Content communities are similar to online databases where uses can save and share multimedia content. For example, there are content communities around podcasts. Similarly, services like YouTube and Vimeo are content communities for video. Flickr and Shutterfly are popular for photo content communities. Pinterest, allows you to create a pin of images that link to longer form content.
Content communities are great because they offer a high level of community. Users interact by sharing content and even commenting on each others content. Additionally, users can also follow other users to stay in tune with what that user is pinning.
Because of the great variety between content communities, brands should consider adding on to their IMC mix if the channel makes sense for their brand and goals. For example, an travel organization may choose flickr to hosts images of their destinations, travelers, and staff. On the other hand, a slam poetry organization may choose YouTube to house videos of the performances.
Content communities also tend to align around certain interests. This could be another helpful outlet to engage consumers. These communities are growing every day, and it would be beneficial to join the conversation. Likewise, it could help potential customers find your brand.
Below, I have included a link to a Flickr album and a Pinterest album that I created on behalf of a local restaurant: Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar.
Two of Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar’s main competitors are Blaze Pizza and Leonardo’s by the slice. This week, I took a look at DR’s website and compared it against the website for Blaze Pizza and Leonardo’s by the slice.
By comparison, Dough Religion’s website ranks decently behind Blaze Pizza, which is a national brand with a much larger budget. Leo’s by the slice certainly had the least robust and well designed website.
Push and Pull Techniques used by the Brands
Dough Religion
Pull – consumer images, product benefits, price comparisons, search engines, consumer reviews
Push – social media posts, signage outside of the establishment announcing daily deals
Blaze Pizza
Pull – sign up to receive emails button, product benefits, consumer images, search engines, consumer reviews
Push – email marketing, Coupons in Gator Greenbacks, TV ads, social media posts
Leonardo’s by the slice
Pull – consumer reviews, search engines
Push – signage outside of the establishment with daily deals
Mobile Friendliness
Dough Religion: The typography does not resize well. It looks mashed up in some areas and too spread out in others. The menu makes the inactive tabs white so the menu blends into the white brick background.
Leonardo’s by the slice: This website is actually easier to read on a mobile device than it is on the computer. On the computer, the subpages are jarring with busy background images that compete with the information.
Blaze: Perfect!
Recommendations to Improve the Site
Clearer Communication:
Make better use of calls-to-action. There is an area for users to tag their personal Instagram photos, but the area has not worked for a while.
Make the button to like DR on Facebook for a coupon more prominent.
Add a brief descriptor so customers know what the product is right away. For example, Blaze says “Fast-Fire’d” above the company name. When you search Blaze it says “Fast-Fire’d Custom Built Artisanal Pizza.”
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Develop more effective SEO:
Add description words and keywords on each page
Add a sitemap
Shift image based headers to be text based headers
Integrate the website with the brand identity more by creating more robust content:
Nutritional information should be added. Especially that there are gluten free options. Additionally, there should be information about their fundraising options and their past fundraising events and partnerships.
Elaborate more on unique selling proposition: customization and high quality at an affordable price
Fix plugins for the Instagram and Facebook feed more effectively. The content on the page is currently pretty static.
Aesthetics:
Create a more robust navigation menu so that there is less longitudinal scrolling
Add more images of visitors at the restaurant to showcase target demographic more
Consider a three-column layout instead of the current one-column homepage.
For a quick snapshot of using Tumblr for branding, check out my presentation.
The dashboard view on a user’s Tumblr account
A history of Tumblr
Tumblr was founded in February 2007 by current CEO, David Karp. However, the stripped down, simple blogging format offered by Tumblr isn’t the first of its kind.
A snapshot of Anarchaia, Neukirche’s blog and the first tumble blog.
