Ditto Labs

How brands steal the spotlight during events

Contents

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3Finding Your Brand’s Authentic Visual Voice

Planned Events

Spontaneous Events

Summary

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Finding Your Brand’s Authentic Visual Voice

If you’re in marketing, you’ve noticed the extra enthusiastic

attempts by brands at “getting in” on social media

conversations during trending events - whether planned or

spontaneous. But similar to a guest at a party with

strangers, interjecting your brand into an existing

conversation is a delicate art.

Land mines to watch out for include: being the last one to

the party - like the late comers to the Harlem Shake,

inadvertently offensive responses and corny jokes.

6 secrets for sparking photo engagement:

1. Authentic Brand Love

2. Normal Celebrity Moments

3. Guilty Pleasures

4. Pampered Pups

5. Extreme Sports

6. Trending Events

So how can you be relevant

and engaging? Ditto

scanned billions of images to

find themes associated with

the highest engagement for

social photos with brands

and discovered six

commonalities.

In this guide we will briefly

review the first five and dive

deeper into trending events.

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Nothing contributes more to customer

advocacy than having a great product.

Public admissions of not-so-healthy

habits, like craving fried foods, garner

widespread empathy.

Engagement rates are high for photos of celebrities casually interacting with brands during a normal day.

Authentic Brand Love

Normal Celebrity Moments

Guilty Pleasures

5

People love to post and share photo

evidence of pampered pets joining in on

human passions.

Speaking of passion, logo-clad

athletes in racing, snowboarding and

other extreme sports earn millions of

additional impressions from fans.

Clever images that authentically

position the brand within the context of

a shared experience spark the most

engagement.

Pampered Pups

Trending Events

Extreme Sports

6

Readiness, humor and creativity help brands make an impression.Socially savvy marketers anticipate each holiday and media event and are

prepared to capitalize with listening centers and “war rooms” staffed with

strategic, creative content producers. Conversation opportunities are

abundant with events like Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Graduation, Father’s

Day, and “wedding season” on the horizon.Taking a look back at the first quarter of 2015, here are some brands that

stood out.

5

Valentine’s DayIt was Netflix that stole our hearts

during Valentine’s Day with more

than 2X as many appearances in

#Valentine photos shared on

Twitter than the next two highest

brands (Diet Coke and Papa

John’s). All three seeded the idea

with clever tweets promoting the

holiday occasion with savings.

Regular folks and celebrities alike tweeted

photos celebrating the single life by watching

movies and eating pizza.

Planned Events

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For many Super Bowl watchers, Katy

Perry’s halftime performance was the

event to watch — after all she does

have the most Twitter followers in the

world. While all eyes were on her

performance, many wondered if she’d

found wardrobe inspiration from

Cheetos. Whether it was orchestrated

by PepsiCo, the major halftime

performance sponsor and owner of

brand Cheetos, or a brilliant

coincidence, Cheetos stole the spotlight

with the brand earning the most visual

mentions on Twitter.

Guinness Reigns on St. Patrick’s DayUnsurprisingly, nothing says “St. Patrick’s Day” like our favorite Irish

libations. Guinness made the most appearances in Twitter photos this holiday

with over 3X the incidence of runner up Jameson.

Cheetos Steals Super Bowl Spotlight

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Spontaneous Events

The #Blizzards of 2015#Juno, the first blizzard that

blanketed the Northeast this year,

encouraged stock up shopping,

impromptu celebrations and binge

viewing.

Jim Beam and Sam Adams

authentically captured the spirit of

the season, with Jim Beam having the

highest visual mentions among

brands during the January storm.

Below are examples of brands that captured the public’s

attention with their personality by rapidly reacting to

unexpected events.

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#TheDress was a two day social media phenomenon that seemed to capture everyone’s attention, no matter the demographic. In the example above, Heineken’s social team nailed the debate by coming down on one side of the argument (white & gold vs. blue & black) and promoting their product.

Yet, some brands

miss major

opportunities

because they

only track text.

By listening to photos and text,

brands like Dunkin' Donuts and

Starbucks could reach out to loyal

customers whose business they

missed due to inclement weather

and engage with customers at

high profile events like #SXSW.

#TheDress

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1.8 Billion photos are shared daily. Of the

ones containing brands, Ditto discovered

that 85% do not mention the brand in

accompanying text. Studies reveal the

human brain retains only 20% of text but

80% of visuals. Brands that “listen” to

public social photos in addition to text can

engage with customers sharing their

experiences and leverage these “in the

wild” insights to authentically engage in

popular conversations.

Be the star of

the spotlight, not the photo bomb that

ruins the picture.

See more photo insight examples in

chronological order on our blog and

contact us to see what photo insights

reveal about your brand.

@DittoLabs ditto.us.com