This is a blog about brand building and advertising. if this is a topic of interest you will enjoy the articles and insights I post on this blog. The people who may appreciate this blog are advertising agency people, brand planners, strategy planners and marketers.
Chairing the Pacific Social Media Conference in Singapore and Hong Kong. reminded me of Seth Godin and his now famous book - Purple Cow.
Purple Cow is all about being remarkable. You won’t be noticed if you’re not.
Many brands want to be noticed, and talked about on social media,. but aren’t willing to pay it’s currency - topicality, uniqueness and relevance.
They are okay with being ordinary, average, mundane - not spirited, remarkable or out there with the best. Small wonder that in many cases the only people who ‘like’ their content are the people who created it in the first place!
Purple Cow has big lessons for marketers, businesses and social media protagonists. If the things you do aren’t remarkable, it’s unlikely that the results of your campaigns will be either.
I discovered the answer to that a few days ago. I shared a really funny picture that said “Hope you’re life is as good, as you make it out to be on Facebook.” In 3 minutes, one person had liked and shared it with their friends. In 10 minutes, 2 more had. In a day, about 20% of my friends had either liked or shared the simple visual I’d put online.
What did that teach me?
What gets shared is often what reflects what people are thinking - whether consciously or unconsciously - at a point in time.
The trick, therefore, to understand your audience,figure what’s on their minds and then develop an idea that taps into the way they think.
Singapore and the PAP
In Singapore, much of the country was angry with the PAP. during election time in 2011. The party didn’t realize that until it was too late - and they’d come back to power - but had lost seats.
You’re a brand and you’re looking to use social media
Don’t just jump in there. Listen, understand and then act.
Recently, I was asked to see a company on social media. The CEO was gung ho about a new product that he wanted to launch using social as a channel.
I had listened in on some of the conversations people were having about this brand. They weren’t pretty. There were complaints about service, costs (that the public thought were unreasonable) and staff - who the public thought were simply apathetic.
Launching this new product and positioning it as the best thing since sliced bread would have led to a social nightmare (and haven’t we all had them). Twenty minutes into our conversation, and once the CEO’s defence barriers had been lowered, he agreed. The company had to address the social commentary that was following it around like a lap dog before it could enter into meaningful conversations with its customers.
Is social media on your agenda?
Perhaps you need a consultant to help you develop your strategy. The Planning Agency is an agency of people who are constantly thinking about social media, where it is and where it’s going next.
To view our work, experience and case studies on brands like Toshiba, British Council, F&N and others do get in touch.
Wieden and Kennedy’s launch ad for the Nokia N8 features blind photographer Gary Waite taking pictures with the new Nokia phone. Has Wieden come up with a winning idea for the struggling mobile phone manufacturer? I’d have to say no I don’t think so.
The reasons?
The ad, while conceptually strong, doesn't address key perceptions or misperceptions about the brand. Nokia is largely seen as a has-ben (at least as far as smart phones are concerned). It’s technology is both indistinctive and of questionable relevance and value to consumers today. This is a key issue that the advertising hasn’t addressed and needs to urgently if it’s to take the brand some place other than the mortuary.
What Nokia needs to be doing, whether through the N8 or a separate brand initiative, is giving its prospective buyers confidence. Confidence comes from providing people with a vision, one they can relate to and want to be part off. Nokia has not provided this through advertising or any other form of communication with its audience. Until it does so, it is unlikely to dislodge its competitors as a brand of choice in the competitive smart phone category.
The ad is strategically weak. It is based on a tenuous platform – better pictures. If people are interested in high quality pictures, they’d be using a proper camera - not a phone that doubles up as one.
The credibility for their camera feature is weak too.
It’s based on an award from ‘what digital camera’ – how many know the brand or see it as a credible source of endorsement I ask?
True, Wieden would have had its challenges doing this ad, the biggest among them being a product with nothing much to talk about but its camera feature. Still, it remains, the agency hasn’t cracked one of its trademark game-changing ideas the way it has for Old Spice, Nike or even most recently the Chrysler 300 (show where you’re going, without forgetting where you’re from).
Wieden, like Nokia, need to figure out what their brand story is, is relevance to consumers lives and why they should believe and buy it.
Martin Puris, of Ammirati Puris once said that ’80% of all advertising fails because it is not based on a strong idea.’
Martin knows a thing or two about ideas. He’s come up with quite a few in his lifetime. Including BMW, ‘the ultimate driving machine’ and Club Med -‘the antidote to civilization.’
What these ideas were successful in doing was position the brands that held them successfully against their competitors carving a unique niche for themselves in the process.
Other brands that also developed clear ideas for themselves were POSB - ‘neighbours first, banker’s second.’ Absolutely brilliant. Hasbro - ‘the family is together again.’ And Disney - ‘magical experiences.’
What makes each of these ideas special? Again, they vocalize a belief or point of view that competitive brands don’t and create a unique and resonant position for themselves.
