November just ended and I been waiting for it. Why? I been curious about if Dinovember was content marketing or not and hoping that ”they” would reveal it today. Just like the pop up restaurant DILL was a marketing trick from Lidl.
Every year, my wife and I devote the month of November to convincing our children that, while they sleep, their plastic dinosaur figures come to life.It began modestly enough. The kids woke up to discover that the dinosaurs had gotten into a box of cereal and made a mess on the kitchen table.
Refe Tuma (The father) quoted from the their own article on Medium
You maybe missed this but I was blown away first when I saw Dinovember and really wished my parents would have done something like this when I was a kid. But when all the dopamine slowly ebbed away from the first wave of happiness seeing all the dinos in different situations a question arose: Is this also a marketing stunt?
Is Dinovember to good to be true?
Its NOT my crusade to splash a shadow over this awesome piece of ”content marketing”. It includes so much different variables of content marketing that turns it into a success. One of the most critical ingredients to the secret sauce is – the-what-a-fuck-factor! This element of surprise is what makes Dinovember so engaging. Also it gives value to the fans by laughter, happiness and a coffee machine subject to talk about.
I been keeping a close eye on Dinovember since I first discovered them in the first days of november when I stumbled upon the article on Medium written by the dad Refe Tuma.
Gradually I saw their organic reach and interaction grow. In the picture above I highlighted a yellow box, underneath the name Dinovember you have a number called PTAT (Peaople Talking About This). Its like a termometer for the health of the page. If the PTAT is around 10 precent of the amount of likes you should be happy. Its a reasonable goal to reach with out ads. Looking at Dinovember mid november their PTAT was almost 100 precent which is insane. It takes hell of a lot of engagements for this.
Dinovember might have used ads and sponsored stories to achieve this but I really don´t thinks so. I never seen an ad or sponsored story from them during this month. If you had please correct me if I´m wrong. A new page is always privileged with a higher EdgeRank in the beginning, maybe is it this wave they been riding since they now average a 20 precent engagement.
Anyhow. What really makes me critical about Dinovember is the amount of effort put into this by the so told parents. Every morning a new and a very creative scene is made often involving some real damage to the house like spray can art on the walls, broken stuff and a proper mess. I have a hard time believing that parent put a side 2-3 hours extra a day on making, paying and cleaning away the mess after the scenes to their already tight schedule to encourage their children to be more offline. Also the cost of restoring the house after some of the scenes.
Sure anyone can be this creative but everything makes me suspicious. The esthetic picture angles, the different scenes, the damages and never any children in the pictures (can be for integrity).
What do you think?
Can this be a marketing stunt made by for example Collecta which manufactures plastic animals. If so they done an incredible job. If I had children I would already have ordered some dinosaurs.
