Brewery Social Awareness Case Study
Oasis Texas Brewing Company, Austin, Texas | May 2017
Social Flash Media (SFM) engaged in a case study with Oasis Texas Brewing Company (OTXBC) to evaluate the effectiveness of Social Flash RANGE Kiosk and tethered social marketing platform to raise customer awareness and drive traffic to their website and Facebook Events page. This 2-month case study was established to realize any benefit from an increase in overall awareness, on-site customer engagement, and direct actions with the brand.
The Challenge
Oasis Texas Brewing Company brought a unique challenge to us for this study. They are located along the shores of Lake Travis, perched on a hilltop overlooking one of the most recognized Austin views. This, in itself, was not the challenge… but rather to stand apart from the iconic Oasis Restaurant less than 100 meters away. The Oasis Restaurant has a very established perception and following which makes this more difficult. Both venues offer drinks, food and an amazing view of the Texas Hill Country sunset over Lake Travis. The main challenge they faced is how to separate the Oasis Brewing experience from the better known Oasis Restaurant option. After all, raising awareness of their taproom not only results in an immediate increase in revenue, but also an overall awareness and following of their beers and brand for the larger distribution goals.
The Solution
In late May of 2017 OTXBC engaged Social Flash Media, a local Austin, Texas company with a social media and customer engagement solution to dramatically improve their social presence by way of their existing clientele. The onsite guest experience begins with the interactive social photo kiosk that drives content to the powerful social marketing platform developed by Social Flash Media. The unattended Social Flash RANGE Kiosk is simple to use with updatable, on-the-fly promotions that are managed remotely, removing the burden to the staff and management on the ground level. The Social Flash RANGE allows patrons to take and share photos at their leisure, expanding awareness via social media platforms such as Facebook & Twitter. OTXBC is able to control their messaging by leveraging each voluntarily shared photo experience that is organically tied to predetermined content. These photos and client content are virally spread by the patrons’ social networks due to the power of Influencer Marketing, the backbone of the SFM platform.
The Objectives
SFM and OTXBC went into the study with 5 primary objectives:
- Assess the general viability and acceptance of a photo sharing kiosk in a micro-brewery taproom environment.
- Drive clicks to the OTXBC website and Facebook Fan page to increase awareness of concerts and special events.
- Increase social media engagement with the OTXBC brand by facilitating a sharable experience.
- Gather management feedback on customer engagement process.
- Gauge the effectiveness of a granular promotion, enabling defined marketing to customers based on what brought them to the taproom that day.
The Results
From a customer engagement perspective, the interactive kiosk was a huge success. Though we did not have an accurate way to measure customer traffic in the door for this particular study, consistent usage was proportional to the overall attendance.
The OTXBC taproom was open 4 days of the week during the majority of the case study. Thursday thru Sunday from noon to 10pm/12am. OTXBC averaged 117 photos taken each day (including days they were closed!). The chart below shows the kiosk engagement through the study with peaks over the weekends (days they were open).
Customer Interaction
One challenge we faced was finding an optimal location for the placement of the backdrop and kiosk. Requiring a location that is not “in the way” and at the same time not “out of the way” can sometimes be a challenge. We were able to reduce the square footage required in half with the use of a wide angle lens toward the end of the case study in an effort to see what different spacing looked like and how it impacted customer engagement. Customer usage stayed consistent with the footprint change. The reduction of the footprint helped to satisfy managements’ concern about traffic flow around the kiosk when it is busy.
Driving as much visibility to their special events and music nights as possible was another primary objective. Our platform drove a tremendous number of clicks to the OTXBC websites during the case study period. For every 4 photos taken, there were 3 click-thrus to the OTXBC website or Facebook Events Page, nearing a 1 : 1 ratio. This is a very impressive figure as much of the traffic is seen as new visitors to their website. This traffic is primarily from the social network of the customers that shared their photo(s) to social media. Ultimately, during the term of the case study, the Social Flash Media marketing platform drive a total of 5,035 targeted clicks to their website pages and Facebook account, specifically focused on their upcoming music events.
