Reading Reflection 1 - "Performance with Purpose"

Wondering what movie you want to watch this weekend? Do you read what the New York Times movie critic has to say? May be you want to read both critics reviews and the views from the movie audiences side by side on Rotten Tomatoes. Or would you rather watch a Youtube channel of a movie reviewer who has a similar taste for movies as you do?  Chaelene Li and Josh Bernoff call it the growndswell, “A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations”.

The book Growndswell: winning in aworld transformed by social technologies describes how the social media has changed the communication between brands and customers as well as how companies can use the trend in social media to understand and engage with the customer more than ever before. 

When I was reading the techniques for talk section of the book it reminded me of one of the most unforgettable marketing campaigns on 2013, Pantene Shine Strong campaign. It is a great example of using the talk techniques introduced in the Groundswell.

 This video advertisement was originally released on Pantene’s Philippines regional YouTube page on Nov. 9, 2013 and also aired twice on TV and the company did not have a worldwide campaign planed. Though advertisement’s strong message about the double standards at the workplace spread fast though the social media and when Sheryl Sandberg made a comment about the ad on her commercial Facebook page the simple advertisement became a viral video. 

With growing attention on the media and the public, Pantene expanded the campaign to a worldwide audience via social media. Brand's Twitter account and the YouTube video asked people to share their stories by creating a community around #ShineStrong hash tag. 

They engaged with the twitter community retweeting some of the comments and offering prizes for some of the twitter comments. 

Today, the YouTube video has 39 million views, and over 3,000 comments. It has also created further discussion within women organizations and media not just as a marketing campaign but providing attention to much debated topic. 

The campaign created a true wildfire phenomenon. Of course the social media played a major role in giving personality and meaning to otherwise would have been one minute commercial made by a hair care brand.