Task 3: Success stories

D1: U24 Discuss how successful media concepts have been positively exploited across multiple media industries. 

The first campaign that I have decided to analyse in this task is McDonalds Monopoly. This campaign offers McDonalds customers to win prizes and rewards through buying products in store. The more platforms that McDonalds advertise this campaign on the more attention it happens to bring, and because they are a well-known company, any platform that is used to showcase this will create lots of awareness about this. It works in a positive way because it is a traditional brand where Purchase is required in order to participate at all levels, with tokens awarded on fries and drinks, selected sandwiches and other sides

The campaign will be supported by marketing via TV, radio, press, social (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat), digital as well as the online site and game

McDonald's Monopoly campaigns have become an annual tradition since it began in the USA in 1987 with their partnership with Hasbro games.  The campaign has now grown worldwide and has truly become a global campaign.

Customers are required to purchase something in order to participate, with tokens given on burgers, fries and drinks, and other sides.  More tokens are available on higher value items which encourages the consumer to purchase more products.  There are several ways to win prizes, from instant-wins to the potential to win larger prizes by collecting a series of codes.  Even if they have not won immediately there’s still a reason to continue to play. The campaign runs for 6 weeks, so customers have a limited time frame in which they can win instantly, or collect everything they need to win the prizes.

Newspaper:

Back when the campaign started, they would not have been able to use many forms of cross-media advertisement and so it would have been advertised on print. As we can see by the image, below they still promote the monopoly campaign through print as this is still one of their methods of promoting the message. However, they do not use it as much because newspapers have a lot less readership than in the past because people can access news and messages through a lot of different ways, which in the past wouldn’t have been available to them and so advertising in the newspaper was a lot more effective. Not as many people had television and so there were limited ways to access a companies promotion. Newspaper advertisement can be somewhat effective for potentially certain type of people. For example if somebody that is commuting into work or happens to be travelling somewhere happens to find a paper to read, they may find the advertisement and decide that it would be worth going to McDonalds for lunch since they’re out anyway or in their lunch hour.

Print played a crucial role for this campaign, allowing McDonald's to inject enthusiasm using adverts in The Sun and Metro to resemble a Monopoly board. Supporting this activity, display ads ran across newsbrand sites and McDonald's ran positive news stories on The Sun and The Mirror websites.

Working closely with publishers, McDonald's had the opportunity to align with engaging and positive news content, which in turn built positivity around the campaign, ensuring customers believed they could win. As a result, it proved to be one of McDonald's most successful campaigns to date

Example of campaign in Daily Mirror 

TV: 

The campaign is often advertised across different platforms in order to attract as much attention to it as possible and so Mc Donalds use television advertisement for their monopoly campaign in order to do so. This is because many people have TV’s inside their homes in comparison to how many did in the past and so Mc Donalds have had to adapt to the changing world of technology. The effect that television advertising has on people is that you gain more of a closer insight into what the product or service is that is being advertised. The advert that I looked at (Link above) has a narrator enthusiastically telling viewers what there is on offer and what they can win and so the other effect it has is that makes you more positive about the whole concept of it. If this advert is shown to everyone watching a particular TV show at the time, it will make them feel obliged to go to Mc Donalds. This explains the power that advertising in a more modern and positive way has, especially since TV and the production industry has become a lot more technologically advanced and so  they can create content that has more quality to it. 

Posters

Posters can often be seen out in public such as on bus stops or anywhere on the streets. It is also a more traditional method of advertising one which would have been used by Mc Donalds in the early days of the Monopoly campaign. However, technology has improved and so high quality posters that are made with much closer detail and better colour are now available to advertisers and so this is now one of the media forms that Mc Donalds have been able to adapt to using. As we can see the advert shows images of some of the prizes that can be won in this annual event, and it has the picture of the famous monopoly character which is the first thing that viewer of the poster sees and so it acts as a form of promotion for them, making people go and take part.