In March 2005, Chris Neukirche, a German high school student who spent a sizable amount of time talking about Ruby on Rails, a fledgling open-sources programming platform, sought to look for a new blogging platform. Neukirche had a longer form blog on a content management system like WordPress, but wanted something for shorter form blogging. The coding wiz then created tumblelogs, a combination of tumble and web-logging. It was incredibly simple with a modest archive system. Similar to early Tumblr, it also had a simply white column where content was housed. The content featured was largely short-form. Users were not allowed to have editorial content longer than a paragraph. Neukirche’s first blog, anarchaia, was simply a compilation of pull quotes, links to articles, and random images.
The site later attracted attention from Marcel Molina, who was a Ruby on the Rails consultant. Molina was also frustrated by longer form blogs like WordPress and sought to improve upon Neukirche’s idea. Then came Projectionist. It was a colorful, column free, well-organized tumble log.
Over the next two years, Facebook and Twitter were born but never filled the need for a simple blogging platform. In February 2007, Karp emailed Molina. Karp was inspired by Projectionist and used it to create Tumblr with friend, Marco Arment.
Tumblr built on the effective design of Projectionist and the simple blogging style of anarchaia. Tumblr also helped bring tumbleblogs into national prominence. Users could now register for their own Tumblr URL, customize their blog, and easily share videos, text and GIFs.
Growth
Adding a directory – When Tumblr first launched, users were creating thousands upon thousands of blogs. Karp and his team couldn’t keep up with all the new blogs and often times had no idea about a large portion of the content created on their own site. This inspired the team to add a directory to aid discovery. To brand’s benefit, this also means that it is easier for users to find them.
Adding an RSS feed feature – Tumblr already had a dashboard area that gave users a feed of their own content. However, Karp realized that Tumblr didn’t have an RSS feed type feature that allowed users to easily see content from blogs they follow and for users to find new blogs to follow. Consequently, Karp decided to expand the role of the dashboard to also incorporate blogs users are following. This is great for brands because that means all of the content they create shows up on their followers’ feeds.
Adding one-way relationship capabilities – The next area of growth for Tumblr was inspired by Twitter. Introducing a follow opinion inspired by Twitter allowed users to “hit a follow button and all of a sudden suck content from someone else’s account” without having a two-way relationships with everyone they follow. This particularly transformed Tumblr and was very influential for aspiring creatives looking for inspiration. Consequently, brands can also be followed without having to follow their followers in return.
Adding a reblogging feature – Tumblr’s features gave way to reblogging. There was a lot of content being shared on Tumblr, and a lot of it was not from an outside source! It was native content created on Tumblr. By adding a reblog feature, users could now simply and quickly reshare the post. This made it easier for content creators to spread their creations and for user to become content curators. Brands can explore using this to reblog their consumers’ content or even reblogging content that aligns with their blog identity.
Bought by Yahoo – In 2013, Tumblr was bought by Yahoo in a risky 1.1 billion dollar deal. Recently it has been considered a flop for both Tumblr and Yahoo. Yahoo replaced the Tumblr ad team with its own. This along with other moves by the Yahoo CEO, which Tumblr staff deemed questionable, led to mass departures from the Tumblr staff. Yahoo hoped the acquisition of a web platform would high levels of traffic would help Yahoo financially. That hasn’t been the case, and Tumblr CEO recently hinted the deal wasn’t worth it.
Tumblr’s target audience and user numbers
Tumblr is most popular among young millenials between the ages of 25-34. Tumblr is perfect for individuals or organizations looking to engage in short-form blogging. Tumblr is also a great option for individuals or organizations that want to curate information, videos, photos, or any other digital content. Also useful for people looking for inspiration. Can curate content from other users around a certain topic, photography for example.
A projection of Tumblr user numbers through 2020 based on trends from 2014-2015.
Tumblr currently boasts 336.7 million blogs. However, Tumblr’s user number growth is plateauing. It is expected that 2016 was the last time Tumblr would see user numbers grow by the double digits.
Nevertheless, Tumblr still houses many millenial bloggers. Brands looking to target the millenial population, should consider expanding into Tumblr if it makes sense for their brand.
Features of Tumblr
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that places a large emphasis on a raw real time feed that can be easily shared. Users can share content like text, images, html code, music, videos and more with just a few clicks.
