By Gavin O’Malley in Media Post News, Online Media Daily
Ripple6, Gannett Co.’s social media platform provider, continues to sign advertisers hungry for more accountable social media campaigns. Post Grape-Nuts, Benjamin Moore, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever are among a growing number of top marketers leveraging the Ripple6 Brand Communities social marketing technology.
“We showing these brands how to effectively monetize social media,” said Sang Kim, chief executive officer at Ripple6.
Grape-Nuts and Unilever, in particular, are attempting to form deeper relationships between its brands and moms on the Gannett Digital Media Network. For instance, Unilever is using Ripple6 Brand Communities to run the “Living Beautifully for Less” groups across MomsLikeMe.com’s 80 local mom communities.
The groups focus on the Suave product line and how the current economy affects the way moms spend money. By posting tips, advice, questions, and mom makeover videos with Luke O’Connor, the Suave Celebrity Stylist, Unilever and Suave are attempting to form lasting relationships with moms…
– Ripple6 “Cracks the Code” on Social Marketing to Moms for Post Grape-Nuts Across MomsLikeMe.com’s 80 Localized Sites –
NEW YORK, July 28 /PRNewswire/ — Ripple6, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) and a leading provider of white-label social media services to enterprise-class marketers, web publishers and e-tailers today announced that Post Grape-Nuts, Benjamin Moore, Procter & Gamble and Unilever are among a growing number of top marketers to “crack the code” on social media by leveraging the Ripple6 Brand Communities social marketing technology.
The Ripple6 solution enables brand marketers such as Grape-Nuts and Unilever to connect with consumers and develop conversations and relationships with them in social networks. These Brand Communities can provide a conversation around the brand and its values to provide an entire community experience that is synchronized across the web.
Both Grape-Nuts and Unilever are forming deeper relationships between its brands and moms on the Gannett Digital Media Network. For instance, Unilever is using Ripple6 Brand Communities to run the “Living Beautifully for Less” groups across MomsLikeMe.com’s 80 local mom communities. The groups focus on the Suave product line and how the current economy affects the way moms spend money. By posting tips, advice, questions, and mom makeover videos with Luke O’Connor, the Suave Celebrity Stylist, Unilever and Suave are forming lasting relationships with a robust audience of moms.
Using Ripple6 Social Insights(TM) for social consumer research, Grape-Nuts also tapped into the MomsLikeMe.com audience to gather a deeper understanding of how specific groups of moms approach their choices of cereal. Nearly 100 moms participated in a 4-week discussion that covered 70 topics initiated by a moderator and the participants themselves about the importance of breakfast in a family’s life.
“We wanted to reach out to moms on MomsLikeMe.com, and Ripple6′s technological platform allowed us to do that in a way that was convenient and comfortable for them,” said Gregory Lanides, brand manager for Grape-Nuts. “This created honest conversations and feedback about our brand which allowed for solid insights.”
The Ripple6-powered Brand Communities and Social Insights technologies enables brands and marketers to initiate two-way conversations across multiple social networks that lay a foundation for future marketing and product development decisions, and engage and measure successful social campaigns.
“Consumers have billions of conversations each day across social media channels, but the marketing solution is not as simple as throwing a bunch of technology into social media sites and hoping consumers will interact,” said Sang Kim, chief executive officer, Ripple6. “Brand Communities are revolutionary because we’ve created a way for marketers to relevantly connect with customers in an environment that the customer chooses, and to build this into a single conversation that scales across the web.”
“We have seen our moms on MomsLikeMe.com embrace these conversations with marketers. Moms want to be heard and want to share their opinions. We offer an intimate and comfortable environment that results in openness like never before,” said Josh Resnik, vice president and general manager, Gannett Digital Media Network. “Leading consumer brands, like Unilever and Post, are becoming more and more aware of how these organic conversations are vital to their marketing efforts. This is beyond advertising; this is dialogue.”
About Ripple6, Inc.
Ripple6(TM) helps marketers and publishers implement their business strategy through social media. The company provides an enterprise white label social media platform to create consumer engagements and relationships, enable social marketing, generate consumer insights, and facilitate commerce and collaboration. It is easily customized to incorporate a brand’s look and feel for integration into an existing web site or to create an entirely new site. Ripple6 a wholly owned subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) , is based in New York and its list of clients and partners includes Procter & Gamble, Meredith Corporation, Unilever and Post Foods. For more information, visit www.ripple6.com.
About Gannett Digital Media Network
The Gannett Digital Media Network, a division of Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE: GCI) www.gannett.com, ties together more than 100 digital communities with a combined reach of approximately 25 million people. The media properties include Gannett’s best-of-breed news and information web and mobile sites, led by USATODAY.com (www.usatoday.com), and the local sites for Gannett’s newspaper and broadcast properties, such as AZCentral.com, IndyStar.com and 9News.com. Additionally, a variety of growing media properties, such as MomsLikeMe.com (www.momslikeme.com), HighSchoolSports.net (www.highschoolsports.net), Metromix.com (www.metromix.com), and BNQT (www.bnqt.com).com are also part of the network.
For media inquiries, contact:
Julie Nicholson
Weber Shandwick
212-445-8371
jnicholson@webershandwick.com
Robert Scoble visited Ripple6 HQ and interviewed Sang Kim our CEO and discussed community lessons learned. Sang tells Robert about Ripple6′s newest product Ripple6 OnDemand and how it is positioned to help many media companies and marketers who want enterprise class capabilities, but in a streamlined, low-cost, high ROI product.
Some questions Robert asks, “How does a brand participate in a [community] without being too creepy or coming across as too salesy?” Sang explains why community want the brands there, how they are the experts on the subject and how they can add value to the dialog.
Other questions and issues covered in the video:
“People are freaked out about the… negative things people say online… what do you do about that for brands?
“What attributes do you find [in] a great community?”
“How do you move conversations across networks without them fragmenting?”
Congratulations to Mixing Bowl, one of Ripple6′s communities which was featured on NBC’s Today Show yesterday morning (July 23rd). The segment included one of Mixing Bowl’s most popular bloggers Rob Barrett.
Rob runs several groups on Mixing Bowl including Cooking for Dads (moms, kids, college students … and Dude Food both center on easy recipes for the less experienced cooks.