Billboards

Similar to posters, Billboards play a similar role with spreading awareness of the campaign in a positive way. This is because billboards are also placed up in the streets, visible so that many people can see it and is a great way of reaching a wide audience. Mc Donalds use this in order to make sure that they are consistently promoting across the different media forms. Billboards are seen more often in other countries, but it is still however relevant to the campaign as a whole because it is a worldwide event. 

Social media

This is the most modern way of exploiting a media campaign in different formats is through the use of social media. Mc Donalds have successfully adapted to the changing behaviour of people and are more aware of the ways in which people are more likely to see advertisement. They are a company with a large following on their social platforms and so it means that there are many people who have access to the message. The campaign has encouraged customers to share photos of their instant wins via twitter and instagram, as well a cross-platform hashtag (#MonopolyatMaccas). This provided a way for everyone inside and outside of the company to connect with one another which is a very modern concept showing how advertising has evolved over time. 

McDonald’s introduced a new piece of technology to the McDonald’s Monopoly Campaign website. Customers taking part in ‘Got 10 Spares?’ – a new mechanic which was introduced last year, has a new piece of OCR technology added to it. Customers are now able to scan their spare property game pieces, with the OCR technology recognising the unique codes on each piece, making it even easier to collect 10 spares and exchange them for a NOW TV Pass.  This new way to play was introduced after market research showed that customers wanted a way to interact with the game online.

What this all shows is how they have reached different audiences. This is because the wide range of communication outlets that can be used to get the message across, ensure that as many people as possible can be reached. Not everybody will use social media or watch Television depending on their age group or interests, and so there needs to be methods of reaching everyone.

This latest campaign is set to include new ways to play including an online version so customers do not have to stick the winning property game pieces on the cups but can upload online.  There are also better prizes like cinema passes, weekend away and cars which can effectively reach a wider audience.  It may encourage customers to play even if they do not regularly eat McDonalds, because the better prizes are available.

Amazon Alexa Campaign

The second campaign I will be discussing is the Amazon Alexa

 In a recent article published by Lauren Johnson in Adweek, 8th January 2018.  Steven Moy, evp and chief technology officer for the U.S. at R/GA said -

“It’s only been a year since Alexa got introduced to the market, and I have not seen the pace of acceleration so fast in terms of the adoption and people getting accustomed to it,”

Because of the quick success of Alexa, other brands are now trying to use the same technology to bring a voice to their products.  The simple technology that an average user can easily get on with it has reached a diverse audience.

Radio

In March 2018 Bauer Media launched Alexa skills for all of its 69 radio brands, starting with its national radio brands including KISS, Magic Radio and Absolute Radio.  This campaign was tailored towards consumer behavior and optimise the listening experience for their audience.  Currently listeners are able to change stations from Absolute 70s to 80s to 90s.  Now they can simply say "Alexa, next",

They can also use Alexa to ask questions directly for example

"Alexa, which artist is Absolute 80s playing?"

"Alexa, ask Key 103 which song is this?"

"Alexa, previous", which will open the last station channel played

Television

"Alexa Loses Her Voice"

In January during one of the most prestigious advertising slots - the Superbowl, Alexa lost her voice. 

Amazon "Alexa loses her voice" by Lucky Generals

The advert opens in a woman’s home where Alexa goes silent in response to a question. Back at Amazon head office, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is reassured that everything will be ok and things are under control

The rest of the commercial shows celebrities including Gordon Ramsay, Rebel Wilson, Cardi B and Sir Anthony Hopkins trying and failing to fill Alexa’s job.  These adverts had a positive effect on consumers and sparked a number of discussions online about weather Amazon will now be bringing out special headsets as per the adverts or can we now look forward to full customization of any particular voices instead of the usual Alexa voice.

These ads have got people talking with links to social media by adding the #AskAlexa - in the above advert it links to social media and twitter.

Alexa has also been positively exploited via online charities. Amazon users in the USA are now able to donate to charities using the Alexa virtual personal assistant.

They can use Alexa Donations to donate to up to 40 different US charities using voice commands, with payments made through Amazon Pay. Users can ask Alexa to donate to a specific charity or simply say "Alexa, make a donation" and Alexa will send a list of all the available charities to their Alexa app.

This shows how the brand has made such a positive impact