O,k so a few brands have created a clear idea for themselves. Why is defining this idea so important however? The reason is this - a clear idea gives a brand focus. And in doing so keeps not only communication but also products, people and investments on track.
The trouble with brands today?
Not enough time is spent defining the core idea on which they will be based. The result is logic that’s fuzzy, and advertising and customer perception that invariably is too.
The process of developing an idea for one’s brand is quite straightforward really. It starts with a look at the category in which the brand operates, the brand itself and the consumers it serves. Usually, I’ve found, an opportunity will reveal itself once the 3 key areas (category, consumer and brand) are put underneath the microscope.
From this point on, a creative leap is required however to turn an opportunity into a genuinely strong and resonant idea. It’s a lot of work to do this, but the result - a much sharper focus for your brand - is well worth the trouble and effort.
The Planning Agency has a number of tools to help clients define the core idea their brand stands for. To find out more, call us on 9386 8678 or e-mail patrick@theplannignagency.com.,sg
Telstra’s brand idea has always been about ‘Connecting Australia’. The idea is a great one and can be traced back to the brand’s original purpose – which, as the national carrier was to ensure every Australian home was connected by phone.
These days, the idea has taken on a new slant of course. ‘Connecting Australia’ is no longer about putting a phone in the homes of Australians but ensuring that in an era where competitive edge is determined by the uptake of technology, Australia and Australians in general are not left behind.
For a long time Telstra sought to bring its idea of ‘Connecting Australia’ to life only emotively through ads. It did so beautifully, a few years ago it must be admitted, when it released its ‘what brings us together is what sets us apart’ ad set to the Bruce Woodley song ‘we are Australian’.
What the brand failed to do consistently however was deliver on its idea of ‘Connecting Australia’ in a more real and physical sense. It seems to have finally started to do that with the Telstra T-Touch Pad. A product that I think is truly classic and redefining for TELCO’s who have until now seen their role to be carriers of voice and data rather than developers of life enhancing hardware and software products.
At $299 for the device, is Telstra finally starting to ‘connect’ Australia? I would definitely say so.
One bank that has an interesting campaign in the market right now is POSB. Their idea, ‘neighbours first, bankers second’ is extremely powerful and well suited to the brand given its history as the ‘people’s bank’ of Singapore.
The challenge for the brand is always going to be living its position however and ensuring it drives every single one of its activities and operations.
This is easier said than done.
The reason – when you make a claim people tend to hold you to it.
What POSB is saying to the market through the idea of ‘neighbours first, bankers second’ is that they are not a typical bank but a bank more likely to be supportive in situations where you wouldn’t necessarily expect them to be.
It’s a good position – provided the brand can deliver on it - through product, service and the way they interact with customers on a daily basis.
The challenges for ‘neighbourly’ behaviour of course will come not when the chips are up but when they’re down. It’s when mortgage payments get reneged on and when people default on credit lines that the bank will face its first real challenges to its position.
If it responds in a truly ‘neighbourly’ fashion (a manner that’s patient and sympathetic), its position will be strengthened, reinforced and the brand will become attractive to an even larger contingent of customers.
If it responds in a way inconsistent with the expectations the idea has created, then the positioning will be diluted and ultimately lost.
Like most brands, whether POSB can hold on to its position depends on whether it can live it on a daily basis in its business.
The BP brand may have taken a battering in the world but people in Singapore at least will continue to buy its products it appears.
This is the initial finding of a dipstick research that I’ve been doing on the brand over the last few months since the start of the Gulf of Mexico crisis.
It’s not like people don’t hold BP responsible or that sentiment towards the brand has not been damaged. It certainly has. However, despite 50% of people stating that their perception of the brand has been negatively impacted as a result of the crisis, only 13% say they would not continue to buy its products.
A staggering 45% said they would continue to buy BP products given an option, while a further 40% were undecided and said maybe.
Why is sentiment to the BP brand not as negative as it should be?
I think it’s because people don’t hold just the brand responsible for what happened in the Gulf of Mexico but also Government and themselves.
In another question in the same survey, I asked consumers to indicate which parties they thought should be held responsible for the Gulf event.
While 100% of people said BP, 68% of people alo said regulatory authorities (due to the inadequacy of legislation put in place) while a further 27% implicated consumers in the mess as well – the reason – the realization that our relentless demand for cheap oil may be what is encouraging companies like BP to drill deeper and engage in exploration techniques of a questionable nature.
In the Gulf of Mexico crisis, clearly multiple parties are to blame – BP, Government legislative bodies and consumers themselves. What is interesting to note however is the increasing responsibility consumers are taking on when it comes to the environment and the pressure they are putting on Government as well in matters of this regard.
It isn’t antennagate, but the popularity or ‘mass adoption’ that the brand has enjoyed over the last few years combined with a growing perception that the experience it provides is not as unique it once was.
