Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Viber, one of the leading global messaging apps, introduced the Viber Communities less than four months ago, and thus became the first app of its kind to offer options for chatting and sharing all kinds of content for a billion people at the same time. While other messaging apps in the market limit group chats to several hundred or thousands of users, Viber pushed the boundaries and now offers its users a unique opportunity for global connectivity at an unprecedented level – up to 1 billion users in a single group chat.
About the Community and all the communication and technological benefits Viber offers to its users (consulting on digital transformation and creating successful Viber strategies, stickers and their popularity) and examples of good campaigns with Viber in the region, we talked with Zarena Kancheva, Viber’s Head of Marketing and PR for the CEE region.
Media Marketing: Digital transformation and adaptation of traditional business models to the digital age is all around us. How well is this transformation understood in our region, how is it being implemented, and what does it mean for companies?
Zarena Kancheva: I would say that we’ve already reached the point when talking about digital as an alternative of traditional media is already outdated. In the current context we’ve already seen the shift towards internet-based solutions and now we’re stepping into a new reality where one part of the digital ecosystem is already seen as traditional, while new online sub-channels are emerging. I wouldn’t even say that “mobile first” is the new big thing as we’ve been witnessing the saturation of mobile usage. According to the latest reports, 2017 was the first year in which smartphone unit shipments didn’t grow at all while the time users spend online is still growing. The biggest challenge for the tech companies (incl. messaging apps) is the so called “privacy paradox.” They’re caught between using data to provide better consumer experiences and violating consumer privacy. When we talk about the regional adoption of all these trends in Central&Eastern Europe, I believe the scenario is pretty similar. Going back to the business, most of the big ad spenders have already shifted major shares of their budgets towards digital and the crisis around Fb in the recent months has led to an opening towards new opportunities, which I believe is only healthy for the industry. From a user standpoint, we see a drawback from broadcasting channels (such as Fb newsfeed) and a revival of the interpersonal communication – in chats, groups or communities based on shared interests, which leads to the uprise of some new conversational marketing tools (incl. voice recognition), which in my opinion, will develop further.
Media Marketing: How much can development of partnerships within the marketing industry and outside it help in digital transformation?
Zarena Kancheva: “Partnerships” stand for collaboration between different businesses that lead to mutual benefits for all sides. They are the backbone of Viber’s strategy across the markets we manage and so far it has proved to drive great results not only for the brands, but also for the consumers. We are 100% digital company, so helping businesses grow successful strategy within our application, definitely is a trigger towards deeper transformation. Happy to have similar partners in the Croatian market that proved to managed highly effective campaigns on Viber, such as Dubioza Kolektiv, JoomBoos, Hrabri Telefon, Sonus Festival, Addiko Bank, etc.
Media Marketing: Users today are migrating to mobile platforms more and more, and brands are sometimes uncertain how to use these big platforms. How can Viber, as one of the leading messaging platforms, help companies and brands?
Zarena Kancheva: We work closely with all our strategic partners in the region, provide set of onboarding materials and case studies, so that we make sure that they are aware of the new toolkits that our platform offers for advertisers. Still, at the end of the day the key to having a great campaign is the content strategy and the message that users get, which lays in the hands of the brands.
Media Marketing: When we talk about users, does Viber focus more towards younger users? How do certain demographic groups spend their time on Viber?
Zarena Kancheva: Since privacy&security is part of Viber’s DNA we don’t keep demographic data about our users, so I cannot tell you the exact split. Still, we run researches that gives us idea about the ranges. Viber is a global messaging app that currently has more than a billion users, we don’t particularly focus on any age. What we do instead is trying to incorporate meaningful content within our platform that enriches the daily conversation between our users. If we take for ex. FIFA World Cup’18 – we’ve integrated a score predicting chat bot and a series of engaging tools for the football fans in their local language, because the thrill of the game knows no age or gender differences. We are seeking to excite our users to share their emotions in Viber or solve everyday tasks and make their lives a bit easier.
Media Marketing: Stickers have become a huge deal in Viber communication. Where does such great popularity of stickers come from, and why are more and more brands creating them for their communication?
