Thanks to the speed of the Internet, a meme can become a global phenomenon in a matter of hours. So it’s no wonder that some advertisers find creative ways to exploit the latest news headlines as a way to inject themselves into the larger conversation — for example, this Australian beverage ad which capitalized on the instant celebrity of the rescued Chilean miners.
But how do marketing opportunities change when these tactics can occur both instantly and globally?
How nimble is your agency?
How quickly could you capitalize on a hot topic?
How quickly could such a venture be approved?
Would it fit under a larger branding motif, or would it need to be invented from scratch?
How would you measure the impact of a meme- or news-related campaign?
Are your company’s values compromised by being overly topical?
Are there political or cultural references that you would not make?
If marketing moves at the speed of business, and if that speed is forever increasing, understanding where your company stands on these issues will become increasingly important in your brand’s fight for both short-term dominance and long-term relevance.
Will anyone remember the Chilean miners in a year?
Will anyone remember this Chill beverage campaign?
Will it matter?
For more big questions, connect with us on Twitter or Facebook!
Our client, Bigelow Tea, recently announced a new business partnership with Bruegger’s, the Vermont-based chain of bagel bakeries who’ve agreed to carry Bigelow’s line of organic teas. To help celebrate this nifty news, Bigelow asked Creative Concepts (that’s us) to film a video featuring Cindi Bigelow and Jim Greco, the CEO of Bruegger’s. We said sure.
In theory, we knew the focus of the video was supposed to be Bigelow’s organic teas, but as we’re well aware after having filmed dozens of videos for our clients, live video shoots are unpredictable and you never know what the real story might be, so we kept our options open.
As it turns out, the story behind this shoot turned out to be the remarkable similarities between Bigelow and Bruegger’s, both of whom pride themselves on seeing their employees and their customers not as numbers but as family. Whether it’s a friendly glimpse of Cindi Bigelow scrambling to make a bagel sandwich for a Bruegger’s customer or Jim Greco’s tale of how his mother first intoduced him to tea, it’s these wonderfully human moments that remind viewers and employees alike that the companies they work for (and buy from) are, ultimately, comprised of people.
And, as we’ve said before (and we’ll say again), people like doing business with people, not brands.
How is your brand reminding its customers and its employees that it is refreshingly, endearingly human?
For tips on humanizing your brand, follow us on Twitter or Facebook!
Is this proof of the branding power that connected customers wield, or was it all just a social media ruse intended to garner Gap some fast & cheap equity in the pop culture conversation?
And when The Simpsons had their beloved intro sequence “hijacked” by pop artist Bansky, the web was afire with controversy over just how complicit Fox was in the skewering of its own cash cow. Now that the video has been pulled from YouTube due to a “copyright claim with Twentieth Century Fox,” that controversy will only expand.
Are each of these examples conversation-worthy? Sure. Controversial? Perhaps. But what do each of these examples say about the equity brands are placing in their public images?
I Am What You Say I Am
A logo represents your brand. If you hand that logo to your audience, you’re empowering them to redefine your brand from the outside-in. And while that may be good for temporary buzz, it misses the larger point:
Your brand is ultimately defined by its actions.
Paying lip service to the concept of “gathering social feedback” through crowdsourced logo stunts may get you a few headlines in Gawker, but it won’t dramatically affect the way the public perceives the meaning of your brand. Except, possibly, to make your company look conniving, clueless, manipulative, disingenuous or simply desperate.
Are you holding your brand hostage for the sake of cultivating some social currency?
Avoid sacrificing your brand’s future: follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
As we mentioned last week, social media is becoming increasingly important in building customer loyalty. If your customers enjoy interacting with your brand on Twitter, Facebook, etc., they’re more likely to see and act on your messages, from sales to reviews to requests for help.
But those requests for help go both ways. If you’re asking your customers for feedback, you should also prepare to answer their incoming questions. Here are examples of 3 ways our Creative Concepts clients have used Twitter to help solve their customers’ problems.
1. Store Locators
Both Bigelow Tea and Ouidad are store-based clients of ours. Bigelow Tea is sold across North America, while Ouidad has certified stylists in salons nationwide (and beyond). But sometimes their customers can’t find a certain tea flavor at their local grocer, or they wonder if there’s a Ouidad certified stylist in their neighborhood.
When these comments pop up on Twitter, Bigelow and Ouidad can reach out and offer lists of nearby salons or stores that can help a discerning tea lover or fashionista find what they’re searching for.
Just because your products or services are designed to solve problems, that doesn’t mean your customers necessarily remember to use them. Sales are one approach to reminding your customers that you exist. Suggestions are another.
During cold and flu season, Bigelow Tea offers moral support (and suggested tea remedies) to those poor folks with nagging coughs and sore throats. Or, when people voice their frustration with inefficient (or ecologically unsound) cleaning products, Ecover can confidently suggest their own line of household cleaners. (You can follow Ecover here.)
3. Shared Wisdom
Yes, a company is a business, but a company is also comprised of people — and your customers are people too. Sometimes, questions can come up that have nothing at all to do with your products and services, and everything to do with life in general. If you know the answer, don’t be afraid to offer it.