Today it isn’t very hard for anyone to get an Apple iPhone. In Singapore, You could even get the 3G model for $0 on a plan.
Therein lies the problem with the brand. It’s become so mass, so popular – so easy to access – it is starting to lose appeal and desirability.
In Singapore, I see a lot of people not going for Apple but opting for less popular brands such as HTC, Motorola or even some of the more innovative Samsung brands like Beam or Galaxy.
Bored with the iPhone experience, their motivation for doing so seems to be the desire to have a ‘less common’ phone – a phone that not everybody has.’
Brands are riding on this.
In the US, for example, sales of the Motorola Droid are robust. A look at first 74 day sales (a key metric to assess the success of a phone), shows that the Motorola Droid has actually done better than the original iPhone selling 1.05 million units versus 1 million units.(http://blog.flurry.com/bid/31410/Day-74-Sales-Apple-iPhone-vs-Google-Nexus-One-vs-Motorola-Droid)
But Apple’s problems don’t stop here. They have been exacerbated by the increasing importance the OS (operating system) is perceived to play in the performance of a phone.
Symbian from Nokia is still the most widely used OS according to data released by Gartner in August 2010, but Android is the new kid on the block – surpassing Apple this year with a share of 17.2% v/s Apple’s 14.2%.
Apple is under attack and is starting to look less desirable than it once did. Key reasons are the easy access an ever widening range of customers have to its products combined with the fact that the experience it once provided is no longer perceived to be unique given the rise of competitive platforms like Android that are perceived to be equally good.
To continue to be successful the brand must address the issues it faces in both areas moving forward.
Though the 2010 Australian election has been uncertain, its result, in many ways, has not been. The labour party, it's safe to say, has lost. 18 seats poorer, and with three quarter of counting done, it is scheduled to end up with 72 seats behind the Liberal party's 73 giving them the moral right they need to form the next Government.
A few weeks ago, I predicted such an election result while discussing the matter with my wife. The basis of my prediction - the way Gillard seized power and the way the party deposed previous Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
In Australian culture there are some things you just don't do - and that's 'turn on your mates.' Gillard and her colleagues (deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan and power brokers like John Faulkner) did just that. In the process they behaved in a way that went against the grain of their audience and that was inconsistent with their expectations. The price they paid in the end was a heavy one.
The learning for brands
Customers have expectations of you. Behave in a manner that is consistent with these expectations and success is likely to be yours. Fail to understand these expectations, or even worse, disregard them and customers will depose you the way they did the Labour party in Australia.
Bernbach made that observation about advertising more than 50 years ago. Today, it still rings true, and is basically what made me notice this ad for the UOB woman’s credit card that appeared in the ST earlier today.
What caught my eye was not the ad’s headline but its tagline – ‘Men don’t get it.’
What a great insight into the way many women think and how well the brand has used it to create a proposition that delivers for it on both a functional and emotional level.
Advertising needs more ideas like this
Ideas that are resonant and based on a clear insight into the way a brand’s audience thinks.
Such ideas make brands distinct and clarify their position in a way that is so too.
In the process they achieve better results more cost effectively and not only help bring respect and credibility back to our profession but also elevate the quality of conversation we have with our clients.
Most brands today will do anything to avoid paying compensation to customers.
I should know - I recently ordered an iPAD that never arrived and was told that despite the product never having left the US the only sum the courier company would pay would be $100 – a figure so well tucked away in its terms and conditions you’d had to be better than Google to find it.
So naturally I was delighted when I saw this ad from NTUC Income earlier this week. It appeared the day after the floods devastated businesses on Orchard road. Rather than shirk responsibility, the brand appeared hell bent on accepting it; a stance I am sure consumers would have welcomed.
This isn’t the first time NTUC Income has run well appointed ads like this
In September last year, I wrote about the brand’s advertising strategy and how well thought through and engineered it was (http://pat-brandbuildingandadvertising.blogspot.com/2009/09/good-ad-or-what.html).
A modern day ad classic I think was during the financial crisis at the start of last year when the brand ran an ad that said quite simply ‘In times of crisis, the best place to be is home.’
What the ad simply highlighted was the home grown nature of the brand – the fact that it was Singaporean and a brand the locals knew they could trust given the Government would never allow a local institution of its size and stature to fail given the immediate implication it would have on the financial stability of the country itself!
Great advertising is still possible
NTUC Income and its agency (which I believe is BBH) prove that it is. They prove that you don’t have to spend too much to achieve it either. You can out think rather than outspend your competitors. They’ve done that by developing and running communication at the time it’s most likely to have an impact on its audience.
Most CEO’s don’t pay much attention to the ads their companies run. Perhaps it’s time they did - BP is a good example why.
