If you define your customer as a consumer and treat her like one, that’s exactly what she’ll be. At the most, she’ll consume your brand.
Opportunity missed!
Why don’t you define and treat your customer like an afficionado? Consider the potential endorsement “I enjoy this brand” as opposed to “I consume this brand”.
Words can make all the difference in the world and attitudes most certainly do. It’s worth the extra marketing effort.
For starters, social media are, at least according to the traditional definition, not a medium. Wikipedia defines media in communication as the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data – clearly social ‘media’ is more than that.
Social ‘media’ is still experiencing staggering growth rates with people from all over the world joining. Are all of these people active users ? Of course not. According to Forrester there are ‘authors’, ‘critics’, ‘collectors’, ‘members’, ‘viewers’ and ‘inactives’. Admittedly the number of ‘inactives’ is decreasing and the other groups are growing.
Social ‘media’ are not popular for one single reason. Some people are looking to add value and share insights, they are the new leaders. Many are happy to follow and consume what is being offered. They were driven to join by curiosity and a need of belonging. This is normal. Just because hammers are available for everybody, doesn’t mean that we all go out to get nails!
Social ‘media’ are, at least partly, a ‘gift economy’, where goods and services (recommendations, information, insights, news etc.) are shared for free – reciprocal altruism if you will. That is noteworthy and causes brands, living in market economies, headaches.
Social ‘media’ must have more self-proclaimed experts/mavens/specialists/gurus per user than any other medium worldwide. Despite that, many brands are still struggling to develop a business model that works for them and the users in social ‘media’. The traditional marketing-aspirin doesn’t work, the headaches mentioned above become worse.
Social ‘media’ are here to stay. It is imperative to develop a model that adds value for consumers and brands, because they are interdependent. Is it possible to combine the benefits of a gift economy with those of a market economy? Exciting question.
May be not such an ironic look after all – what do you think?
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?
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 
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?
Corporate-identity programs are the expression of a corporation’s culture, personality and the products and services it has to offer – the very symbol and signature of the values that should inspire trust with consumers, employees, clients, suppliers and the financial community. Names, logos, colors, fonts, slogans and architecture have been an essential part of major branding strategies since the middle of the last century (Marc Gobé: emotional branding).
Corporate identities were developed to enable brands to make a more or less permanent visual statement about themselves. It was hoped that those statements would in turn define consumer perceptions. Many, especially premium brands, developed a rigidity bearing a resemblance to the Ten Commandments. Their headquarters and showrooms felt like modern interpretations of Cathedrals. The objective in both cases was to communicate in a convincing and at times dazzling manner that the brand and only the brand was in control. Individual interpretations by the believers, i.e. consumers, were not an option. Aspiration was cultivated, automatically including a portion of ‘hard to get’.
The social Web has fundamentally changed the relationship between brands and consumers. Consumers have been empowered by the Web and turned into ‘prosumers’, i.e. they are both producers and consumers. Brands are loosing control, as ‘prosumers’ shape them, influence their value more than ever before and effectively acquire co-ownership.
Brands need more flexiblity, because ‘prosumer’ tastes are changing more often. Not only that, tastes are often different from one ‘prosumer’ to the next. Identities have to be emotionally connected, rather than written in stone. Brands need to incorporate values like social, fresh, immersive, transformative, democratic and trustworthy. Otherwise they will fall into oblivion.
The first consequence for corporate identity is apparent: Brands must include the ‘prosumer’ globally in defining the identity, rather than leaving it to an agency. Crowdsourcing would be a good way to start. What do you think?
No, this is not going to be a review of an old (or not so old) movie about Robin Hood.
The Sheriff of Nottingham (as many other castle owners at that time) was, amongst other things, a control freak. The town of Nottingham was surrounded by a huge wall and the entry was a drawbridge, which could only be operated from the inside. This way the Sheriff thought that he could control what and/or who left or entered town.
Many companies love the ‘drawbridge-principle’ to try to control their brand and the conversation about it.
The problem is – it didn’t work back then and it doesn’t work today.
Robin Hood and his followers didn’t trust the Sheriff and they had good reason to. They didn’t need the market of Nottingham, as they had found other sources. Actually they didn’t need any of the so-called ‘services’ provided by the Sheriff. For them the Sheriff was redundant.
The walls and the drawbridge didn’t prevent Robin Hood from entering and leaving Nottingham as he pleased. And they did not keep the residents of Nottingham from providing Robin Hood with ‘insider’-information.
At one point Robin Hood even used the drawbridge against the Sheriff. You might recall the scene, where he was about to be hanged. His followers had found their way into town (despite the wall and the drawbridge) and liberated him. During the escape, Robin Hood took his sword and cut the ropes that were holding the drawbridge. The drawbridge pulled up and the soldiers chasing Robin Hood were caught in their own trap.
If we were to replace ‘Robin Hood’ by ‘consumer’, ‘Sheriff of Nottingham’ by ‘brand’ and ‘drawbridge’ by ‘information control’, we would have a pretty good description of what is happening today. Companies should stop acting like the Sheriff of Nottingham, because at the end they will lose and Robin Hood, i.e. the consumer, will win.
In my opinion the definition of the CEO as the Chief Executive Officer is outdated. CEO should really stand for Consumer Engagement Optimizer
The other day I was watching an old Western film. At some stage there was a close-up of a horse and I noticed the brand. Back then it was common to mark a horse and other livestock with a branding iron. The resulting brand identified the owner.
Nowadays our individual mobility mode has changed. We don’t ride horses anymore, we drive cars, at least for the time being.
Have you taken a close look at your car recently? Have you noticed how many logos there are – logos being the modern interpretation of the ‘brand’? They can be found everywhere: on each wheel, on the engine hood, on the trunk hood, on many parts in the engine compartment and of course in the passenger compartment – the most prominent location being the steering wheel. In many cases you will also find it on the car key.
Whilst we are grateful that they discovered an alternative to the branding iron, one burning question remains: Are we comfortable with the inflationary use of logos? Does it add value for us? Does it add value to the brand in question?
I personally don’t think so. Especially in today’s world where less and less consumers are relying on brands to beef up their own public image. How do you feel when being excessively branded?
A lot has been said and written about the relevance of Social Media, its tools and how to apply them. In my opinion one critical aspect has not been getting the attention it deserves so far and that is the organizational structure of the brands that are thinking about engaging in Social Media.
In many ‘old-economy’ brands we still find very hierarchic ‘command and control’ structures. The Social Media platforms are the exact opposite of ‘command and control’, they are about listening, sharing, supporting and facilitating conversations. They are about co-operation on equal footing.
If brands do decide to engage in Social Media, they have to review their corporate attitude and culture first. They have to engage with their employees the same way they intend to engage with their consumers. Companies have already lost the absolute control over their brands to the consumer thanks to Social Media. Trying to preserve that control internally is a futile mission.
The entire organization has to adapt, because Social Media potentially benefits all divisions. Think about the potential for R&D, production, purchasing, HR, sales, internal communications and of course marketing. Therefore it is only logical to conclude that Social Media shouldn’t be left to the marketing department.
As Gary Hamel put it ‘Organizations loose their relevance, when the internal rate of change is outpaced by the external change’. Markets and consumers are changing rapidly, brands need to catch up quickly.