Girl Scouts effectively tap social media engagement

By Robert Wheatley

Social media can be powerful — when deployed effectively. YouTube provides a readily accessible platform where video can engage a broad and diverse audience — but only if it’s done right.

Meaning, the content thus is initially more important than the medium. In the absence of compelling content, social media is just a distribution platform. The viral rubber meets the road when the communication itself is relevant, interesting and thought provoking.

So today we have a living example of “right” from the Girl Scouts.

My seven-year-old daughter Heather is a Daisy this year, the entry-level designation for Girl Scouts to be. And, as you’d expect she’s selling cookies. An recurring metaphor for Girl Scout-dom that seems it’s been institutionalized as an annual right of passage for eons. She came by the agency office recently to tempt the staff with the baked delights. Virtually everyone signed up.

You don’t really think about the value of it other than the surface view that it raises funds for the organization, and you get a tasty treat in return. It’s a fair exchange. But what if you elevate the whole idea to a stronger context. What if you can re-position the perspective on cookie sales to a more meaningful and valuable proposition?

Today Marketing Daily ran a piece about the Girl Scouts’ effort to reframe the cookie sale program into an emotional call-to-action. It’s about the character-building outcomes of doing this. All housed within a deeper understanding of how the proceeds go to help others.

Watch it here:

It’s a terrific piece of story telling that uses the video medium effectively. Short, consumable, powerful – everything you want in a compelling trip to social media interaction. You watch – THEN decide how many boxes you really want. I dare you.

What do you think?

Images can evoke memories and feelings

By Robert Wheatley

In the marketing communications business we’re called upon to help brands build relationships with current users and attract new ones. Clients retain agencies like ours to do this with skill and result. Hence it requires us to understand the difference between effective communication and anything that’s less than that.

What we’ve learned in the age of consumer control is that relevance precedes engagement. Push oriented messaging generally is brands talking about themselves, usually focused on features and benefits. So its important to understand how personal relevance can add power to brand communication. Thus, we work doubly hard to understand consumer interests and needs. It is within our awareness of consumer lifestyle passions that we find ways to build powerful communication.

An example of this thinking at work:

At its core, brand story telling involves some form and combination of words and pictures. These tools are at the center of the emotional relationships people acquire with the brands they care about. Here’s what I mean:

This image was taken during the holiday break looking out the living room window of our weekend home in southwest Michigan. It snowed 15 inches in a 24-hour period and the result was a pristine winter wonderland. Serene, beautiful isn’t it? The poor photography notwithstanding, there’s a visual story this image brings to life in varying degrees for people who attach their own associations and experiences with it.

It’s hard to convey exactly how I feel about this image because there’s so much meaning attached to it that transcends just the picture itself. For me our place in Michigan is a vital retreat that refreshes and revitalizes my attitude and spirit. It’s a transcendent environment that lifts me out of the pressures of agency life and in restorative manner, serves to remind me of what’s important about family, nature and quiet contemplation.

There are three levels of interaction we can associate with the brand communications we come into contact with:

Positive recognition – what we see and hear gains meaning and value based on our current experiences and connection to satisfactory outcomes.

Warm memories – an added layer of value when the communication triggers positive memories and associations that look backward through our life experiences and help us relive those important moments.

Personal relevance – when the communication is fully engaging our happiness, sense of pride, confidence and wellbeing.

We (consumers) are expectation creation machines much more than we are rational processors of facts, figures and analytical arguments. Powerful communication occurs when these associations are brought to life. So it stands to reason the more you know the human you’re trying to reach, the greater the opportunity to build stories in a manner that draws them in.

Too often we think engagement is laddering up the facts of our product features and benefits. Rather it is the associations and values, feelings we have in the presence of brands that gives the brand relationship its substance and longevity.

We are on a relentless quest to build emotional connections that mine the human capacity to shirt-list the brands we care about. Ironically, the ones we care the most about are the ones we feel good about — those that offer an expectation of happiness when we’re in their presence.

What do you think?

Sea of sameness interrupted here and there with unique ideas

By Robert Wheatley

The National Fancy Food Show in San Francisco started last Sunday with a bang as 17,000 retailers, distributors and brand minders came together at the Moscone Center to see and taste what’s new in specialty foods.

