Carat Media Internship: Journal Entry #16

* For this time last week.

Work was pretty varied this week. I completed some more PowerPoint work and also carried out some more spend checks and I am pleased to say that I think I am finally getting the hang of it (I even altered the budget in the DSP this time!)

But the first thing I did during the day -after struggling with connecting to Google and LinkedIn to complete some work- was to join in a meeting about display advertising -a basics session in which we examined the progress made by both AMNET (which stands for Aegis Media Network, I learned,) as well as the wider industry. There were people from external organisations present who wished to use our services, with the meeting geared to such an end. It was very interesting, learning about how display advertising has developed this year, especially when considering mobile devices (due to take over desktops later this year) and the growth of the platform relative to search. This was accompanied by a historical underpinning of online marketing and advertising agencies, beginning in the late 1990s with portals controlled by companies such as AOL and MSN to the mid-2000s with third-party ad agencies and the present-future position of integrated agencies that offer clients the breadth of services, refusing to distribute client information, offering greater transparency as a result. It was all very informative and whilst I am detailing such a subject, I should also point out a good piece of news this week: That Carat has successfully gained Mastercard's advertising contract, winning $200 Mn of business as a result, a very exciting development.

But moving on I returned to the office and began work on a PowerPoint, a "Ratecard" to be exact, which is basically a document -based on The Guardian's template- that details the types of targeting available on certain platforms, namely Facebook & Twitter seeing as LinkedIn was unavailable for some bizarre reason.

Twitter Targeting Matrix

So after completing the two slides I moved onto my old enemy -the spend check! The dreaded spreadsheet started at me with its large green segments like some kind of complicated tax form, I first thought. But it didn't take long for me to get my head around exactly what to do with it: Just look on the DSP, see what the figures say and transfer it to the appropriate column within the sheet. Even the large green areas aren't anything scary, just areas contrasting with the pre-arranged white areas containing formulae to calculate averages and totals seamlessly as you insert the data, it's ingenious! This enabled me to see how much we spent in conjunction with the averages and budget remaining and I discovered as a result, a complication with pacing, which allowed me to make a necessary change to the daily budget in order to allow for better pacing with trends within that particular campaign and strategy, a beautifully-organised and efficient way of conducting things. 

Not So Bad After All: A Typical Spend-Check

After completing a couple of spend checks I finished the day off with a return to some Facebook tasks associated with ascertaining whether or not a creative for a client had passed its expiry date by looking into the ad placements via FB's ad tool on multiple spreadsheets ad looking for patterns in revenue losses i.e. had it lost far too much business over the last four months or so. This was to try and prove to our client to update their creative strategy to hopefully make our own work easier, because after all, if the image lacks appeal in the first place, no amount of strategic placing will deliver the results desired. Sadly, my examination returned inconclusive analysis, the creative dipping only in December, largely -I imagine- to its lack of seasonal appeal or that of its products for that matter, which is of no relevance seeing as the ads have returned to normal spends now. But at least we're delivering usual results as we should be doing, which you can't argue with.

And that concludes this week's tasks, with a variety of work completed and a large amount of experience gained. Next week I should be completing similar tasks which I hope bestow equally-fruitful experiences and chances to shine. 

Thanks for reading. 

The Nescafe Facebook Page: A Content Review

In a spur of the moment decision, I've decided to put my thoughts out there on a Facebook page that I absolutely love. The Nescafe page with upwards of 12 million Likes.

In recent years as social media has taken off, companies have tried tirelessly to create engaging social pages that humanise their brands and products as much as possible. After all, brands aren't just products anymore, but lifestyles; a symbiosis of life between us just bubbling away at the surface of society and seeping through to its very roots, sitting all around us every day, wanting to tell us their story, their origins; (our friends at Carat published a similar blog post a while ago on the subject of 'Brand Narratives' and I would recommend that you check that out.) To many this is a permissible phenomenon whilst others have voiced disapproval. I reviewed the book No Logo by Naomi Klein some time ago now, just in case you want more on that particular perspective. But this is merely the background as to why companies try to be as innovative as they can, to attract the most social commerce.

And it is that point that leads me to this review of Nescafe. Why do I like it? Well, aside from being a routine buyer of their coffee, I've kept them in my timeline because of a few salient reasons: Firstly, they publish content regularly, unlike some other coffee companies such as Costa Coffee, who I also liked through Facebook (yes I'm a coffee addict!) This is crucial for any business trying to establish a firm base on a social media outlet, you need to keep it updated; it's like a blog, a tracker of your life and if it's neglected or under-updated overtime, consumers will begin to lose interest.

But with the baby steps of having the basic commitment out of the way, we can get down to the nitty gritty: Why is their content so special? Well that's for multiple reasons: The main one is that it's just plain funny, constantly playing upon people's general tiredness and need for constant energy, or more often just uploading cool pics with innovative ideas! Look at some of these recent images.

 

I'm Glad Monday's My Day Off This Year!

Smile!

They also recently uploaded a series of images forming a recipe for a Nescafe Milkshake! Like I said, the content is innovative, it's fairly original and it's a brilliant addition to their communication strategy. But the best thing about this or any other Facebook page is that -largely- it's free to do! Of course there was probably a great deal of cash that went into producing those images; the equipment, the staff etc. but even when that is considered, it's so much cheaper than filming an advert and spending vast sums on a national campaign. But in a final note, to revert back to the Carat article in particular, they have used the Facebook timeline -like many other companies- to detail their history in the world, their origins, their landmark coffees and their participation in key world events, (I didn't know they'd been on the moon!) and it is that common feature that so many brand pages share. They want to tell us their story, and the Story of Nescafe is one that I thoroughly enjoyed!

The only real criticism that I have of Nescafe's Facebook page is that they focus a little too much I feel on their Original blend or their general brand. Looking at the content produced, I feel it would be fairly easy to incorporate their other blends into something artistic that could raise awareness of their other coffees and product lines. An interesting dynamic can be seen between both the Nescafe page and their Nespresso page, both tackling different arms of Nestle's coffee ventures.

But in all, I find the Nescafe page a particularly good example of a brand making good use of a social platform to spread it's message, and it is for that reason that I thought I should share it!

Please, feed back to me about this. Do you have any Facebook pages of brands that you enjoy, whose content you like? Let me know, I'd love to hear about them!