Data recently published in a study conducted by digital agency Razorfish confirms that when it comes to engagement between brand and consumers, the popular channels of choice begin with the tried and true.
The top-two picks by consumers in order of importance not surprisingly are email and company web sites. Why? History, longevity, experience and therefore trust.
This doesn’t mean that other social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are unimportant. It just means that they are still emerging channels where the consumer experience is still in its “training wheels” phase.
The eminence of trust…
This information telecasts once again what is the preeminent insight about interacting with consumers in the age of consumer control: it’s trust. Trust in the channel. Trust in its use and value. Trust in how the interaction takes place. Trust that comes by way of our understanding and sense of control over the conditions in which we interact.
What’s important here perhaps is this over-arching issue and our ability to get focused on it. Thus how does one maximize trust?
Here are some trust-optimizing tips:
1. Don’t push — sales messages, rather inform, educate and entertain
2. Build an environment that invites conversation and feedback. We have more trust intrinsically with those we believe want to listen and understand our needs and concerns
3. Borrow equity from outside influencers and experts. I’m not downplaying the value of celebrities for example. But I do believe we’ve entered the era of experts. And in doing so have come to understand that it is the outside third parties who have credibility in a subject area that we listen to the most. Outside experts can validate what we claim about our product, service or experience
4. Adopt the style of reporters. Editorial content creators in the old-media age acquired audiences by becoming a reliable source of useful, interesting and valuable ideas and information. The reporter’s style is to present information factually and with a nod towards validating what’s being said with respected sources. This rings with more value than blatant promotion, which often comes across as self-serving
5. Look for trust-breakers. Within the platforms we know consumers prefer such as opt-in email and web sites, are there areas in your content or how consumers are invited to interact that impede trust? Are there policies, procedures and process that can be interpreted as either unfriendly or self-serving. Think about it and perform a “trust audit” to assess the consumer experience holistically
6. And the king of all trust-makers: unselfishness. Imagine caring enough about your core consumer that you work hard to understand their passion and interests, and then actually work to help them enjoy and experience those very same things? What if you emphasized and invested in being helpful and supportive, before you look at the sales transaction side of the relationship?
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but trust really takes root when your audience believes you actually care about them and their welfare. And caring is made real by doing – through tangible demonstration.
Oh my, what have we done here? We’ve actually landed on the structural pillar of sound public relations strategy. What is PR supposed to do in helping you build your brand? Identify those avenues and mediums for you to demonstrate and prove what you assert to be true about your mission, values, product and expertise. To develop an environment of trust and belief.
We’ve come full circle. Trust gets you through the whole concept of successful brand engagement doesn’t it?
You know what’s great about powerful ideas? You can recognize the strengths almost instantly. And yesterday that happened at ragan.com’s review of Whirlpool’s web content strategy. So today we’re applauding and recognizing some terrific work in PR and brand building. As we’ve said before here at the Brand Trailblazer blog, if you look at your best consumers as walking wallets and view the relationship with them as transactional, you are risking failure in your ability to engage and communicate effectively.
On the other hand, treating consumer relationships the same way we regard our closest friends and family (we truly care about them) opens the door to an entirely new spectrum of programs and strategies — aimed at building relevance for your brand in the lives of those you hope to sell to. We call this finding and mining your brand’s “Higher Purpose”.
Whirlpool offers us a terrific example of this kind of thinking, well executed, that demonstrates a profound understanding of how brand relationships are built in the era of consumer control. Whirlpool has created the Institute for Fabric Science and Institute for Kitchen Science as platforms intended to help, advise and engage consumers on problems and needs they may have in their daily lives around cooking, cleaning (appliances) and laundry.
This works to establish Whirlpool as an expert knowledge broker and advisor on issues the consumer faces. Further real people are involved in the content creation and delivery, which helps humanize the brand. It takes about a second to see the vast array of potential extensions these platforms offer for earned media activity and additional multi-media content creation, so vital to aggregating and activating an audience at Facebook.
Monica Teague, Whirlpool’s Senior Manager for PR and Brand Experience had this to say in her Ragan.com interview: “And that’s the whole point of the Institute of Fabric Science and its sister, the Institute of Kitchen Science. Acting as a resource—versus promoting products—goes a long way in developing brand loyalty.” Amen to that. And we would go a step further to point out that now brands are obligated to earn permission for a relationship with consumers based on their ability to authentically connect with lifestyle needs and aspirations. It’s this kind of thinking that helps forge real bonds with people over time.
