Situational marketing is a brand's reaction to a newsbreak in a social, political, technological or other area that is close to target audience. It is relevant because it helps:
- increase the number of sales;
- to increase the loyalty of the target audience to the brand;
- increase the reach of posts;
- increase brand awareness;
- provoke communication with subscribers;
- provoke resonance and discussion.
Competent situational marketing allows you to “stir up” subscribers or customers, bring them to a dialogue, draw attention to a product, service or brand. Therefore, it is an effective sales tool. For example, one of the very first examples of situational marketing is the post of TM “Oreo”, published on February 3, 2013. Then in the USA, the lights went out at the stadium during the game of the National Championship, and the creatives wrote a post that later got on the pages of Forbes and Mashable.
Creating situational marketing comes with challenges. The main ones are:
- Search and tracking newsbreaks.
- Rapid content creation for situational marketing.
- Track the performance of posts, articles, videos, and other types of content.
In this article, we will tell you what newsbreaks you can work with, how to quickly create content and track its effectiveness. Read detailed descriptions and instructions below.
Informative reasons for situational marketing
Absolutely any event that is interesting to your target audience can serve as an information occasion for situational marketing - from the expected end of the world to a loud political statement. It is necessary to select categories of newsworthy events based on the interests of the target audience. By the way, you can follow the latest news in RSS aggregators, news aggregators or special services that track popular topics in social networks - for example, in SmmBox.
Information occasions for situational marketing can be:
Upcoming holidays.Many companies play with Victory Day, St. Valentine's Day, March 8, Defender of the Fatherland Day and many other holidays. And before the New Year, situational marketing is used by literally everyone who is not lazy: garlands and Christmas trees appear in offices, New Year's promotions appear on websites, in in social networks- bright congratulations. One of the most successful examples of situational marketing before the holiday is Coca-Cola's annual New Year's Eve ad.
Featured News. You can work with both positive and negative: the main thing is to choose the right publication format and pick up a really sensational newsbreak that will advertise itself. For example, you can discuss with subscribers the upcoming increase in the minimum wage - this is good news, everyone knows it, but many do not have much hope for the upcoming increase. Therefore, the newsbreak will cause discussion. Or you can use negative news - for example, join the stars of show business and express condolences to the relatives of those who died in the fire at the Winter Cherry shopping center in Kemerovo. Naturally, you need to choose the latest news that came out no more than a week ago.
Release of a popular song and/or video. Some songs and videos scatter on social networks literally in a matter of hours. For example, this was the case with an unusual video for the song “Ice is melting”. Some still use slightly altered lines from the song, its title or the main motive of the video in advertising.
political events.Politics is spoken about in almost all mass media, so the vast majority of the target audience knows about current news. You can use this to your advantage - for example, invite readers to discuss latest news, talk about it or associate it with the product. For example, you can use media coverage of presidential elections Russian Federation- in front of them and on the day they are held.
social events. You can also use any news to promote a brand, service or product. social sphere that cause a wide public outcry. A vivid example is the five episodes of the program “Let them talk” with Diana Shurygina. It was actively discussed in all social networks and on any possible platforms, and blogger Nikolai Sobolev even increased his subscriber base by a little more than 600,000 people.
How to plan and create situational content
Planning high-profile newsbreaks is almost impossible, of course, if you yourself are not involved in creating them. Therefore, it is impossible to include all the posts of situational marketing in the content plan. The only thing you can do is:
- Leave a place for situational posts for the holidays - all-Russian, for example, for the New Year - or thematic, for example, for international day pizza.
- Leave space in the content plan for occasional posts once a day, once a week or once a month, and publish such content only on these days.
- Make a content plan with informational, entertaining and educational posts and use situational marketing outside the content plan when a good newsbreak appears.
When a good newsbreak has appeared, the main thing is to quickly create thematic content. Speed and originality are the main principles for developing situational posts in marketing. After all, the more readers see the same news, the less they will pay attention to it, so the main traffic goes to the fastest. And the rest of the traffic goes to those who managed to present the newsbreak in an original way.
Simply put, the main principles for creating situational posts are:
- Find quality information. Choose events that "thundered" throughout the country, or narrowly topical news that are interesting to the target audience - for example, a story about a conference on medicine when promoting a portal for doctors.