The convention is remarkable in its fantastic array of vendors from around the globe who showcase their products for US retail distribution. Especially cheese, cheese and more cheese that populated both exhibit halls. The air was heavy with the zesty pungent dairy-air of hard and soft varietals mostly from Europe and North America. It’s hard to imagine any of the Showgoers having to retreat for lunch given the wall-to-wall noshing – all of which was occurring at a break-neck pace as everyone attempts to canvas the acres of product categories and companies.

Even with all of the chocolaty goodness, it’s hard not to notice the pervasive sameness and slim distinctions between competing offerings. So we see in dramatic relief the problem plaguing so many businesses in the era of over-choice and saturation. It just all runs together. For any business unveiling its version of Chevre, infused olive oils or extreme Cocoa chocolate, your eyes glaze a bit as many overlap together in a noisy heap of feature/benefit style selling.

There were some standouts — interesting items you could tell were more like Purple Cows as Seth Godin would call them – ideas that exude their own natural charm and glow with built-in interest.

Speaking of cows, Slow Cow borrows a chapter from the Red Bull school of functional beverages and produces its polar opposite: a concoction that slows you down with a layer of relaxation.

The grist underneath this proposition gets interesting as you explore the nature of life’s mounting pressures, alongside a desire for better blood pressure and a reaction to the relentless push, push and more push that accompanies life in our dog-eat-dog business world.

A healthy respite sounds about right. So this new category gets interesting as you see the possibilities around it for punching through on an issue many may be pining for: some liquid relief.

Although all things bacon may be so very “last year,” the savory, smoky, salty punch of breakfast protein was back in an array of products from sandwich spread and seasonings to desserts.

Chicago high-end chocolatier Vosges hit a taste high note with their bacon-infused chocolates. A generous sample covers the tongue with caramel, chocolaty sweetness followed by a quick after-note of smoky savory-ness that offered a dramatic counterpoint to what you anticipate from a chocolate bar. Even more exciting was their new and unique line of spice inspired ice creams.

In a word — awesome.

Also interesting was Bay-area based Hint. Clean, straightforward packaging promotes a hint of natural fruit flavor at zero calories and no added sugars.

Honestly, I thought it would be no taste, too. But to my surprise the fruity flavor was there and discernable. A sweetness was also evident, but again without the added sugars found so often in these beverages.

Parents will love this option for their kids because it comes without the down side.

The winners and losers here in the longer run will be an outcome of how they invest in building their brands. Yet, for so many the pre-occupation is pushing the product into the pipeline without much effort given to considering how brands are built. Noticeably absent was any reference to consumer insight on preferences and interest in these offerings or the trends on which they’re based.

• Uniqueness and differentiation are vital to getting traction with consumers and markets that are already saturated with similar products making similar claims in similar categories.

Those who can punch their idea far enough to the right or left to create a new category they can own have a shot at a sustainable business that can increasingly accumulate value for its owners in the longer scheme.

Speaking
I had my shot at the event to help bring some of these brand-building ideas to life. Here’s my deck if you want to take a look:

FROM MEDIA COURTIERS TO MEDIA MAKERS
PR now feeding the content creation engine

By Robert Wheatley

Clients have long viewed Public Relations as a source of credible, believe-able communication. Even so I’ve heard more than a few express lingering concerns about their perception of uncertainty built in to earned versus transactional media. The argument in favor: third party sourcing and separation from commerce infuses editorial media with its power to persuasively recommend brands and businesses. The argument against: you ultimately can’t fully control the messaging outcome, it’s timing and position within a media outlet.

Yesterday we talked about the importance of owned media content creation and social platforms established and developed by brands. This is changing the future of brand communication, and it’s creating a revolution in how PR firms and professionals do what they do. Here’s the story behind the new recipe for greater ROI and benefit from your investments in non-interruptive forms of communication:

Media Courtiers

Credit: Superstock

Since the dawn of PR time, we (PR experts) have been working behind the scenes to become dependable, reliable sources of strong story material, well-researched subject matter, relevant to the audiences of media. And especially we’ve worked (very) hard to become trusted and valued by the reporters, producers and editors who gate-keep access to the news in its various forms and types.

