February
2012
ESSAY0
How does the Yeo Valley Ad campaign ‘Live in Harmony’ use social new media to engage an active digital audience?
http://yeocampaign.wordpress.com/ – BLOG ADDRESS !!!
For my Independent study research, I have decided to focus on a popular Ad campaign ‘Yeo Valley’ created by BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), which features on commercial TV channels during peak viewing times after high rating shows like X-factor. This ad campaign is for the organic dairy company Yeo Valley in southwest England, the multi-million dollar marketing campaign, includes a rap R&B music video and a boy band pop song with music video. My main area of focus are the changes in New media, looking at convergence culture and the rise in social media, which is now the number one use of the internet. This campaign uses social new media to engage a more interactive audience. The Yeo Valley ad campaign will be an interesting media context of debate in supporting changes in the media and the way this organization has promoted their brand powerfully across the media in line with the ideas of Henry Jenkins. His theories of ‘convergence culture’ explore the changes in audience and the different ways audiences engage and participate with specific media texts. I will be focusing on both previous Yeo valley ads; ‘The rapping famers’ and ‘churned forever’ which have been highly successful in terms of brand awareness and audience buzz and the way the ads have converged becoming a huge phenomenon on Twitter and Facebook and the soundtrack has become chart listed with downloads officially available on ITunes. I will be considering the theories of David Gauntlet and Eric Raymond and looking at the changes in audiences from passive consumers to active participatory audiences. The Yeo valley campaign is highly creative and has devised a concept to engage an active audience and the brand has now become a social media sensation.
In his book ‘Convergence culture’ Henry Jenkins explores changes in culture and they way consumers and audiences now use media platforms, he shows that new and digital media has now converged, his focus around the idea of media is that the ideas of media convergence, fan culture, fan fiction, blogging, collective intelligence, and participatory culture, the change from old media has made consumers not only that but producers too, allowing us audiences part of media ever than before, where in this transition of old media dying. The yeo valley ad is a perfect media content in support with the idea of convergence culture, it’s and advert that has been converged with a music video, mp3 available to download, ringtone as well as an advert promoting its brand, consumers are able to download the song onto their phones, with both the ‘Churned forever and the rapping famers’ which allows this ongoing process of people talking about it and passing it on to their friends to maintain that audience buzz and develop a rise for the brand, urban music has become more popular in mainstream music by having the urban influence in the ad ‘ rapping farmers’ it engages a young audience to keep talking and want to no more about the brand with its catchy lyrics ‘ Yeo valley, Yeo valley big up your chest represent the west’ . This makes suitable reference to the idea of Sir John Hegarty and Nicola Mendelssohn on BBC Radio 4 Live- 8:45am, Sir John Hergaty quotes that big ideas of advertising creates a stunning insight to a brand he uses the yeo valley as an example saying that ‘ it has expressed in a way to catch peoples imagination- fantastic job in promoting this brand- using television and the power of social media to promote this brand according to the market sales’ Also Nicola Mendelssohn says that the power of multi channels such as face book, twitter has been used to come up with big ideas also she says . Before you will have a big idea and try and get people talking about it, but today people are now able to Magnify the effect using social media- of people talking about it to others through digital (digital revolution) – social media is used to creates a personal bespoke message with mobile phones to no what people like- engage with the consumers. However a debate came across that people may react towards it and that consumer’s privacy should be respected. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9638000/9638924.stm
The ad allows its format of mp3 and mp4 to reach different media platforms such as you ( not finish )
David Gauntlet believes that old media has changed in the way audiences interact with media texts, he argues traditional media audiences were ‘passive’ we had more of a sit back and be told attitude which is associated with the factory type learning, but now through the development of technology we have shift from this type of culture to become consumers, we now part of a ‘participation culture- make and do’, this sums the idea of the change from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Web 2.0 has allowed different users to be writers and creative instead of simply readers and in takers, which invites audiences to become engaged and active, The Yeo Valley Ad Campaign uses social media to open the viewers, once uploaded on to websites such as YouTube a chain reaction of audiences follows which created consumer interaction through commentary and sharing links onto other social media such as Face book, Twitter, etc. which was an element unavailable in traditional media through the power of YouTube. Institutions of the yeo valley have created a ‘Yeotube’ where the audience are allowed to be creative by producing and distributing their own versions of the yeo valley ads, making reference to the original production of yeo valley, its work of art has been used by audiences without copyright owners by experimenting remixing and responding in this media text in new ways this has allowed the audience to be active posting comments with the yeo valley ad campaign to raise publicity to support their sales for the ad and the product itself, using tools for thinking and everyday creativity from the audience. This comes in line with the ideas of Lawrence Lessig, he believes that new media and digital technologies has allowed audiences to become creators, which are now the young generation is made up, all about remixing and reinventing original productions to make it something different as a way the young understand this specific type of culture and using social media, he gives examples of… reference to the yeo valley, audiences have used the Yeo valley ads as an example to promote their own product, using the beat as a base but changing the lyrics to suit them. The picture below shows a difference from how traditional media and new media would have had an impact on the Yeo Valley ad Campaign, as yeo valley is part of X-factor which had cost the BBH 5million, it has been compared to be a ‘super bowl’ reference to the US, as many viewers are engaged with the X-factor, so once audiences see the ad, they gain an immediate reaction, but once that hype is over, it gets less people talking, this is the way traditional media worked, but now we are open to social media, the rise in the adverts success slowly progresses because of the transfers to other social media, in that sense its keeps the growth of success.
