Kia Finds a Respectable Balance with Their Twitter Party

Kia threw a Twitter Party for the Mommy Bloggers Club last night. The Kia Sorento is building off their Super Bowl family-oriented TV ad that featured several kid toys including a Yo Gabba Gabba character Muno, a Sock Monkey and couple other random plush toys. It was personally one of my favorite TV ads from the Super Bowl.


The event was fairly well received especially by the women who participated. The “party” was basically a Kia Sorento trivia quiz with several prizes award randomly to those who answered the questions correctly during the allotted time. Questions focused on the Sorento vehicle and knowledge of the popular Super Bowl ad played into the quiz as well.

Participants used the hashtag #kiasorento to participate in the “party.” A hashtag is used in Twitter to conduct a threaded conversation so everyone can filter #kiasorento to see what everyone is saying in their tweets (for more on hashtags on Twitter checkout this article.)

Determining if the Twitter Party with the Mommy Bloggers Club was successful is a bit difficult without knowing the goals established by the marketing team. There were about 40-50 unique people who participated; though, there really isn’t a baseline to understand if this Twitter contest performed well. Engagement was high but that was by design as people were answering quiz questions to win a prize. There were a few comments where people expressed their love for the Sorento ad or the vehicle.

Reach is always an interesting thing. I pulled some random profiles from those who participated and most of the women had decent Twitter followings and even some good engagement metrics when analyzed against the stats provided by the website Klout. The good news is that Kia definitely reached their target by having the Mommy Bloggers Club promote and co-host the event.

Twitter Spam

Many also feel in the Twitter community that this kind of contest turns the people one is following into spammers. So there are some negative side effects too when considering this tactic. I personally feel it is pretty much pointless spam banter for the followers not participating or caring about the “party” going on, but this is the case with many hashtag campaigns.

One campaign recently held by a major automaker caused me to temporarily unfollow several people because it was becoming very annoying seeing twenty of the same messages getting retweeted every 10 minutes. Fortunately, there is a tool called TwitterSnooze to turn this stuff off for people not interested in such Twitter noise.

Brands definitely need to be aware of the impact of such tactics. The good thing about Kia’s approach is it only lasted a couple hours instead of multiple days like other hashtag events.

Kia definitely raised some awareness about their brand and found a fun way to extend their popular Super Bowl commercial to an online, social media adept crowd who definitely seemed impressed with Kia’s effort. Overall, I’d say for a Twitter contest this one was managed effectively and was brief enough to not be a considerable annoyance that can lead to negative brand sentiment.

FTC: Bloggers Not the Target, Advertisers Are

If you are a follower of social media news, I’m sure you didn’t miss all of the discussions about the FTC announcing guidance for bloggers having to disclose any freebees they receive from companies. It’s been a hot discussion topic across blogs, the advertising industry and major media outlets. In fact, if you want to understand the topic better than I can ever describe it, checkout the New York Times article discussing not only the impact on bloggers but what it means for traditional media too.

A lot of this issue has surrounded bloggers being singled out for receiving swag, while magazines, newspapers and TV reviewers get all kinds of products free to review from manufacturers. With the new rules, many bloggers feel the FTC guidelines (they are not laws) unfairly make bloggers the target of government regulations for a practice traditional media has taken part in for decades. This is a valid concern, but what does this mean for the automotive industry and its use of bloggers?

Is this passive compliance?

There is a $16,000 fine associated with each violation, so the threat is real but is it likely to be levied? The Silicon Alley Insider reports, “FTC assistant director Richard Cleland tells Joe Ciarallo at PR Newser, the FTC would never go after a blogger. It would only go after the advertiser.”

After a couple weeks digesting the FTC rules many feel they are meant as self-policing regulation to show that the government will take violations that mislead customers seriously, but most of the change will be an industry understanding of how to behave with consumer interests in mind. Doing proper disclosure is a good thing as is properly making well-informed statements about products being reviewed.

In a recent addition of the marketing Podcast The Bean Cast, host Bob Knorpp shares his email exchange with advertising lawyer Michael McSunas about when such a fine would occur. Many feel, as reported in last week’s Agency Spy blog, that the FTC sets up these rules as a guideline and never enforces the compliance with a fine. McSunas feels a fine would only be sought if the violation was for "deceptive practices or maybe a complaint." This is probably correct but of course it’s an educated assumption until we see the FTC take action or no action.

