Oreo Teaches Brands The Importance Of Real Time Marketing

Brands suddenly realized the value of real time marketing when Oreo's "blackout" tweet made a breakthrough. Oreo totally stole the last year's Super Bowl show with a tweet that went viral just after the Superdome lost power. This year, Oreo's social media team is nailing it once again. These guys seriously deserve a raise.

How important is it to be a part of social media during Super Bowl can be learnt from brands who are setting up war rooms, waiting for opportunities on twitter. Few brands set up war rooms prior to the 2013 Super Bowl. And this year, most of them are into the same thing. Volkswagen is trying to make the twitter activities as engaging as possible for their customers as well as try to keep tweets apropos. They're trying to be as contextually relevant as possible and deliver content that’s relevant to whatever the conversation is.

Yet brands like CarMax don't see Oreo's feat as a one-off as much as a vehicle for illuminating the possibilities of a new form of marketing.They believe there's no consensus that real-time marketing gives a real boost to any brand or product. "It's stupid for brands to be falling all over themselves to replicate Oreo's and Arby's success". Some authors believe such time and energy would be better spent elsewhere.

In response to the objections, marketers concede that that a single tweet will hardly persuade anyone to buy their product. Instead, the goal is to circulate the brand's name and get it in consumers' consideration set. They make the case that The more touchpoints you have with consumers, the more you can portray who you are as a brand, what you have to offer. You want to be on the list when the time is right.