For years the brand has been highlighting its commitment to the environment in its ads. In 2000, it even changed its logo to the Helios (the Greek Sun God) – at a cost of over $100 million – to reflect its new found passion – the environment and solar power as a source of alternate energy.
It must regret those decisions now.
Their only effect – has been to amplify sentiment against the brand.
If BP were to have made it clear that they were simply an oil company that was aware of the risks its activities posed, and would do everything humanly possible to avoid the disasters those risks entailed – engaging with the likes of Greenpeace and other environmental organisations – the brand may have had better equity going for it which would have led to sympathy rather than outrage at the spill that occurred.
However, since the brand chose to rail about its commitment to the environment, its inability to protect it ultimately – I believe – has been a key reason negative sentiment against it was amplified – and many times over.
It wasn’t like BP hadn’t been warned
For years organisations like Greenpeace had been asking them to stop pursuing tar sand work and deep water drilling – due to the dangers they posed to the environment.
Greenpeace even ran a competition asking people to re-design their Green Helios logo to reflect the more real and dangerous nature their oil exploration activities entailed.
The brand paid little heed to the warnings from Greenpeace, didn’t engage with them to hear their environmental concerns and the result is that it finds itself waist deep in one of its biggest crisis ever.
The lesson for brands
Don’t go overboard when it comes to making claims in your advertising. They may sound nice in a focus group but if they won’t ultimately hold up to scrutiny or can’t be supported by the brand’s business strategy then they won’t create equity – they’ll cannibalise it.
Something that’s pretty much happening to BP today!
Brands are valuable assets
But they’re also vulnerable ones. Make the wrong move, act in a way that’s inconsistent with the way your audience expects you to and you suddenly find that any equity you had – you don’t any more.
A few months ago, Standard Chartered launched a global campaign titled ‘Here for Good’.
The campaign’s key themes – CSR and endurance – seek to establish Stan Chart as a brand that's here for the long term as well as focused on investments with a positive and ethical social outcome.
While Stan Chart’s goal is laudable, I am not so sure it is credible.
People interpret ‘good’ in many different ways – commercial banking just doesn’t happen to be one of them
Shareholders interpret ‘good’ as being a return on investment that’s in line with, or above, the risk incurred with obtaining it.
People in general however interpret ‘good’ in a slightly more selfless way.
Brands that are deemed ‘here for good’ are brands that are doing work that is humanitarian and that truly arouses the admiration and respect of the human spirit. Brands that stir this in us are brands like Amnesty International, SPCA, Mother Theresa, Kofi Anan, Red Cross, the Salvation Army and Project Red – to name a few.
Can Stan Chart exist alongside these brands enjoying the same sort of esteem they do? I don’t think so – simply because of the fundamental difference these brands have in terms of purpose – compared to Stan Chart.
Even if Stan Chart could claim to be ‘good’ – could it claim to be so more powerfully than its competitors?
All banks are not the same – their structure and reasons for being differ.
Commercial banks answer to shareholders and are fundamentally driven by a motivation to earn profit. Stan Chart is in this category of banks.
Cooperative banks on the other hand answer to members, are less focused on profit – and more on service to the community instead. Australia’s Bendigo Bank, for example, which is owned by the communities in which it operates, was the country’s only bank to register a world class Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 33 – NPP being a key measure of customer loyalty.
Credit unions exist for a purpose similar to cooperative banks while newer financial organisations such as Kiva or Grameen Bank of Bangladesh push even harder into the social and ethical space issuing microloans to people to break the cycle of poverty.
Against competition of such nature, how does, and indeed how can, Stan Chart claim the title of ‘Here for Good’ more persuasively than these brands?
A clear disconnect between tactic and thematic
Visit the Stan Chart website here in Singapore and you’re immediately greeted by a banner that screams “unlimited giveaways with Stan Chart Cards – start shopping now!
We know that a key global issue – and an important reason countries have faced the economic problems they have – is credit card debt.
Yet here is a bank that encourages it – whilst at the same time making the claim that it is here for good. How can it be – when it turns a blind idea to a key issue facing society – and in particular – its youngest and most vulnerable members!
What Stan Chart needs to do is to get the bank’s product and brand marketing people together and ensure they are better aligned in terms of proposition.
Banks don’t decide whether they’re going to be here for the long term – markets and the fundamental nature of their operations do
It is all well for a bank to make a claim in an ad, it is a completely different matter to be able to support it.
Part of Stan Chart’s communication strategy (as stated in their annual report) is to be seen as the bank that’s going to be here for good (as in for always). It’s understandable that they may want to reiterate this position given the number of banks that have gone under (122 in the US in 2009 alone!) if web reports are to be believed.
But I am sure even Citibank and Royal Bank of Scotland harboured the same lofty ideal of being around for good – yet both were severely tested – and very nearly obliterated – thanks to conditions in the market and the fundamental nature of their operations which finally caught up with them.
Other financial institutions such as Lehmann Brothers were not so lucky.
