You Brand

Many brands think that due to the relevance of social media, they need a strategy to deal with it. I personally don’t think that this is the solution.

Brands and their on- and offline-activities are under constant observation by interested consumers, who inform a global audience via the social web about everything they see and hear. Containment strategies don’t work for anymore. In this connected world the credibility of brands depends, more than ever, on consistency across all channels globally. A brand promise made in one country is expected to be kept everywhere. If not, somebody somewhere will blow the whistle.

The social web and the availability of free and credible information from multiple sources have led consumers to become more sophisticated and less ‘obedient’. Integrating them in the architecture of value creation would therefore be a smart move for brands. This changes their business model with implications for all divisions of a company: R&D, production, HR, finance, purchasing, sales and of course marketing.

New rules, new and old participants with different roles and new judges have led to a new game for the brand, which requires a new overall brand strategy, rather than ‘just’ a social media strategy.

What’s your strategic assessment?

Trust, as defined by Wikipedia, is a relationship of reliance. Trusting others means that we believe they will keep a previous given promise. It is an investment, because we give it before we get something in return. Trust is social capital and as far as I am concerned, it is not the only investment that is becoming riskier every day.

According to a recent survey carried through in Europe and North America by the German institute GfK (Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung) only 18% trusted politicians, 28% trusted advertising managers, 33% trusted bosses and 41% journalists. Devastating results in my opinion. Is behavior – because that is what it is all about – changing fundamentally as a consequence? At present I don’t have the impression that it is, at least not on a large scale. This is unfortunate, because we have the tools, i.e. the social web, to make ourselves heard and to initiate change. The social web aggregates and distributes dissatisfaction and mistrust just like any other information.

What is holding us back? I hear all the time that one individual experience and/or opinion doesn’t make a difference? It is true when everybody believes it, because many individual opinions will remain solitary. Using the multiplier effect of the social web has the potential to change that, but won’t do the job for us. We have to stand up and take an active part. We have to push the process and initiate the change we want to happen. Joining social networks but remaining passive and waiting for a personal miracle doesn’t work and will only increase our personal level of frustration. We need determination and stamina. One negative post on an unsatisfactory product and/or service won’t instantaneously and automatically lead to millions of followers.

Our would-be ‘true’ followers in the social web have to ‘know’ us before they trust us. There is no app for it. Authenticity, transparency, honesty, expertise, reliability and value similarity drive trust in the social web like everywhere else. Word-of-mouth and the fact that they are fellow consumers without a primary commercial interest accelerates the trust-building process. Still trust remains an investment, can’t be bought and must be earned – whether you are online or offline.

So, who do you trust?

The other day I wrote that advertising’s biggest enemy is advertising itself.

Looking at many ads today – if I have the time and desire to do so – I ask myself what the brands behind the ads are trying to tell me. Is there a clear message, a call for action, a suggestion that adds value for me personally? In other words, does it engage and ‘turn me on’? If it does, I will act and follow their suggestion. If it doesn’t, I won’t. Does this sound too simple? Well it is simple, advertising is no rocket science. It was a big mistake to turn advertising into a science over the years, because it meant that advertising often stopped being an art. The negative consequences as regards creativity are well known.

If the brand knows exactly what is to be to achieved with the campaign, the necessary metrics to measure success or failure can be defined accordingly. CPM just says how much it will cost to ‘show’ the ad to one thousand viewers. Cost being an exclusion criteria in the rational world of ‘scientific’ advertising led to CPM being used by many brands as a benchmark to evaluate campaigns.

In today’s world, just showing an ad to as many consumers as possible for a short period of time without initializing a productive interaction means that the brand is not exploiting the full potential of advertising. Relying on CPM to evaluate the ad is therefore a mistake, i.e. CPM = Cost per Mistake

In today’s connected world, the credibility and effectiveness of marketing depends more than ever on consistency across all channels – think about it!

Broken promises are worse than no promises – think about it!

You only have one chance to leave a first impression – think about it!

Squidoo, a company founded by Seth Godin, is launching a great platform for brands to organize and join the conversation. Brands have realized by now that conversation matters and that they can’t control it. ‘Brands in Public’ enables them to organize, join, amplify and seed it. Basically they are putting the conversation on one page open to everybody. Brands can take charge of the development of the page and personalize it for US$ 400,- a month. In my opinion that is a fair price to pay for the added value that brands are getting in return. So, check it out:

http://www.squidoo.com/brandsinpublic/hq

We’re all democrats (not the political party), as long as the majority is behind us.

Incredible as always with fascinating facts about Internet, media, mobile and more . Mobile will be the world’s primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020 bringing us convergence. Already today Nokia manufactures 13 cell phones every second. The computer in the cell phone today is a million times cheaper, a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965.

Watch the new video:

Did You Know Version 4http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8

Actually I love advertising, especially TVC’s. The commercial break being an interruption of the program I actually want to watch, I use it to check my Emails, get myself something to drink, check what’s happening on other channels etc.

Nevertheless I’m one of thousands being counted to determine the CPT. Advertising is bought on the basis of what it costs to be shown to one thousand viewers and the CPT is still used as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of a campaign. This does not strike me as being terribly efficient in today’s media world, because many people are not watching what they are being shown. Like me they use the commercial break to do all sorts of other things.

Why are so many people ignoring traditional advertising and even railing against it?

In my opinion there are quite a few reasons, some more obvious than others. Today I would like to talk about quality. There are too many boring ads. If the commercial break is built on the principle of interruption, why not do it in a creative way? Tell a story, be credible, entertain your audience, deliver information that adds value for them – there are many things an advertiser can do to prevent me and others from checking Emails during the commercial break.

Successful brands polarize. Trying to be everybody’s darling means you won’t be noticed by anybody. Their advertising needs to polarize as well, since it is an extension of the brand. If it’s perceived as being boring, loud, dumb, worthless, annoying, the consumer will eventually look at the brand the same way. Perception is reality.

But the problem is more often than not the client and not the agency. An agency can only be as good as their client allows them to be.

What do you do during commercial breaks?