Tumblr is also famous for its reblogging feature. It has huge implications for both regular users of the platform as well as content creators. Regular users can step into the role of content curators. Likewise, content creators can spread their content far and wide without much effort. On average, Tumblr posts are reblogged 9 times, which means content creators can get their content on about 10 blogs.
From a branding perspective, this also means that a single brand’s content has the potential to spread far and wide without extra advertising dollars.
Users can also easily create their own custom domain and custom design.
How it works
Setup your blog – To begin tumbling, users simply need a designated email address, password, default image, and user name. (If users are unsatisfied with their original user name, they can always change it!)
It is best if brand’s use a name that reflects its company name or brand identity. For example, IKEA’s page is simply IKEA, but Sephora’s page is called “The Glossy” to reflect that it is a makeup company.
Create or curate content – Other users on Tumblr will then get access to the brand’s dashboard. Brands can create their own content to connect with their consumers. Likewise, brands can curate content created by their consumers that feature their products. They can also explore curating content that is related to their brand identity. For example, a brand like Adidas, might curate content about workouts and energizing recipes.
Customize – Brands will have access to a host of free themes they can use to make their blogs more their own. They can also pay for themes. Once installed, they can also easily access the theme’s html and update it to better suit their unique preferences. Brands can also change the font, colors, background images, and number of pages on their blogs in order to make the aesthetics of their blog align more with the visual identity across their marketing.
Dashboard – The dashboard contains all of the content any individual users create as well as a feed of the content created by users they are following. At the top of the dashboard, users are able to switch between a view of just their content, just other users content, or a mix of both.
Millions of post can be created on any given day and this can become overwhelming the more people a given user is following. On each individual post, Tumblr has a heart users can click. By clicking on the heart, users can curate their favorite posts all in one area without having to sift through the millions of posts that show up on their dashboard.
Explore – To help users sift through the wealth of content shared on Tumblr, Tumblr uses tags in an explore area that can help users hone in on content related to specific topics, such as humor, design, photography, or meal planning. Tumblr also has a showcase area that highlights great blogs related to that particular tag. Brands should consistently use tags in a way that makes their content easier to find.
Connect with others – Users can import their contacts from their Facebook, Twitter, or e-mail account to find their friends on Tumblr. They can also use a message function to have private conversations with other Tumblr users. Brands may want to explore using this private conversation option as an extension of their customer service lines.
Mobile friendliness – Tumblr has a mobile app that works on Android and iOS systems. The dashboard is a little more minimal than the web version, but users can still access and share the same content. That means that this may be a good vehicle for brands to have consistent interaction with their consumers.
Integrating with other social channels – Brands can sync their Tumblr account to their Facebook and Twitter. To do this on the web, users must go to the account tab and select settings. Then, they must click on the blog name that they want to link to Facebook and Twitter in the right hand column. Next, they will be taken to a page with a button to link to Facebook and a button to link to Twitter.
To link the accounts through the mobile app, users must tap the account tab, then select the icon next to their username, and choose “linked accounts.”
If brands want to link their Tumblr account to their brands Facebook page, they should keep in mind that due to Facebook’s algorithms some of their posts may not be displayed on news feeds.
Effective Tumblr Blogs
Sephora –Sephora’s blog is called “The Glossy” in a brilliant ode to the company being a makeup company. The company shares brilliant images of its products and also shares tips and recommendations.
IKEA-IKEA’s blog was well customized to match the brand’s visual identity. IKEA effectively uses the blog to highlight the every day uses of IKEA products through gorgeous images, videos, and gifs.
An image featured on the IKEA Tumblr.
NASA – NASA’s Tumblr is filled with interesting images and gifts related to space exploration as well short text entries to highlight new discoveries or fun facts.
Taylor Swift – Taylor’s blog, highlights a lot of her own content. You can see links to her music videos and her latest songs on her blog, but you also see a lot of curated content created by her fans. Taylor also seems to share content she finds fun and interesting.
An example of fan-created content shared on Taylor’s Tumblr
Kraft –Although the blog itself does not look very customized and loses out on branding potential in that way, Kraft has created great content filled with recipes one can create using their products.
