An ad company demonstrates to a wireless carrier how it can market better by reading its target audience’s blogs.
Technorati says there are more than 11 million blogs floating around on the Internet today, with more being added all the time. But when US Cellular wanted to find a way to market to college age males, reading blogs was the last thing on their minds.
Fortunately for them, their ad agency G Whiz believed much more could be gleaned from the frequently frank and personal blogosphere than any assortment of focus groups or market data analysis could provide.
According to AdWeek.com, the agency partnered with a Boulder firm, Umbria Communications, to analyze numerous blog postings. They collected data related to cellular service issues via linguistic analysis, and brought that back to the wireless provider.
“We find Web logs are a very rich source [of market intelligence], because people don’t just go to talk about a recent movie, they go to talk about their lives,” said Howard Kaushansky, CEO of Umbria.
US Cellular ended up having G Whiz create four TV spots based on that feedback. One complaint, that of unwanted incoming calls consuming a user’s monthly minutes and forcing them to shutoff their phones until the start of a new billing cycle, led to one ad.
That pitch had a college age man hold up his phone at a concert to let a friend hear the music. US Cellular extolled the virtues of its Unlimited Call Me plan: “So even when people waste your time, they don’t waste your money.”
(Since this was a fictional ad, the creators chose not to show what would probably happen to someone who actually did this at a concert. Imagine Metallica’s Lars Ulrich spotting a fan streaming “Master of Puppets” to a listener on the other line. The kid would be fortunate to leave under his own power.)
One analyst cautioned that the power of blogs will be more useful as a data source and not a marketing outlet. “As blogs mature, advertising in them will not be a big deal,” John Cate, vp and national media director at Aegis’ Carat Interactive, said.
“Using them to gain insights will provide lasting value.”
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
