Beedie School of Business News

In March of 2011, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, Atlanta-based insurance giant Aflac Inc. was forced to confront a marketing fiasco with global implications. The voice of their famous Aflac duck, comedian Gilbert Gottfried, had used his Twitter account to make tasteless jokes about the natural disaster that wiped out entire cities on Japan’s northeast coast.

The online backlash against Gottfried’s social media outburst – and ultimately Aflac – was swift and forceful in the United States, but the repercussions were even greater in Japan, where the company insures one in four households.

To the company’s credit, a well-crafted public relations and social media response – along with the swift firing of Gottfried – quelled what could have been an overseas marketing (and financial) disaster – one that was triggered by poor comedic taste and the power of social media. Keep reading…

Tags: Aflac Inc., Beedie School of Business, Business Horizons, creative consumers, Daniel Shapiro, digital media, Facebook, Gilbert Gottfried, global marketing, globalization, Google, GREE, international marketing, Kirk Plangger, Leyland Pitt, LinkedIn, marketing strategy, mixi, Pierre Berthon, Research, sfu, social media, Twitter, Web 2.0

New marketing research from SFU professor Leyland Pitt, focused on the relationship between luxury wine branding and social media, has been awarded the Outstanding Paper prize for 2012 by the Emerald Literati Network.

The article, entitled “Luxury wine brand visibility in social media:  An exploratory study” and published in International Journal of Wine Business Research, garnered the top billing as part of the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2012.

Pitt, a professor of marketing at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, co-authored the paper with Mignon Reynecke, a PhD student at the Lulea University of Technology in Sweden, and Pierre Berthon of Bentley University in Boston. The article was chosen following consultation amongst the journal’s editorial team, made up of eminent academics and industry leaders. According to Emerald Group Publishing, it was selected as “one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has seen throughout 2011.”

In the paper, Pitt and his colleagues set out to address the visibility of luxury wine brands in the social media environment, in particular the Bordeaux first growth brands. They explained that the Bordeaux wines were used because, given their retail price, reputation and rarity, they “epitomize not only luxury wine brands, but also luxury brands in general… they are the kinds of brands that legends are made of.”

They gathered social media data on the five Bordeaux first growths from the website How Sociable, comparing overall visibility scores and  visibilities in 32 different forms of social media. Ultimately, they focused on the brands’ visibility and intersection with “the most important and most relevant social media” such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and Digg.

Perhaps surprisingly, they found that that some of the luxury brands considered did not, at the time the data were gathered, have a clearly defined social media strategy.

That lack of focus in the social media environment may not last for long, however. According to the researchers, there are opportunities moving forward for luxury wine brand managers to use social media as a tool in their marketing strategies. They note that some threats may exist to these brands should they take a laissez faire approach to social media, particularly given the rise of social media’s influence and credibility among consumers.

“Social media are now as influential, if not more so than, conventional media,” they said. “This has a massive impact on brands.”

To this end, luxury marketers in the wine space will need to give serious consideration to every social media tool at their disposal.

“Astute wine brand managers will define the social media that they care most about,” say the researchers. “Brands can take directions in social media that would have been unlikely if not impossible just five years ago. Brand managers will not fully be able to control the destinies of these brands, but at least they should still be part of, and ideally, direct the conversations that occur around their brands.”

In addition to the Outstanding Paper Award, the article was also selected as the best paper of the year in International Journal of Wine Business Research.

Further information about the research can be viewed at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1912147

For more information about the Emerald Literati Network’s Awards for Excellence, visit www.emeraldinsight.com/literati

Tags: Bentley University, Bordeaux, branding, Digg, Emerald Group Publishing, Emerald Literati Network, Facebook, How Sociable, International Journal of Wine Business Research, Leyland Pitt, LinkedIn, Literati Network Awards for Excellence, Lulea University of Technology, luxury marketing, Marketing, Mignon Reynecki, Ning, Pierre Berthon, social media, Twitter, wine, wine research, YouTube

A course that was launched less than a year ago at SFU’s Beedie School of Business has provided students with unprecedented focus on analyzing and optimizing the value of social media for organizations and businesses. Through community-building projects, undergrad students applied the social media lessons of the course to new and established not-for-profits and social agencies on a wide range of issues, from life-saving transplants to disability in sport.

The course, Social Media & Business, was taught at SFU’s Surrey campus by assistant professor Jan Kietzmann and instructor Ashish Gurung.

Students used Facebook and the Twitter hashtag #BUS450 to engage with each other and their teachers, and to collaborate on assigned projects and readings. Throughout the semester, Kietzmann and Gurung invited industry thoughts leaders, entrepreneurs and businesses to share their insights and expertise in social media. In the classroom, students were joined by She & He consulting, Translink and Yelp. Via Skype, they also connected with University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist, and representatives from Badgeville and Crowdbooster. Outside the classroom, students visited Vancouver’s Invoke and Hootsuite to learn from two very successful global players in the Social Media space.

As a final project, students were tasked with developing a social media campaign for a community client or campus issue.

Among the highlights:

- The student project entitled “Don’t Be a Douchebag” used Twitter and Facebook to accrue over 100 registrations for the BC Transplant Society, with the aim of providing potentially life-saving transplants for British Columbians. The campaign’s social media messaging was endorsed and retweeted by the likes of musicians Jann Arden and Bif Naked, television personality Chris Gailus, and NHL hockey legends Doug Gilmour and Brendan Morrisson.

- Students with the #SIFEHungerArmy campaign raised over $500 for the Surrey Food Bank, and garnered over 1,000 blog page views to raise awareness of the food bank’s impact and needs in the community.

- A social media campaign addressing disability in winter sport, “Adaptive Sliding Canada”, was embraced by winter sports athletes and fans across Canada and is helping to build momentum for the inclusion of new sports in future Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

- A group of students going by the moniker “Jersey Score” – through fundraising tweet-ups and other social media activities – raised over $1500 for sporting gear and apparel for soccer-playing youth in Manamani, South Africa.

- The students from the project “Chic Campus” engaged via social media with fashion events and fundraisers across the Simon Fraser University campus to highlight the role of fashion in the university context.

- A group of students from the project called “SimonFSays” parlayed user-generated social media content into the capturing of student and community sentiment at Simon Fraser University in the digital sphere.

Social Media & Business, launched last fall, was offered for the second time this past spring, and has quickly emerged as a favourite offering among Simon Fraser University students, especially those who are increasingly compelled by the intersection of social media tactics with overarching business strategy and societal change.

“Our students worked very hard and, among the many difficult deliverables they had, they impressed me the most with their social media campaigns,” said Kietzmann. “They truly engaged communities – local, national and international, and to that end I am very proud of what they accomplished.”

The Beedie School continues to enjoy recognition for taking a leadership role in the promotion of social media for entrepreneurs, managers and organizations.

Last December, Kietzmann won a noteworthy research award from the journal Business Horizons (along with co-authors Kristopher Hermkens, Ian McCarthy, and Bruno Silvestre.) His paper “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media,” won the business journal’s Best Article Award for 2011, in great part for its industry impact and recognition.

And the innovation-focused tweets of SFU MBA professor Ian McCarthy have earned him a spot on OnlineMBA’s international list of “50 Business Professors You Should Follow on Twitter.”

Tags: Adaptive Sliding Canada, Ashish Gurung, BC Transplant Society, Chic Campus, Crowdbooster, Facebook, Hootesuite, invoke, Jan Kietzmann, Jersey Score, LinkedIn, SFU Surrey, SIFE, social media, Surrey Food Bank, TransLink, Twitter, Winter Paralympic Games, Yelp