This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Chapter Sidebars
Sharpie’s Shift from Celebrities to Personas and Users
David Beckham. A megacelebrity. An ideal spokesperson.
Sharpie enjoyed soccer star David Beckham’s representation in several commercials. In them, Beckham signs autographs with fans’ Sharpies—and becomes so enamored with the pens he humorously tries to score one for himself. While these commercials succeeded, the rise of consumer creativity and social networking inspired Sharpie to try a new approach.
Sharpie developed a persona on Twitter, @sharpiesusan (Susan Wassel), who shares news and tips as well as banters with Sharpie customers.
At the same time, Sharpie introduced Sharpie Uncapped (http://www.sharpieuncapped.com), which curates the elaborate artistic creations by Sharpie users. As Wassel notes, the effort “celebrates the amazing and inspiring things our fans are doing with our product while encouraging others to uncap their own creativity. The goal is to amplify our efforts and engage our passionate fans in the social space with compelling content.”
While pioneering this approach to content has meant a lot of work and a lot of lessons learned, the effort has paid off, say Wassel and Bert DuMars, Vice President of E-Business and Interactive Marketing for Newell Rubbermaid.
“The overall integrated marketing program helped us grow Sharpie into the number one writing instruments brand in North America in 2010. We have also successfully achieved a significant foothold in brand community and engagement building with our Sharpie Facebook page reaching 1.2 million fans,” says DuMars.
Adds Wassel, “What we’re doing is clearly resonating. We have more than a million fans on Facebook alone—highly engaged fans who comment and share in huge numbers. And, we just recently expanded the bandwidth on our blog to accommodate dramatic increases in traffic. Truth is, we’re as passionate about our fans as they are about us. I think that comes through.”
The Deck: An Innovative System of Advertising
The Deck is a unique advertising system that ensures quality, relevant ads for publications in the creative industry such as Jeffrey Zeldman’s A List Apart. Jim Coudal, co-creator of The Deck and president of Coudal Partners, explains the system this way:
“The Deck takes the approach that to be successful we need to address the needs of all three parties involved in the advertising:
- Site publishers get vetted, truly relevant ads in a manageable size and without animation or other tricks.
- Advertisers get an uncluttered impression to an involved and curious audience.
- Readers get ads that don’t insult them about relevant products while the sites they like to read can write and post more with the financial support of the network.
Too much of current online advertising does not treat all three parties as equally important. It’s that balance that makes The Deck work so well for publishers, advertisers, and readers.”
