Cold Kiwi…

Red Bull is an energy drink sold by the Austrian Red Bull GmbH. It was created in 1987 by the Austrian entrepreneur Dietrich Mateschitz[1] and on market share, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink in the world, with 3 billion cans sold each year. Dietrich Mateschitz was inspired by an already existing drink called Krating Daeng which he discovered in Thailand. He took this idea, and to suit the tastes of Westerners, modified the ingredients, and founded Austrian Red Bull GmbH in partnership with Chaleo Yoovidhya.

Chaleo Yoovidhya invented the Thai energy drink Krating Daeng; in Thai daeng is red, and krating is the reddish brown bovine, gaur, an animal slightly larger than the bison. Red Bull is sold in a tall and slim blue-silver can. Krating Daeng is sold in Thailand and in some parts of Asia in a wider gold can with the name of Krating Daeng or Red Bull Classic. Both are different products produced separately.

Their slogan is “Red Bull gives you wiiings” and the product is aggressively marketed through advertising, tournament sponsorship (Red Bull Air Race, Red Bull Crashed Ice), sports team ownerships (Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Toro Rosso, EC Red Bull Salzburg, FC Red Bull Salzburg, Red Bull New York, RB Leipzig), celebrity endorsements, and with its record label, Red Bull Records, music.

1. Pay utmost attention to the needs and wants of your customers. A lot of companies and businesses make the mistake of focusing their attention on how they can get more people to join their communities instead of focusing on providing for the needs and wants of those who already joined. Give to your existing customers what they need and they’ll do the recruiting for your brand community.
2. Allow peer to peer communication. A brand community isn’t just about you conversing with your customers. Most importantly, it should be about the customers conversing with the other customers. Relationships should exist between customers and between you and the customers. The keyword here is open interaction. A customer should be able to interact with another customer as much as he can interact with the brand.
3. A brand community can be built on any type of business, no matter how small the business. Don’t think that brand communities are only for huge and major companies. Do you own a small town diner? No problem. An effective brand community can still be built around it. Who knows, because of your brand community, your small diner could grow into a network of diners. Never underestimate the power of these communities.
4. Make it easy for people to create content about your brand and make it even easier for them to share such content. Take advantage of the popularity of social media sites like blogs, social bookmarking sites and online forums. And don’t forget to create platforms in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter where your community can connect and converse with each other.
5. Nurture open exchanges and conversations. Don’t try to over-moderate your community. The main purpose of people in joining communities is to communicate and interact. So the act of overly moderating a community is contrary to what brand communities are about. Moderate only when it’s necessary.
6. Participate in the community. Don’t just be a bystander looking into the conversations. Be active and show your customers that you care about what they think and what they’re saying about your brand.

This is an interesting relationship between the premier camera company Nikon and Hollywood’s A-list actor and producer, Ashton Kutcher.  Kutcher has signed on to promote the Nikon COOLPIX brand cameras and is lending his photogenic qualities to Nikon to help them reach a new younger and hipper audience.

Nikon shares the pro-am segment and of course the professional segment of the market, which lends itself to the higher income male 45+ demo.   The fastest growing market, especially in digital photography is the active mobile woman and the younger out of college segment.

Ashton Kutcher is going to help promote the manufacturer’s new COOLPIX Style series cameras. The campaign will debut nationally on March 25th with a television commercial, which precedes the print advertisements and an interactive online component.  The interactive component is really trying to tap into the rich influencer position that Ashton has and his ability to create a scalable conversation with his fans and followers.

Though Kutcher is being paid as a celebrity spokesperson, there are plenty of signs in these vertical categories of brands building influencer relationships with small and mid-sized blogs and websites.   You don’t need to be a Hollywood celebrity to make an impact, and the brand marketers of today realize that they can tap into their rich fan bases and category influencer’s to promote and build their brand message.   Though Kutcher can reach millions, there are plenty of others that though effective conversational marketing strategies by brands that can move the needle and drive true ROI.