Be the first to know. Get our weekly newsletter.

newsletter_popup Join 25,000 of your peers. Get our stories delivered to your e-mail inbox every week.
Edit Interests

Articles Selected for You

No unread stories
 
ViralBlog Logo
Close this box

Sign-up to get the content you like


Our readers can personalize ViralBlog in Zite alike ways, and schedule e-mail alerts to get the most relevant answers to their specific questions.

Choose your sign-up method:

Could not connect to Twitter. Refresh the page or try again later.

 

By signing-up you agree upon our terms and conditions

 
17/01/2011 by
10958 views

Belgian TV Prank On Mobistar Goes Viral?

Mobistar, a leading mobile operator from Belgium seems to be notorious for its lousy customer service. So Mobistar got pranked by VRT Television on January 10, 2011.
Mathieu, the security guard, became a folk hero overnight for his friendly demeanor. To share it with the rest of the world, English subtitles were a must. Enjoy!

I do salute the Basta comedy show and VRT Television for broadcasting this show and prank. It takes a lot of guts to pull such a prank, simply because Mobistar is one of Belgium’s large advertisers. Would Mobistar already have moved its media budget to other TV channels than VRT due to this prank?

Most important: What can CMO’s and Brand managers learn from this prank?


That seems rather obvious, I hope. Since we all know that too many brands are focused on shouting out their brand promises loud – through overpromising advertising campaigns. But when the products or customer service suck big-time, advertising is just the lipstick on a pig.

Modern consumers are digital dictators. And they are fed up with brands that run overpromising brand messages through advertising. These consumers are very simple and straightforward in their needs: brands should spend less on advertising campaigns and should use more of their budgets to improve their products and (customer) services – in order to deliver an outstanding brand experience.

So brands really need to understand what DNA is needed to win the hearts of digital dictators. Especially in the field of social media I have noticed that a lot of brands are very eager to push their social advertising or viral campaigns.

But most of these brands have missed out on great opportunities. The opportunities to start a social media marketing program (not another short term shouting social campaign) that is fully focused on improving customer satisfaction and brand experience.

Maybe, many brand marketers should go back to the drawing board and understand that: pushing a promise through ads, is not very trustworthy and very expensive.

There is a smarter and cheaper alternative in this era, that is called: pulling. With pulling I mean: engage with your consumers and listen to them. Next gently pull them through your funnel towards preference, loyalty and advocacy.

So pulling is easier and less expensive than pushing. All you need to accomplish such an approach is: getting the right DNA in at your company. Hint: not always available at advertising and media agencies…

If you need help: you might be lucky. Engagement strategists like mostly try to capture their vision in 1 visual. We called ours: the VSPOT theory.