Fun!

This is a huge topic that I couldn’t possibly do full justice to in one blog entry, so I am sure this won’t be the last time I write about it. As a marketer, I can personally say that marketing is fun for me (of course), but trends are pointing to marketing being fun for the consumer, too. There have been fun ads floating around for years—just watch some creative ones launched during the Super Bowl and you’ll probably find yourself laughing more than feeling compelled to go to the store to buy something. However, relying only on print or television ads is not enough anymore. These days, you can’t get consumers fully invested in your brand unless you conduct some kind of engagement marketing.

If you’re not sure what this means, I’ll first point you to a recent viral video sweeping YouTube from Volkswagon Sweden. The video introduces something called the “fun theory,” showing an experiment conducted on a stairway in Stockholm to prove that healthier or more positive actions can be produced more often by making them more fun. The campaign for Volkswagon doesn’t stop there, however. On the fun theory website, more video examples of the fun theory are posted, and a contest for site visitors to engage in suggesting their own ideas to support the theory. Volkswagon also plans to follow-up with ads for their environmentally friendly cars, again to illustrate that doing the right thing doesn’t have to be boring, tying the whole campaign together.


The idea with engagement marketing is that people accept things more if they contribute to them. And obviously, if they are having fun at the same time, they will keep coming back for more engagement. There are endless examples of this—web chat, blogs, product ratings, games, social networking, media, and phone applications are just a few. Engagement creates more positive associations with a company or product, meaning that consumers are more likely to use products themselves, recommend them to others, and have stronger loyalty with that brand. In the Volkswagon example, consumers were engaged by viewing the video (and then posting it on Facebook or sharing the link with their friends), and will tie that positive experience to Volkswagon with the follow-up ad as well as the contest, whether they submit an idea or enjoy the ideas submitted by others.

And now, the fun part. Here are some more examples of engagement marketing, for your interactive pleasure.
• In a well-known example, Amazon.com was one of the first to ask consumers for product reviews on their website. Consumers trust the reviews more if they come from “regular people” rather than a corporation, and they are more engaged in Amazon by reading those reviews or writing some of their own.
• On the flip side, WalMart found itself the victim of a social media prank when users began posting sarcastic reviews of its caskets on its website. The reviews were monitored and eventually removed, but they still made headlines, and perhaps even in this case there is no such thing as bad press.
• FAO Schwarz (recently acquired by Toys ‘R’ Us) engages visitors to its website by having them create their own muppet character in the “Muppet Whatnot Workshop.” The created muppet characters are then, of course, for sale.
• Pizza Hut created a phone application allowing users to order pizzas at a discount as well as play games, generating a reported $1 million in sales. Not bad.
• Hasbro launched its “Trivial Pursuit Experiment” to find out who is smarter: Men or Women? Users can log onto the site, join their team, and play the game by answering trivia questions and contributing to their side.

More Reading:
Author Alan Moore explains more about engagement marketing