Midterm Page 1 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 ASSIGNMENT 1st SEMESTER : ADVANCED DIGITAL MARKETING 4 (ADM401) DUE DATE : 15:00 ON 14 MARCH 2017 FOR UPLOAD TO ELEARN IN PDF FORMAT TOTAL MARKS : 100 MATERIAL SUPPLIED : VOLKSWAGEN STREET QUEST INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES FOR COMPLETING AND SUBMITTING ASSIGNMENTS The complete 'Instructions to Students for Completing and Submitting Assignments' must be collected from any IMM Graduate School office or can be downloaded from eLearn. It is essential that the complete instructions be studied prior to commencing your assignment. The following points highlight only a few important notes. 1) You are required to submit ONE assignment per module. 2) The assignment will contribute 20% towards the final examination mark, and the other 80% will be contributed by the examination, however, the examination papers will count out of 100%. 3) Although your assignment will contribute towards your final examination mark, you do not have to earn credits for admission to the examinations; you are automatically accepted on registering for the exam. 4) Number all the pages of your assignment (e.g. page 1 of 4) and write your name and surname, student number and module at the top of each page. 5) The IMM Graduate School requires this assignment to be presented in PDF format. MS Word copies will not be marked. Unless otherwise specified, this assignment must be completed within a limit of 3 500 words, excluding the reference list. Students who exceed the word limit may find that only part of the submitted assignment will be marked. 6) A separate assignment cover, which is provided by the IMM Graduate School, must be attached to the front of each assignment. 7) Retain a copy of each assignment before submitting, in case the original does not reach the IMM Graduate School. 8) The assignment due date refers to the day up to which assignments will be accepted for marking purposes. The deadline is 15:00 on 14 March 2017 for upload to eLearn. Late assignments will be accepted, but 25 marks will be deducted from the maximum mark, if received after 15:00 on 14 March 2017 and up to 17:00 the following day, after which no assignments will be accepted. 9) If you fail to follow these instructions carefully, the IMM Graduate School cannot accept responsibility for the return of the assignment. It may even result in your assignment not being marked. Results will be available on the IMM Graduate School website, www.immgsm.ac.za, onSaturday, 6 May 2017.Page 2 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 Answer ALL the questions References are to the prescribed textbook: Chaffy, D. & Smith, P.R. (2013) Emarketing Exellence: Planning and Optimizing your Digital Marketing. 4th ed. Routledge. QUESTION 1 [30] Read the following material and answer the questions which follow. Chaffy, D. & Smith, P.R. (2013) Emarketing Exellence: Planning and Optimizing your Digital Marketing. 4th ed. Routledge. Chapter 1. Visit the Volkswagen South Africa website at www.vw.co.za 1.1 How effectively is Volkswagen utilising the 'SELL' S of the five S's model on their website? Provide screenshots to support you answer (10) 1.2 Using Google, conduct on online search for the "Volkswagen GTI" and answer the following questions: 1.2.1 How does Volkswagen GTI rank in their Google paid advert search and what advice would you offer to their digital marketing team to improve their Google paid search ranking? Use screenshots to support your answer. (5) 1.2.2 How does the Volkswagen GTI rank in their Google organic search and what advice would you offer to their digital marketing team to improve their Google organic ranking? Use screenshots to support your answer. (5) 1.2.3 Discuss whether or not there is any evidence of online PR for the Volkswagen GTI brand and if in your opinion this opportunity is being maximised by Volkswagen. (5) 1.2.4 In the Google page one search results, evaluate whether there is any evidence of social media activity for the Volkswagen GTI and make recommendations for improvement. (5) QUESTION 2 [40] Read the following material and answer the questions which follow. Chaffy, D. & Smith, P.R. (2013) Emarketing Exellence: Planning and Optimizing your Digital Marketing. 4th ed. Routledge. Chapters 2 to 4. Case study: Volkswagen Street Quest 2.1 Evaluate and discuss how Volkswagen's online mix was morphed by the Volkswagen Street Quest campaign. (5)Page 3 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 2.2 Evaluate the results of the Street Quest campaign for Volkswagen. Consider the response to the campaign and assess what this implies for usage of social media campaigns in South Africa. (10) 2.3 Volkswagen needs you to develop goals for their social media strategy so that they can benchmark their progress. Provide them with an outline of Speak, Serve and Sizzle goals they could set and make suggestions about how they can measure and benchmark against these goals. (15) 2.4 As a marketing consultant to Volkswagen, advise them on the following core social media activities and how they should be used to form a strategy for social media marketing. 2.4.1 acquiring new customers (4) 2.4.2 enhancing customer service (4) 2.4.3 harnessing the brand (2) QUESTION 3 [30] Read the following material and answer the questions which follow. Chaffy, D. & Smith, P.R. (2013) Emarketing Exellence: Planning and Optimizing your Digital Marketing. 