In the absence of strategies like the Whirpool effort, brands risk disengagement and commoditization – where finding a lower price becomes the only emotional value consumers experience with your business.
Can we really fly blind and expect to be effective?
By Robert Wheatley
There are those great moments of clarity when something hits you. Often it can be something you already know, but your perspective and its horsepower (importance) will get injected with an entirely new level of “amen” when understanding adjusts or elevates a bit. Sorry to be oblique – this happened today while reading Brian Solis’ great book, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.” Yes, there’s a point here and a recommendation.
The emergence of social media has changed the game for PR communications, to be sure. For instance as we’ve heard from virtually every social media pundit, conversation is better than any attempted monologue in brand communication strategy. Frankly its just wayyyy more difficult these days to push messages at people and get any traction. So communication that’s truly effective is no longer one-way.
That means PR people no longer sit solely on a “dissemination” platform (press releases, editor desk-sides, spokesperson media tours) to move messages outward through various channels of non-paid or earned media.
Now relationships and dialogue with influencers and other forms of “democratized” media have to be layered into the brand outreach recipe. What over-arching strategic issue does this immediately recommend? Listening.
Let’s look at the fundamental “best practices” involved in relationship building. If the best conversationalists are always the best listeners, and if brands must form relationships with their best users based on behaviors that approach similarity to what we would call real-world friendships rather than “transactional” relationships, does it stand to reason we should be hearing our best customers?
If relationships are to work, they’re built from a foundation of shared interest. And as covered many times in this blog, we know that brand relationships are earned based on what a marketer does to correctly discern and understand the consumer’s passions and concerns. And then operate as an enabler, facilitator, educator an community builder.
Furthermore if the media landscape is littered with self-published content created by customers, then it only makes sense to know what they’re saying, good or bad.
So listening jumps to the front as an integral part of fundamental PR strategy in the digital age. Right? Yet more often than not it is at the tail end of consideration in plans and sometimes the first to fall off the budget truck when pressure builds to make some cuts.
Of course formal Web-based listening tools should be employed and made integral to PR plans. They should also, however, receive the priority they deserve to be preserved when sacrifices are targeted on the spending front. This takes understanding on both the agency and client sides of the table about the value of it. To do less in some respects is to say that pushing messages outward remains the first and most important path.
Relevant communication springs from understanding. And that’s an outcome of getting quiet for awhile, and paying close attention to the conversations going on all around.
I for one will feel more comfortable as we work harder and with greater resolve to build the listening tools into the front end of the campaign strategy, and not a final layer that almost invites elimination due to its perceived lack of priority.
Hyper-consumption falls as new era of meaning and purpose takes hold
By Robert Wheatley
We are sitting at the threshold of a new epoch in brand marketing and communication. One where old voices tempting consumers to look for the thrill in upward mobility and finding the joy in toys is being replaced by a soulful search for things more meaningful, more substantive.
Now more than ever there is a need to align your brand with a new set of consumer-driven values, to chart a different course with a refreshed voice and message, more in sync with this seminal shift in consumer attitudes. Are you ready? Read on…
The economic “thwack” on the side of the head…
Leave it to one of the worst economic disasters America has seen to finally bring some closure on the continual debate between judging one’s life by the things you buy vs. the “softer values” of contentment, happiness and belonging. Hyper- consumption may well be the biggest casualty befalling strategies for marketing and business as the economy searches for a new path to growth.
While the cauldron of behavior change continues to boil…
Sure enough the pocketbook difficulties (owing more but having less) faced by consumers here and around the world remain bitingly fresh. According to a recent report published in Food Business magazine, consumer spending at restaurants declined 2.2% in 2009 from the previous year. While that may not sound like much it is nevertheless quite remarkable. The data just released by the Economic Research Service of the US department of Agriculture indicated it was the first year-to-year decline reported since 1949, and the largest single drop in the restaurant business since the height of the Great Depression in 1938.
Today Mintel research reveals that beverage alcohol sales were off by 4.9% in the on-premise channel (restaurants, bars and clubs) over the same period. As we cut back in restaurant visits, we’re moving our adult beverage consumption to the home front, up 1.2 % over the same period and over 21% since 2004.
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
In a Forbes magazine report showcasing a new consumer attitude study from ad agency Euro RSCG , we find that saving rather than splurging is preferred now by 87% of Americans. And that 79% of us have way more respect for people who live relatively simple, debt-free lives than we do the bling-centric luxury lifestyle folk. Says Forbes: “Robin Leach has been sucker punched by Ed Begley Jr.”
