Category: Marketing

Neither should be an afterthought, not if you want to excel in today’s marketplace! Consumers are becoming more and more aware and attached to the idea that they (directly or indirectly) are making a difference in the world. That’s why a brand purpose strongly linked with corporate social responsibility is important, because we are in the middle of a major shift in the way customers connect with brands.

This means that values are becoming as important as functional benefits. A point of view (or a vision for a specific problem to resolve) is equally as important as a point of difference. Strengthening and creating communities will be as important as reaching mass audiences. Real, meaningful corporate actions are becoming paramount to constructing genuine relationships with current and possible consumers.

A company’s social purpose has to resonate with its core business. This means that it has to relate to all aspects of the company (sourcing, manufacturing, supply-chain, final consumer, etc.), as well as all the people the company interacts with, whether they are customers, workers or shareholders.

Corporate social responsibility goes hand-in-hand with an effective brand strategy. As we know, consumers talk through their wallets, and it is becoming obvious that the majority of consumers are supporting companies that genuinely concern themselves with human and animal rights, the environment and social development.

As customers become more informed about manufacturing processes, and the environmental and social costs of “doing business”, they are seeing that THEY can make a difference by supporting socially responsible companies!

While corporate social responsibility sounds scary, and like something only possible if you have a Walton family sized fortune, don’t fear! Smaller businesses can do it, too.

The idea is not to rush into a program that is not sustainable for your company; start small and grow your CSR program with time. Every little bit helps, and the program should realistically align with the size of your company and its ability to give back to the community.

Find the right partners (an already-established non-profit, etc.), or look into making an in-kind or percentage donation with every purchase, etc.

There are lots of options, you just need to find the ones that are right for your company and the causes that are near and dear to your company’s mission (and your heart). Check out this list of companies that are doing good in the world to inspire you. 

What brands need to think about if they want to gain customer loyalty.

You need to paint more of a holistic picture. While customer service is extremely important to consumers, brands need to consider so much more to create satisfied return customers that will advocate for their brand. They need to think about the image their brand presence on all fronts and every sense. They have to look to meet even the unseen needs of current and prospective customers to cultivate brand loyalty in this super-fast, super-distracting technological world where we live.

The Rufus Leonard creative agency in Britain has created a rubric that identifies the five facets of brand experience to help companies create a more holistic experience for their customers. This first is ‘think’- which is a brand’s ability to effectively communicate its purpose. Then ‘sense’-  how a brand immerses the consumer in its brand by connecting to his five senses. After is ‘feel’- which has to do with creating an emotional impact. Next, comes ‘do’- how the brand helps customers do what they need to do and problem-solves for them. Lastly, ‘connect’- creating a sense of belonging for consumers.

They then surveyed UK adults about their perception of several brands, ranging from communications companies to airlines. The results showed that to have a successful “brand experience”, and not just good customer service, companies need to pull all five of these elements together to create a total experience and a deep, valued connection with consumers.

That emotional connection between a customer and a brand is what defines the brand experience, and it is what allows him or her to believe in a company’s value. According to the Harvard Business Review, ‘What reduced satisfaction was something few companies manage – cumulative experiences across multiple touchpoints and in multiple channels over time.’ This means that by not paying attention to the various aspects of the customer’s experience with the brand, the customer loses interest or appreciation for the brand, and therefore will no longer (or will never) advocate for a brand that does not meet their needs.

While customer service (customer experience) is and always will be an extremely important aspect of winning and keeping new business, companies need to begin to address the more complete brand experience (all facets of a consumer’s interaction with the brand) to create and grow an emotional link with the company, especially in this hyper-connective digital age.

Everybody’s doin’ it.

It’s also causing marketers the throw their marketing strategy and position out the window just to jump on the bandwagon. Granted, now the legions of Pokémon players have grown from, let’s just say “computer-friendly” teen-aged boys into a mishmash of smartphone addicts of all shapes and sizes, but that doesn’t mean that they are all your company’s best possible prospects.

McDonald’s doesn’t agree, and they have seen some serious results. The multinational fast-food giant was one of the first businesses to partner with game developer Niantic in making 3,000 of its restaurants in Japan “Pokémon gyms”, places where players must pass through to capture Pokémon and become a game champion…and where they can also eat the Japanese equivalent of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And guess what: it has improved their sales. The involvement with Pokémon Go is one part of a strategic “turnaround” plan that McDonald’s has implemented to combat falling sales, customer dissatisfaction and worsening brand perceptions of the fast food giant worldwide.