- Associate the infotainment with the product. You can do this in many ways - for example, to talk about why your product is suitable for this particular situation, or to talk about a holiday and offer a service for it. You don’t have to associate the newsbreak with the brand, but then the return will be lower.
- Create original content. Write good text, draw a vivid picture or shoot an attractive video. Read more about the basic principles of creating effective content in our other articles.
Depending on the brand promotion strategy, product features and newsbreak type, different types of situational content can be used. For example, post:
post with promotion. Promotions are good because they can be tied to almost any event - for example, news, the release of a new song, an upcoming holiday.
Congratulation or postcard. Congratulate on the upcoming holiday with a cheerful and bright postcard. Wish your target audience love, health, money, or whatever you want.
Product, post, avatar, logo styling. Publish a modified logo, a thematic image for the post, an updated avatar. Or style the product itself for a newsbreak.
St. Patrick's Day Facebook Cover Update by McDonald's Quest, game, test.Come up with a simple online game related to the newsbreak and invite subscribers or site visitors to play it.
Text that has a link to the newsbreak. In it, you can advertise a product, tell more about a service, or simply offer to discuss a newsbreak.
Analysis of the effectiveness of situational marketing
Today, there are no precise metrics created specifically for situational marketing. Therefore, its effectiveness is monitored in various ways, for example:
- compare the reach of a regular post with the reach of a situational marketing post in terms of the number of views;
- consider the conversion of a page with published thematic content;
- compare the number of reposts of regular posts and thematic publications;
- count the number of calls to the company in the first day or week after the publication of situational content;
- count the number of mentions of the company in social networks or on other resources after publication.
This helps to evaluate the effectiveness of situational marketing and continue to develop it in the right direction. You need to select metrics based on the format of publications - for example, conversion calculation is appropriate for a website, and comparison of post coverage is appropriate for social networks.
Do you use situational marketing and how do you create posts? Share your experience in the comments!
Situational Marketing (situational marketing, situational marketing) is the use of a topical occasion for the target audience to promote the subject of marketing, a prompt response to events relevant to the target audience in public, political or economic life.The purpose of situational marketing- the growth of the marketing indicators of the marketing object, the promotion of the marketing object, using the event as a reason for marketing activity.
Tasks of situational marketing:
- actualization of marketing activity, in accordance with events important for the target audience;
- saving resources when creating and playing informational occasions;
- synergy of the event (situation) and the subject of marketing.
When realizablesituational marketing perfect, it is not necessary that the subject of marketing be in any way connected with a random informational occasion. The task of the marketer is to make a promoted subject of marketing (optional):
- co-author of the situation;
- involved in the situation;
- arbiter of the situation;
- or just a commentator of the situation.
- correspondence between the audience of the event and the audience of the subject of marketing;
- non-contradiction of the event of the idea of the marketing object (product, brand);
- responsiveness;
- be the first to respond;
- be understandable to the audience;
- get into the mood of the target audience;
- fit of the event into the history of the subject of marketing.
When talking about situational marketing, they distinguish:
- pre-prepared marketing program based on pre-planned events (provoking situations);
- operational, due to a third-party random event, response to a situation, with a play on the marketing object.
Cases of situational marketing.
The beginning of situational marketing was put by a tweet from TM “Oreo”. This case of social marketing activity among specialists was called: "Oreo Blackout tweet". During the National Football Championship in the USA, on February 4, 2013, the lights went out over half of the stadium. The game was forced to stop. The audience in the stands turned their attention to social media, where the discussion took place. At this time, the brand's SMM managed to come up with a creative and publish it on Twitter: "Oreo can be dipped in the dark."
The second event, which experts attribute to situational marketing, took place on October 6, 2013 during the XXII Winter Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi. Then the fire went out during the run of the torchbearer through the territory of the Kremlin. The event guard came to the aid of the torchbearer and used a petrol lighter to light the fire again. Zippo simply changed the photo to home page the brand's facebook pages to a photo of a lighter near the Olympic torch.