Having possessions for their own sake and a sense of a life well lived are being separated from each other. Eight in 10, according to the study, believe that society has become too shallow, focusing on things that don’t matter. In a way you might say the “hyper-consumerist” life didn’t pan out the way consumers thought it would.
So what does this mean?
The data helps us see a new picture emerge:
80% of consumers are now shopping more carefully and mindfully.
54% are paying attention to the environmental and social impact of the products and brands they buy.
57% believe that cause participation matters.
More is less today about accumulation of goods. Instead our focus is on community, simplicity, a sense of purpose and belonging.
Successful brands in the digital age grow because they’re learning to align themselves as enablers, facilitators and supporters of consumer lifestyle interests and concerns. So, too, the message in brand communications and PR must adjust to acknowledge the desire for greater meaning, for personal growth, giving back and cause involvement – living simpler and less cluttered lives.
How can your band and product portfolio help consumers live a more satisfying life? And help them realize their desire for greater meaning? For belonging and sense of community?
There’s not a moment to lose. Your brand, your budget and outcomes are at stake. The world of communications has changed, and your PR strategy and tactics must evolve with it. Or be prepared for little to no bottom line benefits from your spend.
Why does this matter? Being in the presence of a message (PR driven or otherwise) does not mean any useful interaction has actually taken place. Your goal is to impact consumer behavior. But there’s a vast difference between communications that is built correctly to accomplish that vs. messages “out there” in media that perpetually circle the engagement airport — never quite landing.
Here are the key questions you should be asking yourself right now…
1. How does the PR strategy connect and align our brand in a relevant and meaningful way with the lifestyle interests and passions of our core customers?
Relevance is key to securing engagement — so consumer insight and understanding is a precursor to building effective communications. There must be clear and specific linkage between PR programs and the consumer’s self interests that position the brand as an enabler, supporter, educator and facilitator of your consumer’s lifestyle passions. Otherwise she’s not going to pay any attention to what you put out there.
2. What proportion of your budget is dedicated to Web-based communication vs. mainstream media?
We have ample evidence that word of mouth drives business results. And now we know that Internet based communication is increasingly the genesis of influence, conversation and discussion about businesses and brands. Yet old habits (always hard to break) push spending and programming frequently down the well-worn path of conventional print and broadcast media. It’s not that these channels don’t matter, they do. But the poor red headed stepchild in many cases is the very media channel that can activate conversation and buzz. So is it time to re-configure the proportional spending to place more assets in web-based media channels? Yes.
3. Social media may no longer be a tertiary place to participate, but are you creating scale underneath your social media strategy?
Unlike any other media property that has come before it, the unique characteristic of social platforms is quite simple: they ALL begin with an audience of zero. It is your content strategy that can help aggregate an audience over time. How well you do this will impact the overall value and benefit of social media investments. Achieving scale is a combination of building and distributing useful, entertaining and valuable multi-media content (read video) along with special offers and benefits – and then integrating social media through every consumer touch point in your marketing communications toolbox.
4. To what extent are you now investing in creating media that fuels the budding relationship with your core users and brand fans?
“Owned Media” is now the third “core” leg of the media communications stool alongside earned and paid. Brands are now publishers and content producers themselves. The Internet has enabled cost-effective distribution. However PR campaigns have historically been built around enticing and convincing third-party editors and gatekeepers to do a story (earned media). And coverage certainly comes imbued with the associative value and credibility from implied third-party endorsement. Equally important however, brands can now talk directly to consumers through custom editorial content thus assuring the message remains unaltered or diluted. Have you launched your video channel yet?
5. Look before you leap. To what extent have you refined your listening tools to be sure you understand what consumer’s are saying to each other about your business?
Pushing messages at people doesn’t work any longer. Relevance is king. And part of the equation is honing your listening investments to be sure you fully understand the conversation that’s taking place around you. There are online-based tools both quantitative and qualitative that serve this purpose. A full suite of listening platforms should be “always on” with analysis following closely behind to assure you’re aware of what’s being said, by whom and where. You can’t effectively engage without this knowledge.
These five areas are vital to effective PR strategy and tactics, tied to your ability to impact behavior. They act synergistically to make communication effective. In the absence of these tools and approaches, you’re resting outcomes more on hope — and hope is never a strategy.
