Digital Marketing & E Commerce
Assignment-2
GoPro
Submitted to-
Prof Rajat Gera
Submitted By-
Ankita Rajput(PGFB1910)
Ashutosh Sharma(PGFB1915)
Kranthi Kiran(PGFB1929)
Mudit Sharma(PGFB1935)
Shivam Gupta(PGFB1946)
GoPro
GoPro frees people to celebrate the moment, inspiring others to do the same. From cameras
to apps and accessories, everything we do is geared to help you capture life as you live it,
share the experience and pass on the stoke. We believe that sharing our experiences makes
them more meaningful and way more fun.
GoPro was founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman—a surfer, skier and motorsports enthusiast in
search of a better way to film himself and his friends surfing. What started with a 35mm
camera and a wrist strap made from old wetsuits and plastic scraps has grown into an
international company that has sold over 26 million GoPro cameras in more than 100
countries.
Evaluate GoPro UGC promotion and answer the following questions
1. What are the secrets behind the success of GoPro’s UGC strategy?
GoPro has become one of the great success stories of user-generated content
marketing, by cleverly capitalizing on both the creativity of their customers, and the
dynamics of social media. Their success was based, first of all, on their product.
GoPro taps fans’ passion for the product
The GoPro marketing strategy team searches the web for the best and coolest videos
shot with their cameras. They actively seek out emotional and impactful content that
they can share with the rest of their fanbase, whether it’s ‘extreme’ and unique
content or simply the beauty of everyday life. The GoPro YouTube channel is filled
with curated videos. They leverage the passion of well-known users by sponsoring
athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler and snowboarder Shaun White and using
these partnerships to boost brand awareness in these athletes’ fanbases. With point-of-
view video content, GoPro puts the viewer in the driver’s seat of a multitude of
experiences.
They know social media
GoPro boasts 7.9 Facebook fans, 1.17 million Twitter followers, almost 3.2 million
Instagram followers, and over 2 million YouTube subscribers. Visual content is
successful on social media and as today’s audiences are more crunched for time than
ever, they appreciate short and compelling visual content more than longer and
harder-to-digest written content. The brain also has something to do with this
preference, as images process 60 times faster than words. GoPro takes advantage of
this by posting compelling photos and videos to its social profiles and participates in
conversations within the comments section of their videos on YouTube. They also
encourage their fans to share content with them on social, which boosts engagement.
The ultimate storyteller
Customers respond better to marketing messages that aim to connect with the
audience. As with visuals, the human brain is actually affected by storytelling.
Research published in The New York Times showed that the human brain finds it
easier to remember and understand stories over facts and data. Stories stimulate the
brain and have the potential to change how people act in life. Consumers want stories.
Nielsen reports that 92% of consumers reported that they want companies to create
advertising that feels like a story.
The GoPro team is skilled at creating content that appeals to their key customer
personas . It is a brand that knows its audience and produces relevant, shareable
content that caters to them. They are adept at using the internet to create meaningful
connections with their fans, and turning those fans into brand advocates.
The brand posts high-quality photos shared by users on the platform. Running the hashtag-
based UGC campaign, #GoPro, the brand demonstrates the use of the product through the
pictures. In the process, the brand persuades the audience to invest in their products.
2. What lessons can other firms learn from GoPro’s UGC strategy?
Ans: Few lessons that other firms can learn from GoPro’s UGC strategy are-
Incentivise User Generated Content
GoPro is the master at incentivising user-generated content and harnessing its power
on its website. So much so that it was reported that a video is uploaded on to
Facebook or YouTube with a GoPro tag every minute of every day. This is an
astonishing up-take rate.
How have they done it?
By consistently investing in engaging with their users and fans by incentivising them
to upload their photos or videos for a chance to win GoPro equipment. They’ve given
their fans a platform to tell their stories about using their product. The GoPro website
heavily features visual material created by their users – real people using their
products in real life. Their marketing strategy couldn’t be more powerful than that.
GoPro Awards page is one of the key destinations for user-generated content. The
page displays a curated feed of best entries from GoPro Fans.
What can be learnt from this approach is that your fans can be your biggest advocates
so put them, their stories at the centre of any content marketing strategy – give them a
little reward or incentive to share their stories and use their material to help tell your
story.
Curate Content
Even brands with marketing budgets like GoPro know their own limits – not all the
content they carry on their site can be their own. The GoPro marketing strategy team
searches the web for the best and coolest videos shot with their cameras. They
actively seek out emotional and impactful content that they can share with the rest of
their fanbase, whether it’s ‘extreme’ and unique content or simply the beauty of
everyday life.
The GoPro YouTube channel is filled with curated videos. It also leverages the
passion of well-known users by sponsoring athletes like skateboarder Ryan Sheckler
and snowboarder Shaun White. GoPro then syndicates the content they generate on to
their channel. This has a dual benefit for the brand – it boosts the brand’s awareness
among the athlete’s fans as well as generating new and fresh content for its own site.
The GoPro social media team also scours the web for any content they can reshare on
the brand’s social pages. They find videos shot with GoPro cameras, feature them on
their site and which boosts engagement with their fans as they are generally excited to
be found and featured.
What we can learn from this approach is to not just rely on creating the content
yourself but source (and credit) content from around the web that’s relevant to your
audience.
Tell Great Stories
Recent research from Nielsen found that 92% of respondents to its survey said they
wanted companies to create adverts that felt like stories. Research published in The
New York Times backed this finding up. It showed that the human brain finds it
easier to remember and understand stories over facts and data. Stories stimulate the
brain and have the potential to change how people act in life.
GoPro understands that consumers respond to storytelling more than they do
marketing messages which is why they have been so successful at capturing large
followings and creating brand advocates.
What we can learn from these brands is that they have hired natural storytellers to tell
the different and diverse stories of their fans. Whatever the topic your brand needs to
use storytellers to differentiate yourself from everybody else, this will ensure your
content stands out from the crowd.
3. How could GoPro improve its UGC strategy?
Institute Dynamic Pricing
GoPro does not institute any form of dynamic pricing. The price for all products is the
same regardless of how many items are bought or how long the items remain in the
cart.
Dynamic pricing could be beneficial as an incentive to continue shopping, promotion
of bundling certain items, and attempts to increase the sale amount of the user's visit.
Create Purchase process streaming
A disadvantage to GoPro's method of checkout is the disconnect between the
shopping cart and the products. The "Continue Shopping" button from the cart takes
the user back to the default product page, not the last page they were shopping on.
This can be frustrating, possibly shortening a shopper's time on the site and increasing
cart abandonment.
It might be a better option to show a side bar of the items in the shopping cart so that
users can easily access their cart without leaving their current shopping page. This
could increase ease of use and overall customer experience.
