Josh Groban’s lesson in integrated marketing
So I was thinking whilst watching TV and browsing the net and tweeting - other people also do this right, but are they really interacting on the net and at the same time reacting to what they see on the TV?
A quick trip to search.twitter.com revealed I wasn’t the only one tweeting about the exact show I was watching - Never Mind the Buzzcocks (a BBC TV show with a relatively small audience). I think there are some really important lessons in the offline/online advertising split to be had from this little experience. Everyone talks about synergy between offline and online, but very few agencies or companies of any kind actually manage to pull this off.
If I was Josh Groban’s manager right now I’d be well chuffed. His performance on Buzzocks (funny, likeable, self deprecating) has not only boosted his profile slightly, but also given him credibility in an X-Factor dominated pop music market. It’s almost irrelevant whether he sells more albums to the viewers of the show - few Buzzcocks viewers are likely to ever buy a Josh Groban album, even if it’s for their mum…
The fact is, I’m now talking about him, so are other people who watched the show; his mindshare against X-Factor, Leona Lewis, and John Sergeant has grown and he will sell more albums as a result. I still hate his music, but I now have far more respect for him than the aforementioned pop 3.
So to compare Josh’s Twitter performance against 2 other high profile celebs on the show:
Josh Groban - constant tweets throughout - examples “a really funny guy.. who knew?”, “who knew Josh Groban was so funny?”, and significantly a few minutes after the show “looking through my old cds for my Christmas mixes and found Josh Groban’s Noel album… I forgot how amazing his voice is!“:
Grant Nicholas - 1 tweet during the show, more about the host Simon Amstell’s performance:
Heston Blumenthal - nyaah nothing at all for 6 months:
So my point is… we’re all missing something in the marketing game. Orange really didn’t get it - it’s not about telling people to search online. It’s about getting people to talk online - search is a part of that, but the key is to have, to be, to make something worth talking about.
Intelligent marketers and forward looking agencies will understand this and in time be able to integrate TV and online in new and innovative ways. I look forward to experiencing a fully integrated online & offline marketing experience one day soon…
