Branding Strategy Insider

Twitter Brand Raises Questions

I started as a professor in the late 90s. I was young, inexperienced and terrified of the MBAs I was now paid to teach. So when the dotcom revolution started, I watched as my best students at London Business School rejected enormous starting salaries from McKinsey and Deutsche Bank in favour of working for start-ups I had never heard of.

The whole thing seemed totally mad, but I held my tongue and assumed they knew something that I did not. It was only after the dotcom bubble burst and so many of my former students had lost their jobs, savings and several years on the career ladder that I realised I should have said something.

A decade later, and we are off again with Twitter. The privately held company received a new round of investment last fall, believed to be $100m, which values the business at a whopping $1bn (£624m). That makes Twitter roughly as valuable as WH Smith - which provides an excellent point of comparison.

Social Media Not The Answer For Weak Brands

If you were a first-time visitor from Mars and you happened to drop into a marketing meeting somewhere in the United States, you might assume that marketing people do nothing but talk about "TGIF."

That's Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook.

There's no question these four revolutionary developments have forever changed the marketing function. Word-of-mouth has now become word of finger.

A key difference: Word-of-mouth leaves an invisible trail in the ether. Word-of-finger leaves an electronic trail on the internet.

In the past, nobody paid much attention to word of mouth, even though by some estimates it accounted for a majority of brand impressions. Today, however, the visibility of word of finger has mesmerized the marketing world.

But will the skillful use of TGIF make you a good marketing manager? I think not. TGIF is only half the story.

Linens 'N Things didn't go bankrupt because it didn't make effective use of Twitter. It went bankrupt because it was a knockoff of Bed Bath & Beyond without a unique identity.

2010 Brings Brands 10 Golden Digital Opportunities

Looking ahead to 2010, marketers will be facing Olympic hurdles that will require steadfast agility just to stay in the game, much less to hit the finish line ahead of the competition. Here are 10 ideas, wrapped in Olympic glory that should deliver the gold.

1. Social Media: A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Hoping to become fast friends with their targets, a lot of brands rushed into Facebook and Twitter in the last 24 months without investing sufficient time or resources. In 2010, savvy marketers will increase their commitment to social media by first listening and then offering up a steady stream of engaging content that their fans actually want. This will be particularly true for B2B brands, only 38% of whom included social media in their 2008 marketing plans (vs. 71% for B2C brands). With one comScore study indicating that branded social media activities can have a multiplier effect on search results, there is even a quantifiable rationale for brands to up the social media ante in 2010.

2. Mash-Ups: Taking Inspiration from Biathlons

A few innovative marketers took a shot at mash-ups in 2009. E.P. Carrillo, a new cigar manufacturer, created a mesmerizing Twitter and Google Maps mash-up for its "coming soon" site that tracks cigar tweets from around the world. In 2010, these kinds of mash-ups will become smoking hot as marketers look to extend the value of their social media activities. Recognizing that tech-savvy consumers glide seamlessly between personal and business, online and offline, mobile and desktop, farsighted marketers will bring together formerly disparate elements into a cohesive and self-perpetuating social media experience.

3. App Happy: On Your Mark, Get Set, Go Crazy

Given the success a handful of marketers enjoyed with their "apps" in 2009, expect a blaze of new entries in 2010. iPhone apps that provide demonstrable utility like Kraft's iFood Assistant recipe finder and Benjamin Moore's color matcher will continue to gain traction. Expect more app's that integrate with other social media like the Gap StyleMixer that allows you to mix and match clothes and share them with friends on Facebook. And don't forget the non-iPhone universe. The steakhouse Maloney and Porcelli cooked up a humorous and somewhat deviant web-based app at Expense A Steak that extrudes faux expense reports with stunning verisimilitude.

Viral Brand Crisis and Strategy

On the morning of April 15, 2009, everything looked bright for Domino’s Pizza. The company’s share price had risen overnight, the group’s expansion plan was on track, and the brand was as strong as ever. 

But at 3:32 pm that very afternoon, the first text messages began beeping their arrival on the CEO’s mobile phone. They kept coming – one after the next, after the next. The phone’s inbox maxed out.  The voicemail message light was blinking in overdrive, and soon filled to capacity.

Every CEO’s Nightmare
This was fast turning into every CEO’s biggest nightmare – in just eight hours Domino’s Pizza had become a ticking brand bomb. It seemed that two employees in Conover, North Carolina had been larking about in a Domino’s Pizza kitchen. They pelted one another with dough. They stuck it up their noses, and then blew it across uncooked sandwiches.  To add insult to injury, they presumably then served the food to customers.  It was an unsavoury sight, to say the least.  What’s more, they videoed their shenanigans, and loaded the footage onto YouTube for all the world to see.

