Secret to Ashton Kutcher's Twitter Success? Billboards

Love the demonstration of traditional media spend combined with actionable online brand presence.

Way to go!

http://www.twitter.com/admaven

http://admaven.blogspot.com

Wow. I've been wondering when billboards would start being used for advertising Twitter accounts. The precedent has finally come to pass. What kind of crazy Pandora's box have we opened? Time will tell.

For now, I'm going to do what Admaven did and advertise MY Twitter account here.

http://twitter.com/AaronWagner7000

idk -- to me, it's always seemed to be a weird thing to advertise a url on a billboard. how do you bookmark (for lack of a better term) a url when you're nowhere near a computer? unless people were following him on their mobile device while driving (dangerous, but it happens)
sure here you only have to remember the @aplusk but upon initial look (and at 65mph) it's not apparent that it's a+k.
having said all that -- yes, mainstream media helped him beat mainstream media
http://www.twitter.com/shotgunconcepts

An incredible moment for us all. All hail, Ashton.

This is a somewhat funny, somewhat interesting example of how online and off line marketing can be used together to get results.

Debatable how much benefit Kutcher will receive in the end but this type of publicity beats getting PR for a DUI!

More thoughts on the story and Ad Age's coverage of it here: http://budurl.com/t4zb

ASHTON KUTCHER WON!!! ASHTON WON!!! ASHTON WON!!!

But what is the meaning of this victory to the marketing world? What did it prove?

In a single word, Transformation. This was the defining moment of how the Internet won over the Television. It is, as Ashton said, "A changing of the guard...from the old way of consuming media to the new way of consuming media." Not only did CNN have the advantage of having continuous air coverage, but they had not one, not two, not three, not four, but over five nationally, and in fact, internationally recognized faces and names plugging their Twitter account. And yet Ashton still won.

So, how is this transforming? As Ashton said "The new wave is here...We get to choose what we want to see and don't want to see and who we want to have broadcast." It no longer resides with the big companies, "the Giants" forcing you to watch endless commercials, listening to their points of view, or buying into their ideology. But the power now rest firmly in the hands of the consumer. This simple competition has put forth what we should already know. Consumers, People, are going to the web for their entertainment, for their personal growth, and for fulfilling their lives. We now have, more than ever in the history of mankind, the ability to connect across all boundaries, across all oceans, and right through the middle of any misunderstandings that our governments have with each other. We have the power to determine what we watch, what we let into our lives, and with a simple click, close off what we don't like. No longer are our lives dominated by mass media force feeding us what they want us to hear or what they think we should hear.

It's remarkable that a multinational news and cable organization would compete with a single man and lose. It's ironic that they would tell their viewers to go to the web. The very medium which will one day replace watching CNN on the television.

The masses have spoken. The dice have been cast. The internet is the ultimate victor here. "Victory is ours!!!!"

Will the marketing world wake up? Will they see that the consumers they are spending millions trying to reach on the television are not even there any more? I don't know. Perhaps if they are visionaries they will. But if they are steadfast in their resolve that the television will continue to be their best channel, then they will go out the same way that the newspapers and print media are going out today...a slow and agonizing death.

Congratulations Ashton and thank you for your efforts to rid the world of Malaria. Thank you also for the clarity of this message: the world has truly gone to the web.

Patrick Houlahan
VP of Business Development
AdJack
www.AdJack.tv

Catchy post title but where's the fact checking? How do you explain the first 850k followers?

Ashton deserves a lot of credit. Whether you like his work in movies and TV or not, you have to admire his creativity and marketing insight. Last night was a major milestone. If you don't get it... We'll, just get (and give) the full story.

http://tweamr.com/the-bar-has-been-set-absolute-perfect-marketing-twintegration/

Interesting article. I agree with Nick, great blend of online / offline marketing.

JonTuckerUSA

Forgot to add my twitter link.

http://www.twitter.com/jontuckerusa

Some speculate that this was all a highly organized press stunt. Press stunt or not it shows both the change of balance of power between social media and corporate media, as well as, that between a "popular" few on social media and everyone else.

I am urging people to show their collective influence by unfollowing Ashton for one day on Monday the 20th - Unfollow Ashton Kutcher Day use hashtag #ufapluskday.

Everyone should feel free to follow back on Tuesday if they wish, but on that one day we can show that we can join together and effectively counter the disproportionate power of a few.