For example, letting someone know that a group of butterflies is sometimes called a kaleidoscope may not have anything to do with laundry detergent, but that doesn’t mean Ecover couldn’t share that information with a person who’d asked. Did it sell another bottle of product? Not necessarily. But it did remind someone that Ecover exists, and that they’re listening — and that they know a thing or two about the environment.
After all, at the end of the day, people remain loyal to the brands they feel best about. And when your brand takes the time to care, and to be personal, that’s one more reason for you and your customers to keep talking.
Want to talk more with us? Let’s connect on Twitter or Facebook!
Just 16 months ago, Domino’s Pizza was living a corporate nightmare. A YouTube video showing three of their employees engaging in unsafe and unsanitary food prep had gone viral, and the public was appalled.
Today, Domino’s Pizza is celebrating. Its second quarter profits were up 55% and the public is embracing their (heavily-promoted) new pizza.
So what happened?
Domino’s didn’t panic.
Yes, the situation looked grim in April of 2009. But Domino’s calmly realized one key truth about humans:
People Forget.
Elsewhere, BP executives are breathing a sigh of relief. After their oil spill dominated US headlines for three months, the spill seems to be over, and the news cycle has predictably cycled onward to newer topics. (This, after BP was simultaneously implicated in helping free the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for oil pipeline rights in Libya.)
And how have these global PR calamities affected BP’s stock price? We’ll know more in the near future, but judging by the way BP’s first-quarter profits doubled, we doubt any of their year-end bonuses are in peril.
So, if Domino’s couldn’t be toppled by blatant employee malfeasance, and BP couldn’t be dented by massive ecological and political disaster, what kind of negative PR could possibly ruin a company?
What about a bad joke?
I’m Only Laughing Because It Hurts
In 1991, Gerald Ratner told the same joke he’d told dozens of times before. But this time, the punchline punched back.
This time, the media construed Ratner’s quip about “crap,” which was directed at the low-end merchandise sold by his family business, Ratners Jewellers, to imply that he was laughing at the outrageous prices his customers were willing to pay. When Ratner tried to clarify and apologize, the media literally handed him enough rope to hang himself (or at least a toy gun and a front page photo), and his career was over.
The lesson?
Bad PR happens to every company. But how a company reacts to that PR determines whether or not the incident causes a scratch or sinks the ship.
To help your employees understand what is (and is not) acceptable online behavior, we’ve previously discussed the need to draft an in-house social media policy. But if you’ve been wondering how other companies craft their policies, now you can see for yourself.
And if your company frequently represents the messages of others, there’s a solution for that, too.
For example, we here at Creative Concepts have our own internal social media policy (downloadable here), which separates our actions as individuals from our actions on behalf of our clients.
Why?
Because our creative team holds a variety of opinions, ideas and beliefs, and we believe that we should be free to express ourselves as ourselves. But when we’re speaking on behalf of our clients, we ensure that there’s a proper separation of our personalities & philosophies and theirs.
We’re not alone. In the Coca-Cola example above, their policy clarifies the difference between speaking “on behalf of the company” and speaking “about” the company. They also designate which groups of employees are expected to respond to certain conversations (such as negative commentary about the company), and how. (Because no one wants to be the next “Nestle vs. Greenpeace” case study of a conversation gone wrong.)
The lesson? Social media is embraceable by companies of all sizes. But strategy and planning isn’t just for your outward-facing messages; it’s also a necessity for helping your employees know what’s expected of them.
As eMarketer recently reported, when it comes to online retail sites, “usability” is a customer’s most important concern.
Yes, your customers enjoy “bells & whistles” like online customer service or access to social networks, but if they can’t figure out what your product costs — or how to buy it — they won’t come back.
Usability is all about clarity + expectations. Your customers expect a certain experience when they walk through your digital doors. How well you live up to those expectations determines how good they’ll feel about their experience with you — and, how likely they are to return.
But what do your customers expect from your social media channels?
What Problems Is Your Social Media Solving — and How?
If you use social media for customer service…
How quickly should customers expect an answer to their questions?
Should they expect you to “hear” them, even if they don’t contact you directly?
Is your social outreach a lead-in to phone-based or email-based customer support, or should customers expect to have their problems solved entirely within the framework of Twitter or Facebook?
If you use social media for marketing and promotions…
How often should customers expect updates from you about new deals?
How easily can customers convert those updates to actions (like sales)?
Can your customers control the frequency of your updates?
Are these updates different from your emails, blog posts, snail mail, etc?
Can your customers ask questions about your messages, or are your channels only aimed one-way? (If so, where can a customer go for interactive assistance?)
If you use social media to foster a personal community within your brand’s culture…
Do your customers know who’s speaking on the company’s behalf?
What topics or questions are “fair game” or “off-limits,” and why?
Will customer comments be moderated?
What constitutes “acceptable behavior” in your digital community?
Should customers expect to be sold to while they’re engaging with the community?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions now, that’s okay. You can still implement a social media strategy, and then amend it as you learn from your customers’ feedback.
But let your customers know that you’re learning from them and adapting to their input. Not only is that a crucial aspect of social media transparency, but it helps your customers know where they stand, what might change, and why.
