The Caffeine Challenge

Fall is coming. While most people are thinking of autumn leaves or starting school, I’m thinking of Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte.

For the second year in a row, Starbucks executed a notable social media campaign to generate buzz for their highly anticipated seasonal beverage. Rather than simply submitting a vote, users were invited to complete various online challenges and tasks to bring back the popular latte to their cities a week before the drink’s official release date.  Some of the challenges involved simple games like crossword puzzles or answering trivia questions based on Starbucks’ online videos.  In addition, including the “#PSLChallenge” hashtag to your wall posts or tweets on Facebook and Twitter would garner even more points for one’s city. The city with the most points by August 24, 2012, will be rewarded with the debut of the Pumpkin Spice Latte one week earlier than the rest of the country; Leavenworth, WA took the win.

For the most dedicated drinkers, this is a darn near perfect reward. An earlier debut adds a special element to this already popular product and gives the consumer an illusion of empowerment. By participating in the challenge, passionate fans were able to share their excitement with their online communities and generate additional hype for their beloved beverage.

For your average consumer, Starbucks’ promotion still served its purpose—it let us know the latte is back! Whether one was excited about the challenge or not, by seeing others participate, they were exposed to the product virally through tweets, news feeds, and word of mouth. This exposure undoubtedly helps maximize awareness for Starbucks’ other products and offers, which will likely result in a boost in overall sales this upcoming holiday season.

As for me, nothing welcomes the new season better than the flavors that come with it.

We’re honored to receive the Facebook All-Star award from Connect2One. We take great pride in the work we produce for the Bronco Bookstore through social media marketing. It’s always nice when various publications showcase our work in  articles but now it’s even cooler to have this trophy sitting in our workspace. When coworkers asked us who’s the bigger star on the trophy, Lily said, “I’m both stars. Darren’s the base.” Haha… In any case, we’re both very grateful to receive this award.

Below is a link to the article that Eric Criswell wrote about the Facebook All-Stars award.

Original Article

– D

Social Media Best Practices

In the industry of campus retail, we’re innovators. The social media work we do for the Bronco Bookstore is widely recognized across the country by publications and other bookstore managers.

Lily and I were asked to present at the California Association of College Stores annual expo at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, CA. last fall. The topic of our presentation was “Social Media Best Practices.”  This was the first time we’d be speaking about our work to a live public audience.  We had to figure out which campaigns we’d showcase and how we’d present it for the 30 minute time slot we were allotted. It took a lot of planning, designing, and rehearsing, but I do believe the hard work rewarded us with the best presentation we’ve ever created.

Within the following weeks, we were interviewed and featured in two different publications regarding the various ideas we discussed in our presentation. We were even complimented on how well the presentation looked. Lily deserves all the credit for designing each of the 75+ slides with such visually stimulating appeal.  From purely an aesthetic standpoint, it was certainly the most captivating powerpoint I’ve ever seen.

Whether  you’re from campus retail or not, we do believe that our presentation can offer you some tips and strategies to engaging your audience on Facebook.

– D

Facebook Pages, meet Facebook Timeline

Woke up this morning anticipating a routine day at work but little did I know, I’d be spending most of my morning messing around with the new Timeline for Facebook Pages.

Here are my favorite features from the timeline upgrade:

• Cover Photo – Facebook does have some guidelines that may restrict businesses to utilize this feature to it’s maximum marketing potential. However, it’s overall addition is likable and will allow for businesses to show more personality through visually appealing cover photos.
• Highlight: Alongside Pin (see below), this is my favorite feature. Businesses may now highlight a particular post, which then expands the post across the page. This allows users to easily spot a post while scrolling through a page’s timeline. Multiple posts may be highlighted at one time. We’ve already tested this feature on our Kellogg West Facebook Page by highlighting the 8th Annual Bridal Fair.
• Pin: Pin is great. By pinning a post, it will be featured as the top post (until another post is pinned) on your page. Only one post may be pinned at a time. We’ve also tried this feature on our KW Page by pinning our “Comfort at Every Angle” spot.
• Message Fans Directly: We’ve always had to message our fans about prize claims and such through a personal account created under the name Bronco Channel. However, this new direct message system will allow fans to contact pages directly and vice versa. I have yet to use this feature but it seems like a conversation may only be initiated by the fan.