Eric Raymond’s theory is about the change in they way society is structured, where we have changed from the ‘cathedral’ a top down structure where we intake media they way its presented to us, being passive, it is shaped in an authoritarian manner where the higher people are in control of what is being shown to us with any audience say, which is similar to Marx theory, on how the bourgeoisie are able to legitimize institutions such as the Media, because of the ownage of the infrastructure, but we have now changed from the ‘Bazaar’ type where audiences has become more interacted and involved with different media texts. Through he observations he looks at how the open source has worked. Yeo Valley ad campaign can relate to this point in a way he have been interacted into it, at the end of the ‘Churned’ a on screen text appears underneath the yeo valley logo that says ‘sing- a-long on Face book, with the face book logo at the end, it highlights that it is a sing along on Facebook for a chance to be in the Yeo Valley X-actor final ad, BBH have smartly use this to engage the audience more to want to look up Yeo Valley by working with one of the largest social networks, joining face book groups related to the campaign and visiting the Yeo valley website to have the chance to be in the slot of the X-factor final, they used this time because at this stage millions of viewers are likely to be watching the final at this time and to see the ad which will catch the excitement again of the audience by people talking and they see it as a perfect way to end the campaign .
Rapping farmers ends with ‘Search Yeo valley’, which had a positive effect
With a reference on the song available on ITunes on the bottom left hand corner, the amount of searches on the word ‘yeo’ went up, this was the most popular search terms containing the word ‘yeo’ over the last 12 weeks since the ad was shown this had showed the profound effect the advert had on search behavior for Yeo Valley. Even though the advert was only around for one of the 12 weeks monitored, ‘yeo valley advert’, ‘yeo valley rap’, ‘yeo valley ad’ and ‘yeo valley advertising’ all made the top 10 most popular search terms, accounting for 14.46% of all yeo-related searches. The simplest explanation for this is that the majority of Internet users went to YouTube initially to watch the advert, but then thinking about the brand, went to the Yeo Valley website to find out more about their products which allowed Yeo Valley to capture the attention of a new audience which previously did not visit its website which the company had achieved a new online audience for the yeo valley website. This had created an active audience to allow audiences to have links to more information about the yeo valley, the products they sell, links and buttons to download the adverts as a mp3 and also allowing the audience to join in through the websites on competitions e.g. face book competition. Also on the top right hand of the website there are buttons that navigate the audience straight to twitter and face book pages of the yeo valley, where audiences are able to post comments and follow the updates of the yeo valley of new products or adverts, Also using twitter for competitions such as winning the churned calendar allows this ongoing process for the hype of the yeo valley to never end and allow audiences to feel connected. https://www.facebook.com/YeoValley http://twitter.com/yeovalley
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9404587.Singing_mum_will_add_a_bit_of_culture_during_X_Factor_break/ – winner of competition
Bring a bit of representation and how it evolves the audience or differs
The yeo valley ad campaign shows in the beating of X-factor on twitter as it became number one top trending topic after the ‘rapping farmers were shown. The success of launching a social media campaign to tell the story of their brand allowed this to happen because after its first airing it was top trend on You tube and has been watched 1.5 million times on the internet, and because of the half a dozen of face book groups hundred twitter requests, the track was forced to be released on ITunes. BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe had tweeted his support saying “Must be intimidating for The X Factor finalists to have to compete with the infinitely better Yeo Valley crew each week, Zane Lowe”
-Institution BBH- Why this way – pronouncing of the word ‘Yeo’ How they have used social media – their plan
Cost the Yeo valley ad campaign to feature after X-factor for 5 million – it worked
What they have gained- Chart listing, Sales etc.
Debates- set to challenge x-factor for the Christmas number 1
Compared to Muller – Muller spend more money on their ad campaign but yeo valley managed to still remain on top
-Ending – Linked production
NOT FINISH
