y who is the target segments for these jeans and also the users of Web 2.0. According to the Exhibit 7 47% of teenagers interact on social media & 69% in young adults. According to exhibit 8 youth want to interact interact with marketers marketers on a daily basis.
Advantages
From the above discussion one can say that Web 2.0 is a right match for UnMe as both appeal to Gen Y
Comparative cost is less than traditional media
The brand has the ability to create a trend in the market through Web 2.0
Follow the trend of social communication
The company has the advantage advantage of getting direct feedback from their customers and change the product or develop new product accordingly
Create brand awareness and attraction to target group effectively
Disadvantages
Dissatisfied customer could create a havoc through negative publicity as company has less control over social media
Hard to measurement the result
More risky than traditional media
Social media sites don’t have much relevant and support content
The company would not be able to leverage over the longer term
Social network could be Fad
2. What benefits would Foley gain gain from each of the three social media plans? What risks do they entail? How can Foley manage the risks and reap the benefits from each of them?
Benefits YouTube o 1. Since it is interesting interesting & non-ad nature it involves more participation and there is high involvement from the customers 2. YouTube ouTube has the demographic availability so it can be customized for the different market segment present across different demographics 3. Can position the ad catering to the different different customers like for high involved customers participatory ads and for low-involvement customers in-video advertising 4. Has a large choice of videos vi deos from which they can choose, such videos should match the brand personality so that they target the right customers 5. Growth of YouTube is 140% year over year 6. High frequency and views per person Zwinktopia o 1. Users can match their identity with the brand identity. People who think they want this kind of jeans would pay attention to its advertisement. It also promotes their ideals 2. Direct target segment segment available as Zwinktopia is also for for teenage girls 3. Apparels contribute to 34% (highest) among virtual products available for sale(Exhibit 10) 4. Can be ideal to launch ad inform about new developments in the real world and generate curiosity. 5. Can be linked to other social media like Facebook and MySpace Facebook o 1. It has the various segments dependent on the demography UnMe can use to target the customers. customers. One of the highly visited sites and also has a high rate of return to the same site as people generally log in everyday everyday 2. Facebook has a huge information about the likings, interest, education, living standards which can be used to target the right customer i.e. advertising to the potential user 3. Word of mouth can be spread easily as users can post, discuss, vote about the products so each individual can act as a marketer of the brand 4. UnMe page can guide users about the latest trends on fashion industry thus attracting various customers customers 5. Also acts as a place where users can discuss and tell about the improvements and new product developments 6. Widgets and feeds promote more engagement and show the popularity of the brand. 7. It’s a kind of permission based advertising so click-through rate is expected to be high as customers are more prone to know about the brand 8. High visibility because of shared friend icons on the website. 9. Videos can be promoted on the website as well
Risks o
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YouTube 1. More emphasis on non-ad kind of videos as people demand videos which are innovative and creative but they should not be ad kind of which entails higher cost 2. Lack of control over the content 3. Does not interacts as well as other social media do in getting the feedback and response of the customers 4. Customization Customization needs to be done according to the language and location. Also different different countries have different culture so a joke in one country might not be taken in the same way in another country 5. Videos can be watched even without logging in to the account so they might not get the required demographic information about the user 6. Lack of measurement tools Zwinktopia 1. Since this is a virtual world many people might see this brand as what they want to but in real world they might m ight not use the product owing to factors like health, body size, affordability, etc. 2. A huge competition between the products 3. The communication is not linear 4. Much time is needed to learn in this kind of environment. Thus a high learning curve Facebook 1. Many people might get habitual and ignore the ads and focus on other things 2. Since the exposure is to a large number of brands (500 pages) so they might forget about the brand easily 3. Lack of control over the medium 4. Lack of measurement tools to measure success 5. High cluttering on the network may make the users indifferent to the ads. 6. May lead to over advertising and hijack the very purpose 7. Cannot be used as an alternative to television television ads
UnMe needs to have a dedicated team who will work with the a dvertising agencies who will try to minimize the risks involved by various ways ways which will help t hem in getting the benefits.
3. Which if any, of the three social media plans should Foley pursue? Why? In my opinion Facebook seems to be the better option if they have to choose one out of the three. Seeing from today’s popularity of FB which is giving a tough target to Google whose whole business model is based on the advertisement. Facebook Facebook can be a better option if they have to choose among the three. Facebook has detailed information information about the t he users. Today Today users provide most of the information to Facebook which it can use to advertise. The basic information like education, work, living colleges attended, likes and dislikes, dislikes, votes and polls, interests and fan following pages, the groups activity etc., the type of links they share, the type of people they are befriended with etc. Facebook has huge information about the user which UnMe can gather with a lot of difficulty. difficulty. Thus
Facebook is one of the options where they will get the direct target segment based on the user profile and they can advertise to them. Once the user likes their page or joins their group they can advertise, interact, and get response and feedback, customer customer support and opinion due to which not only can they advertise effectively but also they can use the users’ opinion in developing the right product. Such kind of advantage is not available in the other two.
4. What changes can you make to the social media plans to make them more effective to the target audience of UnMe jeans? Since this case is a little old and there is a bit difference in today’s world like MySpace is not so popular today Google’s orkut has gone away and Google+ too is not doing so well. Facebook on the other hand has grown considerably. So the plan needs to have a Facebook page and this should be promoted on other sites so as to get the like from elsewhere also. Then they could also incorporate with games which are present on Facebook and offer virtual world kind of feel in those games by selling the products. Granting Points and energy energy on purchasing virtual products on these games is bound to gain attention and increase increase brand awareness. awareness. Then they can have their own dedicated dedicated channel on YouTube where they can promote videos gathered by the customers and publish. Facebook page can talk about fashion tips and style trends prevailing in the market to gain attention.
