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Miller Tastepoints – No Facebook, No Epic Summer

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Miller Tastepoints – No Facebook, No Epic Summer
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Watching the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics kickoff their playoff series this weekend, I saw the latest in gratuitous advertising from a beer company, in this case Miller Light.

I’m not sure if I should be complemented or insulted that I’m among the demographic targeted by the ads. Consistent with past campaigns, Miller clearly trades on the concept that every guy watching the NBA playoffs on a Sunday afternoon is totally defenseless against the sight of 3 girls in bikinis.

If influencing consumer behavior through marketing was this easy, then the entirety of the Loyalty Marketing industry has been wasting its time for the past 30 years. Anyway, I was debating whether to hit the mute or pause button on my TIVO controller, when they wrapped up the spot with a graphic that shouted “Tastepoints.com“.

It smelled like a points based loyalty program to me and I went to the website to check it out.

Surprisingly, this is what I found. Basically, nothing. Nothing that is, except the opportunity to view the bikini girls again and hit the “Get Started Now” button. It is revealing that Miller decided that allowing consumers to connect with their Facebook credentials was the only way to join the program.

Facebook executives must be delighted over this leading indicator that big consumer brands have capitulated to the idea that Facebook is, in fact, the internet. You might still be debating whether Al Gore invented the internet, but it’s almost a fact that Mark Zuckerberg owns it now.

The fact that Miller didn’t even invest in a landing page offering some program basics, FAQ’s and provide alternative paths to enrollment (email, Twitter at least) speaks loudly. I had to search for the Miller press release to learn the details of how Tastepoints works. Marketers need to pay attention to the implications of this approach to execution by Miller.

Clicking through the “Get Started Now” button, I was presented with the now familiar option to allow an application to connect to my Facebook page, authorize it to have access to my information, be able to post on my wall, and other privileges that I don’t fully understand.

I’ll bet many people immediately authorize the connection shown in the graphic here, just as they mindlessly check “ok” on software license user agreements without ever reading them. The question is, do we really know what we are giving up just to play the Tastepoints game? I don’t understand the nuances of these permissions well enough, and will make that task a personal homework assignment over the next few weeks. If anyone really gets it, please drop a comment to this post.

The bottom line is that Miller took a risk by managing its program enrollment through a single channel, and may have put a dent in its customer engagement strategy. If enough consumers have Facebook accounts (high probability in their targeted demographic) and are willing to blithely give away access to that account (how trusting are we after recent announcements of data breaches?), then it might work out in Miller’s favor.

The risk of this strategy could still be mitigated by taking time to provide more information about the program upfront, and to allow alternate paths to enrollment. Why Miller chose this approach should make an interesting debate for all marketers interested in building social loyalty.

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