School of Information Systems

Offline Advocacy

22 Feb 2022

Every company has various strategies to increase sales from its business. One strategy that is often carried out is marketing advocacy. In carrying out product promotions, companies will usually deploy a marketing or sales team for these activities. However, actually promotional activities can also be carried out by consumers if you are able to build marketing advocacy properly. Advocacy marketing is a marketing strategy that involves customers so that they recommend your product to various people around them. In another sense, to make this happen you must provide the best possible product to customers. This includes appearance, function, and your service to customers. 

Actually in this adcocacy marketing consists of two, namely online and offline which have the aim of mutually reinforcing a campaign run by the company. Offline Advocancy is a communication strategy that is used by a company or a business to support an offline business so that it can effectively communicate with offline customers in order to increase sales and strengthen the brand. This time we will discuss companies that have successfully used offline advocacy. The goal of a social media campaign should be to encourage the creation of messages by audiences. As social media marketing practitioners, we must continue to encourage users to comment, respond to and interact with our content. In addition to this online participation, our audience may become so attached to this community that they also become offline advocates of the brand. 

Examples of companies that have successfully integrated Offline and Online Advocacy: 

We will discuss the integration of offline advocacy in a company that has been able to integrate online and offline marketing is TOMS. TOMS is built on the contribution consumption business model, where if a consumer buys a product, the organization contributes something for a cause. TOMS calls it a “One for One” model, where the user buys a pair of shoes and the company gives a pair of shoes to someone in need. With this strategy, TOMS can build a community of customers who buy shoes for the company and with this community sales will improve offline or online and that is what is called the success of offline advocacy. 

In addition to the TOMS company, another company that has successfully integrated the power of participation in social media marketing campaigns is the Frito Lay “Do Us A FlavorTM” campaign. Every year, potato chip company Lay creates and distributes new flavors to add to their lineup. In 2012, the company decided to allow consumers to participate in the process via online and mobile delivery. 

Rather than just creating various flavors and allowing the user to select their favorite, Frito Lay actually allows the user to take part in the process. Users are encouraged to submit ideas they think will make delicious potato chips. By giving up process control, the company accepts many ideas that never make it to the market. This is one of the drawbacks of participatory marketing campaigns. However, with control over the message, they were able to find three possible flavors of the 3.8 million fans. These include Cheese Garlic Bread, Sriracha, and Chicken and Waffles.  

Lays’s social media campaign increases Participation by creating every flavor and featuring a biography for each post. This helps personalize the taste and makes it easier for users to identify contestants. 

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