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Since the value and cost of a product are relative, they are strongly influenced by the specific situational context. When we are thirsty, the relative value of cola will be higher than when we are not thirsty. In general, the value we attribute to products and brands depends on the situation. In psychology, for example, behavior is defined as the interaction of a person with the environment, due to situational and personal factors. On the one hand, we are all individuals with our own preferences, characteristics and needs that form our value system and actions; On the other hand, our behavior is influenced external factors. For example, our needs differ in hot and cold weather. In marketing, we often only focus on permanent personal factors such as preferences and needs. This trend is due to two reasons. First, the lack of a systematic approach to understanding how the external world, including the situational context, affects perceived value. Secondly, marketers are people too, and they often do not realize how much they depend on factors environment. Because of this, they underestimate the power of the context, because its effect, like the effect of the framing effect, is implicit. By evaluating customer behavior from a situational (rather than personal) perspective, you are able to make a more accurate prediction. Not surprisingly, situational marketing has become well established by leading companies such as Kraft Foods or Nestl?. Let's look at examples.
In one study, we commissioned the ice cream market. Our client's brand ranked second in the market. The company used standard promotion approaches: brand positioning was carried out according to certain characteristics, and customer behavior was explained by such cognitive schemes as “the first thing that comes to mind”, a preference list, a favorite brand, brand loyalty and segmentation by characteristics. In general, marketers were only interested in the customers themselves, not in the selling situation as a whole.
What changed after situational factors were taken into account? Let's take the construct "the first thing that comes to mind". It is usually measured with questions like: “If you are asked to think about ice cream, which brand comes to your mind first, second? ..” To answer, the client begins to remember. Without a specific context in front of them, people use the typical ice cream idea they have learned in life. But we already know that the autopilot processes information about the environment in which we consume products, so associative memory integrates into its systems different cases from life. For example, recovering drug addicts have a strong desire to take the drug if they just drive past the place where they used to buy it. The situational trigger activates the memory, causing an urgent need through it. Alcoholics often hide alcohol after drinking, and when sober, they cannot remember where. But as soon as they get drunk again, they immediately remember where the bottle is hidden. Some experiments have shown that if you learn new words while standing in water, then it will be easiest to remember them in water.
The context is reflected not only in the perception, but also in the memorization of what we have perceived. In our study, we got different results when we asked, “What brand of ice cream comes to your mind when you think of ice cream as a dessert at Christmas?” and when you simply asked which brands come to mind first. By adding situational framing, we got new answers.
The same goes for such constructs as a list of preferences, a favorite brand and loyalty. We have already seen that the effect of inhibition of the cortical focus occurs only for the most beloved brand, and not the second or third in the list of preferences. It’s not enough to just be on the list of brands in question, you need to be number one with a reference to a specific situation. In the ice cream example, the market leader was known to customers and ranked first in the list of brands under consideration. But the number two ice cream brand has firmly established itself in important situational niches such as "ice cream for dessert" and "ice cream to treat yourself." Since it is possible to measure profit potential in different situations, we used a useful marketing tool for this brand - positioning using various situations. This helped to find niches in the market with b about more sales potential that no other brand has yet taken.
The notion of customer loyalty also appears in a different light. Customers may show high loyalty in certain situations and low loyalty in general. Therefore, for successful brand management, it is important to decide in which situations we want to dominate, that is, which situations, according to your plan, should first of all remind customers of your brand. Brands that rank second and third in the market may benefit from this approach more than trying to overtake the market leader.
A focus on a situational approach can also increase brand penetration. The usual approach to segmentation is to allocate market shares based on preferences, needs, demographics, and life cycle clients. Of course, these factors explain the behavior of buyers of certain categories of products. However, where a product is used for a variety of occasions (as in the case of ice cream) or purchased for other than expressing the owner's personality (such as essential goods), segmenting based on customer characteristics rather than circumstance is to limit one's understanding. how purchase decisions are made and lose the ability to influence them. On a walk with children, we make different demands on ice cream than buying it for ourselves or ordering on a date at a restaurant. This is true for people of any age. In such cases, assigning one type of buyer to one segment is limiting oneself. Customers can be classified into different segments depending on the reason for the purchase.
A situational approach can be useful when entering new markets. A pharmaceutical company wanted to expand its business by selling a new allergy drug. In the treatment of allergies, patients often have to take a long course of injections to blunt the sensitivity of the immune system to allergens. The physician prescribing such treatment prefers to prescribe drugs of a certain pharmaceutical company. Doctors are well aware existing methods therapy, and the drugs used do not differ in price or quality. Thus, the subjective value of switching to a new drug would be low, and the subjective cost of such a switch would be high, as clinicians would need to change their approaches. With all of this in mind, the company has focused on promoting the main benefit of its drug, the short duration of therapy. Usually this factor does not matter, because the treatment is carried out after the flowering season of plants and patients have nowhere to rush. But there is one exception: many sufferers come to the doctor shortly after the start of allergy season. Usually they are asked to come back in a year, but with a new medication, the doctor can start therapy immediately. Therefore, the marketing department decided to position it as a tool for such situations, which was a huge success. Doctors did not have to revise their usual treatment methods (there are no behavioral costs), but they could help “late” patients and earn more. Thus, doctors, having become better acquainted with the drug and the treatment regimen, began to prescribe it even to those patients who did not need quick treatment.
