Cannes 2012: Twitter's Dick Costolo on real-time branding

"Events traditionally covered from outside in are now being shared from within," said Twitter CEO Dick Costolo during his seminar session at the 2012 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Wednesday. "For example, there are more Tweets about the Cannes Lions in every hour now than there were during the entire event last year."

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Brands, Costolo said, should be joining the conversation, not interrupting it. "When the conversation is the canvas, we can't paint around the edges anymore," he said.

Costolo's main recommendations for brands looking to leverage the conversation on Twitter are:

1. Show, don't tell

"What are the elements of the story we can communicate that will allow the user to finish the sentence for us?" Costolo asked, adding that the user is more likely to have an emotional connection to the brand's message when part of the story is their own.

"Movie trailers are ultimate examples of this, showing you just enough of the story that you sense the whole and want more," he said.

The trailer for the movie Prometheus was an ideal example. "The trailer ended with a hashtag, which immediately spurred conversation on Twitter about it. The film's marketers immediately followed up with a commercial featuring the Tweets on that hashtag," he said.

2. Close the loop

Twitter is part of the second screen to TV, and brands should look at closing the loop between the two, much as the Prometheus campaign did, Costolo advises.

"Despite knowing that people Tweet about what's on TV, you still don't see many brands taking advantage of this multiple perspective view—or for that matter, of the inside-out view Twitter conversations about events generate," he added.

3. Stop painting around the canvas.

Even in digital media, banner ads are on the sides of the content, pointed out Costolo. "And these ads are getting more and more interruptive to achieve ever decreasing ROI."

When a campaign is in the conversation or is the conversation, Twitter has noted incredible engagement rates, he said. For example, Porsche ran a promoted Tweet with a link to car information and saw 87 per cent engagement rates," Costolo said. "Users clicked it, replied to it, retweeted it and favourited because the  content was integrated into the conversation."

4. Create the conversation

"It used to be that brands used to have to think about and plan a campaign in order to build it," Costolo said. "Now we live in a world where the conversation, if we pay attention to it, can lead to a campaign.

A brand that succeeded at this is Cadbury. "When Cadbury discontinued its candy bar Whisper Gold, consumers protested on social media," Costolo said. Cadbury listened and not only brought the candy bar back, but also dove into conversations with its fans, getting them to Tweet how much they loved the candy bar.

"Communication is no longer about being one way, or even two way, but to adapt to everything coming back at us," Costolo said.