4th ed. Routledge. Chapter 2. Visit the Volkswagen South Africa website at www.vw.co.za 3.1 Pricing and price models are being turned upside down by the internet. Evaluate and discuss whether Volkswagen would be susceptible to pricing pressures caused by commoditisation and price transparency. (10) 3.2 A range of options exist for businesses to generate revenue online. Review these options and select and discuss five (5) appropriate online revenue models that Volkswagen could implement to generate revenue from their website. (20) PRESENTATION [-20] Unless otherwise specified, a maximum of 20 marks may be deducted for not meeting the required presentation standard, based on the following aspects: Structure and grammar: (up to -5 marks) The content of the document should have a logical flow, guided by numbered headings and subheadings for the various sections. Incorrect numbering, unsuitable language (non-academic and/or unprofessional), poor syntax and spelling errors will be penalised. Students are to follow the required guidelines in terms of font type, font size, line spacing, justification etc. as set out in the IMM Graduate School Yearbook.Page 4 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 Citation: (up to -5 marks) When including a quotation/reference in an assessment from a book, text book, paper, author or other sources, correct in-text referencing of the source is required. Referencing: (up to -10 marks) Referencing includes both in-text referencing and the reference list. References must conform to the style and format provided by the IMM Graduate School's 'Harvard Referencing System Guide'. Markers must indicate the presentation mark allocated to the student, on the cover sheet of the assignment. This mark is final. ASSIGNMENT TOTAL: 100Page 5 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 Volkswagen Street Quest Volkswagen is the original and top-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, the biggest German automaker and the third largest automaker in the world. They have been present in South Africa since 1951. In 2012 VW wanted to celebrate their anniversary in South Africa. This was also the year when the Facebook page for VW in South Africa was finally created (a little late, one might say). As a car manufacturer which also offers lower price models, VW has been one of the most popular cars in the country. The Polo model is often the first car of a young South African. BACKGROUND TV COMMERCIAL Originally, VW approached the agency OgilvyOne Cape Town (part of Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town) with the brief to develop a TV commercial, which would celebrate the 60th anniversary of VW in South Africa. However, as the brief was given in October of 2011, it would have been very difficult to create a TV commercial before 2012. Creative Director Nicholas Wittenberg from OgilvyOne explains why this mission was impossible: 'The brief came in October – so to turn around a TV commercial with that kind of magnitude in a couple of months: get a script approved, going into production, post production, etc. before that 60th year, wasn't going to be possible. So the timing was just too late.' Luckily the agency found another (faster) approach which was directly connected to the release of the new VW South Africa page on Facebook. AN ONLINE SCENARIO The agency started to think of ways to create something for the 60th anniversary online. As VW is the car for people aged 25–35, who are also big users of Facebook, it made perfect sense to create something inside social media. As the client's Facebook page was just launched, the objective of the campaign shifted slightly. Now the biggest goal was to drive traffic, kick-starting the VW Facebook South Africa page. THE IDEA Gamification is a rising trend in digital marketing. The game aspect is also very appealing to the younger audience. The idea started around that. The streets in South Africa's cities are filled with different models of VW; the agency wondered how many VWs there actually are and turned to Google Street View for help. They came up with a game which challenged users to find as many VW cars as possible on South African streets using Google Street View in a custom-designed 'Street Quest' gaming interface. Nicholas Wittenberg from OgilvyOne commented: 'The genius of the idea was using an existing platform – Google Street View.'Page 6 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 THE SOLUTION FACEBOOK WAS THE ONLY FORM OF PAID ADVERTISING As timing and budget was tight and a lot of time was spent developing the idea itself, the only paid media used were ad banners on Facebook. These ads and wall posts on the VW page directed users to the Street Quest custom tab. People learned about the campaign via a trailer video. The trailer provided information about the prizes, the Grand Final and a Game Menu. User authentication was set up to work through Facebook. THE STREET QUEST The challenge was: to use Google Street View and find as many VWs on the streets of South Africa as possible. By 'pinning' cars on the streets, players moved up the leader board. The game lasted for four weeks. The player with most pins each week qualified for the real life event – the Grand Final. The game had additional features. Players could earn badges, and win bonus prizes. Street Quest users were even able to listen to a custom VW radio station while they were playing the game. All these achievements and features could be shared on the players' personal profiles on Facebook. This of course played an important part in the campaign going viral. