By Steve Mullins. Seeking virality. Adknowledge has launched a new format in Australia and the UK to put the brand message out on social networks. The US-based advertising net's Social TV platform targets ads at users of online destinations such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster, allowing them to share the content with other social networkers so that messages can go viral.
"There's been lots of interest from traditional TV advertisers," Markus von der Luehe, MD of Adknowledge Australia, told brand-e.biz. "Initially, it was entertainment clients like Paramount, and then we got gaming with Xbox. Then it was telecoms and 3. ... We now have more than 20 brands in Australia."
Adknowledge says research from Nielsen shows that the advertising impact of the Internet can add 15 points of lift above TV in terms of brand recall, and 187 points of lift in message recall.
"Social TV is starting to attract people from FMCG - they are wanting to break into social media," von der Luehe says.
"For Social TV the key audience is Gen Yers, and that means you have to find the creative that fits the space," he adds. "Ideally, you want something different from TV. You can make TV content work, but if it's entertaining or funny then it will clearly do better in the social media space."
Adknowledge reckons it knows what's what with social networking. And maybe that is its due because it can boast solid social media pedigree - president Brett Brewer made his Net name as a co-founder of Intermix, the parent company of a certain company called MySpace.
So what kind of campaign does von der Luehe think highly of in the social media space?
Easy - and it's Aussie. "The Best Job in the World - it was clear something like that would go completely viral," he says.
Best Job was the work of the Queensland Tourism Board, which ran a competition offering the opportunity to live in exclusive Hamilton Island for six months and get paid A$150,000 for the privilege. The contest attracted 35,000 entrants who posted 60-second job application clips on YouTube.
The winner? He was a Brit. Fair dinkum.