Analyzing the buying situations rather than the personality types of the buyers can be a direct path to innovation. Take, for example, the Frubes brand of soft cheese (Figure 2.7). Soft cheese is considered healthy and natural product. In what situations are these characteristics especially significant? For example, when cheese is bought for a school breakfast for a child. Mothers want their kids to have only the healthiest foods in their box for lunch. Soft cheese is a good choice. From a branding point of view, this move has great potential for profit due to the high frequency of the reason for buying, it is hindered only by the need to change habitual behavior. After all, to eat soft cheese from a jar, you need a spoon; besides, if the plastic jar breaks in the briefcase, then everything will be stained with cheese. Frubes manufacturers have solved this problem by packaging the product in soft tubes that are strong enough to eat from. Buyers had a positive attitude towards soft cheese before, but in a new context they opened up additional features millions of pounds in sales.
Rice. 2.7. The success of Frubes cheese is based on a reference to a relevant situation (cheese for school lunches)
The purchase decision is determined by the situational context, which influences the perception of value and cost.
Situational marketing not only helps to tailor the brand to use in specific situations, but also serves as a springboard for decision-making in a number of situations. This means that marketers are faced with the task of figuring out how to subjectively reduce costs and increase the value of the product using context. Good example this approach shows the world leader in the production of rooftop solar panels SMA. Usually, the company's contact with customers (solar panel installers) occurs when the latter have already agreed with the owners of the house and started purchasing materials. After analyzing the buying process, SMA found a way to increase product value and reduce customer labor. The company's programmers created computer program Solarchecker, which masters can use when discussing work with the owner of the house. The installer only needs to put their smartphone on the roof and the software will automatically measure the reflection angles and calculate the expected performance of the panel, and if you add Additional information, the master will immediately inform the owner of the house whether it is cost-effective to buy batteries. When the application calculates the expected performance, the installer can immediately order suitable panels from the company. The application does not improve the quality of the panels themselves, but it increases the overall value of purchasing them from SMA.
Although interesting examples A lot of situational marketing has accumulated over the past few years, this term still raises questions among many digital specialists.
Situational marketing should be understood as the brand's reaction to a particular news event in the public, political or other sphere, which is relevant to the target audience and with which you can promote a product, service or the company itself. In other words, situational content involves the brand playing up the actual newsbreak. After all, if the event is of interest to the general public, why not use it for the benefit of your brand?
With the right approach, situational marketing can:
- increase the loyalty of your target audience;
- increase sales;
- increase brand awareness;
- engage subscribers in communication;
- increase post reach
What events can be used for situational content?
There are a lot of events for creating situational content. It can be interesting to beat the release of a long-awaited film, song, video for your target audience, you can take something from the news of social and political topics (as Aviasales often does) or prepare in advance by looking at the holiday calendar.
Here are some good examples:
- Situational content for the release of the film:
Especially for the release of Power Rangers, the Pyatnitsa TV channel created super game.
Users were asked to find a couple of the main characters of the film within one and a half minutes and win prizes.
- Situational content for the release of the clip:
On the eve of the musical "Dance of the Vampires", the artists filmed their parody of the song "The Ice Melts".
- Situational content as a reaction to the news:
Over the past few months, Alexei Navalny has already been poured green paint on his face twice. The first time the incident occurred at the end of March in Barnaul, where the oppositionist came to open his campaign headquarters. The second time the politician was doused at the end of April - before speaking at the Global Event Forum. As a result of the attacks, Navalny received a burn to his eye, in connection with which he was forced to leave for Barcelona after some time (according to rumors, for treatment).
It is worth noting that there is a lot of debate among marketers on the topic of whether to include holidays in the situational agenda, because such events are known in advance. I think to take into account holiday dates not only possible, but necessary.