Zarena Kancheva: The success behind stickers come from the need to be more expressive when we share emotions with our friends. Usually in Viber people do communicate on a daily basis with their close circle and they want to be able to share not only text but also cool visual content that helps them describe an emotion better. The same observation is valid for GIFs or videos, of course.
Media Marketing: Are people asking for more and more stickers, or do they stick with the most popular ones? And while we’re at it, which are the most popular and most used in our region?
Zarena Kancheva: Yes! People love stickers and they always seek for new cool stuff to share with friends J Usually the most popular stickers on every market are localized ones, that say something very common like Good Night, I love you or Hi. At the end of the day this is another way to express emotion, which is the meaning of communication between real people J
Media Marketing: Viber recently launched the Communities service which enables simultaneous chat of a billion people. How are the results so far?
Zarena Kancheva: Communities are next-level group chats, that enable different people to share content around a specific topic they are passionate for. The best examples we’ve seen so far are communities of sports clubs, music events, celebrities, cooking, etc. The results are really promising and we believe there is still huge potential ahead.
Media Marketing: What will happen with public chats, and what is your long-term strategy with the Communities service?
Zarena Kancheva: Communities offer an alternative of the public chats that gives much better moderation tools for the admins and in the long run many businesses will shift towards this option. They are also very scalable and I assume that soon they will be widely adopted also by smaller groups of highly engaged users that want to stay together, such as parents of kids going to the same class or families living in the same neighbourhood. Their main idea is to bring people who share a common vibe together.
Media Marketing: French football club Olympique de Marseille, Minute Media company which works on creating and distributing sports content, OverDrive digital service for content buying were among the first who had the opportunity to create their Viber communities. Has that circle expanded over the last couple of months?
Zarena Kancheva: Definitely! We have a of new partners both on global and local level and the first results are really good. We see high user engagement and response rate and this vertical will only grow in the next few months.
Media Marketing: Why should some company choose Viber for improving their business instead of some other messaging service?
Zarena Kancheva: Viber is a unique environment for getting your messages heard from the right audience and we offer localized solutions that proved to work well for reaching business KPIs. We have very strong market share, but also a very high level of thrust among our users which is our core priority. In other words, I believe that Viber’s business model offers effective and sustainable channel for wide variety of businesses that would like to bring more value for the users.
Media Marketing: What would be the winning strategy for a brand campaign on Viber?
Zarena Kancheva: To get the right exposure (usually through a sticker pack) and make sure that your content strategy is really good. This is what makes the real difference, then there are various tools to keep the audience engaged – through a chat bot, community, etc.
Media Marketing: Can you give us some examples of good Viber campaigns in the region?
Zarena Kancheva: All of our regional campaigns were successful in their respective segments but the ones I can single out are great examples of how you can reach all of your KPIs. For example, a Bulgarian Coca-Cola campaign had 191 000 sticker downloads and a conversion rate of almost 30%, which is 10x the market average. A socially responsible campaign for Hrabri telefon, a child phone counseling organisation in Croatia, had incredible results with over 200 000 sticker pack downloads and a real impact on their efforts, with 33% more helpline calls and 110% more email and chat sessions. Another great example is Dubioza Kolektiv, where a local brand used a global campaign to extend their reach to international markets and connect with the world, growing their Viber fanbase to over 500 000 people.
Media Marketing: Do you conduct comparisons of campaigns implemented through Viber and those in other social media channels?
Zarena Kancheva: All our partners run their campaigns simultaneously in Viber and other digital channels, aiming to amplify the effect and we always encourage this. We’ve been constantly examining and comparing results, together with the brands, so that we can understand better the algorithms the different channels use and improve our product in order to serve in the best possible way. We are happy that the first communities we’ve launched proved to reach significant success in key metrics as CTR, reaching sometimes 10%+ which proves that once they are managed in a smart way, they can totally drive results.
Media Marketing: What is the next big thing we can expect from Viber in this year, or the next?
Zarena Kancheva: Changing and growing is what we do best, so there are many exciting new projects ahead this year, we are looking into onboarding new partners in different segments, but also launching new features such as e-shopping for example.