Pokémon Go and McDonald’s seem to go hand-in-hand, but what brands can you think of that probably shouldn’t touch the game with a 10-foot pole, unless they want to completely abandon their marketing position and brand perception? Mercedes? Well, SURPRISE! Because now the German automaker has invested in making their showrooms “PokéStops” to lure people playing the game (and trying to catch virtual monsters) into the dealerships. Dealers all across Germany have apparently been provided with a “manual” to detail how the game can be used to increase traffic in their showrooms. But what kind of traffic? Again, I’ll admit that this game has grown from the typical adolescent boy super-fan following, but that doesn’t mean that all the players are fit to buy a Mercedes-Benz, especially when they’re stumbling around trying to CATCH A VIRTUAL MONSTER ON THEIR SMARTPHONE.

Mercedes and lots of other prestigious companies have lost it. While Pokémon Go has been associated with vastly improving customer interaction and relationships and causing a shift in the way we advertise, does that mean that we should all just throw our marketing strategies out the window in favor of chasing the Pokémon Go fad?

Is attracting any customer that breathes and has a smartphone a good strategy? Brands are confused, and though this fad seems to be an all-consuming wave, the fact remains that it is a fad. Not everyone who plays today will continue to play tomorrow. We will all return to our pre-Pokémon Go lives, and marketers will have to find another way to lure in customers.

A new idea for making a brand advocate out of a doubter.

It’s possible to make new believers of your product from the doubters. One way to do it is like British discount grocery store “Lidl”: have doubters ask the hard questions themselves. The grocers’ campaign, dubbed “Lidl Surprises”, is an innovative way to make people believe in a brand that previously had only caused doubts about the “questionable origin” of its’ low-cost products.

The ads feature real people asking real suppliers about the product they provide; the first commercial shows a customer named Sharna, who was an actual social media doubter, visiting a beef farmer named John on his farm in Scotland and asking questions about the provenance of Lidl’s (discount) ‘Deluxe Scotch Beef’. Later on in the series, the commercials are going to focus on the seafood, fruits, wines, and vegetables that the discount grocer provides.

An internal study showed that many Brits still think of Lidl and its products in a negative way, and so the company decided to try to turn its “anti-advocates” (their word) or “haters” (our word) into believers.

The move comes at a time when many Brits are tightening their purse strings because of Brexit, and before that, the austerity measures enacted by the government. Lidl’s goal as a discount grocer is to continue expanding so that many more Brits have access to their stores.

It is currently the fastest growing grocer in Britain, but as Claire Farrant, Lidl UK’s marketing director says, “We need to make the brand more accessible to Brits as many don’t have access to a local Lidl. We can try to change perceptions with our marketing but that means absolutely nothing if someone doesn’t have access to a Lidl store.”

She also stresses the fact that they are not remaining complacent with Lidl’s previous customer set.  “…It is important as a brand to seek out new customers. We’ve targeted the middle classes before but we must now appeal to every single consumer regardless of their social background,” Farrant says. That means growth and some hard work for Lidl’s marketers to create more “Lidl Surprises” for potential consumers.  

Do it (or experience it) yourself is a great method to try when you want consumers to experience your product or service first-hand, so they know it’s good. If your company doesn’t have the budget of a national grocery store, or maybe you can’t swing a general “come try out our product” invitation, you could try following Lidl’s lead on a smaller scale.

Do tests and run them on Facebook Live, Periscope, or even Instagram and Twitter so that possible customers can watch in real time and find out a real person’s verdict about your product. In order to market to your customer successfully, you need to view your product from their perspective. Asking them what they think is a huge step in the right direction.      

Why globalization and instant gratification are separating us.

Besides the obvious reason that people have opinions about just about everything and they show it all too often on a constant social media feed, globalization is creating winners and losers in the world, and that is dividing people more deeply than ever. Look at the super-rich class that globalization has created; and the billions of super-poor that support their lifestyle and who live (or die) by the decisions of those super-rich world owners. Our over connected world is is quickly becoming a disjointed one.

The evidence can clearly be seen in the recent Brexit vote. It certainly tore apart a Britain that collectively thought, before, while differences of opinion existed, it was a unified country. Wrong. Nobody saw it coming. Smaller, provincial British communities that have been marginalized by globalization and government austerity measures showed their anger with the Brexit vote, and they won. These communities, like so many other marginalized groups, are in a collective blind spot that affects most of the world, and certainly, marketers and creatives.

Old are divided from young, workers from retirees, rich from poor, races from races, men from women, etc. We should all be thinking: who are we listening to when we create media and content? Are we being inclusive, like Britain thought it was? Are we paying attention to all demographics, not just Millennials, and Generation Z because they’re the ones that will soon have the power? As a society, and as creators, are we listening to everyone or just the ones we want to see because they are the easiest to see?

The instant gratification part is an epidemic of modern society as a whole; we are more connected than ever but less present. We want immediate likes on our facebook posts and followers on Twitter and Instagram, but we “just can’t” with real life.

