Marketing News Canada: AntiSocial Solutions, Facebook/Meta and more!

Today we feature a round-up of some big events and recent industry happenings.

• AntiSocial Solutions Appoints Jennifer Chiang as First Director of Influencer
• Facebook’s rebrand to Meta & new metaverse company vision from Connect
• Trendjacking advice: A How-To Guide For Brands to Leverage Internet Culture
• Vevo Now Available for Shaw TV Customers

Read more below!

AntiSocial Solutions Appoints Jennifer Chiang as First Director of Influencer

Jennifer Chiang, Director of Influence

AntiSocial Solutions, a Thinkingbox Company has announced that it has hired Jennifer Chiang as its first-ever Influencer Director. Chiang will be based in Vancouver and report to Daryl Louie, Co-Founder and Sarah Scott, Managing Director. Chiang has helped global clients build brand-changing influencer strategies and programs, and has worked with 3,300 influencers and campaigns across New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Hong Kong, Japan, Toronto and Vancouver.

In this new role, Chiang will be responsible for rolling out AntiSocial Solutions’ new influencer marketing department, which will include developing the strategy for the offering, overseeing the department’s new business development plan, staffing and client management.

Prior to this, Chiang served as CEO of global influencer marketing platform MuseFind where she built and led the team in the development of technology products that generated over 100M impressions from influencer campaigns for Fortune 500 to 50 clients. Chiang utilized seed funding from New York City and Vancouver notable investors such as the former CTO of Teradata (exited to IBM), CEO of PowerReviews (exited for $170M) and then scaled the company including disciplines in technology, operations, customer success and sales.

Louie said: “AntiSocial activates influencer strategies for clients differently. We focus on long term relationships, a data-driven strategy, and integrated campaigns with social, media, content, and objective-based campaign reporting. Jennifer will be integral to building this approach and her experience working for a tech-based solution company will be instrumental in her role working with influencers at scale, allowing us to build out campaign size and effectiveness.”

Chiang was a part of the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in 2015 in New York City and was the winner of the 2014 Enactus Legion Business Competition. She graduated from UBC and then later started and funded her NYC tech startup. She is also a MIT Mentor.

Facebook’s rebrand to Meta & new metaverse company vision from Connect

Introducing Meta: A Social Technology Company. At last week’s Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook's parent company’s new name: Meta. In an official statement, Meta described this shift and announcement as the following:

Meta brings together our apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company. Mark shared more about this vision in a founder's letter.
Our annual Connect conference brings together augmented and virtual reality developers, content creators, marketers and others to celebrate the industry’s momentum and growth. This year’s virtual event explored what experiences in the metaverse could feel like over the next decade — from social connection, to entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education and commerce. We also announced new tools to help people build for the metaverse, including Presence Platform, which will enable new mixed reality experiences on Quest 2, and a $150-million investment in immersive learning to train the next generation of creators.
You can watch the full Connect keynote and learn more about how the metaverse will unlock new opportunities here. You can also learn more about our work over the past several months to develop the Meta brand on our design blog.
Our corporate structure is not changing, however, how we report on our financials will. Starting with our results for the fourth quarter of 2021, we plan to report on two operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs. We also intend to start trading under the new stock ticker we have reserved, MVRS, on December 1. Today’s announcement does not affect how we use or share data.

Learn more about Meta during Mark’s keynote speech and his Founder’s Letter.

A How-To Guide For Brands to (Successfully) Leverage Internet Culture

If you were anywhere near social media last month, you likely saw rows of red flags flooding your news feed. And it wasn’t just regular Internet users posting them. Brands and celebrities, from Dreamworks to Dolly Parton got in on it too.

So, what was it all about?

In a nutshell, it started as the Internet’s way of sharing relationship warning signs that quickly took on a life of its own. Even Crocs (yes, the spongy shoes we all love to hate) tweeted “I’m not a Crocs person” as a signal it’s time to ditch your significant other.

LEVERAGING INTERNET CULTURE TO MARKET YOUR BRAND

Brands have been jumping in on viral trends for years — and with great success in a lot of cases. But great success isn’t always guaranteed. In fact, piggybacking on a mass movement can do more harm than good in the current (and let’s face it, unforgiving) state of social media.

In this post, we explore the topic of ‘trendjacking’ as part of your marketing strategy and offer some industry-tested dos and don'ts:

1. Know Your Audience: Before jumping on a viral trend, take stock of who your audience is and ask yourself: does this trend speak to them? For example, if your audience isn’t likely comprised of many Star Wars fans, it doesn’t make sense to leverage #MayThe4thBeWithYou as part of your marketing strategy. Just because it’s popular and trending doesn’t mean it speaks to your target crowd.
2. Keep it Relevant to Your Brand: It’s natural to want to insert your brand into a viral trend, but it can backfire if the movement you’re joining has little (or nothing) to do with your brand’s identity, image or value proposition. Don’t sacrifice hard-earned authenticity to fit a fleeting trend.
3. Establish Guidelines and Stick to Them: To avoid wading into hot water, establish a system of evaluating trends BEFORE you jump on them. Might this trend offend some of our followers? Will it potentially confuse our customers? Does it conflict with our core values? These are key questions to consider prior to hitting “post.”
4. Be Selective: There are few things more annoying than a brand that hops on every social media trend under the sun. Instead, it’s wiser to be choosy and only “trendjack” when the above conditions are met.

As marketers, it’s not enough to stay versed on the latest Internet trends, we also have to use them responsibly. The above tips are a great starting point to ensure your company or brand is always on the right side of trendjacking.

No red flags here!

Thank you to Emma Cusson, Creative Director & Head of Partnerships, 1Milk2Sugars Communications for the insight.

Vevo Now Available for Shaw TV Customers

Vevo, the world’s leading music video network, today announced an agreement with Shaw Communications Inc. to make the Vevo app available for Shaw TV customers.

Shaw TV IPTV customers across Western Canada will now have on-demand access to Vevo’s extensive music video library, which includes official releases, live performances and other Vevo original content from the biggest artists of today, as well as the upcoming stars of tomorrow.

With an increasing number of Canadians continuing to adopt internet-enabled television to stream their favourite content, Vevo is committed to delivering its exclusive catalogue to more music fans through the TV platforms they enjoy.

“As a Western Canadian connectivity leader, Shaw is a critical partner for Vevo in Canada as we lead the charge to bring music programming back to living room screens worldwide,'' said Rob Christensen, vice president, advanced TV, Vevo. “Music videos have been missing from traditional TV for nearly two decades, yet the consumer demand for music videos has not faded away - in fact, it’s growing. From the latest premiere by Canada’s own Drake to an exclusive Official Live Performance with Billie Eilish (a Vevo original series), Vevo provides fans with a unique content set that they actively seek out and watch.”

“We know Canadians are looking to access as much of their favorite content as possible, and by adding the Vevo App to our growing library of content, we’re offering access to thousands of free and ad-supported titles from artists of every genre for our customers to enjoy,” said Andrew Eddy, Vice President, Programming, Shaw Communications.

Compiled by Emma Whiten, Editor of Marketing News Canada