So it stands to reason that PR people have made the study of news media habits, needs, peccadilloes, preferences and people a life’s mission. We have been Courtiers serving in the Royal Court of Public Opinion. We have formed alliances with media over time based on our reliability as a source of good stories. The end result is a form of reciprocity: our clients receive favorable mentions and reviews.

This delicate dance of trust and expertise in balancing the goals of business with the exigencies of news reporting and framing brand messages in an editorially friendly context (problem/solution for example) will remain a centerpiece of PR religion. Recently the New York Times unveiled a study showing that newspapers, for example, continue to be a top source of reporting on new information that spreads to other channels. But, the world has changed…and with it the role and direction of PR.

Media Makers

Credit: Photodisc

Communication has evolved as digital technologies and communities enable direct-to-consumer interaction and conversation beyond editorial and advertising environments.

• The dawn of social media press rooms and releases presaged changes in how news was distributed and consumed. Directly by its intended audience, not just through the filter of third parties who “report.”

The direct dialogue is a healthy development that further draws back the curtain between businesses and their customers. To be sure it forces the issue of authenticity, integrity, honesty and transparency. Perhaps even more important, it spells the end of interruption while ushering in a new brand/consumer relationship built off an entirely different understanding: brands must earn PERMISSION for a relationship based on their ability to bring greater meaning and value to the brand and customer interaction.

From a media standpoint this is revolutionary.

For brand-developed content to be engaging in this context, it has to be conceived and created in a mold that is at once respectful of how this newfound relationship operates. The tone and tenor of communication must be reflective of the “friendship” and trust on which it’s based. PR people have been trained to understand the importance of this as well as its unique language. Different than the hard sell…Rather the relevant principles of proof, validation an demonstration have been married and bound successfully to the roots of PR thinking as long as I’ve been in this field.

For PR strategy the revolution means communication directly with consumers, not just through the gatekeepers. And thus the separation between the message and its accurate and timely delivery comes down like the Berlin Wall.

“Owned Media”

Here’s our prediction, in the coming years PR teams will increasingly become publishers and producers of Owned Media: trusted, well-researched and intrinsically useful content that will go both directions – framed editorially for the press, and also delivered directly to consumers through social platforms and communities. We will more and more be video producers, e-book publishers, Web page builders, dialoguers, commentators, discussion leaders and article writers. Hopefully we will base all of this on top of well-developed listening strategies.

And in doing so will acquire some of the very responsibilities for thoroughness and accuracy that is held in high esteem by the best reporters. Brands are becoming the Source for new information not just the source for attribution in an interview.

Who’s building owned media pipelines now? A couple of examples:

Best Buy through it’s Geek Squad division creates and distributes editorial- style videos that open up the Geek’s world, alongside useful tutorial videos on everything from computer to iPod set up.

Coldwell Banker real estate has established a robust YouTube channel that now contains hundreds of educational videos on the housing market, selling a home, financing and other related subjects.

MasterCard uses hand-held FLIP video camcorders for internal interviews to comment in real time on emerging issues and get their experts’ views out there on the Web. They Tweet the links and also circle around with reporters to direct them to the content when appropriate.

ROI

PR can be measured not just in terms of editorial placements and the quality of message translation those stories possess. Now we evaluate direct contact and engagement then translate that learning into refinement that builds on the promise of value we deliver to make the brand/consumer contact worthwhile. We already know the message was delivered exactly as intended, where and to whom.

So the recipe for improved brand communication begins with integrating earned, owned and paid media channels. And owned may indeed be a rising star in the toolbox because it jumps the shark of third party filtering.

There’s responsibility here, too, because none of this works if trust isn’t preceding the owned communication on the way in the content door. So now corporate and brand reputation has an even more important calling: to underwrite the very willingness of consumers to opt in.

Are you ready?

Integration the secret sauce to making new media work effectively

By Robert Wheatley

Photo Credit: Car Culture

In the year ahead, social media will no longer be viewed as that bright new star sitting on the horizon and bolted-on like a shiny hood ornament to brand marketing programs. Instead it will be integrated into all facets of brand communication. Each layer of brand outreach will benefit from social integration. But what is the right mix of media tools? What media platforms are we talking about now?