2 Kinds of people– This blog juxtaposes illustrations to show the two kinds of people in the world.
One of the juxtaposition images used to show two kinds of people.
Kylie Jenner – This blog, while belonging to a celebrity, is a great example of a typical blog having a blend of self-created content and curating a lot of content that the user finds inspiring or cool.
The Atlas of Beauty – This blog was created by Mihaela Noroc, who has travel to over 60 countries documenting the beautiful diversity among humans. This is a wonderful photography blog.
Online Ad formats are becoming increasingly important as the world continues to become increasingly mobile and increasingly connected with the boom in availability of WiFi and the internet.
Email marketing reigns supreme in this area. Accounting for 79% of individuals’ primary reason for using their smartphone, according to a study conducted by Adobe.
Social media is also increasingly important, but may be better suited for raising brand awareness than leading to consumer action.
Facebook Carousel ads are an interesting way to reason consumers outside of your followers. You can highlight different products, connect to different parts of your website, tell a story through images and videos, and show the benefits of a particular product.
Example Facebook Carousel
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To create this Facebook carousel, I went into the Facebook ad manager. I set my objective to “brand awareness” because many in the are aren’t familiar with the restaurants specials or deals, even if they are familiar with the restaurant itself.
Next, I selected my images. I chose four images that showcased Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar’s pizza making process. The first one highlights their hand-tossed dough, which the manager cited as one of the things that makes them different from their closes competitor in town Blaze.
The second image highlights their endless topping option when you choose a create your own. DR prides itself on using local, high-quality produce and ingredients.
The third image shows a pizza going into a pizza oven. DR fire-oven bakes your pizza in just a few minutes before your eyes.
The final image shows the finished product with a call to action.
Next, I set up my audience size, placement, and budget.
For my audience size, I decided to own in on 18-35 year-old people in the Gainesville, FL area. This is because DR cites its target audience to encompass college-aged students and young professionals in the Gainesville area and especially at the University of Florida.
I kept the placement and automatic.
For the budget, I kept the daily expense low at $5. This raised the daily reach to 1,200-3,200. Considering how many people DR can accommodate on a daily basis, I figured this was enough. I then set the campaign to run for a month to minimize on cost. This would bring the campaign cost to $154.79, because DR is a smaller business, I figured this is a decent amount of money to place into advertising for a month. The month of March-April capitalizes on midterms season, basketball’s march madness, and the local k-12 spring break season.
I absolutely love Snapchat. I think it is a fun, quick way to visually share snippets of your life with your followers. If you are traveling or at a festival, the tendency is to take a ton of images. On Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, it could feel like you’re clogging the feed or like your images are getting lost in the mix. However, on Snapchat, you can add the images or videos to your Snapchat story so it is concise or send it directly to a follower.
I think it is a cool tool for brands. I personally love the discover story tools and follow many brands on Snapchat. It allows brands to connect to their consumers in a more authentic fashion. The only drawback I could see is the time limit. If brands are hoping to have a campaign through Snapchat or want to advertise a specific event or deal, they will really have to be mindful of how long the snap will stay posted.
Snapchat Story Ideas for Brands
Special Announcements – This could be effective for everything from a sports team announcing new players to a festival announcing the headliner and lineup.
Live Event Coverage – if you have a fundraiser, trivia night, dance party, festival or any other cool event, Snapchat is a great perfect platform to highlight the bigger picture and all of the details of the event.
Sneak peaks – this could be great to raise hype around upcoming products, new product lines, or even upcoming announcements. I can see this being especially effective for things like MAC’s special makeup collections, a new Apple product, or even dropping hints about a festivals lineup.
Behind the scenes – show consumers what it’s like to work at your company or have a specific person’s role. You could even show off how your product is made to give consumers an inside look!
Campaigns using images and videos – create an advertising campaign that exists on Snapchat over several days to encourage some type of action. The World Wildlife Fund used Snapchat creatively to achieve this.