For more info: http://bit.ly/seXdZ

AZ in San Jose! Drop me a line at patrick@adjack.tv. I would like to connect.

the world of outdoor advertising will change with the launch of www.adstruc.com in Fall 2009

So Ted Turner's CNN is defeated by billboards? Pretty ironic, considering that Ted's dad was in the billboard biz, which Ted took over at age 24 after his father's suicide.

Maybe it's just me but I have a problem with how this whole thing is being positioned around 'advertising' - even in jest (which I hope this article was.) This whole thing was not about advertising. It was about Ashton Kutcher getting digtal and social media and using it to his advantage. There's 3 main points to this:

1. Ashton has been very active in the social media world not only on Twitter but on Facebook as well. His Katalyst Media company has been working to bring original web content to the Facebook platform.

http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/ashton-kutcher-premiers-new-series-on-facebook/

2. Ashton himself is an avid Twitter user and has been active on the service for awhile. Before this little 'contest' began, he already had over 842K followers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRyNWLZZmo.

3. Even as traditional media was picking up on this, Ashton himself was using the real-time online video service Ustream to appeal to his community going so far as to broadcast live the countdown to the final moments before his win:

http://weareorganizedchaos.com/index.php/2009/04/17/ashton-kutcher-broadcasts-his-twitter-race-to-1-million-win-over-cnn-live-on-ustream/

As usual, advertising likes to try to make itself relevant and pat itself on the back that 'old school media' won the race for Ashton. I couldn't disagree more and would even go so far as to say that even if this whole contest didn't get picked up by main stream media, Ashton was so far ahead of the curve using social media tactics that he would have won regardless.

Matt Szymczyk
Zugara

It's a complete no brainer - integrated ALWAYS works best. Just lucky for both of them Oprah wasn't in the race as I'm sure she could rack up one million in one day!

http://www.thisisopen.com/blog

Combining social media with traditional is quite surprising to see but expected to happen within the near future. Having a simple URL, limited copy, contrasting colors, and the newly recognnized Twitter logo on the billboard makes it incredibly easy to read for ongoing traffic. I would like to know where the majority of these advertisements were placed across the United States. I don't think I can imagine seeing a Twitter billboard advertisment while driving across I-70 in the state of Kansas...

Lots of ways old and new media are being combined. The folks at CNN & MSNBC keep suggesting we should send them Tweets on Twitter. At the same time, the founders of Twitter have been on a variety TV programs, and they appear happy to talk to reporters from "old" media. Ashton's multiple appearances on TV to talk about his Twitter victory were particularly amusing. Hats off to him for raising money and public awareness to help fight Malaria.

That said, the idea that his victory proves the "little guy" can win with new media is beyond ridiculous. Kutcher became famous on "old media" television (with more than one hit show on more than one major network). He is married not to a "fellow little person," but to a Hollywood movie star (as in big-budget, big-studio mega-bucks movies). Indeed, he and his wife were both multi-millionaires before they met. Both apart and together, they have been on the cover of every major "old media" celebrity magazine, more than once. Finally, last I heard, his followers to follow-ees ratio was about ten thousand to one. Ashton Kutcher the guy who got lots of buzz for himself and raised money for a good cause? Yes! Ashton the little guy? Uh....not so much!

Michal Ann Strahilevitz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Marketing
Golden Gate University

The only thing more fun than following Ashton is making fun of Ashton and his celeb friends.

Check out: www.tweeterazzi.com

This is a very interesting approach to advertising and social media. I believe that it was a very smart plan, regardless of where traditional media is headed, people still drive and still see billboards. There are also many people who have internet and use social networking sites such as twitter and facebook on their phone. I would bet that many people got out there phone while they were driving and added Ashton on twitter. I also believe that it probably caused a lot of people to visit the twitter web site to see what all the talk is about.

That's awseome. Of course he could just advertise on twitter directly. There are a lot of new companies popping up that do this. I used one the other day called http://www.TweetTrafficAds.com and got some good traffic from it. It will be interesting to see what else pops up.

I'm glad that all of this actually serves a purpose. I think it's great that Ashton is using all of this to help out the Malaria cause in Africa and not as just some publicity stunt. I wish him the best.

Gaston
http://www.Ultimate-Resell-Rights.com

I used to follow Ashton on Twitter but I decided to stop following him for a couple of reasons. Of course, I was glad to see how he was using it, and that is why I followed him in the first place. Fighting for a cause such as Malaria disease deserves for everyone to pay attention to it. But after awhile, it seemed as if his tweets were getting off focus. So I decided to stop following him.

Frank
http://www.chicurlingirons.com