I have to hand it to Honda for coming up with a Facebook app that can be perceived by consumers as fun, entertaining, and humorous, but could be working hard behind the scenes to tell Honda’s marketing team so much more than whether a user has been naughty or nice this year.
To use the Honday Naughty or Nice Facebook app shown below, you have to “like” the Honda page on Facebook. Then you can click the start button on the app, which will scan your Facebook updates for naughty or nice keyword flags, how often you “like” things, and how many Facebook invitations you accepted throughout 2010. The result tells you whether you’ve been naughty or nice this year.
For users, the app could be humorous and could have a viral effect if groups of people start comparing results. However, Honda benefits in multiple ways. First, if the app is popular, Honda benefits from positive word-of-mouth marketing and brand buzz. More importantly, Honda get access to a year’s worth of Facebook updates as well as “like” and invitation acceptance behavior history.
The app tab on Honda’s Facebook page doesn’t disclose upfront how much (if any) information Honda will collect, store, and/or use as it crawls through user’s Facebook histories, but if the company is going through the trouble to search for naughty and nice flags, then it would make sense to look for additional keywords or behaviors that can help the company develop future targeted marketing campaigns.
What do you think of this type of Facebook app? Too invasive? Very clever? Leave a comment and share your opinion. One thing is for certain, this type of app is likely to get more popular and marketers will probably have to get even more clever to motivate people to allow access to their social media profile histories. In other words, will a promise of being labeled naughty or nice be enough to move people to action and open the doors to their social media profiles a year from now? What do you think?
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
