When it comes to reaching younger audiences, it is all about talking in their language, and for young Egyptians their main social media language is sarcasm and campaign propagation via User-generated content (UGC).
So, how can brands leverage that?
User-generated content (UGC) can convert every social media user into a brand ambassador, While digital media can be used for entertainment, edutainment, community building and opinion sharing purposes, marketers have to remember that there is a difference between Push Ads and campaigns that urges audience to engage and create content that can affect the brand perception on long-term.
Moro H2H Communication = Energizing Your Audience
Let’s take a look at Cadbury’s chocolate bar Moro, whose recent return to its “energizing” positioning platform, after a tactical partnership with Ahly, has been making rounds in several local comedy pages.
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The new campaign reinforce the brand’s focus on energy, asking “where will you use all that energy?!”
The campaign’s ads play on exaggerated energy that consumers will get from eating the chocolate bar; a young woman’s excitement on receiving a new puppy, a man’s confidence that they will catch a thief no matter what and another’s assurance that he can carry his luggage up by himself.
(When people go to the gym for a week and feel like they can do anything)
Creating an ad that makes fun of itself allowed Moro to easily become a meme while keeping memes pretty much on the positive side.
(When Mom makes macaroni bechamel. BEST DAY EVER)
The created content all center around the main ideas of the ads, exaggeration and energy; signifying how easy the main campaign’s message was to be understood and translated to more relatable content. Going viral also has the benefit of creating and prolonging more buzz around the brand and/or campaign.
Building Equity Through UGC
Brand Equity, the value of customers’ perceptions of your brand, continues to be on the forefront of marketer’s minds as competition in multiple sectors thickens.
Since memes have evolved into a type of communication, allowing people to relate and connect without words between them, and become a benchmark of popularity, it has become a budding player in building brand equity, especially for those in the FMCG industry.
So, when brands or branded campaigns resonate with people enough to create positive User-Generated Content memes, it demonstrates the brand or campaign’s efficiency, relatability and memorability. It also grows the bond and positive brand association that consumers have for brands.
By leveraging a comedy-based campaign that doesn’t take itself too seriously, Moro was able to generate free content that somewhat aligned with its campaign and generated extra publicity for the chocolate bar.
It kept the campaign going even after it had ended.
This is a different matter when comparing with Meme Marketing, which is the use of memes created by brands to engage consumers. While it also builds brand equity in a more controlled setting, the level of credibility when it comes to brand association is much less than if it were created by external pages and people.
Moro’s new meme status, whether it lasts or is short-term, has given a prolonged lifespan to its campaign, as well and improving the reach of the message and its relatability; thus, building its brand equity, especially on the message of energy, and enhancing its positioning.
How can you leverage or create a UGC campaign?
- Listen to your audience and their digital or offline language (and pay attention to the type of memes or viral content they prefer)
- Create a campaign using those insights, keeping a tight focus on the main message and ensuring it is easy to understand even when not taking yourself seriously
- When creating the campaign, look for chances to include scenes or items that you feel could be turned into a meme
- Promote UGC content through creating your own memes from the campaign, create a competition, or even contact local meme pages