Hotcow's tips to turn consumers into brand advocates

Mastering the different stages of a decision journey and understanding what works in the live environment can shift your consumers from awareness towards usage and advocacy. http://goo.gl/2x0Hp Building a great brand is not just about creating great products or services. It is about working hard to deliver a positive experience every time the customer interacts with your brand. Turning your customers into brand advocates is not an easy task. It all depends on the level of brand awareness and where your product/service is located within the buying decision ranks. A true brand advocate does your marketing for free. Therefore, giving a personalised experiential touch to your marketing strategy can highly increase the chances of regular consumers becoming great advocates of your brand. With new technologies, consumers are savvy and more connected than ever before. Brands that are constantly encouraging participation, creativity and collaboration of consumers are more likely to succeed in such an experiential world. Experiential marketing is a great influencer of consumer decisions and actions, using powerful engagement tactics to bring your brand’s message to life. Live Experiences, PR Stunts and Guerrilla Marketing activities can be used to create great online content and broad online conversations, combined with other media channels to amplify your message to a wider audience. Thanks to the digital revolution, word of mouth is now spread at extraordinary speed; making instantly globalised product launches, turning new brands into potential leaders and rewarding exceptional performance with immediate interest and approval from consumers. It makes it easy for brand advocates to actively spread a positive word of mouth highlighting the personal value and benefits of their relationship with your brand.

"The phone is now more playful than anything out there in the marketplace - it allows you to do all the normal stuff just better" Sally Durcan, MD, Hotcow

Hotcow http://www.hotcow.co.uk/  have commenced the implementation of their experiential strategy for the official launch of the Optimus 3D smartphone in the UK

The communications strategy is based on the fact that the phone will enable people to have a more personal immersive experience and the experience brings this to life in a fun and interactive way.  The activities are portrayed beneath the creative tagline:

Unlike any other campaign that has been developed by LG in the past, Hotcow’s overarching creative strategy focuses on the playful features of the phone and links it to the emotional reasons based on insight that consumers want brands to be more ‘real’ in their communication.

To bring this concept to life, Hotcow have created a series of "play time experiences" that reach out to consumers at work and during their leisure time comprising of 160 days’ worth of mixed activity from "Play Pods" to "Play Hub" and the “Play Mobile” with “Play Girls/Boys.”

“Play Pods” were launched on the 14th July at Canary Wharf with 6 pods that each looked like the phone.  On entering the pods, the public were invited to enjoy a complete personal experience in a darkened environment enhancing the depth of the experience. Each person left with a branded travel card and an online message driver to Facebook to follow the play team online.

The official launch will take place on Monday 25th July with the opening of the first 3D smartphone experience centre dubbed as the “Play Hub.”  This will enable people to touch, see and experience the main entertainment features of the phone - through 3 core zones – Gaming Zone, Movie Zone, Photo/Video Zone – An additional ‘Quick Zone’ will have gurus demonstrating how to get the best out of your phone.  The playful element will be highlighted with people being able to have 3D photos taken on an original Harley Davidson, competing in a gaming challenge and watching a 2 min action orientated 3D clip.

The 2 storey “Play Hub” experience will be set up in 5 key destinations targeting primarily a male demographic starting in Cavendish Square, London.   

To support the ‘Play Hub,’ a ‘Play Mobile,’ will be reaching out to consumers in both a leisure and work environment through a multi-faceted campaign with an on-the-move experience and street teams to give new customers the opportunity to be one of first to try out the smartphone.  Touring the country for 50 days with support from the “Play Girls and Play Boys,” night teams will also visit pubs and clubs on their travels, interacting with customers by taking pictures and video and playing them back in 3D and 2D.

“The phone is now more playful than anything out there in the marketplace - it allows you to do all the normal stuff just better. You can watch movies and play games in 2D or 3D without the need of glasses.  Plus, you can take photos or video footage of your favourite day outs or holidays and switch it between the formats. The phone is the ultimate personal experience enabling you to get completely absorbed in your own world, be that travelling to work lying in bed or on the couch. A live brand experience is the only way to build an emotional connection with the phone to ultimately drive excitement, interest and sales in the phone.” – Sally Durcan, MD, Hotcow

“Glasses-free 3D on your phone is truly amazing, but our customers need to see it to believe it. That’s why with we are rolling out this campaign with Hotcow that won’t just tell people about our product, it will enable as many people as possible to experience the magic for themselves – and then tell their friends about it.” - Alex Windle, Head of Mobile Communications Marketing LG – UK and Ireland

For more information please contact:

(UK) Bruce McClure –  PR Manager

Hotcow

4b Blake Mews, Kew

London, TW9 3GA

Email: bruce@hotcow.co.uk

www.hotcow.co.uk

Tel: +44-207-503-0442 / +44-7976-629163

Sally Durcan – MD, Hotcow

Tel: +44-207-503-0442 /  +44-7734-261808