With so many channels of communication available, it may feel like we’re confronted with a daunting array of narrowly focused options. There’s great temptation here for scale reasons simply to revert to traditional strategies founded on interruption media (we covered this in yesterday’s post). There’s a better path. Getting off the persuasion bandwagon and onto the engagement trail involves understanding the three primary media platforms, their role and then looking to optimize your involvement in each of them.

Shannon Paul published a great piece on new media that brought to life some of Dave Fleet’s thinking on how to understand the interrelationships between the primary forms of media that brands must successfully navigate. Please read both of them.

Why does this matter? The media landscape has evolved because consumer behavior has changed – they control engagement. There are three primary components. Let’s take a look at these pieces and how they fit with one another.

Click to enlarge

Forrester research helps bring this conversation to life with the chart above. Here you see the three primary paths of marketing communications activity:

Earned Media – essentially outreach to mainstream editorial media (TV, newspapers, magazines and online versions of same) and bloggers. “Earned” involves convincing others to use and deploy your stories and content. It depends on the brand’s ability to package and present interesting and relevant material that third parties will publish or repurpose. This lies at the headwaters of viral communication and WOM.

• It is at once a powerful channel but does not offer full control over the final outcome. Hard to forecast because it is earned and thus predict scale. Viral distribution in this case rests on the uniqueness, value and inherent stickiness of the content.

Owned Media – this is perhaps the most intriguing development to come: brands as publishers and creators of content. Owned media begins with company web sites and goes on to include Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, YouTube channels and other communities a brand may create.

• This takes time and patience to scale. Credibility is always an issue because of the lingering view that brands are only focused on their self-interests. Thus brand reputation is integral to acceptance of created content. Over time, for savvy brands and businesses, this may become an increasingly important and commanding channel.

Paid media – company generated messaging placed in digital and mainstream media through ads, SEO and sponsorships.

• By virtue of it being transactional, it is at once scale-able but often lacking in traction and engagement due to inherent credibility issues. As well consumers often recognize and tune out the interruptive delivery system. Messaging is created and thus controlled, and tends to play better with brand fans.

These three components together will form the basis for marketing communications strategies. Optimizing the balance and interactivity of these components is vital establishing a baseline of engagement and translating those contacts into brand preference and then sales.

Social media should be integrated across all three. Earned and owned are closely related as one can feed the other. The first two channels deliver relevant engagement and credibility while paid offers scale. The combination of all three is potent especially when messaging is delivered seamlessly.

To date, earned and owned may be underfunded so we recommend considering a more optimized mix that allows these points of brand contact to flourish and reach their potential for greater impact – especially to secure new customers.

Tomorrow we’ll look more deeply into the “owned” category and opportunities that may present.

What do you think?

Self-interests can no longer be served through selfishness….

By Robert Wheatley

Image c/o Philip and Karen Smith

With all of the conversation and discussion about the explosion of social media, and the era of two-way engagement and conversation that shift ushers in, you’d think businesses must be falling to their collective knees in a sort of Road-to-Damascus epiphany about discovering a new path to building brands. Have we seen the light?

Has a new marketing and communications religion taken hold? Apparently it’s still a work in progress. We learn that the vast majority of marketing spending still flows down the hide-bound and intractable pipe of interruption media and its embedded agenda to disrupt, persuade and imprint messages.

Oscar Wilde once quipped, “I can resist anything except temptation,” and so the addiction to push media solutions rolls on. Like a massive electric motor bolted to the floor of an industrial age power plant, the tradition-bound backbone of brand marketing built from an interruptive model continues to spin on its own inertia.

• Consumers are not walking wallets merely to be sold. If anything there’s a refined “selling detector” that’s emerged as consumer’s turn away from and avoid or ignore blatant pitches in favor or more interesting and helpful forms of brand interaction.

We’ve institutionalized a legacy over time of brand narcissism that should evolve. It’s not all about us anymore. Yes, the fundamental goal of a business organization is to sell more stuff more often and more profitably.

But if the tone, tenor and manner in which we go about achieving business objectives flows from a view that consumers are merely walking wallets, then we’ve failed to grasp the fundamental changes that impact how great brands are built in the age of consumer control. Behaviors that reinforce customer relationships as transactions-to-sweep-in only lack understanding that consumers now control brand interaction. And so we must move from push to engage, from tell to listen, from imprint to co-create.

