????當一個品牌滑入主流語境幾個小時，甚至功德圓滿，一舉成為熱門話題的時候，從長遠來看，這類沖刺性的活動其實沒有多大的價值。“社交媒體的關注總是稍縱即逝，”謝弗說。“如果這種關注度只出現一次，它們不一定是有意義的交流。人們都在談論你并不意味著他們正在產生購買沖動。”當一個品牌花費一整年時間通過自己的社交媒體賬戶塑造一種真正的個性化形象時，取得的傳播效應要高效得多。在一場萬眾矚目的賽事直播期間通過Twitter玩一個可笑的惡作劇不會產生持久性影響。但奧利奧餅干(Oreo)和恰敏衛生紙(Charmin)這樣的廣告主卻因全年都在發布有趣好笑的內容、與消費者持續互動而備受贊譽。

????不過，杰西潘尼公司成功地進入了集體語境之中。Esurance保險公司通過超級碗大賽剛剛結束后播放的廣告也做到了這一點。約翰?克拉辛斯基飾演的發言人坐在一個盛滿現金的巨型立方體前面，告訴人們使用話題標簽 #Esurancesave30在Twitter上發布留言，就有機會贏取150萬美元大獎。與杰西潘尼公司不同，他們的花樣并沒有意想不到的轉折或笑話，而是單刀直入，徑直呼吁人們發布與它們相關的微博，這招很奏效。

????只有一個問題：當一個話題標簽像 #Esurancesave30那樣，在Twitter上爆炸性傳播時，它必然會吸引濫發垃圾郵件的人、惡意自動程序和愛開玩笑的家伙。點擊任何一個超人氣話題標簽，你將發現它被許多不相干的微博劫持了，一些付費網站和垃圾郵件發送者時常采用這種方式發布一些粗俗下流的信息。就Esurance公司這個例子而言，最有損其品牌的問題是，Twitter上一下子涌現出了大批聲稱自己是Esurance公司官微的山寨賬戶。（視覺提示：這些賬戶沒有“認證”標識，而且它們的名稱基本上都多了一個字母，或者有其他容易被忽視的特征。）這些與Esurance聯系在一起，不可信賴的微博滿天飛，當然對這個品牌不利。

????這一切意味著，大家并不一定會在冬奧會期間看到廣告商模仿杰西潘尼公司或Esurance保險公司的花招。在冬奧會這樣一個備受世界重視的賽事期間，熱點話題的保溫時間有限，此外還有垃圾郵件的危害，相關品牌這么做可能會面臨疏遠消費者的風險。奧運會廣告大戰的贏家很有可能是那些投入大額預算制作官方廣告的品牌，這些廣告可能非常莊重，充滿感情色彩。其他品牌會嘗試著進入主流語境之中，但成功的幾率不大。“這種時候，花錢打廣告就會被看到，”謝弗說。“但如果這種時候只是發一些微博，你很快會被鋪天蓋地的噪音淹沒。”

????如今這個時代，情節劇是奧運廣告的主流（現在或許也可以說，在這個情節劇成為超級碗主流廣告的新時代），展現幽默，獲得自發性傳播，需要付出成本。如果一家公司希望省下購買電視廣告的開支，嘗試著借道社交媒體捷徑獲得免費的品牌宣傳，它就必須極其聰明，風趣，或前衛。吐槽比賽場館或運動員的低劣笑話可能走不遠。（財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????Those brief spurts of activity -- when a brand slips into the mainstream conversation for a few hours or even when it achieves the holy grail of becoming a trending topic -- aren't that valuable in the long run anyway. "Social media mentions are fleeting," Schafer says. "These are not necessarily meaningful interactions if they happen just once. Just because people are talking about you doesn't mean they're being pushed to make a purchase." It is far more productive when a brand spends all year cultivating a real personality with its social media account. Pulling one funny prank on Twitter during one popular live event won't move the needle in a lasting way. But advertisers like Oreo and Charmin have earned praise for being interesting or funny enough all year to get continual interactions from consumers.

????Still, J.C. Penney succeeded in entering the collective conversation. Esurance did the same with its ad that aired just after the Super Bowl ended: Actor-spokesman John Krasinski, sitting in front of a giant cube of cash, told people to tweet the hashtag #Esurancesave30 for a shot at winning $1.5 million. Unlike J.C. Penney, their stunt had no twist or joke to it: They cut right to the chase and made a direct ploy to get people tweeting about them, and it worked.

????Just one problem: When a hashtag explodes on Twitter the way #Esurancesave30 did, it attracts spammers, bots, and jokers. Click any super-popular hashtag and you'll find unrelated tweets that have hijacked it, from pay sites to spammers to regular people tweeting lewd, offensive things. In Esurance's case, the issue most detrimental to its brand was that scores of copycat accounts emerged that purported to be Esurance official accounts, but were not. (Visual hints: These do not have the "verified" check mark and in most cases had one extra letter in the handle or some other easy-to-miss indicator.) The unreliable tweets flying around associated with Esurance were not ideal for the brand.

????What all of this means is that you shouldn't necessarily expect to see advertisers aping J.C. Penney's or Esurance's Super Bowl stunts during the Winter Games. In addition to the limited duration of buzz, and the dangers of spam, brands run the risk of alienating consumers during an event that the world takes very seriously. The winning brands at the Olympics will likely be the obvious ones: Those that have devoted big budgets to official ads, ads that look likely to be entirely serious and sentimental. Other brands will try to enter the conversation; few will succeed. "When you pay to get on there, you're going to be seen," says Schafer. "But when you tweet during one of these things, there is a ton of noise."

????In the age of the melodramatic Olympics ad, and now, perhaps, the new age of the melodramatic Super Bowl ad, humor and spontaneity come at a cost. If a company looking to skip the expense of buying a TV ad tries to gain free brand buzz by way of a social media shortcut, it's going to have be extremely clever, funny, or edgy. And mean jokes about the venue or the athletes probably won't fly.