Just as your own employees need a social media policy to govern their internal (and their public-facing) social media conduct, your customers deserve to know what’s expected of them — and what they should expect from you.
A few years ago, we helped our client, Bigelow Tea, produce a video showing viewers how to naturally decaffeinate an ordinary teabag. (Why would someone do this? Because sometimes a cafe doesn’t have your favorite flavor in a decaf version, so wouldn’t it be great to reduce that caffeine level all by yourself?)
There was just one problem: the metrics Bigelow cited in that video were outdated. Newer studies had clarified the expected levels of caffeine after natural decaffeination, and they differed from the numbers in the video.
Fortunately, one astute viewer noticed this discrepancy and brought it to Bigelow’s attention.
Even better? Bigelow listened.
Initially, they hoped they could fix those numbers with updated graphics, but there was no way around the numbers Cindi Bigelow herself was saying aloud throughout the how-to section.
So, in the end, they opted to have Creative Concepts (that’s us) reshoot the whole video and replace it across all video outlets. Cindi even tracked two of the most recent studies the night before the video was filmed, just to ensure that the numbers were still in line.
In Bigelow’s view, sharing accurate information is far more important than cutting corners. They pride themselves on providing their customers with insights and information they can count on, and when those facts and figures are in dispute, they take their corrections very seriously.
How committed to clarity is your company? (And are they listening to their customers to make sure their messages are being heard… and heard correctly?)
Even if you’re not a non-profit, there’s still at least one core value in Ad Age’s article that applies to your business:
Make sure your program has a way to prove to this group that their involvement made a difference. Sixty-four percent of young adults say they would get involved with a marketer’s program if they believed the involvement was large enough to make a difference.
That’s great news for non-profits, but how does this need for actionable results translate to a for-profit business?
Actually, for the consumer, the payoff is the same. But one message feels better than the other.
Help Me Help You
For a charity to succeed in social media, its messaging must convince recipients that their actions will have a demonstrable positive effect on the cause at hand — which, by association, improves the recipient’s own life.
For a business to succeed in social media, its messaging must convince recipients that their actions will have a demonstrable positive effect directly on their own lives.
So, in both cases, the message’s recipient ultimately has to make a choice, which can directly (or indirectly) improve her own life.
The difference?
Charities seek to motivate individuals to help others. That’s a positive feeling we can all appreciate.
Meanwhile, businesses encourage individuals to help themselves. That feeling is sometimes harder to justify.
Doing Business Without the Guilt?
Whom do your products help?
How is someone’s life improved by purchasing your services?
Are you saving someone time? Are you helping someone get better at what they love?
Is your company investing in the future through education, ecology or other social good?
These are the kinds of proactive messages that can help people feel better about business — yours, in particular — and may help mitigate the guilt reflex associated with purchases.
Remember: social media is people. And when you help people feel better about themselves, you’ve erased one more barrier between you and them.
One goal most companies have while growing their social media presence is to empower “brand evangelists,” who freely sing the praises of the company’s products & services.
Mack’s example cites the case of Bruce’s Yams, whose Twitter presence is powered by yam-loving Amber (aka MissDestructo), a fan of their product who pitched them on the opportunity to preach their virtues online. Wisely, Bruce’s Yams said yes.
Who wouldn’t want to see that kind of passion put to good use?
But Bruce’s Yams isn’t the only company with fiercely loyal fans. Odds are, your brand has its fair share of passionistas too. And when you thank them for their patronage and invite them further into your company’s culture, you enable them to share in your company’s success.
5 Ways to Reward Your Customers as Brand Evangelists
Share links to the people who talk about you. Not to what they said, mind you; to what they’re doing. Show that you care about your customers’ lives beyond the traditional customer-provider relationship, and you’ll help foster a relationship that personalizes both of you.
Free samples — early, often, repeatedly and unannounced. Notice that someone said something positive about you online? Instead of thanking them publicly, send them a thank-you note, a coupon code or a free sample, and an invitation to beta test your next product or app.
Donate to the charity of their choice. Everyone has a pet cause, and if you added up all the causes your own customers care about, you’d likely find a few overlapping concerns: health, education, the environment, etc. Invite your customers to pitch you on the charities they’re passionate about, and donate funds or resources to the ones you can’t stop thinking about either.
Send “thank you” notes instead of “cease and desist” orders. Don’t get us wrong; copyrights and trademarks are certainly worth defending. But there’s a difference between detractors who use your logo, mascot or other intellectual property to disparage your brand and the people who use those same assets to celebrate their love of what you do. Make sure your PR and legal team can tell the difference. Encouraging your fans to share (or even mash-up) your brand’s identity can create public goodwill, as well as new touchpoints for future customer awareness and interaction.
Leak important information to your “valued insiders.” Your biggest fans will trumpet your latest achievements far more loudly than any impartial news organization would — and they’ll help you build advance buzz in the process, all for the privilege of being granted a peek behind the corporate curtain.
Yes, “official” promotional plans will always have their place. But in these days of “peer reviews” and word of mouth marketing, your brand needs to do whatever it can to help your customers help you help them.
