A few weeks ago, someone sent me this satirical take on Mel Gibson’s movie, The Man Without a Face, cleverly titled “The Man Without a Facebook”.
I have a confession. I’m…“untaggable”.
You got it – I’m not on Facebook.
I know what you’re thinking. In today’s PR world, it’s our job to be connected. And, I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to the digital realm and emerging trends.
I doled out more that $400 to be a part of “history” by purchasing the first generation iPhone, joined Twitter back in 2008, way before Twitter was cool, was one of the first 300,000 people to join Foursquare and was one of the lucky ones to get a Google+ invite.
Let’s get back to the age-old question, why am I not on Facebook? It’s pretty simple. When I was in college and Facebook was invite only, I didn’t understand why my peers would put all their personal information online for everyone to see. Personally, I’m not an over-sharer – and, honestly, I don’t want to see photos of people getting crazy on the weekends, on vacation or otherwise. And, honestly, do you really care about seeing photos of my family reunion? Didn’t think so.
Recently, I’ve had several conversations with people who tell me they wish they were no longer on Facebook. They’ve said it’s gone from being a place where they could be themselves and keep in touch with their friends, to being connected with family members, which, for them takes away from the idea of the social network. Maybe this is why Facebook saw so many people jump ship in May.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Facebook has some really great qualities; it’s just not for me. It’s disconcerting that more and more people rely on communicating via Facebook versus interacting with people in real life. What’s wrong with spending quality time with a friend or family member?
What about you? How has Facebook or other social media platforms changed your relationships and how you communicated with others?
In the most recent issue of ADWEEK we find an article about the iconic and revered media fashion bible Vogue magazine, and its new Influencer Network of 1,000 women bloggers who have some form of sway with fashionistas in the fashion world.
So a highly respected media property recognizes the power of self-appointed fashion experts and works to align itself with this incremental and important cog in the marketing wheel. The Influencer network of course is accessible to the magazine’s advertisers. And according to ADWEEK the panel members are not paid. Very important and thus credibility maintained. They are asked to provide “feedback” on everything from new product concepts to fashion collections and new campaign materials. And encouraged to talk about products in their networks.
Some time ago we developed a rough approximation of this phenomena and called it the Circle of Influence. Influence matters greatly – to traction of messaging, to credibility, to awareness, to driving word of mouth, to trial and ultimately to sales growth.
Here’s the nuance that matters: Collaboration with bloggers and experts…
Forging a deeper relationship that goes beyond treating the blogger media channel as simply that, another channel of media. Take Neiman Marcus for example. In their NM Daily maga-blog, they recently ran a post featuring photos and links to fashion bloggers they know and respect who wore the season’s new hot color pink – a trend condition thus verified through the involvement of bloggers on the topic.
So what does this mean to you? In a nutshell, it means working to create a closer-in connection and collegial relationship with the most respected bloggers and experts in your category. Not just reaching out to inform them of new products and other initiatives. We’re talking about investment and infrastructure.
Bloggers are media so access to news and information before it hits the mainstream is meaningful. Giving them the opportunity to try, sample and experience new products, new marketing platforms before they go live are important. Seeking out their opinions and views on new programs and campaigns helps make them insiders. Inviting them to your offices for visits, tours and meetings helps build the rapport.
How do you define who matters? Here are some tips to identify the best of the best:
1. Cross platform engagement: the most savvy bloggers and experts (who usually are also bloggers) spread their work across multiple platforms including email, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
2. Passion and strength of voice: you can tell by reading their work, the frequency of the posts, the due diligence done to unearth new information, whether you’re dealing with a poser or a passionate expert.
3. Audience: numbers are useful as verification tools but should not be treated as the determining metric. Quality of the editorial product needs to be weighed with this. Look for linking with other leading experts and those who actively engage with commentary in other blogs.
4. Quote-able source: bloggers who rate higher in the influence arena are also quote-able sources in mainstream channels and online editions of conventional media properties. It’s a measure of their value and power when traditional channels look to them for comment.