Disclosure is Easy, Inaccurate Statements More Complex

Regardless of when or if a fine will ever be levied, the FTC rules have caused a bit of a panic for bloggers who don’t want to face government fines after possibly inaccurately reviewing the latest hybrid car or family minivan.

It’s also caused concern for marketers who don’t want to be a case study for the FTC and want to make sure no inaccurate statements are made about their products, so it creates an issue for them to now review everything written about them that they send for review to a blogger. This issue is fare more concerning than the disclosure rule a blogger is supposed to make for receiving any item to review.

Marketers more likely the target

One issue automakers may worry about is statements casually written by bloggers that could be construed as competitive claims. To quote the FTC Rules directly:

"The Commission believes it is reasonable to hold the advertiser responsible for communicating approved claims to the service (which, in turn, would be responsible for communicating those claims to the blogger).”

For those who may not know, automakers must legally confirm competitive statements like best mid-size sedan fuel economy or roomiest third-row. Of course, some claims are utter nonsense since companies choose who is in their segment, though it does have to be within reason. Also claims can select what they want to compare against, like using highway mileage instead of combined mileage or vice-versa to show a competitive advantage.

With bloggers, the concern is a possible lack of depth within a particular industry of products where a blogger may claim something like “wow this car has the most roomiest interior of any SUV.” False claims like this now have federal oversight from the FTC that may cause reluctance from a corporate lawyer reviewing a blogger outreach campaign.

So, the big question is will fear of inaccurate statements by bloggers reduce company participation in social media? Don't know. Maybe in the near-term, but I doubt long-term since companies and bloggers will learn how to comply with the FTC rules and some initial hysteria may dissipate over time.

It’s about consumer protection... really

If this is about consumer protection and less about collecting fines, the FTC rules should be welcomed as it shows blogger importance has reached a level worthy of attention. There have been marketers like Sony who have created fake bloggers to write about the PSP. Other issues have been companies outright paying for positive reviews. Something had to be done to handle the few violations of public trust.

My experience in automotive is that it is quite clear when a blogger is given a car to review and from where that car came from. So disclosure is already being done. Claims are the more pressing concern and may lead to additional materials being presented to bloggers at the time a vehicle is offered for review.

In conclusion

Hopefully, the FTC rules will remove any suspect social media campaigns that create fake bloggers or do payola deals. Also, I believe we’ll see the rules in action by their inaction and how this may do very little to change what is going on today on most blogs. Sure we’ll see some more emphatic statements about how a blogger received a product, but beyond that the impact should be minimal and the working relationship with bloggers and auto manufacturers and dealers a continuing positive experience for all.

For more information about the FTC Rules:

Truth in Advertising, Offline or Online from @NYTimes

Episode 75: The Monopoly on Crappy Work from @TheBeanCast

IAB Says FTC Blogger Rules Trample Constitution from @AdWeek

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials from FTC.gov

Finally, this blog post was sponsored by Gas Station Coffee for when you are too lazy to brew your own or walk 1 minute to the nearest Starbucks.

Chevy Traverse Entry into the Mommy-sphere

There is a lot of data showing the engagement of women online, especially highly desirable family oriented professional moms who have considerable influence in automotive purchases, women influence 85% of all the car buying decisions.

A recent report from eMarketer shows the following impressive social interaction from female social network users:



One key category that is getting a ton of attention is the “Read Blogs” statistic. With all the hype around mommy bloggers who are showing up in all kinds of traditional media outlets with stories showing highly successful bloggers getting perks from companies and, more importantly, having influence on other female consumers, it is no surprise that automotive brands want to reach out to these influencers.

With all this attention, it would seem a mommy blogger outreach would be a slam-dunk for any automaker with an impressive new product that is perfectly targeted to cool, trendy mommy bloggers and their readers.

So the marketing department develops a profile showing some hip, trendy mom who can flawlessly juggle life via Blackberry, running a bunch of kids around town and finding time to hit the spa between soccer and dance classes.

Chevy Dealers Reach Out to Influencers

North Texas Chevy Dealers took their new family hauler, the Traverse, to moms by giving the SUV to them for 8-weeks, plenty of time to write and create stories around the Traverse. All the while, the bloggers were competing for a prize and readers could also win a prize in a drawing.

