Used to be awareness and implied endorsement

By Robert Wheatley

In the good old days, PR was too-often viewed within the brand marketing mix as a below-the-line bit part player that delivered relatively inexpensive audience impressions with a lovely parting gift: implied endorsement of an outside and respected third party – the editorial media.

While “earned media placement” as its called continues to be a centerpiece of client expectations from their agencies and PR staffs, the substantive contribution of PR has transitioned. Today it is most certainly an above the line strategic leader and thus is integral to generating brand growth and new product trial.

Why? The consumer mindset has changed. Dramatically. How they make buying decisions has changed. Emotionally. How, when and where they consume media has shifted. Radically. It is no longer possible to force and dictate consumer behavior through sheer tonnage in conventional ad media spending.

The incredible volume of new products (over-choice) chasing consumers in ever more narrow and specialized categories, combined with the awesome number of media and mediums (inundation) clamoring for everyone’s attention, has precipitated a near total shut-down of what was once thought to be rational buying behavior. Consumers no longer simply absorb and act on the facts arrayed near them through marketing campaigns, packaging, retail displays and other touch points. Instead they go with their gut and perceptions.

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The many facets of what value can mean to different people…

By Robert Wheatley

In our last post we examined the various facets of value that drive brand purchase. Value has many dimensions, and as we indicated, one person’s sense of what is valuable may differ widely from another.

We now market products and services in an era dominated by customization, choice and individualization. Categories have, in amoeba-like fashion, sub-divided into smaller, narrower segments based on the unique needs and interests of distinct consumer groups we affectionately refer to as tribes. So value will have many faces and looks to different tribes. Read More»

Sound advice from the Dean…

Saw this quote the other day and thought it was worth mentioning here:

What’s the best path to increased sales and relevance?

Steve Yastrow’s book WE: the Ideal Customer Relationship is focused in part on the evolution of technology in business and how Read More»

Strategic Decisions Today Will Impact Outcomes Tomorrow…

Recessionary temptation is staring you in the face: conventional wisdom, and lined with the sumptuous comfort knowing many others around you are doing the same thing, is to put your marketing programs on a strict diet. Pull back. Read More»

Interactivity and conversation essential to brand relationship building

Today is a big day. Our client, Sargento Foods went live with their first social media platform. We created a VLOG – video blog – at a new URL titled artisancheesecenter.com – a reflection of the company’s move to embrace Read More»

Mapping The Distance Between Meaningful Ideas and ‘PR Stuff’

The headline above expresses more sentiment about this post than a quote lifted from anyone in particular. Of late we have run into business opportunities that remind us of the distinct paths businesses like ours can and must choose. And as we consider this what-are-you-on-the-planet-to-accomplish fork in the road, it bears mentioning that choice can (should) be just a meaningful to the agency as it is to the prospective client. Read More»

If the consumer has already gamed the old “push” system by tuning out, what makes you think they’re tuned in? If you build it (say it) they will come?

Almost no one argues any longer that consumers have managed to take control of the brand/customer relationship. Equally so, the reams of evidence about clutter and media proliferation help shine a spotlight on why the consumer has chosen to ignore most of the marketing noise they’re exposed to: 3,000 messages a day according to some sources. Even with the ample evidence, we are often confronted with a form of entrenched denial: let’s throw as much push-style communication as we can out afford out there in mass media channels because of its apparent reach. Surely someone (or everyone) will be listening and awareness interests will be served.

But is that the goal of marketing? Awareness vs. engagement…. It has to be the latter if impacting behavior is to come into play.

There may be a lingering, recurring, omni-present, gigantic assumption that consumers are paying attention despite the 800-pound gorilla in the room — we’re smack dab in the midst of the marketing message avoidance era brought on by clutter overload among other things.

What does all this mean? What strategically do you do when consumers actively ignore most of the “talking at you” communication?

Let’s look at the elements of a solution:

Seek The Seekers

Often there’s a latent fear of narrowing the aperture of communications strategies. The desire (potentially unhealthy) to cast a broad net and appeal to everyone — and in doing so to be relevant to no one — is strong indeed. Yet within nearly every category there exists a community (often not so small either) of involved and engaged consumers who are fans and heavy users. Yet so much energy and money is spent that bypasses the deep-dive a brand could be taking to build a relationship with its most ardent customers. And why bother? Because these are the people at the nexus of word-of-mouth – now identified routinely in consumer research as the most credible and persuasive form of communication. They seek out relevance and engagement. They are listening! They may also be your most profitable customers – those willing to pay a premium price and to go out of their way to find you despite cheaper alternatives.

Examples of immersed audiences:

Food products: Kitchen commanders or those who get their self-esteem out of creativity around a stove.

Home products: Novice decorators and household creatives who look at their dwelling as a canvas for personal expression.

Fashion brands: The self-expressives and personal branders who see their look as integral to telling the world they are unique and special.

Travel brands: The learners and cultural sponges who define themselves on their acquired experiences and worldliness from visiting other places.

Mining the higher purpose:

Relevance and engagement are an outgrowth of brands meeting consumers where they live. By definition this will transport the marketing conversation from “buy me” to how a brand can enable and facilitate the interests and passions consumers are intrinsically focused on. It is going to require a willingness to see beyond the forest of features and benefits and reach to grasp an idea that is at once naturally meaningful to a brand’s users.