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES 'Technically these kind of things become quite complicated so at the time using an existing platform like Google Street View and overlaying it with Flash created all sorts of technical challenges. That ended up costing us a lot in terms of time. Way more than we expected because we came across several technical issues around engagement,' Nicholas Wittenberg commented about the problems they had with the platforms.Page 7 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 It was a big challenge for the agency to combine the Facebook platform with Google Street View. Eventually they managed to build a single gaming interface that they were able to track. PINNING THE CARS A few campaign activities also took place in the real world. The online game was taken onto the (real) streets. Pins similar to the ones inside the game were physically placed on VWs. The Street Quest pins had a brief explanation and a QR code. Once scanned with a smartphone the code took people straight to the game, i.e. the game was also available on mobile phones and tablets. DIGITAL PR PUSH The strategy was to push the campaign via Facebook and other social media channels. The introduction video was posted on various car-oriented sites in South Africa. Additionally, the media picked the campaign up and gave it extra momentum, popular websites and blogs picked up on the innovative technology to promote the Volkswagen brand and they generated a lot of the online conversation. Even Google posted about the campaign on their Google Geo Developers blog. THE REAL LIFE FINAL The online event was ended by a (real world) Grand Final in Cape Town. Four finalists were flown in to take part in the eight-hour final on the streets of Cape Town. The players were armed with a camera, a car with one tank full of petrol and a friend to help them find as many (real) VWs as possible. THE RESULT Nicholas Wittenberg comments on the results: 'Sometimes these things work and sometimes they don't. In this case, because of the addictive nature of the game, it went viral. Those results that you see in the case study are principally driven through Facebook, which is pretty extraordinary actually. There was almost no paid media used in this case.'  More than 413 558 Volkswagens were found and 'Pinned'.  Over 103 000 Google Street View scenes were claimed, with players spending an average of 10 minutes and 9 seconds playing the game.  The number of Facebook likes on the Volkswagen South Africa Facebook Page more than doubled in size from 15 144 to over 38 800 fans.  The Facebook Page's total average weekly reach grew from 103 993 to 621 530 unique users, with a peak of 1006 660.  The online videos had over 30 000 views on YouTube, and the PR generated created immeasurable value for Volkswagen South Africa. The creators also stumbled across an interesting phenomenon during the campaign. As the data cost on mobile devices is still very high in South Africa the game was mostly used on desktop computers.Page 8 of 8 © IMM Graduate School Assignment: 1st Semester 2017 ADM401 It turned out that the game was most actively played between 09:00 and 17:00 – the traditional working hours. People were using the desktops at work to play the Street Quest. KEY TAKEAWAYS COMPATIBILITY WITH FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE Facebook is constantly changing its various policies. When creating a contest/ promotion within Facebook, brands need to be very aware of the latest rules and technical challenges. RUNNING EVERYTHING IN-HOUSE 'For years now other agencies have used specialist digital shops that are not within the agency. We now have all of this expertise in-house. That creates a much easier and structured way of putting these campaigns together, which otherwise would be quite complex if you have so many touch points,' Nicholas Wittenberg points out. Creating all the different aspects of the campaign inside has obvious advantages in terms of control and consistency. The agency itself considers VW Street Quest as a benchmark for the future in terms of work efficiency and successful integration. THE GAME'S ADDICTIVE NATURE Gamification is still proving to be one of the most effective ways to get people engaged. In this case the game's addictive nature helped it to go viral. EXPERT OPINION ROANNA WILLIAMS CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND CURATOR OF MIGRATE MAGAZINE AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR IN JOE PUBLIC (SOUTH AFRICA) 'There are a couple of things that I find outstanding about the VW Street Quest game. The first being the idea. A really clever, innovative and playful gamification idea to generate more love for VW in the social media space. Its strength for me lies in how it used what is already so powerful about the brand – "people all over SA love Volkswagen" and then just got people to spread (or should we say "pin") some more love. It's about an emotional connection and this is very powerful. The game is interactive, an adventure and gets a direct response at the same time. And the Grand Final made for an epic ending to a great campaign. Secondly, is the seamless integration of combining Google Streetview and Facebook into game. I am sure this posed a huge technical challenge to the agency but once live it worked really well. Magic takes courage. Be brave – the results will follow.' Reference: The Best of Global Digital Marketing. South African case study: Volkswagen Street Quest. Retrieved from The Best Global Digital Marketing: http://www.best-marketing.eu/case-study-volkswagen-street-quest/. [Accessed on 1/6/16]