What I am saying is this – it is not for a bank to claim that they will be here for good. It is for them to undertake practice that ensures they will – and what Stan Chart is not doing is showing evidence of this in its advertising.
In summary, I think the campaign tries to achieve goals that are laudable but in way that I don’t think is awfully credible.
I have decided to migrate my blog over to Wordpress. The functionality they offer is a lot better and most readers prefer the experience they provide too.
Moving forward all my posts will be on my Wordpress blog - not here. You can access it at http://patrickdsouza1.wordpress.com/
Twitter was new, it isn’t any more. And that is going to change the way people behave on the platform.
One of the first things I think we can expect to see people on Twitter do is get more selective about who they follow.
Until now, this hasn’t really been the case, as users have tried to understand the platform by exploring it. In the process, following brands and people who under normal circumstances they may have not.
The behavioural norm on Twitter has been to follow someone – when they follow you. This has had a benefit – an increase in the number of an individual’s followers which for a while could be described as flattering.
I think most seasoned users are over that feeling now and will soon start to look for more control over their experience on the platform. Such control can only come from being more selective about the people and brands they allow on it – as far as their sphere of personal influence and interaction is concerned.
I think people could well also start to develop multiple profiles on the platform based on how they plan to use it. People could well, for example, develop a personal and a professional handle to ensure their updates are relevant to the people who are exposed to them. Given the public, or ‘indiscreet’ nature of the platform, it seems only natural that people over time will want to separate their personal lives from their professional ones.
Whatever changes in behaviour do occur, one thing is certain. People will get more selective about who they follow - the simple desire to be more in control of their experience will ensure this.
The implication for brands - be genuinely interesting in your Tweets to consumers. That is, if you want them to continue following you.
Marketers have started to use 'contests' and 'promotions' in an increasingly frequent way to build fans for their brands on Facebook.
What they may be doing (and expensively too), is creating a collection of 'contest enthusiasts' rather a database of fans - in the true sense of the word.
Genuine fans have a high level of 'emotion' and 'empathy' to a brand and are unswerving in their loyalty to it.
However most contests and promotions are not designed to attract such fans (brand enthusiasts or advocates in essence) but a much more mainstream set of customers - including those who belong to competitors.
The result is that many brands have ended up with 'so called' fans as opposed to 'genuine' ones.
What do you do if you've built your fan base using contests and promotions?
The first step is to look at how you might segment it to understand who on your database is actually a fan and who is not.
A good way to do this is to use the principle of NPS (Net Promoter Score). NPS (www.netpromoter.com), was developed by loyalty guru Frederick Reicheld and is now a trademark owned by Bain Consulting and Satmetrix Systems.
What NPS helps you to do is break down your customers into 3 key segments - Promoters, Detractors and Passives - all by their responses to one key question 'would you recommend this brand to a family member or friend?'
By breaking down your fan base in this way, NPS helps you to understand the emotional traction of your brand - its pull and strength in relation to your fans on Facebook.
What's the benefit of undertaking this exercise?
It can help you get a more genuine, down to earth picture of the emotional strength of your brand as it relates to your fans on Facebook.
It can help you to figure out who's a fan, whose not - and start to look at your strategy for Facebook with a much clearer and better defined set of objectives.
And finally, when you segment your fan base this way, and apply the principle of NPS at regular intervals, you start to see whether the initiatives you're undertaking on Facebook are having the desired impact and shifting the needle when it comes to your fans - or not.
Some ads leave a lasting impression on people and re-frame the way they think and behave. They do so because they confront their audiences - usually with the truth about their perceptions - before proceeding to deal and convince them of their irrationality (if required) - in a direct and head on manner.
Two great pieces of communication that do this in my mind are 'the Great Schlep' with Sarah Silverman for Barack Obama by Droga 5 and an ad titled 'prejudice' that was done in 1994 for Hyundai in the UK.
The Great Schlep - Barack Obama campaign - Droga 5
Droga 5 did this viral video for the Barack Obama camp. It was aimed at the Jewish community and its goal was to overcome prejudice towards Obama given his African/American background and get older people down to polling booths to vote.
The video confronted the perceptions the community had towards Mr Obama in a direct yet humorous, funny and eminently watchable way as you'll see when you hit the play button. The ad also used fact to highlight the importance of voting in certain states. It reminded people for example how Al Gore lost the election to Bush and the state responsible - Florida! All in all a great piece of communication - one of the most powerful I have seen.
Hyundai - "Prejudice"
Another super super ad that confronted people and made them think about what was really driving their decisions to buy a car was Hyundai "Prejudice" - written in 1994 for the brand in the UK.
The ad questions consumers on why they really wouldn't buy a Hyundai. It confronts them with the dark truth that it might be due to something none of us in a civilised world ever want to be tainted with - prejudice.