Budgets lag to invest in influence building
By Robert Wheatley
This may not be surprising: A recent study published by Yahoo confirms the Internet is growing significantly as a source of influence for word-of-mouth conversations about brands.
According to the research, 38% of consumers, or 78 million people, have brand-related word of mouth conversations – both on line and off-line – that are influenced by content on the Internet. While most word of mouth conversations occur face to face, the Internet is increasingly important as a driver for those engagements.
That said, budgets and spending continue to show a disproportionate share aimed at communications through mainstream platforms in print and broadcast channels. While many in the marketing communications and PR world will admit they believe talking “at” consumers doesn’t work, and may also agree the most powerful form of communication out there is word of mouth, still spending aimed at cultivating influence on the Web is trailing.
So it goes without saying more assets should be shifted to managing online influence and reputation.
Of course this also puts more pressure on measuring the ROI. Yet social media is a different animal. It’s not about output and broadcasting messages. It is about listening, interacting and engaging on topics relevant to the consumer’s life. Does it work? Take a look at the video by Eric Qualman below:
There are so many wrong-headed thoughts and clichés bleeding from the last graph. It’s time to shed some light, shine a beacon on a new understanding of what great PR truly is. And bring a clear rationale to the reason why brand strategy guidance and PR should be, and in our case are, married.
Granted in varying degrees, some companies treat agency resources in more of a silo fashion – essentially keeping the terms of engagement focused on tactics. But here’s the rub: the difference between communicating for awareness’ sake and the kind of communication that helps build brands and open new markets, is firmly attached to how brand strategy and outreach tools feed from one another.
Successful brands now are built on a foundation of relevance and greater meaning to their users. We called this a “higher purpose” or strategic mission. And often in the early stages of an engagement with a new client, we are doing the spadework necessary to unearth the right path to alignment between the brand’s DNA and the lifestyle passions and interests of core customers.
It is in the grist of this strategic mission that we find the unusual coalescing of communication that is sought out and engaged by its prospective audience (the consumer is now in control of engagement, not the other way around), and our ability to construct a meaningful relationship with the brand – one that can withstand the tests of competition and even a bad economy over time.
Sure you can cast PR as an outreach tool that simply translates features and benefits through an “earned” media pipeline that runs alongside paid (ads) media as another message delivery vehicle – albeit one that is understood to be more credible. But that’s not going to result any longer in demonstrable, measurable connections between the deployment of PR strategy and bottom line business growth. Simple awareness or being in the presence of a message is not the same as acting on it.
Any PR is good PR?
Is mention in an article really the main thing? Well certainly it represents an achievement because you can’t buy it. But that’s only going half way to paradise. The real deal here is when your message truly connects with the audience on a consistent basis and in areas that go far beyond product features and benefits. Sure product coverage is important but it can be so much more when done in the context of an over-arching strategy for the brand that is chocked full of greater meaning and intrinsic value to the consumer.
PR is no longer a below the line tool anyway. PR has now merged with “owned” media to become a brand publishing and media platform universe. It combines what’s long been known as editorial outreach, with building online communities and social networks that make brands media players themselves – and in doing so jumps the shark of editorial gatekeepers to message directly to consumers (but in a fashion that’s very, very different from advertising).
So brand strategy guidance naturally must spring from a deep dive into the brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Combined with a working and thorough understanding of the brand’s competitive set and category behaviors. As well as respectful efforts to fully understand a brand’s historical legacy and cultural fabric.
Most importantly, however, is the requirement to invest in consumer insight so we can know with some measure of confidence what those lifestyle passions and interests look like. This sets in motion a platform for communications and PR strategy that resonates, engages, delights and validates what we hope consumers will believe about a client brands relevance and value to them.
This is our calling. Our path. Our way. Our point of view about PR.
Coming FTC rules pose challenge to social media marketing
By Robert Wheatley
New rules are in the works that could alter the legal landscape for agencies and clients in how they handle blogger outreach and use of third party experts and celebrities as spokespeople.
I wrote an article on this that was published today at Marketing Daily. You can read it here.
Behind all this are several note-able and well-publicized events including the fake blogging scandal involving Walmart and their PR firm, Edelman along with the accusations involving lack of transparency on the part of Whole Foods’ CEO. These events and others have prompted the FTC to consider adjusting their Guides in order to better assure transparency.