Let's say you manage the social networks of a pizzeria, and on the calendar - "World Pizza Day". Why not link this event and beat it on social networks. For example, launch an interesting promotion or talk about an original recipe. Or create something better.
Where can I find newsbreaks for situational content?
- Read the news
Make it a rule to start each day by watching the latest news on various topics. These can be both universal news media (RIA Novosti, Republic, RBC, Meduza, Lenta, etc.), as well as specialized media dedicated to fashion (Vogue, Fashion United, etc.), business and Internet technologies (Sostav.ru, VC, Habrahabr, etc.) and other topics that are close to your audience.
Also, you can use news aggregators (“Yandex.News”, “Google News”) by selecting the headings you need or RSS aggregators (Feedly, Inoreader, etc.).
- Use social networks
On Twitter, on the main page of your account, current topics for today are indicated on the left.
"Vkontakte" current hashtags can be found by going to the news section and selecting the "Search" tab. Popular topics will be displayed on the page.
- Use special services to search for popular content
For example, using SmmBox, you can find the most popular content in Odnoklassniki, Vkontakte, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram in various categories (if the category you need is not in the list, you can create your own).
And the Popsters service will show you the most popular content in the groups and pages you select.
- Use the BuzzSumo service
If you work with a foreign audience, great alternative could become the BuzzSumo service. It allows you to track the most interesting posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest. To display popular content, you only need to enter the search query you are interested in. It is worth noting that, since BuzzSumo is a foreign service, the search for Russian-language content is weak. If you still decide to use it to search the RuNet, do not forget to indicate Russian in the “Language” column.
As you can see, tracking viral content and its delivery with the help of such tools is quite simple, you just have to link it to your brand.
- Create a holiday calendar
Open any calendar and select those holidays that would be of interest to your target audience and were associated with your brand. Also, try to plan your release schedule for movies, TV shows, and other events to prepare content in advance. For example: the date of the Oscars is known in advance, there is a certain informational background around this event (until 2017 these were jokes about Leonardo DiCaprio), so something creative can be thought up in advance.
A few secrets of successful situational marketing
- prompt response to newsbreaks;
- the presence of a connection between situational content and company products;
- high-quality implementation of the idea;
- comprehensibility of content for target audience.
So, for example, if you set a goal, then you can even link the Total Dictation to the Delivery Club food delivery service:
How situational content can be implemented
- Action in honor of the holiday;
- Congratulation / postcard;
- Cover styling;
- Styling the logo through the avatar;
- Product styling;
- Text styling;
- Game/test
- Stickers;
As you can see, the fantasy is limitless and this list, for sure, can be continued further.
How not to do it?
Sometimes a frequent failure in situational marketing is not a boring text or a clumsily processed picture in Photoshop, but an unsuccessful choice of a newsbreak or a banal ignorance of an SMM manager. Examples of pizzerias DiGiorno and Aviasales can serve as excellent illustrations.
- DiGiorno
They say "beats, so loves." It was for the act of violence against his fiancee that the famous American football player Ray Rice was expelled from his team. The story caused a wide resonance, and users launched a real Twitter campaign dedicated to the topic of domestic violence. Affected American women shared their stories, accompanying them with the hashtags #WhyIStayed (#WhyIStayed) or #WhyILeft (#WhyILeft).
The hashtag quickly gained popularity and became trending on Twitter. The marketer of DiGiorno pizzeria decided not to miss the opportunity. He tweeted: "#WhyIStayed, You had pizza."
After a flurry of angry messages from subscribers, the SMM manager realized what his mistake was and apologized. Such negligence put the reputation of the pizzeria in doubt.
- Aviasales
Now back to the topic of choosing the wrong newsbreak. Last May, Cossacks attacked activists of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) at the Anapa airport. On the same day, Aviasales posted a post on its social networks, in which it offered to buy air tickets to Anapa, where "the guests are met by Cossacks."
Instead of output
The rapid development of new forms of interaction on the Internet, in particular in social networks, dictates new conditions - reducing the distance between the company and the client. Situational marketing is just one of the most effective tools recent years, which allows the brand to effectively solve this problem. However, situational marketing is always a risk. The risk that the post will not "shoot" or, on the contrary, will cause a negative reaction. In order to prevent this from happening, it is enough to take into account a few of the above rules, connect the creative and trust your intuition when choosing an event, and then you will be able to skim off any interesting information occasion.
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