Babies, Meerkats, Monkeys and Breasts - Spot the odd one out

Right it's time for a rare serious discussion.

Obviously in the digital age it’s more important than ever for brands to be seen as engaging and interactive, to be ‘down with kids’. With all the social media flying around it’s even easier for brands to engage with their customers as witnessed by facebook’s new brand pages. Social media is undoubtedly important as it allows brands to effectively monitor and respond to their customers, but I can’t help but feel that too many brands are using it unnecessarily. After all, really great brands have been around longer than the internet.

Yes it’s important to be up to date on the latest technology but many brands are using social media just because it’s what everyone else is doing not because it’s effective. For example, one of my biggest peeves is tv ad characters on twitter. I get the idea, but they’re trying to emulate the success of such massive twitter characters as The Queen or Feral Pigeon; but with brand engagement. They’re not funny, they’re not organic and they’re not effective.

 1)   Huggies – Alfie the Baby: 610 Followers

Tries to be entertaining with his cute little ‘baby waves’, however is ultimately creepy. Now it may just be me, but a baby commenting on current affairs is not my idea of hilarity.

-       Desire to have kids = dramatically reduced

-       Desire to buy nappies = none whatsoever

2     2)   Compare the Market – Aleksander Orlov: 52,604 Followers

This is slightly more entertaining with his humorous use of poor English and a little but cuter than Alfie. However this: ‘Today I bring Sergei beetle juice, I squeeze the beetles myself. I hope he enjoy.’ just doesn’t do it for me.

-       Need to correct poor English = Mild

-       Need to change my car insurance = Non-existent.

 3)   Vision Express – Bud the Monkey: 73 Followers

Again I get this what it’s trying to do, but it’s just trying too hard.

‘Just cooked the most amazing Sunday lunch. Really looking forward to eating it.’ With a link to a picture of a banana. I just did not see that coming. My sides...

-       Urge to have a banana = abnormally high

-       Urge to buy spectacles = nil

What worries me is that they are actually PAYING someone to do this. Can I be paid to do this? As apparently monkeys, or indeed meerkats can do it.

Now before you accuse me of being a negatron, I’m not. There are some truly great examples of brand social media interaction, my current favourite being Boobstagram.

Boobstagram is a french movement (cunningly) devised by two men to raise awareness for breast cancer. Simply email or hashtag boobstagram with a pic of your bra covered boobs and watch said breasts be uploaded to their website, twitter and facebook, along with MANY others. Based around the strapline ‘Showing your breasts on the internet is good, showing them to your doctor is better’, it’s going to have a certain appeal to women (and more than likely a higher proportion of men) but it’s a truly effective campaign. For one thing it’s organic – it’s not just some guy on twitter pretending to be a monkey – it’s almost completely user-created. It’s also entertaining, memorable and therefore effective.

-       Desire to upload a pictures of my breasts = unlikely.

-       Desire to show my breasts to my doctor = high.