Snapchat Story Example for Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar
One of the three customers identified for Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar are local college-aged students. I decided to hone in on that target demographic and contextualize the campaign around midterms season. The following Snapchat story also captures some of the elements that make this company unique: high-quality, customizable, affordable food. I think this story could be part of a great effort to target college-aged students in the Gainesville area.
Using proximity channels such as FourSquare, Google, and Facebook check-in allows brands to created tailored messages and promotions to their customers based on their preferences and locations in and outside of the business. Better targeted messaging could lead to better sales. An IBM study shows that about 3 out of 4 people will act on a marketing message if the consumer is near the retailer.
Additionally, it gives the brand more insight into the consumers behaviors, wants, and needs. This is a great way to expand an integrated marketing communication campaign and incorporate location-based marketing.
It also allows consumers to engage more with the brand. Over 60% of consumers find coupons to be the most valuable form of mobile marketing and are likely to share local deals with friends.
The Walgreens brand effectively uses proximity marketing through their app. Whenever I step into the store, I get alerts about their offers. This typically encourages me to at least go check out the sale and often times I do make a purchase.
Wearables and Proximity Marketing
Wearables could be really great for gathering information on consumers. For example,wearables could offer more specific information on the target audience’s lifestyle patterns, which would be very instrumental in creating proximity marketing strategies. It could also give insight into audiences the company may not have even noticed it had.
Similarly, wearables can give you information precise location of a specific consumers which allows the brand to send them offers just as they pass by the store. Likewise, knowing a consumers general location could also allow brands to tailor messages. For example, offering discounts on ice cream or cold beverages on really hot days. Or offering specials in certain restaurant locations near a stadium after a game.
Wearables can be particularly helpful for companies that have a health angle to them. Currently, many wearables are linked to health improvement. There could be potential for providing recommendations for self improvement that incorporate specific brands. For example, a suggestion to get more steps in may come with a recommendation to buy a certain Nike walking shoe.
How Dough Religion Restaurant and Bar in Gainesville, FL can use proximity marketing
In “4 Location-Based Marketing Tactics that are Working” by Lauren Johnson, we see an example of Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay using beacon technology to create proximity messages based on where the customer was located in the store. This concept could be very appropriate for Dough Religion Restaurant and Bar because it really encompasses three areas: the Dough Religion pizza area, the Oozoo inside bar, and the Oozoo patio area. It would be possible to take a similar model and apply it to the restaurant.
Set up account with Four Square or other proximity marketing channel.
Create proximity marketing messages offerings discounts and spcials to target the following audiences based on location:
1. consumers walking past Dough Religion Restaurant and Bar
2. consumers sitting in Oozoo’s patio area during happy hour
3. consumers sitting inside of Ooozoo during happy hour
4. consumers sitting in the Dough Religion area
Create special proximity messages for:
1. students nearby during exam time offering discounts on late night munchies and comfort food (also known as pizza)
2. nearby gator fans on game days highlighting flat screens for the game, special game day food and drink menu, and proximity to the stadium
3. nearby young professionals right after work hours highlighting happy hour menu specials
The first blog I’d like to showcase, is Black Girl Long Hair. BGLH is now a professional blog. There are several contributors to this blog and the blog touts several posts created daily. The blog is now even linked to the organizations new store for products aimed at haircare for black women.
The blog was created by one woman aiming to provide insight on hair care for black women. The blog still produces much of this content but has broadened to include information about events affecting the black community as well as a general celebration of black culture.
Initially, BGLH was unique in its focus on 4B/4C hair. 4B/4C hair is the kinkiest hair type a person can have. This has is particularly coily and loves moisture. Taking care of 4B/4C hair is very different to taking care of straight hair. Because of its intense need for moisture, if 4B/4C hair becomes too dry and brittle and will break off. This blog was unique within the natural hair movement because of its focus on length retention.
The blog is a productive reflection of the overall brand. It is the main hub for the brand’s long form content. It also allows you to access the brands store. All content from the brand reroutes to this page. Likewise, the blog provides helpful content to help black women with natural hair care for their hair. They are not just promoting length retention through products but by promoting healthy hair care.