With the help of Twitter, millions of viewers were drawn to the YouTube clip – knocking Susan Boyle’s unlikely Britain’s Got Talent performance off its perch. It was a disaster. Domino’s Pizza was struck down by a potentially fatal viral blow, the brand was now on everyone’s lips, and the taste was bitter.  A negative viral experience on the internet, on a grand scale, had left Domino’s Pizza seriously wounded.

Transforming Digital Chaos To Brand Equity

The marketing landscape is increasingly chaotic and getting more so. The old world of command and control marketing messaging is dead. And marketers are woefully unprepared to deal with this new reality. In a recent Heidrick & Struggles survey of CMO’s, over 70% said they feel ill-equipped to manage their brands in this new digital environment.

Explosion of Media Channels

Media channels -- paid and otherwise -- are increasing exponentially. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, webinars, forums, reviews, blogs, etc. are only the beginning. Every day brings new options. Who had ever heard of Stumble Upon a year ago? Consumers ability to access these new channels, engage with other consumers, and talk back to companies has radically changed how Marketing organizations need to behave. And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

The explosion in new media channels, and the increasing ease with which consumers can react to, create content about, and generally discuss brands is challenging even the best marketers. How do you manage your brand in such a chaotic consumer empowered world? How do you ensure that consumers understand your brand equity and that you drive a single minded understanding of your brand promise?

Here are 6 steps you can take to ensure your brand effectively engages consumers with your brand promise in this increasingly complex and chaotic environment:

   1. Be Different, Special and Better -- Let's start with a basic truth. Your brand equity is what consumers think it is--not what you think it is. Unfortunately, too many brands have brand equities that are identical to competitors. So, the starting point is to have a brand promise, and delivery of it, that is truly differentiated--a basic truth too often ignored in today's frenzied world of media and digital innovation.

Digital Marketing and the New Push / Pull Dynamic

Consumers are bombarded with more messages than ever before. Refining and clarifying your target segment is becoming evermore important as mass-messages are falling upon deaf ears. Specific, tailored and relevant messages, combined with consumer engagement and empowerment are elemental in the new marketing era. Less and less are market leaders dictating consumer needs through “push” advertising. By way of digital networking and publishing tools, consumers are creating consumer needs. To identify the key forces driving this marketing shift, we synthesized insights from over 40 industry professionals.

From Company Push to Consumer Pull
What is push and pull marketing? Push is the 30-second TV / radio spot. Push is the billboard and web banner. Push is the full-page magazine / newspaper spread. Push is becoming evermore difficult to push. The converse of push, is pull. Pull marketing is engaging; interactive; a two-way line of communication. To illustrate the push / pull marketing dynamic 15 years ago, if you were in the market to buy a TV, what resources would you have at your disposal? TV, radio, billboard, direct mail advertisements might have influenced your decision. Those messages are finely crafted to be persuasive. In essence: they’re bias. For a more objective view, you might turn to your friend that knows something about TVs. Or, you can go to Best Buy and they might be able to educate and inform your decision. In short, advertisements and a handful of “experts” were your resources. That was the push / pull dynamic then.

In the digital era, we can better manage and prioritize the influence of each resource. With the ubiquity of the internet, resources are seemingly endless; therefore you can choose which are more important as you refine our decision. Where in the past your decision was constrained to a limited number of resources, in the digital age, there are countless information hubs to help you choose one product over another. With the extensive consumer conversation on social media sites and product pages, what weight does the mass message—pushed from TV, billboard, radio, etc—carry when you’re making your decision? Though consumers will still soak up push marketing—and factor those impressions into their spending decisions—the internet and its vast networking reach typically bypasses traditional push media. In the past, the number of resources was limited—therefore each opinion meant more and consumers were just consumers. In today’s age, consumers are researchers, advocates, creators, promoters and marketers.

Building Brands Online in the Post-Sales Market

Customers will talk about your company, its products and services, whether you want them to or not. And online there are a multitude of places to do so. The question is, do you as a brand facilitate or participate? I will argue that you should do both, and tell you why.

It is not unheard of for customers to eulogize - one only has to browse Trip Advisor to see that. It is most definitely not unheard of for customers to complain, or to seek answers to questions or solutions to problems. Consider Apple and BMW. They collaborated on the first proper integration of the iPod and the automobile, and are the only two brands I would consider getting tattooed, were that my thing.