Example: Panasonic recently announced a platform entitled “Bring Back Family Time” in reference to a multi-faceted project of working to enable families spending time together. This is a higher and more relevant purpose than specsmanship selling so common in the home electronics category. You can see where this could go if you really drive against it: bringing in outside experts on family values and the benefits of time together. Assistance in helping families better plan their time around busy schedules. Creating events and sponsorships that facilitate family interaction. Creating social media communities that allow families to share their experiences and ideas. We could go on and on.

The direction: invest in research to uncover target audience lifestyle insights. Work to find an intersection between the brand’s DNA and your customer’s personal desires. In doing so you can secure a passage to deeper meaning. This is how you earn the right to a mutually beneficial relationship. Second — don’t shrink from investing energy, time, ideas and budget against narrower audiences of brand fans. Segmentation can be a useful exercise to identify these user communities and build a pipeline to a two-way conversation.

Or are we really about to drop the ball…again
Profitable. Revenue. Growth. Business organizations exist to get and keep customers in their respective categories. The acquisition and retention of customers, assuming business model, market and product strategies are right, should support successful achievement of the primary mission. Looking at this from the outside in, all other imperatives and objectives would be secondary.

Ironically we find ourselves more often than not focused on other issues. Delivering media impressions. Securing specific media targets. Nailing key messages. Not that these things aren’t important. In terms of mission and strategy the company itself can also be ethical. You can be innovative. You can be environmentally conscious. You can offer a great place to work. You can have top-notch research and development capability. You can have precision-like processes and procedures. You can have technological prowess. You can have your fingers exactly on the pulse of consumer preferences. But in the end the sum of all these parts must lead to what? Profitable. Revenue. Growth.

Alignment…

Therefore it only makes sense that marketing and PR objectives are in sync with the organization’s business goals. In his book “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” author David Meerman Scott says: “Many marketers and PR people focus on the wrong measures of success like we want ten mentions in the trade press and three national magazine hits each month. What we need to do is align marketing and PR objectives with those of the organization. For most corporations that most important goal is profitable revenue growth.”

Scott’s example of the phenomenon at work is interesting. “This lack of clear goals and measurement reminds me of seven-year-olds playing soccer. If you’ve ever seen little children on the soccer field, you know that they operate as one huge organism packed together, chasing the ball around the field. On the sidelines are helpful coaches yelling, “Pass!” or “Go to the goal!” yet as the coaches and parents know, this effort is futile: No matter what the coach says or how many times the kids practice, they still focus on the wrong thing – the ball – instead of the goal.”

Start the strategic planning conversation about objectives on the business side first. This will help keep all minds and strategies focused on point. And will help drive investments in marketing and communications down the right pipe.

It’s amazing what can happen when the conversation about what you’re trying to accomplish centers on the business agenda first.

The Basic Tenets of PR-Think Relevant Now More Than Ever

Think of these words for a minute: true, open, genuine, authentic, honest, reciprocal - these terms comprise the lexicon of today’s effective brand communications model. In their insightful column, “The New Quid Pro Quo” published in ADWEEK, guest writers Ben Richards and Faris Yakob of the Naked Communications agency recite the demise of the old “ambush” style of intrusive communication. In its place they state, “(the) consumer demands something of value in return for consuming a brand’s communications.” Making marketing valuable to consumers, they say, is the essence of the new Marketing 2.0 model.

Value in this context might be best defined as the coalescing of brand strategy and relevance to the consumer’s lifestyle interests and passions. For the most part these discussions around the tenets and principles of Marketing 2.0 are, in reality, a conversation about the fundamental underpinnings of PR strategy. Skeptical? We’ll allow that for much too long the marketing world has focused entirely on PR tools and tactics - news stories, events and such - or worse - on Hollywood’s silly dramatization of the perky party planner — which has absolutely nothing to do with this discipline. If we go to the root of what public relations is, there are some interesting corollaries with concepts that form the basis of effective brand communication today.

Public Relations, the communications field, has always been about truthful and authentic forms of outreach (not spin - which is a corruption of this precept). PR is aimed at creating the foundations of trust between stakeholder audiences and a business. It is driven through active demonstration and proof of worth, genuine interest and investment in customers and other constituents. It is also about building reputations by taking credible action. Further, promoting and creating the basis for conversation and two-way interaction with audiences has long been at the core of PR strategy. The PR trained brain sees the marketing communications landscape through this lens. And indeed, these things now comprise the fundamentals of constructing successful brand relationships.

It is our intuitive grasp and visceral understanding of this more human, honest and interactive form of relationship communication that makes us ideal front-line players in the launch of new businesses, products and brands. Even the principle channel of communications outreach, through “earned” editorial media, demands a presentation of authentic, honest evidence concerning what makes a product or brand unique and why a story idea offers value to a media outlet’s audience. It is a sense of reciprocity and unselfishness that stands on the floor of PR-driven communications that meets the consumer’s desire for engagement on their own terms. Editorial media presents the case for product trial in a vehicle consumer’s will accept as believable. Brand sponsored experiences and events create the bridge between brand and consumer interests. Dialogue, feedback and conversation are woven naturally into the fabric of the PR based model.

It stands to reason then that as the capability of professionals in the PR business - with respect to understanding brand and business strategy - rises, this arm of the marketing communications arsenal should become the tip of the spear in brand romance building. This is no longer about press releases and media tours (tactics) - rather it is now about our ability to cast brand communications in honest and authentic forms of outreach (strategy) that the consumer will “opt-in” to receive.