Some details about the contest element:

From April – June, readers were to visit the mommy madness local sites (two in Dallas and one in Kansas City) where the voter is entered into a contest to win a resort trip and vote for their favorite mommy blogger who would also win a prize if they were voted the top spot.

I love the idea of giving bloggers the car for such a long time. Eight weeks really gives the women some quality time to experience the vehicle and write about their use and share their honest feedback. It's a great way to gain some consumer insights from a customer perspective.

One mommy blogger, and there are several examples showing the same results, had no engagement on her site when she wrote about the contest or SUV (no engagement = no comments.) Bloggers were directed to post the reviews, not on their blog, but on a separate site. That’s due to Chevrolet and CBS Radio, the two sponsors, creating sites to host the blogger articles and videos. Funny thing is that all of the content the bloggers created, minus a few videos on YouTube, all went away and are no longer viewable on the web since the sites have been shutdown.

YouTube videos from the contest show on average 47 views with the top video getting a whopping 126. Seems engagement was very low with the content, probably partially due to the contest creating sites outside of the very blogger audiences they wanted to reach.

Three-Month Life to Content

Why on earth would you reach out to mommy bloggers who have established audiences, have them post your product’s content on some separate contest website and then delete all the content when the contest wraps up? This has to be about the crazyiest way to tap into the built-in audience a blog has.

Didn’t anyone say, “Hey we should let the content live on the bloggers’ sites because that’s where the bloggers’ readers are.”

Instead the result is that there is very little content on YouTube (think needle in a haystack) and very limited reviews on mom blogger websites from people who lived with the vehicle for 8 weeks. Chevrolet spent all this time and money to create user-generated content only to have it live for three months. Huh?

A Blogger Kept Her Reviews on Her Blog

Fortunately, one blogger recognized that keeping her posts on her site would be of value, beyond the contest. The “Dinkypops No More” blog kept the engagement on her site and included a lot of information about her experience with the Traverse. The articles are actually pretty good and included some nice pictures and a few video reviews (though video metrics show rather minuscule results 70-120 views per video.)

The good news is that the blogger’s readers did engage with some posts, mostly cheerleading about how awesome it is she was selected for the opportunity and comments about the mission not the car (e.g. riding roller coasters, getting a haircut, and other family activities.)

So even though the product is aimed right at the busy mom target, it doesn’t mean mommy blogger readers care enough to talk about a $30,000 plus vehicle. What is also interesting is how few comment on the attributes of the car (one post I found finally had some car related comments, because it focused entirely on the driver’s favorite things.) Leaving me to wonder is a car too much of a considered purchase that few mommy blogger readers care about as they do with day-to-day consumer goods like food, sundries, and child-focused products?

Metrics

The metrics allude to my question about the blogger's readers not really wanting to find out more about a shiny, expensive new car. One insight into the metrics of the separate Mommy Madness sites is a post showing results four days into the contest in April:

Dallas
884 Unique visits
3130 Unique page views
3:32 average time on site

Houston
520 Unique visits
1926 Unique page views
4:31 avg. time on site

Is this good? Tough to know if media buys also drove visits or was traffic only from the mom bloggers the source. My guess is that media buys were limited, if any at all, since the contest was lead not by Chevrolet the brand, but by the regional North Texas Chevy Dealers.

Conclusions

When leveraging a blogger's audience, don't have the readership go out to your marketing website to read reviews about your product. Drop off has to be huge and loses the whole point of engaging that blogger - her readers.

Hosting content on a marketing site that you intend to shut down after said contest also loses all of the great content the bloggers created for your product. This great content is no longer available when others are researching your product.

The contest element is interesting and will entice some readers to jump to an unfamiliar website, but as one friend of mine once said, "contests should read: Enter for your chance to lose..."

Finally, there is a big question of whether mommy blogger engagement is right for automotive brands. Sure the appeal of the demographic is there, but do people visiting sites - mainly focused on parenting and household dynamics - really care to engage with a highly-considered purchase like a car/SUV?

One thing is certain, the mommy blogger community is too intoxicating to ignore for marketers and future examples of blogger engagement may prove more compelling than this regionally focused one from a dealership group was.