The ad is on the line but doesn't cross it. It is questioning but not accusatory. Beautifully scripted, it opens a doorway to viewers at the end - highlighting how though prejudice may exist - knowledge invariably overcomes it.
Hyundai Prejudice - another case of the Brits once again showing the industry the way. I saw that ad in the nineties and it left a lasting impression on me that I felt compelled to share.
Social media monitoring is high on everyone's agenda at the moment. Technology companies have been quick to respond. They always are (they're the guys who gave us CRM and Y2K remember!). They've now introduced tools that do everything from capturing conversations to segmenting them by sentiment - negative, positive and neutral.
The real challenge for brands though the way I see it is not capturing conversations but doing something about them.
This is not as simple as it seems.
Social media conversations - issues vary
Very often I've found that social media conversations relate to the way a product has been designed, built or sold. Sometimes they point to an issue with the way a firm hires or treats its customers. And in still more cases they suggest a need for ethics, or for a firm to re-look or refocus on key elements of strategy such as staff empowerment or business process - such as its decision to outsource for example.
These issues do not require a company to set up a blog or presence on Facebook or Twitter. What they require it to do on the contrary is "introspect" and make fundamental changes to the way it operates if it is to successfully change the nature of conversations consumers are having about it online.
Bose - the brand people love to hate (well some people anyway)
Bose is a high end audio brand with a significant amount of negative publicity online.
This is driven largely by the audiophile community who see the brand's products as "overpriced" and "poorly built" using components that enable to maximise profits over performance.
Audiophiles (and they include high end audio dealers - a key influencing segment) - also rip into the brand for the way it chooses to sell its products. Bose insists on dealer exclusivity for example and does not allow customers to take their system home to try it before they buy it - a practice considered standard among audiophiles.
If Bose seeks to influence the conversations this segment (audiophiles) are having about it online, it will need to do a lot more than set up a blog or page on Facebook. It will need to relook its entire marketing value proposition - all the way from product design to build and sales experience.
Bose's response to social media so far has been unimaginative. It sued Consumer Magazine in the US for a negative review for $200,000. Only a change in its fundamental approach to business will get audiophiles to think and talk differently about the brand.
The problem - no one will review Bose's products any more. An issue given that when people buy an expensive audio system the first they do is check out its reviews online.
Walmart - people count - their opinions too
Walmart is America's biggest retailer with 2 million employees worldwide.
Consumer groups and employees slam the brand for its policies on a range of issues -low wages, poor working conditions, predatory pricing - the list goes on.
The unions started websites like walmartspeakout.com to force the retailer to change its game. The comments on the site are damning like this one from a staffer who chooses to remain anonymous "I’ve only been with Walmart for 3 months, and can already see the writing on the wall. Low wages, backbreaking work, unaffordable health insurance, and no personal life due to a ridiculous schedule!"
To make matters worse, in Feb 2009, a 58 year old employee set himself on fire and died saying he "couldn’t take working there any more”.
What’s amazing about all this is that Walmart had embarked on a social media strategy which consisted of engaging with bloggers, providing them with news and information about the company and even inviting to Walmart’s headquarters to see how things worked – as far back as 2005!
The strategy clearly hasn’t worked, as negativity towards the brand has continued.
The reason Walmart’s strategy hasn’t been successful I think is because the brand’s focus is still on social media – not the issues it has raised and that it clearly still needs to resolve within its business. The only way the brand will change conversations is by taking the issues people have raised head on and doing something concrete to address them.
Nike – if the shoe fits – wear it
Few brands have faced as much damage to their reputation as Nike. The brand’s refusal to address allegations over its use of sweatshops in Asia were one of the key reasons that competitors like Adidas were able to re-emerge as challengers.
Today conversations about Nike and its use of sweatshops continue in social media. The new debate is about the use of China as a hub to manufacture. The issue - workers are paid not just low rates but organised unions are not legal so they can’t complain.
To influence conversations, Nike must address the issues they raise. Unless it does so, demonstrating in the process a visible commitment to fair wage levels, the conversations people have about it online will continue to be mixed.
United – if you’re going to break anything – make sure it’s not a guitar
When Dave Carroll, lead singer for Sons of Maxwell boarded a United Airways flight bound for Nebraska and looked out of the window he was horrified to find baggage handlers throwing baggage into the air cargo hold
Part of the baggage they were throwing, were his band’s expensive music equipment which included his beloved Taylor guitar.
He immediately informed the air stewardess about the matter and asked if she could do help. She said she couldn’t as the baggage handlers were not United Airlines staff but contracted agents. If Dave wanted them to stop he’d have to speak to them himself.
He did. But they brushed him away as they left the tarmac.
When Dave got to Nebraska he checked his guitar and found that it had been smashed due to the way it had been handled. He spoke to United about the matter for the next 6 months but they refused to replace or repair his damaged guitar.
