Coca-Cola USA has a centralized marketing function with centers of excellence for specific marketing disciplines. When word of mouth marketing (WOMM) began emerging as an important part of the marketing mix, the Coke marketing team …
Windows Live recognized that it's installed base of hundreds of millions of consumers knew very little about the real potential of its Windows Live products and services. This despite the fact tthat Windows Live literally provided over 1500 ways for people to learn about its products, including newsgroups, pod casts, marketing Web sites ...
The multinational technology company launched a community designed to help collapse the sales cycle in the Enterprise Computing business unit. In its early months, community growth and customer/prospect engagement was not optimal. ComBlu was asked to examine the community performance and develop a roadmap for version two approach...
Microsoft created a cross-functional team to create an advocate taxonomy that could be applied across all MSFT’s community marketing initiatives. The team partnered with ComBlu to conduct best practices research across four areas, including …
Microsoft’s Office Live product suite provides small business owners with productivity tools to run and manage their business. The challenge facing Microsoft was helping these business owners understand the power of these tools and take full advantage of their rich functionality while minimizing the cost of support…
Working in a highly regulated industry, drug companies operate within many marketing constraints. The FDA seeks to protect consumers by closely monitoring the accuracy and efficacy of patient communications a drug manufacturer can make. The company wished to explore the emerging consumer social media universe and determine how to appropriately integrate it into its marketing programs …
Wild Birds is a specialty retailer that sells nature products. It wanted to increase share-of-wallet among its most loyal customers by introducing a customer-driven loyalty program. The company worked with ComBlu principal, Steve Hershberger, to recruit a team of customer advocates to help design the program and be the nucleus of a word-of-mouth campaign …
After identifying and recruiting a core group of customer advocates, Microsoft wanted to keep them involved and engaged in telling their Windows Live product stories. The advocates meet and participate through a private community called the Clubhouse…
When Intel wanted to help its partner Sony tap the emerging amateur film and video consumer market, they turned to ComBlu to create an engagement strategy that would drive preference for Sony products …
CarePages is an online community where caregivers and patients can create a personal Web site to provide family and friends updates on a health crisis or chronic condition. Our engagement approach includes …
BMW Motorcycle wanted to test the use of community-based marketing programs against its traditional marketing mix of ads, direct mail and billboards. The goal was to focus on motorcycle upgrades, first time rider acquisition, non-warranty work and specific accessory sales while decreasing …
This community for IT Professionals was designed to help people learn about specific topics, products and solutions during the research and decision phases of the purchase cycle. ComBlu helped create an engagement strategy designed to bring the community to the next level, including …
Carpet One is a preferred supplier for insurance-paid replacement carpet. The company wanted to increase its revenue from this channel and turned to ComBlu to develop a program that used customer advocates to improve the overall Carpet One experience …
Intel provides its OEM partners a variety of value-added marketing programs. When the company wanted to start piloting WOM campaigns, it turned to ComBlu for help in identifying potential customer advocates. ComBlu’s contributions included...
When launching a new tea drink, Enviga, which promoted calorie burn, Coca-Cola turned to ComBlu to identify potential product advocates in three key test markets. ComBlu’s approach included …
Sony and Intel co-sponsored a program designed to target budding film and video producers as a word of mouth channel. The goal was to equip influential brand advocates with Sony equipment powered by Intel processors. This group would become the nucleus …
Windows Live was launching a community for product advocates to interact and share their Windows Live stories. These stories would be part of a larger initiative to stimulate cross-product trial and usage among a broader consumer base. Finding and activating advocates were key to the program’s success…
Trivantis was an early entry into the “desktop to mobile” widget market. Their product, Zapps, allows users to create photo albums and flip books on their desktop and send them to friend’s mobile phones. The company turned to ComBlu to test the product’s viability in the teen market …
When the multinational technology turned to ComBlu to help them devise a new roadmap for its TechCenter community, it was clear that one of the key strategies would be identifying and activating an advocate base. These advocates would serve as the heavy community content creators and mentor others visiting …
When Wild Birds unlimited, a specialty nature retailer, wanted to revamp its customer loyalty program, they turned to ComBlu principal, Steve Hershberger to identify their best customers and tap them as a design team for the new program. The approach included …
The goal of the Windows Live consumer community was to increase awareness and drive preference for the full depth and breadth of the Windows Live consumer product suite. The strategy was to use advocates to tell their real life product stories and to teach others how to use Windows Live products…
The goal of Office Live community is to decrease the overall cost of supporting Office Live product users. The community accomplishes this in two ways…