Accumulative Website Clicks
Roughly 1 out of 10 photos taken were shared on Facebook or Twitter by the customers after receiving them from the kiosk. These posted photos resulted in an average of 11 social media interactions (likes/comments/re-tweets) per shared photo.
The statistics below showcase the value of Influencer Marketing that SFM leverages. In only 8 weeks with one Social Flash RANGE that was 100% unattended and self-operable by the patrons, OTXBC gained a staggering 28,149 total brand engagements that were 100% voluntary and organically propagated through social networks.
“For every photo taken by the guests, Oasis Texas Brewing Company gained four engagements with their brand”
One of the main challenges OTXBC faces is creating self awareness in contrast to the better known Oasis Restaurant, the “Sunset Capital of Texas”. The proposed solution was mostly focused on getting the word out that Oasis Brewing also has amazing views, live music, their own food menu, and of course, fresh brewed beer.
The promotion was built to offer multi-messaging, depending on how the customer answered a simple introductory question. “What brought you in to the taproom today?” We focused the selectable answers as a way of leading the customer into the realization that OTXBC had more than brews to offer. They indeed had “Great Food”, “Live Music”, “Tasty Beer”, AND “Views”. As the customer answered this question, their photo was built with a specific graphic frame representing what they love most about the experience. Not only was the photo frame distinguished based on the answer, but social media messaging and links that accompanied the photos through their promotional life was specific to this attribute they loved about the brewery. For example, if the guest answered “Live Music”, their photo frame had a guitar, stage lights, the OTXBC logo and photos then shared to Facebook would include a clickable URL link post that drove messaging and a URL to purchase tickets to the upcoming “Gary P Nunn” Concert they were hosting in the near future. Essentially, this subtly aligns the initial customer’s interest to the online “word-of-mouth” endorsement to their family and friends. In the process, someone learns that they have fun live music events at OTXBC.
Every answer to the survey had specific context that flowed through the promotional life of the guests’ photos. Whether it be referencing the new food items on the scratch kitchen menu, or the current line of craft beers available in the taproom, messaging was specific to the customers’ experience. This also gave insights to the brewery as to what guests may not know about the OTXBC experience. From the results above, the fact that they have great food in addition to their craft brews could be something that could use further messaging.
Conclusions
Solidifying brand awareness in the minds of the public is challenging. When two very similar brands are within a hundred meters of each other, that challenge is even tougher. Fortunately, in Social Media, the physical proximity of these two venues mattered less. With a powerful Social Media Marketing platform connected to a Photo Kiosk that helped capture a striking amount of new content (170 photos taken each day the brewery was open), the company was able to generate more than 28,000 digital engagements over the two-month period including 7,100 Facebook Likes/Comments and approximately 5,000 visits to their website.
The overall engagement level in a campaign like this tends to be much higher than a paid advertising campaign but cost a fraction of the amount of money. Influencer Marketing is the key ingredient here. Happy patrons of the business share their Kiosk photos on their Social Media Network such as Facebook and Twitter. By sharing those photos with their personal social network, each photo gets shared to and viewed by many of their friends. On average, a Facebook user has 338 friends in their network. This is the first powerful element of Influencer Marketing – leveraging the hundreds of thousands of networked connections of happy customers. This creates tremendous brand awareness. The second and equally important leg of Influencer Marketing is the trust element. Members of a personal social network form a circle of trust. Increasingly consumers are relying on their circle of trusted friends for recommendations and relying less on company advertising. Oasis Brewing turned their happy customers to their trusted brand ambassadors in the Social Media world. It paid off for them in a big way.
The cost of developing this level of brand awareness, brand recognition and trust through a Social Media advertising campaign would likely be 5-10X the cost of the Social Flash Media solution.