Again, as marketers, we have to understand this and understand to whom we are pitching our product or company. We need to take a long, hard look at who our audience is. Because whether we like it or not, there are billions of people being excluded from our world-view every single day.

It would be great to take a stand and call for connectedness. Connectedness in a real sense – like people actually going out and talking to each other. It would probably result in craziness, but who knows? As they say, “no publicity is bad publicity”.  

Even if your customers aren’t the brightest crayons in the box, they’re still yours.

As marketers know, you have to play to your audience. While this doesn’t mean that all of your customers aren’t bright, it means that you have to try to make them understand you and your product – not necessarily educate them on why their perceptions or behaviors are wrong. The mind, in general, only accepts what reaffirms its existing knowledge and beliefs. Spending ad dollars to change minds is throwing money out the window. You wouldn’t stand near your office window and throw cash out, would you? No. So here’s how to step away from that window and spend ad dollars that multiply.

Marketers (generally) have a whole gaggle of market research. Studies on, for example, the places where a basket of groceries is consistently the cheapest (let’s just go with that example). They have information that the general public does not, but this doesn’t stop consumers from formulating opinions about the cheapest place to buy groceries!

So instead of trying to convince potential customers that a discount grocery store is cheaper than a fancier store running occasional discounts (even if they seem really good), marketers have to put on their thinking caps to persuade consumers and potential consumers that the discount store has consistently lower prices! It’s in the job description! No matter how smart you think you are, you can only let it show in the way you convince customers that you are the best. You are only as clever as your campaign!

So, what you do to get through to these people blinded by their erroneous perceptions? First, remember that they don’t have all the information that you do (market studies, statistics, etc.). They, usually incorrectly, are going on their ideas, perceptions, and beliefs about the world and the plethora of products available in it.

That’s what makes this easy and difficult at the same time. Easy because most people seem to believe whatever they read (on the internet, for example), but hard because this means that you have to get the correct message to them, and in the right way. Don’t, by any means, insult the consumer’s intelligence. Make sure your campaign states the facts and what differentiates your product in a simple, clear way.

Wasting money and creativity on “educating” customers is also a dead-end. A better way to go about it would be educating yourself about consumer perceptions in your particular field (here is where we get to use all those market studies that we pride ourselves on), and finding an interesting way to present that idea to customers and potential customers. Remember to play to your audience!

Ever heard of a Gushing Granny?

Well, the sick schmucks who wanted to name an apple-infused version of Mountain Dew wanted you to. The kicker? That gross name wasn’t even the winner. The “crowd favorite” was Hitler Did Nothing Wrong, which, apart from showing just what a-holes people (a lot of people) can be, was not the image the brand was going for with an apple-flavored soft drink.

Using crowdsourcing to name a product or vessel or space station or a migrating humpback whale WILL get you a lot of publicity, but it will probably throw in a free PR disaster as well, just for giggles. Take mister Splashy Pants, an unfortunate humpback whale that now bears the winning name of a 2007 crowdsourcing campaign by Greenpeace. Given, he probably doesn’t know that he’s called Mister Splashy Pants, but you can see how people suck.

The same trend was seen in 2009 when NASA wanted to crowdsource the name of its new node on the international space station. Even with an approved short list of four names, voters submitted their own suggestions and the leader was “Xenu” (Scientology’s galactic overlord) until Stephen Colbert encouraged his fans to vote for “Colbert”, and vote they did. “Colbert” ended up with 40,000 more votes than the leading NASA-proposed name. NASA chose to ignore the results of the campaign and faced ugly PR backlash because of the decision. They ended up naming the node Tranquility, completely ignoring even their own suggestions, but Colbert got a treadmill on the space station named after him at least.

The newest crowdsourcing debacle is Boaty McBoatface. Yes, you read that right. Earlier this year, the National Environment Research Council (NERC) wanted to name its new polar research ship, but the organization decided to throw out the whole serious process of naming a sea-faring vessel and chose instead to try to generate brand awareness and buzz by running a crowdsourcing campaign to come up with a worthy name. The results? Boaty McBoatface with 124,109 votes as the polls closed. Now, NERC is faced with the all too common crowdsourcing dilemma: to reject the winner and deal with the ensuing PR backlash and consumer (voter) disappointment, or to suck it up and have Boaty McBoatface be the most elegant ship on the sea for the next fifty years or so.

These sorts of stories are what we like to call “crowdslapping”, which is exactly as painful as it sounds, even if it is figurative. These days, companies like to think that because they can communicate so closely with consumers, that said consumers won’t be troll-y, sarcastic jerks. Not the case. So think twice about trusting these shadow-dwelling brand-haters with ANYTHING, especially something as important as brand integrity and hard-fought attention and good PR.