This includes disclosure when blogger are paid to promote a brand, are given free products or some other consideration. The same thinking is also extended to media interviews involving outside third-party spokespeople. The FTC’s concern there is if a viewer or listener will understand the spokesperson is being paid.
So agencies are adopting new procedures and policies that will reflect the need for clarity in the relationships between brands and various forms of media.
What’s so bad about transparency?
In today’s wired world where everything can be known or discovered and both brands and businesses live in glass houses, we’re all used to routinely finding out who’s operating behind the curtain. For the most part, the curtain stays open.
I don’t think consumers are surprised to know that celebrities are often paid to promote products they’re interested in. And in those instances when bloggers have been paid and acknowledge that in their posts, I think we find the revelation honest and refreshing.
So let’s embrace the new age of transparency and not worry about the disclosure. It’s a good thing. That said agencies must be sure their policies are in line with FTC requirements to avoid legal run-ins with the Federal policy.
Social media marketing evolves to social business strategy
By Robert Wheatley
We’re standing at the edge of an entirely new business model born of the Internet age. For generations brands have made plans to target their consumers and move messages at them through various paid and non-paid media vehicles. A sort of “push button†model that would appropriate spending down different pipes of communication aimed at informing and persuading.
The Internet and social media have helped activate consumer control over brand relationships and interactions. This requires a seismic shift in thinking from command and control to mining paths of relevance and value to the consumer’s lifestyle.
Underneath the theories behind word-of-mouth marketing and social media platforms and communities is a simple but profound truth: we trust people more than we trust organizations and institutions. And trust is critical to building any kind of lasting bond between a brand and its user.
The next great leap will be the humanization of brands…
In the days of mass marketing, brands were more about their predictability and reliability. Now what matters more is uniqueness and craft. These two points alone favor giving brands a face. Literally.
Our challenge now is to humanize the interactions, communications and experiences people have with brands. This kind of intimacy breeds rapport and leads to trust. So the question we should be asking ourselves is this: how can we put a human face on the brands we guide?
First and foremost, by focusing on the people behind the brand and business. Employees, customer service reps, brand stewards, product development experts, senior management and others behind the great corporate wall should come out to participate openly in the communications process.
Why bother? A humanized brand can more meaningfully and effectively connect with consumers. What better example of this idea than agencies themselves. Sure agencies may attempt to position themselves along the lines of proprietary planning models and other methods that portend a form of “secret sauce†in the creation of effective communication. But in the end, agencies are defined by their people and the qualities, expertise and know-how these individuals bring to the table.
So too, its time for organizations to think about putting real faces in front of consumers to engage with. New media such as blogs and Twitter enable this kind of interaction. So its time now for brands to go LIVE. This approach recommends the development of social business strategy as a method of formalizing the concept and adapting the organization to this kind of change.
Do you want consumers who engage on-line to visit your Web site, consume information on your brand and follow-through to buy your product? According to a recent article at eMarketer, the best route to victory may not be through the advertising path.
A recent poll by Opinion Research Corporation finds that brand mentions in on-line articles are more likely to engage their intended audience and cause them to act, versus banner and pop-up ads, email offers and sponsored links. Once again there is mounting evidence this PR-driven form of communication holds court over push messaging in ads and offers.
The advice to marketers: don’t undercut your investments in PR communication in the on-line world, in favor of paid ad outreach.
What is it about articles?
Articles at once carry the demeanor of authorship and therefore the investment and credibility of its writer. People intrinsically respect articles as a reliable source of education and knowledge. Information and ideas are presented in a conversational fashion that allows the reader to consume, judge and form their own conclusions. They feel in control of the process. And conversely they don’t feel like they’re being overtly sold and thus manipulated by a third party.
We seek out and collect information because it makes us feel good to be knowledgeable. We have an innate thirst for understanding and so articles quench the desire to be aware and in touch.
Study sponsor ARAnet President, Scott Stevenson reports, “More than two-thirds of the respondents between 18 and 34 said they conduct Internet searches for products or services they read about in on-line articles either frequently or somewhat frequently.â€
The channels of effective communication are changing. The arena for engagement is fast becoming digital to be sure. But the basic drivers behind the human desire for information and ideas remains a constant. Content is king. Challenge your PR team to devote more of their energy and attention to securing coverage in on-line venues. Optimize your spending to make sure you’re not leaving on-line coverage opportunities on the table. And remember, brands are now content creators so you don’t need to rely solely on other voices to tell your story.
The form, style and context of the message will matter as much as the message itself. What do you think?
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