Snapchat: The Bullsh*t Continues And No One Questions It

In this post from Strohfeldt Consulting founder and creative director, Robert Strohfeldt, argues that marketing tools like Snapchat have got nothing on the success of more traditional campaigns.

Snapchat’s format may be a barrier to brands looking to enter the space because it doesn’t offer standard ad unit, but many believe (Let’s count – 1, 2, 3, many) that this is very much part of its allure, highlighting that it speaks to the new world order of advertising.

New World Order – What does it offer advertisers?

No denying that Snapchat is popular, with an estimated three million users in Australia.

OAK. A Successful Example: The Snapchat campaign – the World’s Quickest Coupon. Sent out “coupons for free Oaks”.

The Result? Some 500 coupons were redeemed in just three days and OAK gained 1400 new followers (for how long they stayed following is anyone’s guess).

Seriously, 500 coupons in three days? If the old world order had run a “coupons for free Oaks” in a little local newspaper rag and only generated 500 takers, it would be deemed a failure and the agency or person who came up with the idea would be fired. 500 free Oaks – more than 500 cartons are damaged during national delivery in one day.

But in the New World Order, this is deemed a success.

Reminds me of the results a national advertiser achieved for a Facebook campaign, which was classified as a success: The total reach – 8212 people (a reach of 0.003 per cent of the total population. Wow!). 1498 organic, 6714 paid. 463 “Likes” and 32 people ‘Shared’
I mentioned once before that the people in social media don’t “work on it”, they “live in it.”

As a result, they are blind to the reality of what social media, as a commercial medium, can and cannot achieve. One day someone in the C Suite is going to ask, “What have we achieved for all of this money we have spent?”.

The reason Oak grew as a brand and keeps selling, is because of the traditional media it has and is using. (Along with other “traditional” A&P activities). Cut out all other activity and leave only social media to promote it and watch sales dive.

People always have and always will buy products that pass the WIIFM test (What’s In It For Me), not because the brand or product grabbed their attention. Relevance is a word that is sadly lacking in all of this garbage.

New world order, is absolute bullshit. People have not changed since Jesus played fullback for Jerusalem.

“This new model is really about capturing the consumer’s focus early on to earn their time.”

Really? The average person comes in contact with around 13,000 brands a year. A lovely, new age sounding phrase that defies the basics of human nature. More than that, it defies basic common sense and logic.

Say you are marketing refrigerators. You can do all sorts of wild and crazy stunts on social media that will capture their attention. But if they don’t need a new fridge, they will not bring the purchase forward because you ‘entertained” them.

And when it does come time to buy a new fridge, they will buy a fridge based on WIIFM (what gives them the features they most want, at the best value). Not because you captured their attention 12 months ago and made them laugh or cry.

When is someone going to say ENOUGH. There is a huge emphasis on big data and none of this data supports social media effectiveness. Surely this blind spot cannot go untreated for much longer.

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Clemenger BBDO Sydney Meat & Livestock Australia Robert Strohfeldt SensoryLab