I won’t lie to you, I’m a massive Gavin and Stacey fan (said in Nessa style accent) so I’m v excited to find out they’re releasing Islands in the Stream for Comic Relief!
This should raise loads of money for charity, but more importantly, give Rob Brydon (Bryn) and Ruth Jones (Nessa) a chance to mock up a faux-music video… I’m just praying they keep the rest of the cast line dancing!
I read a really interesting article today by professional mummy blogger, Jessica Smith, about the misconceptions surrounding mummy bloggers. At work I have recently implemented a social media strategy for a new children’s TV show, Chuggington, and part of that was a blogger outreach programme.
Once we began looking into the blogosphere, we found there were hundreds of mummy bloggers out there, most of whom were extremely influential, with thousands of readers. On closer inspection of these blogs, it became clear that although all of these bloggers wrote about motherhood in some sense, their post varied massively.
These women were all mothers, but they had many more facets to their personality than just that. Some used their blogs to talk about their experiences with being full time mums, others talked about juggling a busy career with children. Some used their blogs to air their views and get opinions on parenting, whilst others had teenage children and used their blogs to vent their inevitable frustrations!
As with any outreach programme, we had to listen to these conversations and pinpoint the key bloggers who would be interested in the new TV show. We decided to put on a blogger event in London where attendees could bring their children, see two exclusive episodes of the show, talk to one of the creators, have a lunch and a tour of the venue, the Movieum.
This gave the mummy bloggers a chance to meet up face-to-face and get some interesting information for their blog. The real life meet up was one of our key selling points when approaching them about our event. Many of these bloggers knew of each other online and would comment on each other’s posts etc, but had never met in real life.
They were so excited about the chance to meet up and network, not to mention put a face to the name and meet each other’s children whom they’d read so much about. The feedback from the event was brilliant and everyone said how individual the approach had been and how nice it was to meet fellow mummy bloggers.
I think the fact we provided an opportunity for a real life meet up made all the difference to the campaign. As much as people need an online community and they are hugely beneficial, I believe sometimes there’s nothing like sharing a cup of coffee with someone and having a chat face-to-face.
This is something Graco in the US have taken full advantage of. In addition to their online community of mummy bloggers, they also host quarterly real life meet ups for their bloggers.
For me, the things you gain from meeting someone in person - whether that’s a journalist, fellow PR person or blogger - are invaluable. I think your relationship with someone changes so much once you’ve been able to experience their mannerisms, sense of humour and personality in the flesh. These things are very hard to convey online, even for the most transparent social media advocate!
Social networking is an extremely powerful tool, but I think if you combine it with a personal touch it is unstoppable.
Mamma Mia has defied the initial critics to become the most successful British film ever.
Now, in the interest of transparency, I have to admit to being a fully fledged Mamma Mia fangirl - one who saw the film, owns the DVD, bought the soundtrack and is often found singing ‘Does your mother know’ when I think nobody’s listening. However, on a professional level, I’ve also been blown away by the impact that word of mouth has played in the success of the film.
Mamma Mia had a very low-key opening; the premier was held in London and then a European launch followed a few weeks later. There was hardly any hype before the opening and the film was supported with limited advertising and PR beforehand.
In comparison to its opening week rival, The Dark Knight, (which executed a truly amazing social media campaign throughout the 12 months prior to opening) marketing for Mamma Mia was practically non-existent.
To be honest, I’m surprised that a low-budget film starring a singing Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth even survived, considering it opened:
However, the film became the unexpected success story of the year and many actually credit its success to the timing. Not only did Mamma Mia offer an escape from our dreary summer, but it also offered some light relief from the highly publicised economic crisis. The sight of sun drenched beaches, beautiful people, great music and a happy ending certainly cheered me and my friends up on a cold Wednesday night!
WOMMA believe that word of mouth marketing is now the fastest growing and most in-demand set of marketing practices today. The power of word of mouth is immense and it’s something that consumer brands need to consider and take very seriously. The basic premise of word of mouth is that people like to talk to other people - and they certainly enjoyed talking to other people about this film!
Universal have since capitalised on the buzz surrounding Mamma Mia by creating a sing-a-long version currently being shown in cinemas around the UK - and it’s also included as a bonus feature on the DVD. (Cue lots of girlie trips to the cinema after a couple bottles of wine, or the perfect way to finish off an evening of X Factor.)
This clever modification gave people another reason / excuse to go and see the film again and experience it in a totally different way, whilst doubling the ticket sales, hence the record breaking stats - and also appealing to the current karaoke craze sweeping the nation thanks to games like Sony’s SingStar and dozens of new karaoke bars appearing in our cities overnight.
Mamma Mia has not only smashed box office records and given PR people a fantastic WOM case study, but it’s also allowed thousands of people to escape a recession - if only for a few hours. Just don’t mention “Money Money Money”.
