• Smirnoff’s Tea Partay has no RSVP

    Posted on August 16th, 2006 by and currently 7 commenting.

    Smirnoff has produced and released a 2 minute viral video called “Tea Partay” to launch their new line of flavored, spiked “Raw Teas”. The product is test launching in New England only and the video makes hay with that geography with a satiric rap video featuring a trio of WASPs sporting seersucker blazers, docksider, sweaters around the neck, and whale shorts who “keeps it real the old money way”. My 2 favorite quotes are: “High tea in the parlor makes the ladies holla’” and “here’s to homies on lock for insider trading”.
    teampartay.JPG I first saw the video this morning and laughed out loud. A couple of other folks in our office (here in lovely Greenville, SC), however, were less amused. Hmmm…am I crazy? Are they crazy? Maybe, but in this case I think the difference is a result of very targeted marketing. I went to school in the northeast and recognized the archetypes from the video from there. I’m laughing because Smirnoff nailed it. I’m guessing a lot of New Englanders are as well as the video has been viewed more than 500k times. Not only is it OK that its geographically targeted, I think that has allowed them to be funnier than they would have had they been asked to do something to appeal to everyone. Having to be universally funny would have taken them to the least common demoninator and the world has enough potty humor.

    The one thing that really disappointed me was the payoff. I went to http://www.teapartay.com as requested to do at the end of the video and found nothing other than a “coming soon” message. Even though Smirnoff created the video at the (relatively) bargain price of $200k, its disappointing that they wouldn’t have thought about ways to leverage the fans of teapartay before going live. Or at least figured it out by the time they reached 500k views. Essentially, they asked me to come by for a visit and then didn’t receive me as a guest. Rude. Even though I don’t live the test market and can’t buy yet, they could have started a conversation by asking for suggestions for the next topic for the partay boys to rap about or shown me recipes to make my own Smirnoff spiked iced tea or asked if I wanted to be on a list to know when the next video comes out. Despite the video piece’s popularity, the campaign could fail still if it has no way to Fascinate, Inspire, Reward, and Engage the folks who want to engage with Smirnoff.

    I have blogged that the :30 spot is only the first step in a marketing dialogue and the same is true of the brands using tools like MySpace or YouTube to meet new potential customers. The dialoue must continue or you could lose your audience…

  • http://blog.marketsync.com Rob Stevens

    You nailed it, Virginia. What’s the point of creating a viral and seeding it before you’re ready to capitalize on the exposure. Whomever uploaded that video before the website was ready should be fired. These sorts of things have a shelf-life, and by “popping the top” early, they’re going to lose a lot of that momentum and buzz.

  • http://blog.experiencecurve.com karl Long

    Totally, they totally dropped the ball on this one.

    There has been some various discussion related to this as to the reasons behind their failure and some potential lessons learned:
    http://www.jaffejuice.com/2006/08/yo_yowhere_my_w.html

    and in my post on the three rules for viral marketing (experiment, monitor, and respond) I use smirnoff as the anti-example of the “respond”
    http://blog.experiencecurve.com/archives/three-rules-for-managing-viral-marketing-what-every-cmo-needs-to-know

    cheers,

    Karl

  • http://brainsonfire.com/ Virginia

    Karl-
    Thanks for writing. I do think that new media is a great chance for innovation, but viewing something like this video as “an experiment” could be what led to it being launched as an orphaned endeavor. More experimental, non-traditional pieces still need to fit within an overall communications plan that allows for 2-way interaction. The “let’s just put it out there and then we’ll figure out what to do” is backfiring in this instance.

  • http://www.mcgrawmarketing.com patmcgraw

    One thing – isn’t the goal to sell product NOT drive people from the TV spot to the website? I mean, it’s great to [ex] watch a couple of guys drop Mentos into Diet Coke but it hasn’t seemed to motivate anyone to buy either product. (I realize I am too old to fit their target audience but I know my kid doesn’t see the benefit in this – she’s got enough to do.)

    Is there any data on viral marketing increasing sales vs. awareness around the office water cooler?

  • Pingback: McGraw on Marketing™ » RE: Smirnoff’s Tea Partay

  • http://www.communityguy.com Jake

    Here’s where they went wrong:

    “Smirnoff has produced and released a 2 minute viral video…”

    Videos aren’t viral. They’re fun/cool/dumb/engaging/whatever… and they happen to GO viral.

    Perhaps if they’d been thinking more about making a great experience and less about “going viral”, they would have seen the points you make in advance of launch.

  • http://www.goldenteahouse.com/Green_Tea.php Steven Jack

    I have been enjoying the Brains on Fire blog and this post regarding the Smirnoff Tea Partay
    finaling motivated me to add a video for YouTube & MySpace to meet new potential customers.