Brand narcissism is a systemic problem. It emanates from deep-seated behaviors that suggest company’s can compel consumers into favorable purchase behavior at will. Years of pushing messages and other tactics at consumers continues, whether openly acknowledged or not, to flow from a belief that the one-size fits-all consumer will do what we tell them to do.

Not so.

What’s needed…?

1. Enduring brand relationships are now built from a foundation of mutual respect, interest and caring.

2. Brands must earn permission for a relationship with core customers by aligning themselves with their unique lifestyle passions and interests.

3. A form of brand selflessness must authentically take root — such that all points of contact reverberate with the same level of reverence for consumers as friends of the brand, not just targets to target.

The change here is more attitudinal than anything else. Once consideration is given towards how a brand can mine a “higher purpose” built around reciprocity, then we have room to move to refine strategies that will help effectively build a foundation of trust. And let’s be clear, trust is the fabric that binds brands to consumers.

It is the absence of meaning, compelling value and trust that turns businesses into commodities…

Social media by the way is a partner in all of this, not a stand-alone panacea. Engagement media gets interesting and valuable when it is integrated as a component part of all forms of outreach.

We’ll examine more of media integration piece tomorrow. What do you think?

By: Carrie Becker

Image c/o Flickr Thomas Hawk

Too often we hear stories of brands ignoring new technology and communications tools because they can’t grasp the ROI (or, more often, they don’t want to hear consumers complain!). Then in some unforeseen chain of events the brand must quickly engage the tools to overcome a communications crisis (e.g. Twitter response by new moms’ to poorly positioned Motrin advertising). Fortunately, I have a positive story that may help uncover the benefits of a two-way conversation with your customers.

My husband and I are beer drinkers (which makes it even more rewarding that Wheatley & Timmons handles communication strategy for the Modelo Brewing Group portfolio). Last night, I was winding down my weekend with a beer from a craft beer brewer, Dogfish Head. I’ve had their beer on a number of occasions and always found the same reliable, quality and taste.

Unfortunately, when I just wanted to savor one more sip of the relaxing weekend, my beer had other plans. Something was off and the taste replicated more grape juice flavors than the caramel and vanilla taste I had hoped for.

With a bit of frustration at 8:52pm (cst) I tweeted out “agh! my dogfish head palo santo tastes like grape juice WTF…I’ve had corked wine but don’t know what to call this beer.”

Within three minutes, one of my followers, Matthew Horbund (@mmWine), a wine consultant and blogger, responded that I should ask professional beer writer Ashley Routson (@TheBeerWench) what may be wrong.

Now, I do follow Dogfish Head on Twitter (@dogfishheadbeer) but at this point in the night I didn’t think anyone would be there to solve my problem so I just left it alone (*note to self: in the future, just send a tweet to Dogfish Head. THEY LISTEN!).

By 6:03am, I received a tweet from @dogfishheadbeer, “Not good – can you DM me an email address? Our QC folks would love to get some details from you (bottle data, etc).” From that point, I was quickly put in touch with quality control and was able to offer them the data on the bottle. I was then put in touch with a local rep who picked up the bottle from my house and made a visit to the wine and spirits store where we purchased the bottle.

As a consumer and also a brand strategist, there were a few things that ran through my head throughout this experience:

First, after I drank the off tasting beverage:
I was completely surprised that I was having a poor experience with Dogfish Head, a brewery I trust to always put out quality product. It made me consider that perhaps quality control had slacked. Could I trust my next beer selection with them?

Then, after receiving the first tweet and following rapid correspondence from DogFish Head:
I was completely geeked-out by the amazing commitment the company had to their product and their customers. They used listening tools to seek out what customers are saying. They LISTENED then used the opportunity to make a situation better. Plus, this did not take much additional effort by the customer (me). They sought the information and ran with the response.

This for me is a perfect case of when a company is truly LISTENING and showing commitment to their product and their customers.

Are there any other brands that you feel are good ‘Listeners’?

If you are interested in some additional insight in how to better connect with your consumers, I’d love the opportunity to chat. I love chatting about wine, food and building consumer relationships. Email me: cbecker@wheatleytimmons.com or find me on Twitter: twitter.com/CarrieBecker7