Periodically we celebrate excellent work, great campaigns and ideas that represent a measure of vision and innovation. For the most part we chronicle higher-calling projects that can impact brand behavior. But every so often a more tactical bit of communications wizardry comes along that you just have to recognize and salute for its sheer out-of-the-box brilliance.
Certainly there’s strategic linkage between the Tropicana brand of OJ and sunshine – the warmth and glow often attributed to Florida orange groves where this delicious fruit gets its healthy props.
So the brand evidently decides that working with portable sunshine can serve as a platform for effective, engaging and maybe entertaining online video communication – as well as serving to underscore a bright metaphor that’s tied to the juice’s origins.
I would have loved to be in the Tropicana conference room when this idea was presented — just to see the reaction, the questions and the process that led to approval. I say that because of the boldness and uniqueness of the project.
Just imagine for a moment: in a small Arctic Circle town in northern Canada each year they go through a period of near total darkness – a continual and unrelenting nighttime. So Tropicana sends an expedition to the town, hauling in a giant gas filled balloon-like object in the shape of the sun. The orb is erected and lit, spreading artificial sunshine and undoubtedly some cheer to local residents…. Not to miss a product tie-in opportunity, the crew passes out OJ bottles to the enraptured onlookers as they marvel at the spectacle of man-made sunshine.
The entire story is deftly shot on video with a thoughtful music track underneath and made share-able with the rest of the world through YouTube and Facebook. Watch it here:
Bravo to Tropicana for bringing a little light to the lives of these Arctic dwellers — and then allowing the rest of us to observe and enjoy the experience. Disruptive isn’t it? Unexpected. Entertaining. Memorable. Emotional. What do you think?
Forever and a day I’ve seen this concept play out in various categories from beverages to food, travel services to floor care and cleaning products, that 80% of your profits can routinely come from 20% of your customers who constitute the most engaged, heavy users in your business. Call them your best fans.
Yet routinely we focus our efforts, strategies and spending on casting a broad net. We try to be appealing to everyone because we keep telling ourselves that our brand and business not only deserves high household penetration, but “we can’t ignore the volume opportunities.” To be sure, but the 20% that’s mainlining your brand and paying attention to your messaging with a little help and “enabling” can become a more productive core of real-world ambassadors. People who can help spread the word effectively to those who are not as fully invested and who don’t buy as often.
Take cheese and pet food for example. Cheese is one of the most popular food categories in supermarkets. We like cheese, so it’s a big volume business. Yet a closer look reveals that consumers who are more emotionally engaged and devoted to cooking represent a “heavy user” profile that purchases more cheese products, more often and in many cases will go for higher priced items when they feel the value proposition is credible. So paying closer attention to this group of emotionally charged ‘kitchen commanders’ can yield incremental benefits in talk value and word of mouth, once they’re fully embraced, recognized and rewarded by the brands they love.
Or in pet food: a dynamic audience combination we refer to as indulgers and doters consists of a high percentage of higher income households who treat their animals like family members — and will even go as far as cutting back on some of their own discretionary purchases in order to keep Fido in tip top shape by feeding him a super-premium pet food diet. Industry statistics show this group continues to fuel an incredible growth track record in the emerging natural and organic segment – even though the tough economy has weighed in heavily in many segments to compel “trading down” behaviors.
Your call to action…
Think of it this way, your PR communications ROI outcomes will improve when communicating with an audience that’s really, genuinely paying attention. Those who have emotional, personal lifestyle connections to a brand are listening — first at the category level. A brand that works over time to mine relevance with this audience has the opportunity to build a unique relationship and bond. Conversely broad awareness tactics can perform as a “reminder mechanism” for the larger audience segments out there who may buy less often but who have ties to the franchise through their habit behaviors.
1. Consider for a moment the opportunities from investing more fully in courting your heavy users. What would you do differently? What efforts might you undertake to help create a community around these groups and empower them to interact with each other – especially important for home chefs and pet parents who want to share tips, ideas, experiences and insights with each other.
2. What rewards and recognition can you offer to your most devoted followers that surprise and delight – and thus are often the triggers to generating strong, credible and organic word-of-mouth communication.
3. What sponsored experiences can you create and deliver that bring your brand as close as possible to your best fans and allow them to interact with you and each other. In food this could include unique culinary experiences that reward your best customers with an opportunity to learn from the food heroes they respect like celebrity chefs. For pets it could be local dog park events and contests that allow pet parents to engage in shared experiences with their animal and with each other.