Apple provided a forum for their customers back in 2000. Duane, who has posted 113,365 posts so far, is a 'Level 5' and the number one poster. A blogger said of Duane, "I'm guessing that if you play "Apple Related Trivial Pursuit" with Duane, Duane first kicks your ass and then takes your name." Apple describes the service as a user-to-user support forum where experts and other Apple product users get together to discuss Apple products. You'll find a wealth of information about your favorite Apple hardware and software products that will help you get the most out of your purchase. You can participate in discussions about various products and topics, find solutions to help you resolve issues, ask questions, get tips and advice, and more.

BMW, on the other hand, does not provide a forum for its customers. As a result, a plethora of home-grown forums have arisen from bimmerfest.com to model specific e46fanatics.com, meaning a time-consuming and sometimes fruitless Google search for information. It is still not too late for BMW to enter the fray, and provide value to its customers. Disenfranchising the people who have filled the void is not something I would do - rather BMW could provide:

The Art of the Brand Story

Stories have been around for millennia; probably as long as humans have existed on earth. Some may claim that stories help make the world go around.

Well, stories are no less powerful today than in the past. And with the help of new technologies, stories are hitting the world of brand building in a big way. Viral videos enable rapid transmission of stories that captivate an audience. Ever heard of the ‘Back Dorm Boys’, ‘JuHua Jie Jie’, or ‘Tian Xian Mei Mei’ for example? Each of the four teenagers represented by these names has been viewed by more than one billion consumers. And this exposure was achieved without spending one single dollar. In fact, these self-made web stars, whose escapades they filmed themselves on webcam and published on the net, were not even aware of their fame until Pepsi, Motorola and Sony Ericsson approached each of them with offers of enough money to retire.

These kids communicated their own stories in a way that was irresistible to viewers. Wanting to share the entertainment, the viral links were spread by viewers responding to the characteristic that is shared by the best of those viral videos - an intriguing story.

Now brands have begun to take a page from the story telling tradition themselves, tying their approach into a phenomenon I discuss in my book, BRAND sense: ‘HSP’, the Holistic Selling Proposition, describes a technique which conveys information within a whole context, a technique that enables the world of religion to captivate audiences.

Customer Relations: How Does Your Brand Rate?

If you’re not sure what you should wish for your brand in 2009, I have a suggestion for you to consider.

The Internet and its viral power has turned everyone into a broadcaster. But how is this increasingly affecting brands?

The answer is simple: brands cannot afford to upset the consumer any longer. Chances are that you’re most likely upsetting your customers more than ever. If you don’t believe me, read on.

Ten years ago I wrote the world’s first book on how to build brands online. In the back of Brand Building on the Internet, I listed ten essential rules for brands to follow online. Rule number one was to reply to customers. Very simple, yes, and essential for anyone with a serious online presence. I decided to test the rule by sending out a simple consumer inquiry to the one-hundred largest brands in the world. Using the ‘contact us’ feature on the corporate website of each brand concerned, I asked each company a simple question about their brand. Questions you’d be able to answer in seconds. What do you think the response rate was?

First the good news. Thirty percent of the brands replied back within the first 24 hours. Great, thought I, merrily assuming a similar response rate on day two. The reality was, however, that I had to wait a very long time to get replies back from all the companies I’d written to. In fact, I’m still waiting. More than fifty percent of the companies never replied back at all. Now, I’m not talking about mom-and-pop brands, but brands which are valued in the billions; companies that also talk about customer satisfaction and in most cases even include their professed commitment to consumers in their vision statements.

Brands Feel Web's Growing Influence

In the 90s we all got a bit carried away with the Internet. Marketers wondered when Internet marketing expenditure would exceed traditional forms of communication. One bestselling article in the Harvard Business Review concluded that the Internet would render brands obsolete.

Well beyond a decade later and some marketers have relatively mundane expectations of the Internet. Perhaps because everyone has created a high-information, brand-centric website and many companies now sell their products online. But there is a growing role for the Internet that has far more serious implications for brands. Implications that cannot be ignored even by the most web-phobic of marketers. Consider two highly successful, but hugely divergent, brands.

Moben Kitchens is one of the UK's biggest suppliers and fitters of kitchens.

It has an impressive website which showcases some of the company's attractive kitchen designs and lists more than 200 of its outlets.

Skinny Cow is a low-fat ice-cream bar. Originally launched in the US, the brand was introduced to the UK in January of 2004 by Richmond Foods. Skinny Cow's website,(UK version) shows off its three flavours and makes much of the fact that at less than 2% fat and 90 calories a bar, it is a genuine treat for those trying to lose weight.

Frankly, neither website is stunning. But what is interesting is what happens when you leave the controlled environment of the intended brand page and run a Google search on the two brands.