Advertising your Twitter Page
May 22, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Twitter is starting to gain a great deal of attention in main stream media in recent times and it reminds me of when Facebook initially started to gain a wider audience base about 2 years ago. At that time it was the early adopters in your network of friends that started to tip their toe in, with many still skeptical of the platform or concerned about privacy. I am seeing that same network of friends
starting to move to Twitter.
I think one of the reasons why we’ve seen a recent growth in Twitter is the use by both celebrities and companies who have already embraced the platform and having an actual two way discussion with fans or uses of their products. Something that till now has been hard for brands to do. Over at my personal site, I’ve created a list of Celebrity Chefs on Twitter.
So how does your brand engage with consumers on Twitter and gain an audience of a few hundred thousand followers overnight?
Gourmet Ads has been on Twitter for a while now (follow us @gourmetads), and we use the platform to talk with advertising agencies, marketing managers, publishers and anyone associated with our business around the globe. We publish regular content into Twitter each day as well as have conversations with clients and publishers regularly. So we have something that our audience actually wants to engage and actively discuss or even just read and observe.
Apart from people simply adding us via Twitter, we’ve grown our audience base through running targeted ads through the Gourmet Ads network. This is something that you can do its very cost effective compared to the some of the wild over thought strategies that you read or hear about. There is no point randomly adding people who are not relevant to your brand. If you are food brand and your product is only in New York State, Gourmet Ads can run a campaign that is targeted towards people that live in New York State who are more likely to engage with your brand than not. If you are winery in Napa Valley with national distribution, then it makes sense to just run your campaign in America.
Your campaign to drive people to your food or wine Twitter page could be done two ways. You could either drive them simply to your page on Twitter. However I believe that’s a very immature way of doing it because you assume that everyone who clicks on the ad will know;
a) what twitter is
b) what they have to do.
I would recommend sending the users to a page on your website and educate them about Twitter. This page could be about why your brand has decided to embrace Twitter and why they can benefit from following your brand online. I saw a boutique beer brand in Australia run a weekly competition only open to people following their brand on Twitter. Very clever.
If you’d like to look at increasing your reach using Twitter, then Gourmet Ads can help build your audience. Request a Proposal from us and we’ll develop a Digital Media Plan that targets your audience and helps drive engagement and conversation with your consumers.
Adtech San Francisco
April 17, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Gourmet Ads Founder, Benjamin Christie will be attending Adtech in San Francisco from the April 21-23, 2009.
For those that don’t know Adtech is an interactive marketing conference and exhibition that delivers an up-close and informative look at the world of digital media and advertising. Adtech San Francisco will be held at the Moscone Center West.
For those on Twitter, Follow Gourmet Ads for updates throughout Adtech San Francisco. To follow everything thats happening at Adtech use #adtechsf
If you’re attending Adtech San Francisco and would like to organise a time to meet with Benjamin, then contact us to set a meeting time.
Advertising Food Festivals
March 13, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
These days nearly every major city in the world runs some sort of food festival or major culinary event throughout the year. For many cities Culinary Tourism is an important element in the promotion of the city as a culinary destination. Apart from that, food festivals bring a great deal of economic benefits to cities including accommodation, transportation, dining out and more. With this in mind it’s important to heavily advertise your food festival to ensure record attendance.
For Food festivals which sell tickets, it’s important to start generate sales as soon as you’ve signed your sponsors and celebrity chefs who’ll be attending. This can be started by running highly targeted advertising campaigns targeted at online food communities encouraging pre-bookings. It’s these communities which are committed to traveling around and going to the food festivals throughout the year; no matter where they are located.
To reach these food communities, the Gourmet Ads network can run targeted advertising on food blogs, recipe websites and even food video sites to generate awareness and sales. For a campaign to drive food festival ticket sales we’d highly recommend a multi month campaign as well as some roadblock advertising close to the event to really drive home last minute ticket sales.
Depending on what the ticketing actually provides it’s ideal to run focused campaigns. For example if a number celebrity chefs will be doing cooking classes, you may wish to consider running exclusive campaigns around that celebrity chef till the tickets sell out. For gala dinners, these too could be a campaign focus for you. Just like popular musical artists, you want to generate sales and sell out as far out as you can before the event.
For regional or smaller food festivals which aren’t necessarily ticketed, the approach is slightly different. Your food festival advertising should be relatively short, i.e. like 10 – 14 days from the event but with high visibility. This will create high awareness of the food festival and will encourage attendance.
A strategy for gaining email addresses and generating buzz around an event is to run an online competition before the event. The prize could be say 20k worth of kitchen appliances or a complete kitchen make over. Entry is online and free, but the prize will be drawn a specific time and you need to be present in order to claim the price. This way you encourage people to attend the event.
Where possibly try and use rich media video to promote the event. Consumers find rich media highly engaging online and it could be one of the celebrity chefs cooking their signature dish. What ever you can get from their publicist would be a great instead of trying to shoot some video specifically for your event.
Finally, Food Festivals typically have lower advertising budgets to work with, but Gourmet Ads can work with you and your team to design a bespoke advertising package which will reach your target audience. A strategy to pitch to your possible sponsors is for them to underwrite the advertising of the event and even build their name into the event, like many food festivals do these days. That way they win, and you win as you’re generating a great deal of interest and one target for record attendance.
So no matter if you’re organising South Beach Wine and Food Festival in Miami, The Food and Wine Aspen Classic, The Rhode Island Clam Chowder Festival or a regional food festival. Gourmet Ads can help drive attendance and ticket sales. For more information about Gourmet Ads contact us or request a proposal.
Housewares Show Chicago
March 2, 2009 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
Later this month I’ll be heading to Chicago for the House and Homewares Expo in Chicago from March 22nd – 24th. For those that don’t know, The International Home + Housewares Show is the world’s largest homegoods and housewares expo and showcases thousands of new products each year. Run by the International Homewares Association, the House and Homewares Expo in Chicago is expected to attract over 60,000 attendees over the 3 day period from over 30 countries. To learn more about the show visit www.housewares.org/show/info/
While in Chicago if you are interested in meeting for a coffee and chat, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email and we can setup a time to meet. I’ll actually be in Chicago from the 20th through to the afternoon of the 25th of March.
Adtech Sydney 2009
December 16, 2008 by Benjamin Christie · Leave a Comment
This week, I was invited to participate in a AdNetworks panel at the upcoming Ad:Tech Sydney 2009 in March next year. The event will be held at the Sydney Convention Centre from the 10th – 11th March and is essential for all those in the advertising industry online.
The panel I’ll be involved in is called “AdNetworks: Taking Advantage of Horizontal & Vertical Networks” and I’m sure the discussion will be around why Vertical Networks have seen such rapid growth over the past twelve months and why they’ll continue to grow during 2009 and beyond.
Joining me on the Ad Networks panel will be Russell Fradin, President of Adify (my advertising partner) as well as others yet to be confirmed.
Here is the panel details;
AdNetworks: Taking Advantage of Horizontal & Vertical Networks
Session Date: Tuesday – 10 March 2009
Session Time: 1:30pm – 2:20pm
For more details and tickets visit the Ad:Tech Sydney website.
