Doppelganger

In October Coca-Cola began gathering data for a facial profiler that allows facebook users to find their look alikes around the world. The purpose of this advertising method was to show the similarity between Coke and Coke Zero, but what the web site does is unrelated to their product. Instead, Coca-Cola is offering customers and curious people (some who may not even drink Coke, like myself) something beyond their product. They're providing a source of entertainment. This is an example of an advertisement method that is meant to break Coca-Cola into a community. Instead of looking like a corporation that only pushes product, they've come up with a method to engage the community so the product pushes itself.

This is an extremely important thing for companies to do, that is, engage their community. Just selling products doesn't cut it anymore. Offering something more than your competitors as a differentiator is getting there, but it needs to be more than even that. Customers and potential clients need to know there's a face to your company, they need something they can connect with that doesn't make them give you money but does give you their time. Why spend the resources on such an effort?

You reach a larger audience. If you're only marketing your products, you won't be reaching the millions (billions?) of people who have no interest in what you do or sell. Now at first glance that may seem like a good thing, why spend resources on something that's not targeting your consumers? Think of it this way, if you own an MP3 player have you always thought you needed one? Was there ever a point where you didn't want one at all? When that changed, what was the first one to come to mind? Probably the iPod. This is because Apple made you aware of their product's existence so that when you did have the need they were waiting for you.

I learned something very important from an old professor of mine, Nancy Rice (founding partner of Fallon and advertising legend), advertising is not about trying to get someone to purchase a product. She referred to it as a call to action. It's making people aware your product exists so that when the time comes when they want something you sell, they go to you.