Watching today's INDY 500 Pre Race event I caught a flashy video commecial featuring 5 INDY racers called "Race to the Party" which has a corresponding web site.
The campaign is self described as "bringing sexy back to the INDY- IZOD style". The company blew a huge budget on commercials, parties, dinners and assorted events which were all captured on video a la Entertainment Tonight style rapid groove reporting.
Once there, you see the same video and a collection of others that sort of make me wonder where the continuing engagement takes place in terms of selecting something, playing a game or filling out some sort of UGC capture etc.
The event microsite has lots of blog style snippets and interesting facts about the race, all designed to be wrapped around the message of "bringing cool back" to the event.
All the eye candy aside, you get a subtle prompt to "Buy Now" which link takes you to the retail site of Macy's online store featuring more videos, social tags and of course the IZOD INDY Collection of co branded clothing.
What once seemed a high profile brand (I am dating myself here at the 80's reference-Ugh!) with $100 polo shirts in pink and other frat house hues are now Macy's blow out $19.99 me- toos. Heck, you can even get an IZOD Tuxedo online for $135!! The products offered just didn't seem worth the hype- cool factor of $19.99 polos and T's is low because the products are more targeted at the NASCAR/ Wal Mart crowd.
Biased product analysis aside, I found the campaign was very enticing and had all the requisite catalysts to be successful with the people (INDY's top 5 personality drivers) music, industry hob nob events, music and of course that rebirth brand - IZOD.
So in terms of Social Media, I think there are many opportunities to develop much more deeper engagement with INDY fans with the microsite. First, there were no capture opportunities presented to say "hey, who are you and why don't you join our race to the party dude?" other than a simple "enter your e mail and download a song". The simple html link to a Macy's site to "Buy Now" is as 90's web marketing as you can get.
The video could have been made interactive to perhaps take a poll, select a potential race winner, engage with users in ways which test race team knowledge or do and upload videos or images of INDY fanfare etc. Once the interactive videos created some "buyer side alignment" (found some areas of interest within the push of content) they could have hit a home run with some Location Based Marketing - create a local Indy Party and have IZOD throw up some interactive race day games or events at the local restaurants and pubs. (No, not with Foursquare or Facebook) This is where the product loyalty programs go- coupons, clubs, points or "Buy your IZOD suits and casual race collection here"-weekly points to get a new piece- recall the cereal box top stuff?
As you can imagine, the reach and level of brand engagement can go far beyond the microsite and Facebook Fan pages they cobbled together. So they have a lot of the awareness components done really well- the lead video is great and the potential to drag you into the site is there. It just seemed pretty dull once you got there in terms of further opportunities to uncover and from a SMM perspective- boring and left to be measured with e mails captured and page views, plus a bunch more FB Fans.
Not the ROI that the campaign potentially had.
Hey, they will sell a lot of shirts- and that may be ROI enough for the short run- I think others would agree the campaign budget should be applied to much longer term thinking- with a much smaller budget that may not include the pricey TV ads next round.
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