But wait there’s more…
Today, excellent blogger and thought leader Sonia Simone has an interesting post at Copyblogger that talks about the personal side of the Pareto Principle and how it impacts you and what you do. Her observations:
“…Which means that 20% of your customers provide 80% of your revenue. 20% of the time you spend behind your computer provides 80% of your best work. And 20% of that great meal you had last night provided 80% of the pleasure. (It was the chocolate mousse cake, wasn’t it?)
Because of the Pareto Principle, there’s always a “20%” you should be spending your time on. And in just about every discipline, it’s known as the fundamentals.”
Have you sat down to think about your day, your activities and to reflect on this idea – that 20% of your efforts will produce 80% of the great results and accomplishments you’re looking for? So what do the fundamentals look like for you? Maybe it’s a good idea to start by putting more energy and investment into courting your biggest fans…
Wow, last week was “Apple Land in America,” with all of the online and mainstream media conversation around iPad. Marketing sites did comparisons of buzz-metrics between Jobs and President Obama’s State of the Union message, with Apple winning on most scorecards. Apple continues to blaze new trails, even in their deft handling of the sales message.
Brands look at the Apple phenomenon with envy. Wouldn’t we all want our brands to glow with similar outsized levels of consumer devotion and enthusiasm? Truckloads of breathless media attention and positive coverage oozing out of every channel we can dream up?
There’s a very simple yet dramatically important aspect to Apple’s behavior that bears mention. So much of the time in marketing and PR we’re focused on the essence of the new feature and benefit. We sit down in a conference room to review in every detail the various achievements the R&D department has wrought in discovering new recipes, technologies or bringing measurable improvements to an existing product.
And so communications follows this path to creatively move the “what’s new news” through various media channels. On the other hand, Apple religiously and routinely focuses its communication from a slightly different angle: the consumer first and itself second.
Sure the product messaging is there, but the twist is vital, important and matters to achieving a better outcome. The overview tour of iPad is conducted from the user experience point of view. It’s about you first and how the product answers the need, rather than me first and my wizardry.
What’s missing?
The lesson here all too often is about remembering to put the consumer in the driver seat on messaging. Framing the new product in terms of the consumer’s real need and then connecting to your solution’s deft handling of same. Steve Jobs talked about iPad in the user context. How the product makes common tasks like Web browsing and book reading more engaging and interesting.
Simply said: consumer first, me second. The shift is important because relevant messaging trumps the easy-to-fall-into trap of specsmanship. Consumer self-interests govern our willingness to engage and listen. Apple smartly knows this and frames the message in this way.
Consider a new food product that comes to the table answering first how it solves a preparation dilemma cooks would immediately recognize.
Or maybe a household appliance that springs from real-world concerns expressed by time-stressed homemakers.
So often in the consumer electronics world its about increased lines of resolution or connectivity improvements and expressed as such. Apple understands the specs and technology advances aren’t nearly as compelling as the experience itself.
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.
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.
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
With all the conversation about engagement with social media one would assume that online discussions about products and services lead the way as purchase decision drivers. Sure they remain important and vital because moms look to social platforms for advice, support and connection.
That said, when it comes to making purchases, offline networks of friends and family trump all other sources for advice on what to buy, according to a recent study released by MomConnection and The Parenting Group’s 5,000 member mom panel. Even though the study data confirms 60% of moms are using social networks in their daily routine, they are four times more likely to look to their off-line network for info on which products to buy.
As indicated before in a recent article we published, validation is essential for consumers to confirm assertions made by brands about the outcomes of product use and experience.
Communications increasingly is a circular proposition where touch point consistency matters and outside third party connections loom large as sources that bring high levels of built-in belief cachet. It is the belief thing that brands find hardest to “manage” because trust comes not only from brand relationships well done, but importantly, from sources outside a brand’s control wheelhouse.
So how do you influence the circle when elements of the belief system most important to moms lie not with brand outreach but with their friends and family?
Creating the tell-able tale…
It helps of course when products and services are unique and interesting enough to come already equipped with natural charm, allure and magnetism. But even with the most magnetic of brand personalities, marketers need to think through the story telling opportunity and ask these questions:
Is my message sticky and repeat-able?
Is it thus short and memorable?
Are there good story telling elements wound in to keep it interesting?
Can the “keeper of the story” come across as insightful and knowledgeable to her circle of friends?
Does the story contain nuggets of intrinsic value to the consumer that is relevant to their own lifestyle needs and interests?
Simply said, can I craft a tell-able tale around my brand and product story, one that can be easily passed around to others?
Moms drive much of commerce so this is an important discussion to have. It’s about looking candidly at this potential disconnect in the communications landscape. If I want my brand story to be passed along from mom to mom, is it truly designed to accommodate this requirement?
