With the semester starting to wind to a close, we’ve begun to go outside the classroom and into the Tampa Bay advertising scene. This week was no different and we were lucky enough to head over to Social Forces for a visit. Max Dempster, Senior Content Strategist and USF Alumni was there to greet us and give us insight into his world at Social Forces.
Social Forces is a smaller boutique agency that primarily operates in the realm of product promotion. They do this in many forms including digital, point-of-purchase store display and social media to name a few. It was interesting to hear Max talk because a lot of what they do resinate what I do at my job at Oakley. What is that exactly? Make. People. Buy. Things.
As Max went on to explain to us, a lot of the projects they take on are what I’ll call “convenient store” items. Monster energy drinks and Circle K’s Polar Pops seem to be extremely prevalent. There are so many intriguing and often, not so apparent, aspects of these product campaigns.
For example, I’ll reflect upon what Max mentioned about Monster. Being one of the biggest names in the energ drink industry, Monster still needs to keep its awareness up. The best way to do that it seems these days is through social media. Utilizing Facebook’s data analytics and other tools, Max can direct any promotions they choose to run to only those that will receive the ads in a positive light and actually participate in them. One such campaign was Monster’s release of a new drink called M-100. Max and the team at Social forces were able to take on the tonality of the product and create an interactive social media campaign. In fact, the campaign was so successful there were people posting videos of their search for the illusive drink. ((Check out the fan video here!)…warning, this guy is a little bit out there.)
Overall, Max made it clear; success in this industry is measured by impressions, and results. Across the industry, the trends are shifting to a more interactive user experience with easy ways to participate. I enjoyed Maxs’ presentation and took away some valuable pointers!
Michael Kasch 