Gannett Social Media Provider, Ripple6, Signs Big Brands

By: E&P Staff Ripple6, the wholly-owned Gannett Co. subsidiary that creates social media platforms for brands, said Tuesday that its most recent customers include that Post Grape-Nuts, Benjamin Moore, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

Ripple6 is a creator of so-called "white label" social media services, platforms that look as if they were created by the brands themselves.

Unilver, for instance, is using Ripple6 Brand Communities to run the "Living Beautifully for Less" groups across Gannett's MomsLikeMe.com's 80 local social media sites themed around motherhood issues.

The groups focus on the Suave product line and "how the current economy affects the way moms spend money," Gannett said.

"By posting tips, advice, questions, and mom makeover videos with Luke O'Connor, known as the 'Suave Celebrity Stylist,' Unilever and Suave are forming lasting relationships with a robust audience of moms," a Gannett announcement said.

Grape-Nuts used Ripple6's trademarked Social Insights consumer research to tap into the MomsLikeMe.com audience to gather a deeper understanding of how specific groups of moms approach their choices of cereal. Nearly 100 moms participated in a four-week discussion that covered 70 topics initiated by a moderator and the participants themselves about the importance of breakfast in a family's life.

Grape-Nuts Brand Manager Gregory Lanides, in a statement said the social media consumer research "created honest conversations and feedback about our brand which allowed for solid insights."

Gannett said the Ripple6-powered Brand Communities and Social Insights technologies "enables brands and marketers to initiate two-way conversations across multiple social networks that lay a foundation for future marketing and product development decisions, and engage and measure successful social campaigns."

"Consumers have billions of conversations each day across social media channels, but the marketing solution is not as simple as throwing a bunch of technology into social media sites and hoping consumers will interact," Ripple6 CEO Sang Kim said in a statement. "Brand Communities are revolutionary because we've created a way for marketers to relevantly connect with customers in an environment that the customer chooses, and to build this into a single conversation that scales across the Web."

Gannett Digital Media Network General Manager Josh Resnik said participants in the MomsLikeMe.com communities "embrace these conversations with marketers" because they "want to be heard and want to share their opinions."

Resnik said the social media marketing efforts are "beyond advertising; this is dialogue."