Complicated messages die-hard anyway, so passing communications through the crucible of simplicity is a good thing no matter what. But designing messages specifically to enhance their pass around value is yet a new technique that requires extra effort to get right.
Here are the most popular subject topics for mom-to-mom conversations on product choices:
Everything you used to believe about crisis strategy is evolving
By Robert Wheatley
Yesterday I had the extraordinary opportunity to speak at the annual conference of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers Association in Milwaukee. My deepest thanks to Dick Kendall for inviting me. This organization represents leading companies that make paper products and the components that go into them. The theme for the conference was “The Road to Recovery.” And part of the agenda was devoted to disaster and what to do when it strikes.
My part: to present the case for an entirely new approach to crisis communications strategy, emerging from the growth, influence and realities of social and digital media.
Just before I got up to talk, two gentlemen with Packaging Corporation of America, Ron Zimmerman and Bruce Kummerfeldt, led a heart-rending review of a recent plant disaster that claimed the lives of three of their colleagues following the explosion of a large storage tank. They chronologically described the unfolding events from the moment the ground suddenly shook like an earthquake through the days and weeks that followed. Media was on-site at the plant within 20 minutes of the explosion.
You could feel their pain as they described and maybe re-lived — the unnerving conditions and loss of life. Some of the activities in response to press and other agencies (OSHA) followed a well-worn path that those of us in crisis response have been down so many, many times before. But all of that is changing. Right now.
It’s Now Disaster at the Speed of Light
Early in my career I worked on the aftermath of the Bhopal disaster in India that claimed at least 10,000 lives. I got involved downstream (1984) with a team assembled by Ogilvy & Mather, agency for Union Carbide, to address mounting community relations challenges in areas where their domestic plants operated. In those days, we spent time in due diligence, research and planning, and our work with media followed this effort using the familiar tactical tools we had come to rely on in the TV generation of sound bites, fact sheets, third party expert interviews, etc. The materials and tools we developed became the grist for stories written or produced by trained journalists. We all understood the rules of engagement.
I love this quote from Rupert Murdoch that just nails the evolutionary moment we are in: Technology is shifting the power away from editors, publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are in control.
The traditional media world of rules of engagement has given way to information, images and video uploaded by anyone (not professional journalists) at anytime to platforms that are instantly global. And those pieces of communication may or may not convey the facts correctly. Perception indeed leads reality.
My message: you are not in control anymore. And events unfold at speeds approximating the nanoseconds of digital transmission. Social media can help create and help solve crisis events. But the time to get involved in social media is not at the moment of crisis, but now.
The crisis communications toolbox has forever changed. There are advantages to social media communication in our ability to listen more quickly, effectively and to distribute information directly to stakeholders and by-pass the once exclusive filter of traditional media. But that comes, too, with responsibilities founded on honesty, humility and transparency.
It’s a new world, requiring a new recipe. Are you ready? Says Jason Baer of Convince and Convert blog: If you can’t get a video of your CEO on YouTube within 3 hours, anytime of day or night, you are not ready.
It’s time to overhaul the crisis response protocols. You agree?
For years (wow, has it been that long?) this blog has extolled and showcased the virtues of finding and mining the brands’ higher purpose.A sweet spot that serves as the umbilical chord between a brand and hyper-relevant concerns, issues and passions in the consumer’s life.
And why does this matter? Because anything less than a bond based on this kind of emotionally charged value can lead to commoditization — and the downward spiral of a brand’s core value proposition. So this is a frequent subject here because it is so important to brand building in the digital “consumer-is-in-control†age.
Pampers “pampers†their target’s true needs…
One could assume that Pampers brand is in the business of providing a convenient, absorbent product to help protect baby bottoms. Think of all the investment that must go into diaper materials research to offer comfort while fulfilling the primary dryness mission. Or design engineering to prevent leaks. And what about those closure mechanisms to keep the diaper in place when baby is moving. We can’t forget the cartoon character licenses to dress up the diaper exterior and presumably bring a smile to both baby and mom.
Well the day of feature and benefit selling as we’ve come to know it is over. These things while important are table-stakes. Great design and technology is a given. The competitive formula has evolved and moved on. Successful brands in the years ahead will be those that “matter†to their primary buyers. The brand value proposition is no longer simple math around the analytical facts that ladder up to “superior.â€
Emotion precedes logic…
It is vital for brands to determine what their essential meaning can be to users. And that meaning by the way is going to be found beyond simple, analytical distillation of the core product attributes themselves.
Pampers brand has famously arrived at this understanding. What is the core truth for new parents? The awesome, lifelong responsibility they are about to undertake comes with no user manual. Parenting is a big, big transition in life, full of delights, stresses and surprises. Children change everything.
