For companies, there are times that something needs to be addressed and marketing is a way to help fix or promote a company’s need. A great example of this is Whirlpool and their desire to have positive customer interactions rather than just interacting with customers when there is an issue or complaint. Whirlpool launched their “Every Day, Care” campaign in hopes to build positive interactions and customer views for Whirlpool. 

            In the campaign, Whirlpool utilized Crowdtap to build a positive community who shared their stories of “every day care”. This allowed people to see real stories from real customers. By doing this, Whirlpool connected with customers on a new level and created positive interactions. Whirlpool received more than 44 thousand “every day care” stories and promoted them across their social media as posts and paid ads. Whirlpool created a webpage as well, whirlpool.com/everydaycare to showcase these stories as well. In addition to the stories originally posted, Whirlpool saw an increase in social media interaction of others sharing their own experiences. 

            After this campaign happened, Whirlpool saw increases in unit growth, sales and consumer sentiment. Whirlpool was able to reach customers on an emotional level and as such customers related more with the customers. Customer response showed that they desired the emotional connection. 

            Overall the campaign was very well run. The review of the promotion did not discuss how Whirlpool interacted with these customers so that could have been something that could have helped the campaign to be more successful and efficient. Currently Whirlpool continues to promote the “every day care” through their social media channels. 

References:

#EveryDayCare – Whirlpool, DigitasLBi and Crowdtap – The Shorty Awards.” The Shorty Awards – Honoring the Best of Social Media, shortyawards.com/8th/everydaycare-whirlpool-digitaslbi-and-crowdtap-2. 

Branding: A day in the life

Every morning upon waking up the first thing done seems to be grabbing your phone and checking your favorite digital media. For me, this usually includes a quick browse of Facebook, Instagram and checking out sports news.

Facebook is a site we are all probably familiar with. It originally started in 2004 as a site where college students (you had to have a student email address and be on the approved school list) could connect. By the end of 2004 almost all Universities were on the platform. By 2006 Facebook began opening to everyone with a valid email address (Boyd, 2019). Facebook is a site where people can connect, share things, read news and events and even sell products. Facebook has become a major platform for businesses to reach customers.

Instagram is another one of the big 3 when it comes to social media. It was developed and launched in 2010 as a site to share pictures. To this day Instagram is still a site where users share pictures and videos. Over the years, Instagram has added on features to compete with its competitors. In 2012 Instagram was bought by Facebook. After the purchase, Instagram continue adding features. It added stories to compete with Snapchat, it recently added reels to compete with Tiktok (Mottola, 2017).

My other largely visited digital media are sport news sites. Being a huge sports fan I always like to check up on scores, read any big news and see what trends are going on. I usually use the “score” app on my phone or visit ESPN on the computer.

For me my reactions tend to vary depending on what digital media I am looking at. Lately Facebook seems to bring more negative reactions as there is a lot of negative things floating around. However, looking at friends on the site helps bring a more positive feeling. I find certain media to bring more peaceful feelings as I have control of what I am viewing. Looking at things I enjoy such as sports allows me to start the day off right. I do find that Instagram for me tends to be a positive experience as pictures can be positive and inspiring.

I feel that my needs are typically satisfied by using social media apps and sports apps. I feel its a way for me to connect with family and friends, get the news and check out things that matter to me such as sports information. I very rarely watch news on TV anymore and feel that I get enough information from checking out things on social media and then diving deeper if needed.

I am 100% guilty about signing up for a lot of emails from companies. In fact, like others I’m sure, I have a separate email I give out knowing that its going to be filled with offers from companies. If I shop a lot at a certain company I do typically have it sent to my normal email. Typically for me anything from companies I am very interested in or sales/coupons catch my attention.

In my spare time I work as a marketing/social media manager for my friend’s brewery in Connecticut. Doing this has made me realize that digital media is the main way to market companies. If a company is not visible on Facebook and Instagram it is very hard to be seen as a legit company. More and more people are influenced by things they see on Facebook ads, friends posts, Instagram posts or stories. Why do we pay Instagram influencers millions if this did not work?

Overall digital media is becoming the end all be all for marketers. This is not to say the traditional marketing does not work. I still believe there is a place for radio, news paper and TV ads. I mean I’m sure we have all seen a few SNHU commercials on tv!

References:

Boyd, J. (2019, January 25). The History of Facebook: From BASIC to global giant. Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/history-of-facebook/

Mottola, I. (2017, September 01). The history of Instagram. Retrieved September 03, 2020, from https://medium.com/@ignaziomottola/the-history-of-instagram-ff266eb75427