So then Dave did what any musician in his shoes would. He wrote a song about his experience “United breaks guitars’. The song went viral and got more 6 million views on YouTube with 37,000 comments about other customers’ experiences with the airline.
The issue for United
It’s not Dave’s guitar. It’s the systems the airline had in place to address his complaint, the level to which staff were empowered to act and the Airline’s decision to outsource an increasing number of processes – baggage handling being one of them.
Sure United may have saved a bit of money by contracting baggage to an outside supplier. However in doing so the airline lost control over the quality of service provided. In the process, they damaged their reputation…and Dave Carroll’s beloved guitar!
To stem the flow of negative conversation online, United doesn’t need social media marketers or bloggers to help. It needs to get its act together internally. Only once it does, will it have any chance to move the conversations the right way.
You have a social media monitoring tool.
Question is - what are you now going to do with it now?
You could spend hours playing with the options the dashboard gives you. You could sit in on any number of presentations by consultants to show you month after month what the latest conversations about your brand online are. Or you could – once you’ve identified the issues – decide to act on them. Move your focus from outward to inward, involve your organisations key stakeholders – and work with them to develop a lasting solution – ground up - to addresses the problems customers have raised - whatever they may be.
In advertising, powerful insights equal powerful ideas. Three brands that have succeeded in creating them? Australian TELCO Optus, Indian brands - Cherry Blossom and MRF tyres.
This post is about the thinking that went into these brands and how successful ideas were generated for them. They are based on conversations I have had with the people who happened to be in the room at the time or in the cases of the Indian brands, knowledge I gleaned on the brands while I worked at the agency that created them - one of the best - LINTAS India.
OPTUS - says 'yes' when its competitors say 'no'
Australia was a market dominated by a single TELCO Telstra for the longest time ever. In the late eighties it had its first taste of competition when Cable and Wireless Group launched a competitive brand Optus.
When Optus was launched, George Patterson Bates, the agency that held the account at the time, did research into consumers trying to understand how they felt towards the category and the incumbent brand Telstra.
One of the biggest issues consumers had with Telstra was their poor service ethic at the time. According to consumers, whatever they asked Telstra for at the time, the answer would invariably be "No".
The agency took this insight and created a simple but powerful concept for Optus - simply called "yes"! The whole idea of "yes" was to highlight how Optus was a much more service orientated brand and a better choice for Australians as a result.
The campaign captured the imagination of Australians and made the Optus brand a strong number 2 to Telstra allowing it to eat massively into its share. "yes" is a part of Optus advertising even today - over a decade after launch.
The perfect gentleman always wears a Cherry smile
One of India's most powerful brands is a shoe polish called "Cherry Blossom." The advertising for Chery Blossom was created and handled for decades by my ex agency (LINTAS) when I worked in India briefly in the mid nineties.
As far back as the seventies, the agency researched consumers to find out how they felt about the task of polishing shoes. Most viewed it as "dull, boring and mundane. It was hard work and they wished they didn't have to do it."
The agency leapt on this insight and used it to create an iconic campaign that featured comic genius Charlie Chaplin. The whole idea behind the use of Chaplin was to distance the brand from the category negatives that threatened to overshadow it. Chaplin made the task of polishing shoes seem a lot more fun than it actually was. In doing so he transferred feelings and associations that were a lot more pleasant onto the Cherry Blossom brand which became one of the biggest and strongest in the country - with ads that people always wanted to watch.
The Cherry Blossom campaign ran unchanged for decades. A great example of a brand that intelligently uncovered an insight that it then translated into a powerful piece of work that anyone who grew up in India has fond memories off.
MRF tyres - tyres with muscle
MRF tyres are the number one brand of tyres in India.The campaign was conceived I believe by the great Alyque Padamsee himself (CEO and Chief Creative officer of LINTAS at the time and one of the all time Indian advertising greats).
The story behind its creation is this. The biggest user group of tyres is truck drivers. So Alyque went onto a major highway and interviewed truckies as they rolled into the numerous "dhabas" along the way set up to serve them food and drink. When he asked them what they wanted from a tyre, a number of them would flex their muscles and say "takth" which in Hindi means "strength."
From this simple insight was born the idea of a muscle man carrying a tyre above his head with the tagline "MRF Tyres. Tyres with muscle" - an idea that contineues to define the MRF brand even today - decades after its launch.
Powerful insights lead to powerful ideas
A powerful idea is one that stands the test of time. It''s not an idea that wins a Canne or a Clio. It's an idea that captures the imagination of its audience and in doing so makes the brand it has been developed for - succesful.
In my observation, people consume media for two key reasons - to be informed or entertained.
It follows that if the advertising a brand puts out there links itself to either of these reasons – it is less likely to be perceived as an interruption and consumers are more likely to be receptive and accepting towards it.
A brand doesn’t truly “inform” until it tells its audience something they didn’t know about it before
If a consumer feels they already know the message a brand is trying to communicate, they will dismiss it on grounds of irrelevance and no objective or purpose will be served.