5. Compatibility: you know your brand’s voice, it’s point of view in the marketplace. Does the blogger share your sensibilities? More likely the relationship will prosper if you find yourselves frequently on the same side of the opinion fence. Doesn’t mean you need to agree 100% of the time, just more often than not.
Relationships matter and our advice is this: treat these important constituents like your very best customers. Identify the top players and develop infrastructure to facilitate a close-in relationship. Consider embedding that relationship in our social media platforms, too.
YouTube functionality supports converting engagement to sale
By Robert Wheatley
Scanning the recent edition of Google’s recent self-published e-zine Think Quarterly, I ran across an article on functionality improvements at YouTube that permit viewers to buy items they like within the production via a point/click hotlink to another web platform.
Video is an engaging and entertaining medium. With high involvement categories that naturally attract an enthusiastic fan base, you can immediately see the business-generating opportunities when taking advantage of viewer interest and converting “in the moment” to a purchase opportunity.
The site above, You-Tique, is a great example of a fashion business aggregating a series of trend videos around everything from “What’s New for Spring” to occasion based ideas, such as what to wear for a hot date. The use of a Stylist expert helps set the credibility and value equation at the right level right out of the gate.
From there viewers can watch a model wearing the products and click to buy while viewing the video. It’s easy, pretty painless and, in my opinion, way more effective than looking at still photos of a product with narrative information alongside.
Zappos has figured out that online e-tailing gets compelling when you combine the right products with exemplary service. So who knows if the folks behind You-Tique have similar policies for returns and friendly live support. That said, the concept of watch and buy is just plain captivating.
You get richer story telling, context, validation and other benefits that outshine static web site galleries by adding the flavor of video production to the whole proposition. May not be right for every product category but this peek at the future is exciting none-the-less. Think Quarterly says the click through rates for You-Tique have been stellar…
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.
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:
Gold Sabre finalist rounds out heady award season…
Wheatley & Timmons took home two Silver Trumpet awards this year from the Publicity Club of Chicago annual campaign competition. The winning work was for Sargento Foods in the Sponsorship category for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival product launch of their Artisan Blends Authentic Mexican cheese; another Silver — this time in the New Media (as in social and digital) category — for the MOTHERHOOD program on behalf of Thermos brand.
What’s more, the Sargento work was also named one of five finalists for the coveted Gold Sabre – our industry’s top award, also in the Sponsorship category. Unfortunately the final nod went to Procter & Gamble for their Swiffer brand effort, but it was a remarkable achievement to make it through the hundreds of top-level submissions to hit the finalist “best-of-the-best” group.
We don’t by nature, personality or belief look at client work as a means to secure awards or generate a pat on the back. Rather we enter periodically to see how our strategies fare against other top-flight efforts in an independent review. So we thank the judges but even more we thank our great clients and our terrific staff for the work well done. Sargento kudos and recognition belongs to Kerri Erb, Carrie Becker, Krista Cortese and Jill Delaney. The Thermos triumph comes from the star quality efforts of Betsi Schumacher, Mary Clare Middleton, Krista Cortese and Jill Delaney. Bravo!!!!
In the end the final judge of our strategies and ideas is the consumer and their willingness to buy more of our client’ products more often. According to IRI’s April numbers, Artisan Blends continues its rise, up 135% overall in a tough, commodity category. The Thermos program was their first foray into social media and beat all of their objectives for audience building and engagement. So we’re especially happy with that – and pleased that our industry peers found the work laudable too.
Brands are fast becoming media publishers and producers
By Robert Wheatley
Is your brand ready to be its own TV channel? Magazine publisher? Is there a Chief Editorial Officer position looming on the horizon inside your organization? The answer could be yes.
We have entered the era of content marketing. Inbound rather than outbound communication strategies that serve to build Web traffic, remove barriers to purchase, activate brand ambassadors and support community building – all with a shelf life that has remarkable staying power. This shift will inevitably require optimization of brand communications strategies between the three primary platforms of Owned, Earned and Paid media. Of these, more and more momentum is surfacing around Owned Media. Here we discuss its role and value in the marketing mix.
