Evolve With Social Or It Will Pass You By 12th July, 2017

Social is soaring and it doesn’t look set to slow down anytime soon. The majority of online users are moving away from computers in favour of smartphones. Figures released by OFCOM show 66% of the UK own a smartphone, as do 90% of 16-24 year olds. It’s the latter group that makes brand sponsorship on social platforms very profitable to those targeting their content at millennials. Social media sponsored content is fast becoming the best way to reach out and inform a digital generation.

Brands generally prefer the method of sponsored content as it differs from usual native advertising and its purpose is to inform and not necessarily convince its audience, keeping the brand message much more authentic.

A case study posted on the Instagram website claims that sponsored posts results in 2.8x higher ad recall than other online advertising. The soft nature of the posts and the tailored way in which Instagram integrates the posts are the likely reasons for the higher re-call rate. The company has also moved to close the gap between celebrity endorsements and sponsored posts by placing them under one umbrella. Snapchat has also introduced it’s sponsored filters campaign, where brands can sponsor a filter for a specific amount of time. With 150 million users daily it makes for a very lucrative opportunity.

Facebook has gone a slightly different way and created a unique sponsorship system, which is now in high demand. The company allows brands to sponsor user activity instead of posts. Partner’s simply pay to highlight an action that users have already taken on the social network or within a Facebook-connected app.

Social platforms have created great ways for brands to capitalise through sponsored content and thus far, audiences have been receptive to this influencing method due to sponsorship’s credibility to not be so intrusive. With social media continuously evolving and creating new opportunities for brands, rights holders must ensure that they are constantly up to date with changes so that they too can offer relevant opportunities for brands. It is not enough anymore to offer Facebook or Twitter posts as part of a sponsorship package. Rights holders need to understand how brands will want to use social platforms to ensure maximum cut through.

App-led Sponsorship 23rd June, 2014

On Wednesday, Facebook embarked upon its latest attempt to corner the social media market with the launch of the aptly named Slingshot app. To many, the launch was a response to Facebook’s failed bid for rival and burgeoning app Snapchat – an instant messaging app for sharing photos and videos with friends.

As of May of this year, users were sending up to 700 million photos and videos per day, while Snapchat Stories content was being viewed 50 million times per day. The recent surge in apps such as these has engendered new opportunities for sponsors to develop more creative and diverse social media strategies. Yet despite the overwhelming usage of apps such as Snapchat, the platform is still relatively untouched by brands – as such, here is an overview of recent campaigns using these platforms.

Diet Coke & Taylor Swift

Last year, Diet Coke used the app as part of its sponsorship of Taylor Swift’s Red Tour. People who subscribed to Diet Coke’s virtual scavenger hunt received one picture a day for five days. Each picture revealed clues regarding location of that day’s item and those who collected all five items won a free concert ticket. Due to the success of this campaign, Swift was able to directly engage with Swift’s audience on a global scale.

Heineken & Coachella

More recently Heineken, through their sponsorship of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, created a Snapchat account called HeinekenSnapWho. Users received clues throughout the weekend about who would be performing and those who responded with the correct answer would get an early confirmation from Heineken.

Both of these activations demonstrate the extensive opportunity available for brands to generate their own content through these apps. Furthermore, over two thirds of Snapchat’s 60 million users are mostly under the age of 25 meaning that Snapchat offers access to a very young demographic. This explains why Audi, through their sponsorship of Pretty Little Liars, have been Snapchatting exclusive content to users as it allows them to integrate their brand with their target demographic.

Vine

Of course, Snapchat isn’t the only app out there offering a platform for brands to get creative. Twitter’s video sharing service, Vine, has also attracted a number of sponsors due to the fact that the prerequisite of any viral video on Vine is creativity. In an article on digitaltrends.com, Meagan Cignoli, a Vine creator with over 300,000 followers, says that she is regularly courted by sponsors. Previous sponsorship deals having been agreed with Nike, Lowes and Rite Aid, allowing both the sponsors more social media coverage whilst she’s been able to extend the reach and authority of her own name by attaching herself to these brands. Therefore a ‘symbiotic relationship was created between a viral-hungry sponsor and Vine content creator’.

Vine has approximately 40 million users, 20 million less than Snapchat, however what they both share is a requirement for sponsors to be creative with their strategies. It is through apps such as these that sponsorship becomes so much more than just about the logo with more emphasis placed on integration, user generation and brand led content.