A viral advertising campaign: "Terry Tate" launched by Reebok in 2003

Résumé du document

Today the sporting shoes and apparel market is highly competitive and has reached the maturity stage. At this level companies have to differentiate their offer in order to win new market shares or at least keep their position. This differentiation must be done on two levels: product differentiation and image differentiation. This means that brands have to clearly understand consumers' needs in order to adapt the offer. Today brands are expected to be innovative. The new generation does not have same habits as their parents. They don't have same values, don't laugh at same things and they consume in a different way. This new generation is called Generation X. Reebok understood that they must change and innovate and they have tried to do that. From the beginning, for Reebok as for its competitors, television has been the main media used for the communication. But in 2003 Reebok decided to change their communication strategy and they started to communicate on the internet by creating a famous buzz "Terry Tate".

Extraits

[...] This case presents different viral marketing strategies and tools to measure effectively its impact on the brand. Table of contents 1. Micky Pant can be credited with introducing a novel (at the time) and innovative tool into Reebok's advertising strategy. Viral marketing was at the time only superficially understood. How would you explain this technique to a lay audience? To what extent does it complement or replace traditional media e.g.; television, billboards, direct mail, etc.? Evaluate the Terry Tate commercials. [...]

[...] As it was showed in the case study, leading of the viral marketing campaign requires important time and financial investments. The approximate price to the launch of the viral concept such as “Terry Tate” is around million which is less expensive comparing to TV advertising and it has an excellent return on investment. At this stage of our analysis we can ask ourselves is it possible that one day viral replaces traditional media? Most of analysts say that viral is not really a threat to the traditional media.[2] Currently to make the new brand known companies use mostly traditional media press, poster campaigns, radio and leaflets). [...]

[...] Is this type of communication capable of capturing the attention of Generation X consumers? Explain why or why not? 6 CONCLUSION 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY Micky Pant can be credited with introducing a novel (at the time) and innovative tool into Reebok's advertising strategy. Viral marketing was at the time only superficially understood. How would you explain this technique to a lay audience? To what extent does it complement or replace traditional media e.g.; television, billboards, direct mail, etc.? The Viral Marketing appeared with the broadband Internet at the beginning of 20th century. [...]

[...] Also companies rarely use only one media to promote themselves. Most of the time they use at least three or four different means of communication. So the difficulty consists in how to know precisely what part does each media takes in consumer's final decision Considering some of the traditional indicators of advertising effectiveness mentioned above, to what extent should they be relied on in the Terry Tate Reebok Case? The Reebok's web site has existed for several years but there were only few active members. [...]

[...] After the “Terry Tate” advertising campaign, the number of visitors has markedly increased. There were also many registrations for the newsletter of the brand. The buzz of the brand thus allowed to make the website more dynamic and to set up a significant database. The number of video downloads is an indicator of the success but at that time the brand did not take a real advantage of it. They did not manage to create a link with consumers. It is important that Reebok study closely frequentation and audience of its website pages in order to know who, how, why and from where come to the website. [...]