BGLH sits high on search engines (although I’m not sure if google turns up those results for me based on my previous history). If you were to search for natural hair care, it comes up withing the first few posts. If you were to narrow down to 4B/4C natural hair care, BGLH comes up first, even above curlynikki and naturallycurly (two huge names in the natural hair care blogging world). The blog also links to its own content through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Chances are, if users are following natural hair care they will stumble upon this blog.
I would certainly call this blog successful. The blog consistently publishes new posts which drives in a good flow of traffic. Likewise, the organization is on twitter and other social sites, which allows new users to discover their content and existing users to share their content. Readers can also subscribe to a newsletter the blog publishes.
There are some advertisements on the blog, but they look populated by my latest searches. I think it would be interesting to see some advertisements from product lines that the blog writes about often or would recommend.
BGLH is nearing a decade of internet presence. Its content is very robust, but I think it needs better organization. It is very difficult to navigate through all their content. The menu is not very intuitive. The menu option for 4B/4C Hair Growth Guide leads to a drop down menu that simply says hair but that option leads to an incredibly long drop down menu. I think it would be better if hair was the option show on the menu instead. Likewise, the 4B/4C Hair Growth option on the main menu actually leads you to the store if you just click on that instead of going to the drop down menus. Overall, I would say it would be interesting to see better organization of the posts. With a decade’s worth of posts, it is hard to filter through all the information. Sometimes you may also not know what to search for because you are not familiar with the topic. Having sub menus that clusters topics would be beneficial. For example, under deep conditioning they could split it up by picking a deep conditioner, DIY deep conditioners, and best practices when deep conditioning.
BGLH’s menu has room for improvement to make navigating the site easier
Curly Nikki
The other blog I’d like to showcase is Curly Nikki! Curly Nikki was my go to when I first
Two books by Nikki Walton
decided to stop straightening or chemically processing my hair and keep it natural. This is certainly a professional blog. Nikki Walton, has written two books on natural hair care for afro textured hair. She is a big name in natural hair care and chances are any natural you will ever meet has read at least one posts on curlynikki.com. The blog sees several posts produced daily and works with several contributors.
I think part of what makes this blog unique is that Nikki is a subject matter expert. She has been brought onto several shows and many natural hair products have reached out to her for promotion. She is linked closely with curlmart.com and naturallycurly.com which are big names in the curly hair industry over all. I think something else that makes this blog unique is that you get a very close glimpse at Nikki’s personal life as well. You can learn about her travels and even see images of her new baby. The blog also delves into other matters of self-care for women like health and fitness, empowerment, and skin care.
Nikki is known as a natural hair guru. Her biggest ideal is that there is no such thing as bad hair just hair that wasn’t properly cared for. She asserts that her blog was made as a “hair therapy session” to help people struggling to embrace their naturally curly hair. This blog not only helps disseminate her knowledge on an easily accessible platform, it also brings together other natural hair icons and blog writers onto one page. It also allows members of the natural hair community that are not internet famous, like me, to contribute by offering my own tips, tricks, and solutions on the bottom of the posts. With all of this, she cultivates a community around improving hair care.
Nikki has two books on natural hair care. Readers of this book can access frequently updated content through her website. Likewise, Nikki is closely linked with curlmart.com and naturallycurly.com (curly hair meccas on the internet). If you visit Curlmart to purchase products for curly hair, you will surely learn about curlynikki.com. Additionally, CurlyNikki is linked to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Readers that are on these platforms can find her content through tags. A quick search on google puts curlynikki.com on the first page.
I do think it is a successful blog. There are constantly new posts. She is on Twitter and other platforms. Likewise, all blog posts have social share buttons for all other platforms. She’s created a ton of original content and become a subject matter expert, as can be seen with her two books. It is easy to subscribe to her content and doing so gives you a 15% off coupon to curlmart.com.
