My recent awareness of my own character; my love of puns, one-liners, chit chat and football has led me to think about how companies might target me through social media. My realisation, Umbro are miles ahead.
As an arena, the twittersphere is stocked full of people trying to get noticed. Whether this is noticed by their favourite musicians, comedians or companies, the competition is fierce. I am one of those people, not just trying to get noticed by celebrities, but by anyone who'll listen. Anyone that'll have me. Desperate? A little, but what's the point of doing something if you don't want people to appreciate it? The opportunity to get one's name "out there" is more available than ever thanks to Twitter. With a well worded, 140 character status update, what you have to say is potentially broadcast to the entire world - something only the internet as a medium can offer - instantly. However, something I have discovered is that to be successful, whether as an individual or a company, you have to engage. In my opinion, and please say if you disagree, Twitter (and social media in general) is there to socialise, not just advertise. This point is being missed by far too many people and I am sick of those companies who merely post information or pieces of generic advertising, who never respond to others and never engage.
If engaging with your customer is vital in your social media strategy - which it is by the way - then one should look no further than the boys at Umbro. As I sit here and write this blog, my body is overflowing with envy at their job. Getting paid to write about football is a dream many of us have but very few will accomplish. So despite my blood boiling and my eyes turning green, I have to admit that these guys, Aaron and Tom, are bloody fantastic. The beauty of Umbro's social media campaign is not just that their blog is interesting, entertaining and brilliantly written - which it is - but that their use of social media is creative and steeped in interaction. They use competitions amongst fans and offer rewards of tickets and shirts, they join in debates and discussions, they share interesting insider gossip and information, but their greatest creation is pun Fridays. Every Friday they release a different football themed pun. This weeks for instance was called Seaside Footballers. The results were very entertaining. Below are just a few entries I read.
- @thesemgroup went with "Roberto Mankini"
- @josh_mccarthy went with "Morten Gamst Pedalo"
- @teacherobert went with "Salmon Kalou" "Clint Deepsea" and "Coral Poborski"
- I entered "Marco Tanned Bastard" "Fabio Capadelo" "Alboato Aqualungi" "Seabasstian Bassong" "Fabio Auwhalio" "Dirk Trout" "Alle-sand-row Delve-pier-roe" and "Paul Conchesky".
Now, as you can see, I went too far and am a bit of a loser. Please leave your own Seaside Footballers in the comments at the end, I know you want to.
People reading this clutterance may ask why this matters? I'll tell you. There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people exactly like me, i'm no snowflake. Before Twitter, I wouldn't have considered Umbro for my sports gear, I'd have gone with Nike or Adidas. However, simply because of this brilliant piece of brand management I find myself inclined to think differently, very differently. Call me impressionable, but i'm not alone in being like this and Umbro have realised this brilliantly. Now, I'm off for a kick about, where are my Umbro Speciali?