What does your Owned Media plan look like?
We’re on a fast track now to define best practices in content creation for various forms of brand created media — videos, Webcasts, podcasts, blogs, e-zines, e-books and presentations. Not long ago brands worked with their PR counsel primarily to get product massages telegraphed through various editorial channels. While the world of “earned media” will continue to be a relevant and important mode of outreach — albeit along a refined path that assigns increasing priority to bloggers — ”owned media” is rapidly emerging as an important foundation vehicle for acquiring, building and retaining customer relationships. Now is the time to construct your own editorial and programming calendars that chart topics and story telling in a frame your audience will find useful in their daily lives.
Owned Media helps build trust, familiarity and mutual respect…
At the recent Pet Food Forum in Chicago, a conference of leading pet food brands and their minders, I presented the case for brand building that follows a new trail built around identifying a brand’s Higher Purpose – an effort to drive relevancy by aligning the brand value proposition closely with consumer (in this case pet parent) lifestyle needs and passions. Part of the presentation was dedicated to the over-arching requirement for trust-creation and how important social media will be to install the building blocks of confidence, familiarity, respect and comfort that must exist between brand and consumer. Interestingly the entire Higher Purpose proposition seeds and cultivates fertile ground for ongoing content creation that is by definition more meaningful to consumers – because its designed around their needs, interests and concerns.
Equally important, engaging content lies at the base of aggregating an audience in social media platforms. If you do this skillfully, brands earn permission for a relationship. And that includes becoming a resource for news, information, entertainment and education.
Essentially we’re talking about how you can exponentially increase your brand’s worth and engagement value by delivering content that is instructive and helpful to those trying to make decisions about what products to buy.
“Our road to the future begins with understanding that attention is finite and is increasingly thinning. It is now our responsibility to connect purpose and value directly with individuals where, when, and how their attention is focused. We must help ourselves by introducing relevance, discoverability, and share-ability into the mix. Empowering consumers to view the most material information and in turn, make advantageous decisions is now a critical priority and will determine our stature not only in online societies, but also in the markets where we hope to thrive and excel. We are either part of the information gathering and decision-making cycles or we are absent from them. Where we rank once connected is established by our understanding of people and the information they seek combined with our mastery of the networks, tools, and services they use to communicate. And, through the creation of compelling media, we earn the presence, awareness and ultimately the influence we deserve.”
A great example of this at work is Whole Foods and their Secret Ingredient video blog that is aimed at helping home cooks learn new recipes, cooking techniques, ingredient pairings and other useful advice. It sits in the middle of a growing catalog of video material that spans the waterfront of visits to a dairy farm or other tutorials that surround the increasingly popular topic of “where your food comes from.” It informs, entertains, rewards while burnishing the brand as a knowledge broker on subjects their shoppers care about.
Taking responsibility for consumer interaction…
In a way, owned media offers brands a plausible shot to take responsibility for engineering consumer engagement in communications. Ads can be ignored. PR, while intrusive, still requires that messaging pass through an independent filter – one that will certainly be credible. But in the end may not fully expose the audience to all of the relevant information. Editing is editing.
Thus Owned Media allows brands to create and build communication that is delivered in tact to consumers. Of course this creates enormous pressure on relevancy and unselfishness — you cannot do this well if your primary motivation is simply to thrust a selling message in front of someone. This never works. But with a proper nod to relevance, value and sensitivity the door is wide open to put enriched multi-media content squarely in the mix of social media engagement.
We live in exciting times. The PR business has now acquired an added role to combine and synthesize editorial outreach with content creation. The end result is a rich treasure trove of meaningful communication that can hit consumer lifestyle interests squarely on the nose – assuming, of course, that you know what those interests are.
Just think of the possibilities for brand to live in a place that matters and has meaning to the lives of those they wish to sell to –
Cooking tips for the passionate kitchen commander
Destination hints and experiences for the inveterate traveler
Style immersions for the creative fashionistas
Parenting advice for the focused purposeful mom
Edgy ideas for the budding home decorator
Shared stories of adventure for the outdoor enthusiast
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?
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