1. Case Study:How Polar Ice Vodka Echoed through Social Media to Reach Fun Seekers Feb 25 / 2010

2. What well cover today

Introduction

Background on Polar Ice Vodka

Our digital task

Finding & creating the right digital mix

Results

Whats next

3. About Me

Follow me here:

twitter.com/phryl

burningthebacon.com

linkedin.com/in/phryl

slideshare.net/phryl

Phil Barrett (.mobi)

VP Digital & Mobile

CMA Digital Council

Mobile Evangelist

360 Marketer

BSTREET Communications

Toronto & London, UK

4.

Speaks to your most valuable consumers

Travels across all marketing disciplines

Optimizes your marketing spend

Drives equity, sales and market share

SmartIdeas TM BSTREET is a marketing communications agency dedicated to creating for your brand. 5. 6. About Polar Ice Vodka

Like the live music scene in the East, the cosmopolitan cocktail scene in the West, and the gotta be seen dance clubs in our downtown cores, Polar Ice is a true contemporary Canadian vodka.

Quadruple distilled and triple filtered for a legendary clean, smooth taste, Polar Ice is the largest selling Canadian vodka brand

Bronze Medal Winner - the Beverage Testing Institute 2008

Double Gold Medal Winner - the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2003

7. Background

BSTREET hired to redevelop visual identity system for the brand in 2008

Targeting 19-25 funseekers

Vis had to live across retail, trade, print and online

No existing website or online presence

8. Our Digital Task

Establish online consumer position as a brand site / bring to life the PIV identity system that can also support ongoing promotions

Extend online experience to other social media tools in order to engage fun seekers

Incorporate unique position as Canadian vodka with specific content to differentiate from other vodka sites

Create an experience that will create word of mouth (WOM) buzz

9. 10. Finding the right Digital Mix 11. BSTREET Media Mix Philosophy(from last year) 12. 13. Twitter Content Plan

Weekly content schedule that focused on lifestyle not just product

Content was pre-loaded weeks in advanced & auto-published using free twitter tools

• #musicmonday

• #martinimonday

• #filmreviewfriday

• #WhatEverHappenedTo

• Featured drink recipes

• Misc quotes, questions, and statements that resonate with the fu seeker

14. 15. Extending to facebook

Launched facebook fan page at the same time as the PIV website (as opposed to creating a group or Application)

Site became extension of website & incorporated many of the same design elements

Strong call to action back to the website

Product & recipe content also lives on the fan page

Overall the facebook experience needs to be relevant, timely, and aligned with other channels

16. 17. 18. Other Vodkas on Facebook

637 fans

2,952 fans

897 fans

19. Social Media Summary

Both channels are proving to be effective in reaching our target demographic in the channel of their choice

WOM is helping with acceleration of fans

Small investment in social ads resulted in huge exposure for brand on facebook

20. Website

Our assignment? Create a brand site that goes beyond what the category has done traditionally by integrating social media extensions into the website experience

21. Our Inspiration 22. Lessons learned from Skittles

Over 2000% increase in traffic in one week

Massive social media buzz & word of mouth although much of it was not positive

Although bold & successful in many ways, they lostALLcontrol of the brand

They didnt really engage / join the conversation so didnt follow the true spirit of social media

23. More Inspiration 24. The Smart Idea: Syndication vs Stickiness

Go beyond a traditional flash only brand / promotional website

Create an EXPERIENCE that will interest fun seekers and

Engage them in ways they are already familiar with in social media

Overall create content and experience that will syndicate across multiple channels

25. Make the PIV Experience Social

The socialscape created for the PIV website will echo tweets from the twitterverse

• Pre-filtered / formatted tweets with common words (brand attributes, fun seeker attributes) will appear to echo from the landscape and in real-time

• User can input their own words

• Link to PIV twitter page

• This allows us to leverage user generated content and social media while maintaining control of the brand

• Content can be seeded

• Content can come from a specific event to correspond with on trade activities

• Users can enter their own words to change stream

26. Other features

User can change / choose from ~5 different socialscapes that are specific to regions of Canada

Fun seeker can change the music loop that starts playing when they land on the website

Incorporated sharing widgets & easy links to facebook and twitter channels

27. 28. LIVE DEMO 29. Other results 30. 31. Key Insights

Content is king allocate more to content than programming & design

Experience that syndicates allows us to engage the target market in the channel of their choice

Employing our 70 / 20 / 10 digital marketing mix enabled innovation while still delivering a platform that met objectives

The echo tool resonated with everybody but was too much of an Easter egg

Facebook was the most cost effective channel and had the most engagement

32. BSTREET Media Mix Philosophy (Updated Jan 2010) 33. WHATS NEXT (live demo) 34. QUESTIONS?