Case Study: Snickers #Sponsored Tweets In January 2012, Snickers UK sponsored two British celebrities to tweet specific messages concurrent with a wider marketing communications campaign stressing the Snickers slogan Youre not you when yourehungry.The campaign involved Rio Ferdinand, a premier-league football player with 1.9 million followers, and Katie Price, a glamour model with 1.5 million followers. Each of the two celebrities tweeted five tweets during one day, the last of these used the #spon hashtag to show that the tweets were sponsored. Rio Ferdinand, tweeted four tweets about knitting: Really getting into the knitting!!! Helps me relax after high-pressure world of the Premiership, Cant wait 2 get home from training and finish that cardigan, Just popping out 2 get more wool!!!, Cardy finished. Now 4 the matching mittens!!! and Youre not you when youre hungry @snickersUk#hungry#spon.... The final tweet also included a picture of Rio Ferdinand opening a Snickers bar. Katie Price tweeted Great news about Chinas latest GDP figures!!, Chinese leaders are now likely to loosen monetary policy to stimulate growth. Yay!!, OMG!! Eurozone debt problems can only be properly solved by a true fiscal union!!! #comeonguys, Large scale quantitative easing in 2012 could distort liquidity of govt. bond market. #justsayin and Youre not you when youre hungry @snickersUk #hungry #spon....The final tweet also included a picture of Katie Price showing a Snickers bar. Boxer Amir Khan, ex-cricketer Ian Botham, and Cher Lloyd, an X-Factor star, also posted similar tweets. The tweets created an outcry from enraged fans, some of which thought that the official Twitter accounts of the celebrities had been hacked. Following complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)investigated if the sponsored tweets were in breach of current UK regulations, particularly that marketing communications must be identifiable as such. In their response, Mars, owners of the Snickers brand, argued that the #spon hashtag had not been used in all tweets, as only the final and fifth one contained an advertising message, while the previous four were simply out of character with the celebrity, but contained no direct marketing messages. Therefore, Mars argued, the previous four tweets did not need to identify themselves as commercially sponsored. Alternatively, Mars contended that all five tweets could be understood as one communication. However, as only the final tweet in perspective turned the previous four tweets into a campaign message, only the last tweet needed to be identified as commercial. The ASA ultimately agreed with the reasoning given by Mars, arguing that the first four tweets were teasers which were designed to generate additional interest in the following tweets. The ASA ruled that by including the #spon hashtag, the company did make the commercial nature of the communication clear to the audience. The ASA however did not challenge or consider if the #spon hashtag itself and the placement of the hashtag at the end of the tweet was sufficient to identify the commercial nature of the tweets.

ASSESSMENT ITEM 2: DESCRIPTION

This assessment aims to enable students to analyze a case study of an organization and demonstrate their understanding of effective digital marketing by an organization. This years organization is Snickers. See Appendix1 for the case study at the end of this subject guide. Instructions:

1. Read the case study given to you and present your findings in the form of a concise report.

2. Write an organizational profile and describe the organizations product/service and target market.

3. Critically analyze the companys use of influencer marketing, based on your reading of the case study and academic knowledge. Critically analyze the use of one (1) key social media channel, such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. Evaluate their use of the particular channel/platform. For instance, are they using it in a way that is unique or duplicative of other companies or competitors? How can the marketing team exploit all the features of the platform? Are they using the channel to convey product-related or company-related information? How do they manage customer dissatisfaction? Do they excel at content marketing? Do they offer deals? Do they give potential customers compelling reasons to engage with the organization?

4. Evaluate success and present findings using visualizations (i.e., a chart) and metrics (measures of performance), such as total followers, frequency of posts, and customer engagement (i.e., number of positive or negative comments/sentiment analysis).

5. Describe and justify, two (2) marketing recommendations to help the organization improve its digital marketing strategy. This is an opportunity to apply your unique insights as both a consumer and student of digital marketing, to a particular situation and to be creative in your approach to social media marketing. For instance, is there a need to build greater awareness, improve customer engagement, and improve customer service?

6. References. Demonstrate that you have used appropriate materials (i.e., a textbook, high-quality web-based sources, corporate materials, etc.) upon which to base your assessment and ensure that the materials are referenced correctly using the APA (American Psychological Association) style (see JCUslibrary site for guidelines on how to avoid plagiarism, cite work and develop a list of references). Aim for five (5) references. Do not use Wikipedia