CurlyNikki.com is incredibly comprehensive. I can’t say that anything is missing. In fact, I would suggest to maybe reduce the amount of content available and put it to a linked site. For example, maybe parts about her travel or the section about empowerment could be linked on another blog so that this one is more focused on natural hair care. I do think some sections could benefit from a description. For example, under “the basics” there is a section called curl whisperer. For the most part, I can imagine what kind of content goes in that section, but it is not clear how it different from the other hair care sections.
CurlNikki.com does have several advertisers focused on curly hair products.
For students and staff at the University of Florida as well as young professionals, Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar offers customization on high quality, well-priced food. Unlike other restaurants in the Gainesville midtown area, Dough Religion provides high quality ingredients and an intimate setting.
Dough Religion Restaurant & Bar, which is comprised of two restaurants: Dough Religion and Oozoo caters to three main types of customers:
Local College Students
Meet Nadia Clark. She is a 21-year-old student at the University of Florida. Because of this, her income is incredibly limited. Her income comes from a part-time job, financial aid, and occasional financial help from her parents. This makes Nadia have a high price sensitivity. This could be seen in her choices of stores, which are largely low-budget, like Amazon, Forever21, WalMart, Target, and H&M.
Being a college student, Nadia has a very irregular schedule and does not do a lot of cooking. Her time is spent between classes, her part-time job, school organizations, and spending time with friends. Friends are a very influential part of Nadia’s life and can influence her choice in restaurants, bars, clothing, and music among other things. Likewise, because of her irregular schedule, Nadia exhibits high levels of impulsiveness. Decisions on where to go, what to do, what to eat, are typically made in the moment.
She lives in the United States on a campus where languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin are spoken. She largely uses credit and debit cards to make purchases.
Local Young Professionals
Jim Campbell is a help desk lead at the University of Florida. He is 28 years old and makes $36,000 a year.
He certainly has more discretionary income than college aged students, but still exhibits medium – high price sensitivity. This is shown through his choice in shops like JC Penny, H&M, Express, Target, Game Stop, Dicks Sporting Goods, and Old Navy.
While off the clock, Jim enjoys spending time with friends, going to happy hours with coworkers, and exploring new experiences like hang gliding. Friends are an important part of Jim’s social circle, and he frequently solicits his friends’ opinions for new trends and where to go. He also has a preference for locally owned stores and local goods and services.
Being in his late 20’s, Jim practices some short-term planning but long-term planning is still limited. Many of his day-to-day decisions are more spur of the moment.
He is an English speaker living in the United States. He generally uses credit cards but also enjoys using pay apps for payment.
Sports Fans
Luke Johnson is a 25 year-old sports enthusiast. He makes $32,000 a year and spends a lot of time with other sports junkies.
His hobbies largely revolve around sports: play sports, watching sports, reading about sports. On his free time, he enjoys joining fantasy leagues and participating in pick up games.
When he’s off the clock, Luke spends a lot of his time with friends. They will often attend sporting events, engage in physical activities or outdoor activities and going out with friends. Friends are a big source of information for Luke, but he also turns to the internet and ESPN.
He has a membership to a local gym and also his alumni association. He’s very tech savvy and frequently uses the internet. He has a pretty set schedule and exhibits low impulsiveness.
He is an English speaker living in the United States and uses credit cards and pay apps.
I am confident that in 1995, many children began to wonder what their toys were doing while they were away. That year, Pixar Animation Studios released its first film: Toy Story. To this day, Toy Story remains one of the most popular children’s films to date. Pixar has given us some of the most beloved movies of our generation. From “UP” to “Finding Dory,” Pixar knows just how to take us on a roller coaster of emotions.
Pixar has been able to so successful because it understands its consumer base. It creates fantastical worlds full of adventure, growth, and friendship. It looks at these stories through the dewy-eyed imagination of children while appealing to viewers of all ages. Currently, Pixar has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and website. Offline, Pixar engages with its consumers through TV commercials and movie previews.