So is Pampers ultimately selling diapers? No. They recognized that the path to “permission†for a brand relationship is tied to how they can best help, assist and support this central parenting mission.
A Parent is Born – what a fantastic statement that simply nails the point. With every first birth a new parent is born, too. The journey Pampers embarks on puts the brand in league with the none-too-trivial concerns their buyers have about caring for their new child.
There’s simply no end to the extensions and content-deep communications territory this “mission†will yield. To start with they’ve created a documentary series of videos (see them here, here and here) that chronicle the real-life experiences of a brand new family. They are thoughtfully produced with a balance of entertainment value and the transfer of authentic, real parenting experiences.
This platform is perfectly suited to social media channels, such as integration with mommy bloggers for mom-to-mom interaction. Importantly the whole project elevates the brand’s relationship and value to mom and dad. The emotional equity this creates over time is palpable.The unselfishness in the messaging completes the circle of credibility. Nothing comes across as a sales pitch. Because it doesn’t have to!
Stop pitching, start relating…
P&G has determined that treating consumers as objects to sell to isn’t nearly as powerful as treating them as individuals to help, assist and support, and in doing so to earn a valued position on the consumer’s list of brand’s they care about.
It may sound counterintuitive to those who think you must hammer away at benefits. Well, consumers are already better educated and informed than at any other time in human history. The old tell them, tell them again and then tell them what you told them era of selling is done.
So now it’s time to look for the higher purpose for your brand. In doing so you will open the door to a brand related bond. Plus open engagement and conversation with a customer who is actually listening, and that leads to preference. And preference drives sales.
One of the most endearing qualities of AMC’sMad Men series is its slavish devotion to authenticity – and not just the period dress and behaviors. The Sterling Cooper milieu is recognize-able for many in the agency business (PR or ad) even now, who can literally live alongside Don Draper in their creative strategy conversations and presentations.
We’ve Been There…
We resonate because of its relevance to our own business lives and experiences. We listen to Don and his minions discuss a client problem and know the thread of the conversation, because we’ve been there so many times before. Sure the work and its final execution exudes the sensibilities and cultural axioms of its era, but the mental activity around solution-building bears similarity to the leaps we work so hard to make – leaps that fall from deeper insight about consumer needs and desires.
Recognizing the Culture of Creativity…
Our organization is built around daily walks down the creative PR path. We dig for insights, we work very hard to unearth ideas that blow past the limitations of product features, to translate benefits in more powerful ways. In Mad Men this happened wonderfully in a dramatic meeting with Kodak and the launch of its eponymous “Carousel†slide projector — a revolutionary idea in its day.
In the show, Kodak reps wax on about the gizmo’s “space-age†technical achievements and capability. Naturally they think these things constitute its chief selling proposition.
Then, along comes Don and his innate ability to make the leap. In the agency’s creative presentation he says: “This is not a spaceship. It’s a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, and it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.†This statement conveyed while images play of his wife and family in happier times.
It was a moment of vintage leap to be sure. The presentation gently forced the Kodak guys to rethink what they we’re really selling. So, fast-forward. What constitutes the leap in 2009? What is the essential shift in our current world that must drive creativity and ideas?
Relevance in the World of Permission
In Don Draper’s day, you told the consumer what to do. Quite often they did it. Hence the era of mass-vertising, shotgun publicity strategies and their efficiencies propelled by routine effectiveness. Controlled messages were conveyed broadly. Repeatedly. Broad-based publicity efforts drove coverage across large swaths of media territory – millions of impressions racked up in various channels and to great impact on the awareness meter. Clip books were a mile thick.
Now the consumer holds the reigns in the equation, and the marketing world is dominated by unique “tribes†and narrow markets of consumer self-interest. Paid media has lost traction because consumers have tuned out what they perceive to be an interruption. Media itself has splintered into thousands of channels. The strategy is peer-to-peer more than message delivered to gazillions of aggregated eyeballs. It’s about the quality of conversation not quantity of heads exposed to a message.
Brands must now earn permission for a consumer relationship through ideas, acts and programs that “help†consumers realize their personal lifestyle dreams and aspirations. The Leap falls from a new form of understanding: strategy flows from a businesses’ ability to understand the fabric of lifestyle relevance and mine it. The Kodak moment transcends to enabling different, unique communities of shared memory and experience. Kodak should have invented Flickr.
Mad Men is a curious mirror for agency folk. Our work today is in many ways the same: know thy audience. And in many ways different:we don’t dictate, persuade or compel. Instead we invite, converse, help and demonstrate our willingness to earn faith and trust.
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