No me gusta:

• Landing Tabs ... are gone. I can no longer set my page’s landing tab to a customized tab. Which means no more “like this page” to find out how to do such and such and no more arrows pointing up towards that LIKE button. What a bummer since Darren and I were on the verge of rolling out a new campaign with those exact specifications. Back to the drawing board we go.

I still need to explore the Milestones addition to Facebook Pages but if it’s anything like Life Event, I think this addition will be positive as it will allow users to become more familiar with your business and allow fans to establish a deeper connection with the company behind the logo.

As with any other Facebook upgrade, I’ll have to get used to it. But so far, I like it.

Kellogg West has already made it’s shift and we will most likely be rolling out this new look for the remaining Foundation units (Bronco Bookstore, CPP Dining, and University Village) before the March 30th deadline.

-L

Grad Fair Games

Lily and I entered our Bronco Bookstore campaign titled, “Grad Fair Games 2011” into the NACS Cool Ideas Contest. The winning entry will receive $1,000 to use toward future marketing campaigns.

We chose to enter this campaign because it was particularly something new for us and unique from other campaigns we’ve done in the past.  We used social media to promote it, but the campaign itself consisted of various forms of guerrilla marketing and live events.

We’re just finishing the final plans for our  2nd annual Grad Fair Games coming later this April. Until then, take a look at our Cool Ideas Contest entry below that was written by both Lily and myself.

– D

Purpose:   One of Bronco Bookstore’s ongoing hurdles in recent years has been generating awareness for Grad Fair. In previous years, some of our students have often overlooked traditional forms of marketing such as print advertising and e-mail blasts, which led them to miss Grad Fair altogether.

To overcome this obstacle, Bronco Bookstore took a different approach from traditional marketing to promote Grad Fair 2011 and truly celebrated the “learn by doing” spirit of Cal Poly Pomona.

The Grad Fair Games was created to raise awareness for our 2-day Grad Fair by enticing upcoming graduates through participative activities weeks before the big event. The series of hands-on events consisted of two games, along with a guerilla push through our “Grad Walkers.”

Our first game, “Sash Shuffle,” invited students to register teams of two through Bronco Bookstore’s Facebook Page. Teams were then pitted against each other on game day with the objective of transferring a graduation sash between each teammate’s shoulders (without the use of hands) in the fastest time. The game was formatted in a tournament style rewarding the winning team with a pair of graduation sashes.

The second game was called, “Tassel Tossers.” Students were given a shot at tossing a tassel into a graduation cap. Landing a tassel into the cap would reward the student with a 2011 graduation tassel.

Additionally, our “Grad Walkers” guerilla push complimented the Grad Fair Games and directly connected with upcoming graduates about Grad Fair 2011. Bookstore employees, fully dressed in commencement attire, strolled around campus during peak hours in high density areas wearing their cap and gown to hand out flyers and directly communicate with students about Grad Fair 2011.

How Idea Was Successful:   The Grad Fair Games strengthened awareness by having students participate first-hand in memorable activities leading up to Grad Fair 2011. This untraditional marketing push ultimately translated to an increase in sales figures.

Students stopped and observed as participants frantically (and creatively) transferred the graduation sash.

Cheers and groans were heard from the observing crowds as participants scored or barely missed a tassel shot.

Additionally, the “Grad Walkers” drew in a lot of attention, as it was unusual to see students walking amongst the crowds dressed in a cap and gown a whole two months before commencement. Curious students who approached our “Grad Walkers” got to ask questions and learn more about Grad Fair by speaking with an employee one-on-one.

It was this type of unique attention that generated enormous amounts of increased awareness for Grad Fair 2011. This boost of awareness led to a substantial increase in traffic during both days of the event. Our Grad Fair exclusive merchandise pack completely sold out and sales saw an average increase of 22% over the previous year in all areas.