This is only natural – there is too much “noise” out there in the market so consumers will take every opportunity to “filter” some of it out.
Brands have to work harder with their advertising as a result. To be effective they need to genuinely “inform.” They can only do this by communicating facts that are new, interesting and relevant – and that tie back and reinforce the value proposition they represent.
Soup on the rocks – a new use for an old product
A long time (in 1972 to be exact), Campbells ran this ad for their range of soups in the US. What the ad does is show consumers how to use the product in a new way. In doing so, it proves to be genuinely “informative” as it gives consumers an idea into product use they may never have had before. Because of this, the ad and the brand as a consequence are a lot more likely to be mentally engaged with rather than discarded. The same can’t be said for the advertising of a lot of brands these days.
Schlitz beer – we wash our bottles with live steam
In the thirties the great Claude C Hopkins wrote a campaign for Schlitz beer. The idea - “we wash our bottles with live steam” All beers did so at the time – consumers just didn’t know it. The campaign made Schlitz one of the largest selling beers of the time. Why? It “informed.” It told consumers what they didn’t know – but clearly wanted to. The fact that Schlitz washed its bottles in live steam was important information as at that time health and sanitation were key issues. Bottles washed in live steam meant they were more sterile and that the beer was purer and better and safer to drink.
Insurance company claim - Australia
A third example – closer to our times comes from Australia. A few years ago I came across an ad for an insurer with a simple message that I thought was brilliant. The ad simply said “we pay 99.9% of all our claims”.
The ad again “informed”. It told consumers something they didn’t know but that they wanted to and was clearly relevant. They were more likely to engage and be receptive towards the message as a result.
Al Ries – raising questions and a furore
I am not sure how many of you remember, but a few years ago, marketing guru Al Ries raised a furore on Madison Avenue when he claimed in his book ‘the fall of advertising and the rise of PR” that advertising was ineffective at building brands while PR was.
I understand Al’s point – and I’m sympathetic to it. However I don’t think effectiveness has got anything to do with advertising or PR. Effectiveness I think is influenced largely by whether a brand is proving to be newsworthy or not – and in the right way of course.
If a brand is telling its audiences things they know about it already its messages will be discarded and its memory over time will fade.
PR has a historical but not necessarily a proprietary advantage over advertising here. PR’s whole premise is on creating stories about brands. The problem (or rather what has worked in PR’s favour) is that newspapers and other forms of media won’t accept or publish these stories unless they are newsworthy in some respect! PR’s whole focus is on ensuring they are as a result.
It is therefore not PR that is creating strong brands but its focus on newsworthiness that is!
If you adopt the same focus in your advertising as PR does then it is likely to be just as effective in building your brand. This is the point I think that Al Ries either missed or failed to communicate effectively enough to marketers when he launched his book.
Claude C Hopkins: “You don’t buy from a clown”
Claude Hopkins once said “you don’t buy from a clown.” Though I admire the man, I think he was wrong on this. You do. Ronald McDonald is testimony to this! As are scores of funny campaigns that have made millions for the brands they were conceived for.
Humour works because it is not only entertaining – it is disarming. It lowers barriers to sale and makes it possible for brands to own emotional territories that they would otherwise not be able to.
There is no shortage of humorous ads that have done very well in the market – “Happiness is a Cigar called Hamlet” is one, the Breast Cancer society ad is another (if only women paid as much attention to their breasts as men).
Edward De Bono takes humour a step further calling it “the highest form of intelligence”.
Entertainment has genres
Humour is only one of them. There’s also drama, action, documentary – all styles of narration that can be explored through advertising. Which one is appropriate depends on the product, category and key message your brand is trying to get out there.
Crispin Porter – Burger King
Crispin Porter used entertainment in a big way for Burger King.
Some time ago it embarked on a social experiment for the brand (as opposed to creating an ad!). What the agency did, in the campaign later named “Burger Freakout”, was tell people that Burger king had decided to take the Whopper™ off the menu. The reactions were captured live on video and edited into a hilarious series of videos that you can watch on the YouTube link provided. Please note the video contains coarse language – lots of it.
Why inform or entertain?
When you do, you achieve a closer fit with media and the key reason why people consume it in the first place.
Why do we switch on our TV sets if not to watch programmes that will take our minds off work? And why do we buy newspapers if not to keep abreast of the events happening around us and in the world?
When this happens the advertising your brand puts out is not seen as advertising any more - an interruption to the experience the audience seeks - but an enhancer to it on the contrary. In the process, you greatly increase the chances of your ads being more positively accepted and received.
I am the founder of The Planning Agency Singapore. A new kind of agency, we focus on helping marketers develop more intelligent communication solutions that help them more cost effectively achieve their goals. More often than not, these solutions involve the use of social, digital or direct marketing mechanisms.
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