Shiseido's Trailer Marketing

© Carol L. Weinfeld

Shiseido came to the San Francisco streets last week in a shiny Airstream trailer to publicize its new Bio-Performance Super Corrective Serum. Employees offered samples and beauty consultations.

It is smart business to meet one's customers in person, in addition to the digital space. One can gain valuable information about one's brand face-to-face in casual conversation, and often learn more than one would in focus groups. Customers also appreciate the approach on their turf, as they go through their day, instead of approaching the brand in a store on their own. The street marketing makes Shiseido's brand more approachable.

Luxury brands effectively utilize social media marketing. For example, Burberry staged a fashion show in China and in real-time online. Gucci engages fans on its Facebook page, and Chanel creates films about its brand for its website.

Fashion brands depend on trends, and understand that social media is an important trend.  Companies should not practice social media just for the sake of doing so; it should fit its brand and its customers in the approach.

© Carol L. Weinfeld

Shiseido stationed the trailer near the Union Square shopping district, a good place to reach Shiseido's shoppers, since there are many high-end stores. Know your customers, and seek their surroundings offline and online based on your knowledge of them. They will be pleased to have the attention and interest, and will also be interested in your brand.

26 Brands in Social Media

A is for Applebee's: A Partnership with Consumers

Applebee's impressively engages consumers with its Veteran's Day social media campaign. The company offers free selected entrees to veterans and active duty military personnel on November 11, 2010. It offers them a meal, a gift which consumers appreciate. Applebee's asks consumers to be co-creators on its website and Facebook page. It creates a dialogue through reading and listening to consumer messages.

Consumers, in this difficult economy, love free items. The giver's brand is enhanced in the eyes of the happy receiver. Applebee's realizes that the gift of a free entree draws diners, who will buy additional items. The company also creates its own positive aura, i.e. increased brand equity, by honoring veterans and military personnel during wartime.

Applebee's asks for its own gifts from consumers: photographs and messages relating to military friends and family. http://veterans.applebees.com/veteransday/honor-a-veteran/ These gifts of content on Applebee's Facebook page and website create a partnership between Applebee's and consumers. Consumers want to be partners with brands, and Applebee's gives them the opportunity by asking for their input. This opportunity communicates to consumers that the brand respects them and their ideas, which is important to them.

The Applebee's-consumer partnership of content creates a dialogue. Applebee's reads what consumers post to its sites and consumers read the company's responses. The exchange builds the relationship between the brand and its consumers. Free gifts, consumer content and a conversation: how to excel at social media.