Cebu Pacific Airlines Does The Safety Dance

Cebu Pacific Airlines is getting a lot of attention via viral videos featuring their pre-flight safety presentations from crew members dancing along to Lady GaGa, Katy Perry and Men Without Hats.

The amount of marketing exposure as news channels, blogs, Facebook friends liking, and Twitter users retweeting is immeasurable.  Out of nowhere, a relatively unknown air carrier from SE Asia has gained brand awareness in markets (like the U.S.) that it doesn’t currently service.  They have instantly gained attention in an overcrowded advertising space that is too often full of “me too” spots focused on price points.

I don’t know about you – but an advertiser that focuses on an interesting and unique value proposition (like setting the tone for a fun flight experience via Cebu Pacific’s ads) instantly garners not only my attention – but the attention of an audience that is willing to try a new product or service based solely on differentiation of the experience associated with the brand. Cebu Pacific could expand into routes outside of the Philippines, China, etc. based solely on social media viral ads like this and be successful. Seriously!

Bonus Point #1: The fact that this attention is coming ahead of an IPO?  You can see the dollar signs getting ready to add up.

Bonus Point #2: The passengers are engaged for the entire safety presentation.  That doesn’t happen in the U.S. – ever.

If a U.S. airline embraced something DIFFERENT like this system wide it would be a game changer in the industry.  I’d love to see Delta Airlines or United Airlines or Southwest Airlines start having some fun again.  Check out the video:

Related Articles

• Cebu Pacific’s Male Flight Attendants Dance To ‘Safety Dance’ (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Lady Gaga and Katy Perry take over Cebu Pacific in-flight safety demo (gadling.com)
• You: Cebu Pacific eyes $620m from IPO (menafn.com)

Social Media Lessons From Africa

 

Image via Wikipedia

 

“In Africa, wealth is counted not only in currency, but in the number of people to whom you are closely linked.  The idea is that in times of need there is reliability within your social network – that within networks, members will aid one another on request.”

… J. Fadiman (1994)  “African Management Principles:  An Overseas Marketers Guide”.

Remember the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon deal from a few years ago?  In principle, we are connected or interconnected to everyone on the planet within six links or degrees. This is interesting – but how are U.S. businesses acknowledging this as they pursue globalization or simply look to grow revenue stateside?

The rise of social networks like, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yahoo! Groups, etc., presents an interesting dichotomy for U.S. based businesses.  The U.S. is long steeped in quantitative measurements in the short term while most of the world outside of the EU focuses on long term qualitative measurements of success or wealth (like Africa in the quote above).

The true value of human capital to an organization must include the wealth of knowledge and interconnections that lay outside the typical organizational structure and within social networks.  It is within these diverse personal and professional networks that interactions and  engagement  occur and from which an organization can benefit from a robust knowledge base (for a knowledge based economy) rather than limiting the full organizational value of human capital.

The measurement of success can be quantified only if the qualitative aspect is appreciated.  Too often U.S. businesses fail to understand that embracing the qualitative will lead to quantitative success and find themselves on the periphery of true network engagement (as depicted in the picture above).  Organizations that do not leverage social media or social networking in the same manner that the telephone, internet access, etc. are utilized have artificially limited their quantitative success in both the short and long term.

Related Articles

• A Simple Framework to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media Programs (gauravonomics.com)

Marketing Engagement = You Really, Really Like Me

We’ve all been enamored with bright shiny objects or flashy this and that at least once in our lives.  Yes, even the so-called experts in social media strategies can be led astray by something as simple (yet, flattering …) as “followers”.  Who doesn’t want to be the “popular kid”, right?  Social Media has re-introduced the concept of the high school popularity contest via the ability to actively garner and publicly display the amount of your social media platform followers in a B2C or B2B environment.

Question:  How many of your followers on Twitter are contributing to the conversation?  How many of your Facebook fans are posting wall comments or recommending your company to their followers?

From a true strategic perspective – who cares how many followers you, your brand, your company, your whatever has?  I immediately question the validity of social media marketing efforts if the number of followers is mentioned as the first criteria for success.  Social media is a significant opportunity for consumer, candidate, or client engagement.

Engagement leads to revenue.  Engagement leads to a succesful new hire.  Engagement lands new business.

It’s the quality versus quantity game.  Active and Passive engagement (discussed in a future post) need some degree of interaction that leads to an action.  And yes, you do need both types of engagement but I digress.  5,000 or 5,000,000 followers doing absolutely nothing in return to push marketing efforts = nothing more than an immeasurable branding exercise. 5 or 500 followers consistently interacting with your company, your brand, or simply YOU = opportunity … whether personal or professional.

And yes, it’s that simple. IMO.  Your thoughts?

Related Articles

• Social Media: The Flawed “Campaign” Approach! (socialmediatoday.com)
• How well do you know your Tweeter? (tommartin.typepad.com)
• Selling Social Media Snake Oil? (relationship-economy.com)

First!

<< insert self applause here >>

I’ve been online since 1992 using a plethora of websites and services (remember Prodigy?) and figured it was time to create a permanent space and tie everything together.

I’ll be rambling about social media, marketing, branding, sales, and my life in general … just as soon as I finish setting things up. GO MIKEY GO!

Related Articles

• Social Media: The Flawed “Campaign” Approach! (socialmediatoday.com)
• Marketing in the World of Social Media is About Engagement (customerthink.com)
• Why Marketing Strategies Work or Fail (thejordanrules.posterous.com)