Month: August 2017

Federal Railroad Administration Conference

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Federal Railroad Administration Conference

Digital

Last week, Geile/Leon President Tim Leon attended the Federal Railroad Administration’s Grade Crossing Research Needs Workshop held in downtown St. Louis. The workshop focused on issues regarding rail safety, including engineering and technology, enforcement, community outreach and education, hazard management, and human factors. The workshop brought together state, federal, and international experts to prioritize specific research needs related to grade crossing safety.Crossing incidents are the second leading cause of rail-related deaths in the United States, which is why rail safety awareness and education are so important to the safety of our communities. Tim helped brainstorm the expanding role digital media can play in community outreach and education surrounding railroad safety. It was a very productive session attended by thought leaders from all facets of the industry.

Tom Lange, our Union Pacific client, was a guest speaker at the workshop. Tom discussed the innovative methods Union Pacific Railroad has implemented to successfully reach targeted audiences with its rail safety message. One of these initiatives included “Your Life is Worth the Wait”, a fully-integrated digital marketing campaign featuring impactful creative that G/L was thrilled to help Union Pacific create. See some of the work below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1oxp1FsdYM

 

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Trending from G/L: McDonald’s delivers fabled famous Szechuan sauce to Rick and Morty fans

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Trending from G/L: McDonald’s delivers fabled famous Szechuan sauce to Rick and Morty fans

General

Free earned media. It’s the crown jewel of the marketing world. And it really doesn’t get much better than the McDonald’s-Rick and Morty-Szechuan-Sauce story that’s unfolded.

Image via Justin Roiland

The SparkNotes summary: Hit TV show with a dedicated following, Rick and Morty, referenced an old sauce that McDonald’s once served years ago as part of a tie-in with the 1998 Disney release of Mulan. Fans then became wildly curious about the sauce that had been discontinued nearly 20 years before, with even some McDonald’s higher-ups chiming in about its fabled existence.

It became a viral joke that had the McDonald’s name attached to it at every corner. And of course, they played along. But, they did it in such a natural way that fans, consumers and the like weren’t turned off by it becoming too much of a marketing grab.

In advance of the premiere of the new season of Rick and Morty, McDonald’s sent Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland a bottle of that now-infamous Szechuan sauce, complete with hilarious description and label that played right along with the show. Justin Roiland’s tweet of the bottle and its packaging has, to date, garnered 141,781 retweets and 339,146 likes!

Image via Justin Roiland

But the pursuit of earned media like this almost never yields such incredible results. So what was the difference? Simple: McDonald’s never overplayed their hand. They just played along. And that’s a very big distinction.

Instead of latching onto the sudden and unexpected conversation around their decades old sauce, McDonald’s did no more than what felt natural. They didn’t milk it for some tired, multi-month campaign. Or try to turn it into a hashtag. Or any of the other marketing gimmicks that consumers now roll their eyes at. They put some effort into creating the packaging and remaking the sauce, and then let the internet do its thing. It’s no coincidence that, while they later released a few more bottles to fans via branded posts, the most viral post wasn’t even theirs. They just sent the bottle to Justin Roiland and trusted that his tweet, free of corporate hashtags and paid promotions, would do the rest. And they were right.

It’s an important lesson in an age where brands haphazardly try to insert themselves into the conversation. Don’t overstep your role as a brand. Just play along.

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Trending from G/L: Facebook gets ready to launch Facebook TV

Geile/Leon Marketing Communications

Trending from G/L: Facebook gets ready to launch Facebook TV

Trending Now

Last week, Bloomberg reported that Facebook was back on track for releasing Facebook TV, rumored to release later this month. In other words, the company is about to take on user-generated video content giant, YouTube. Shocking? I think not. What is shocking is how long it’s taken a rival to take on the behemoth. Facebook’s rounded-up their fair share of social dynamite over the past few years, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook Live and most recently, taking a page from SnapChat’s ever-engaging, ever-addicting, short-lived video/photo messaging content via Instagram Stories and Facebook Stories.

Image via Variety

So what can we expect from Facebook TV? Ridiculously targeted content and world domination. Not necessarily, but you can count on a mix of scripted and user-generated content, that thankfully (at least for now), will not be featured on your News Feed. Facebook’s impressive 2 billion users can catch fresh content on Facebook’s TV designated page. The company aims to create higher-end content compared to YouTube, but supposedly it’s not competing with video producers such as Netflix, HBO and Showtime…sure you aren’t Facebook, not this month.

Facebook’s newest endeavor comes on the heels of the company’s push toward longer-form entertainment and tackling an over-crowded News Feed filled with advertising, as well as incorporating ads into Facebook Messenger. Facebook is funding a set of original programs intended to give the company a slice of the super-sweet $70 billion television advertising market.

Facebook originally expected the project to be ready about a month ago, but it has taken longer than anticipated and further delays could occur, according to Bloomberg.

Now, this new TV venture does not come without its constraints. There’s a risk that Facebook’s users won’t necessarily spend as much time scrolling through Facebook’s News Feed if they start watching long-lasting videos via Facebook TV. “That’s going to have an impact on impression rate growth,” said CFO David Wehner. “So there is, in that sense, a cannibalistic effect of sort happening there.” Indeed advertisers, how will we survive without our traditional News Feed impressions? Video content advertising via Facebook TV, am I right?

We’ll be staying tuned for updates on the company’s latest project and any advertising opportunities that come with it.

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