Because Pixar is an animation studio beloved for their popular family films, it has plenty of quality videos as its disposal. Likewise, its products are easily recognizable through quotes and images, which sets Pixar up to have effective use of multimedia. Pixar creates great engagement posts for platforms like Twitter, for example, using clips from its hit films. These clips both ask consumers to engage with it brands through content consumers already have a nostalgic relationship with.
Additionally, its tweets are able to link imagery already strongly associated with the Pixar name while taking advantage of current social media trends. The following is an iconic scene from Toy Story when Woody lights a rocket and then realizes the consequences of his action too late. This is a humorous scene that many may nostalgically remember, Pixar is able to capitalize on that further by connecting it to #WednesdayWisdom.
The following tweet juxtaposes the sketches for a scene in “A Bug’s Life” with the same clip once the scene is animated. This tweet highlights is able to highlight the brains behind the Pixar magic by showing off the sketches. Likewise, it gives consumers a peek into the creative process which starts with these hand drawn sketches and becomes a magical Pixar film.
Ladies and gentlebugs! Put your antennae together for a microscopic look at A Bug's Life. pic.twitter.com/BohgzBqyGI
Pixar also effectively uses media like pictures on platforms like Instagram to highlight both their iconic films and its employees. Its instagram has several images of Pixar employees in fun, quirky poses. These images are appropriate in cementing the feelings around the Pixar brand like fun and creative.
Pixar also has created good content on its instagram. The following is a video that teaches consumers how to make their own Mike Wazowski themed tote bag. The instagram boasts several videos like this that encourage user engagement and empower consumers as brand ambassadors.
Pixar’s Facebook page largely mirrors similar content to its Twitter feed. For the most part, its timeline consist of images and clips from its adored films. It also take advantage of the ease of sharing articles on Facebook and shares several long-form articles on its feed such as this article about winter nail polish inspired by Pixar characters.
Its website generally serves as a resource about their films. Consumers can learn facts about the short films and its featured films. Likewise, visitors could find job opportunities and learn about the company.
Some of the more complex content is hidden under the “Behind the Scenes” tab where consumers can learn about the ideas of processes behind creating some of their favorite films.
Finally, I would say after its short films and featured films, Pixar’s most popular outward facing media has to be its trailers! Nothing is as excited as finding out Pixar is conjuring up another unique, whirlwind adventure.
My name is Ambar Mejia, and I am a graduate student at the University of Florida pursuing a Masters in Mass Communication with a focus on creative. My journey here was a long and winding road that I did not foresee.
I entered my undergraduate career at UF looking for a degree in linguistics. Truthfully, my dream was to document dying languages and write grammar books for them. Then, I applied my love for pragmatics and word play into marketing for Florida Alternative Breaks, a service-organization at UF. I was hooked! I promoted over 40 service based trips tackling different social issues and recruited 40 site leaders and over 400 volunteers in my time. I loved every minute of it. It was the first time I understood passion. Every time I started talking about the great work the organization did, how it has impacted me, and why I believed other students should join, I lit up.
I then decided to pursue a masters where I could gain theoretical knowledge in how to strategically replicate this marketing magic for non-profits across the United States. I had fallen in love with being active in one’s community and knew I could never accept a position that didn’t somehow help others. To learn more about my background, visit my about me page!
Currently, I am enrolled in a course called Intro to Multimedia Communication. A lot of my current knowledge on the field comes from real world experience fueled by a whole lot of trial and error. I am really looking forward to gaining theoretical knowledge on how to build a strategic integrated marketing campaign that is informed by data and is well-crafted for the company’s target consumer.
Each week you can check on my blog to see what cool projects I am working on that week!
Content communities are similar to online databases where uses can save and share multimedia content. For example, there are content communities around podcasts. Similarly, services like YouTube and Vimeo are content communities for video. Flickr and Shutterfly are popular for photo content communities. Pinterest, allows you to create a pin of images that link to longer form content.
Benefits of Proximity Marketing
could also give insight into audiences the company may not have even noticed it had.
Luke Johnson is a 25 year-old sports enthusiast. He makes $32,000 a year and spends a lot of time with other sports junkies.
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