Your brand as expert in third-party content key to completing media picture

By Robert Wheatley

Ok, you’re doing business in a high involvement category like pet care, or you’re competing in a business where you’ve found a relevant issue or passion your consumers truly care about — like childcare products and addressing the parenting advice needs of new moms and dads.

You want to take advantage of the vast capabilities social networks provide along with other digital channels to publish, to inform, to give your brand a voice as a trusted source of education and information on topics that matter to your best customers.

Curating — another step along the path…

To be sure optimizing earned, owned, shared and paid channels is critical to taking a holistic approach to communication – one that recognizes the consumer is truly in control of the relationship and we need to be present where and when they choose to engage.

That said there’s another and equally compelling arena for engagement that truly helps complete the picture on the road to becoming more valuable and enticing as a trusted, useful source.

This story in the Chicago Tribune charts the sea change in the pet care category as super-premium diets gain traction and consumers increasingly see their pets as family. So behaviorally they’re working over-time to understand the finer points of pet nutrition. There’s just so much to learn for so many sources. Who can make sense of it?

Savvy pet care brands can help. You can help too in your category. How? Curate the third party info out there.

The Internet presents itself as a gigantic and perhaps infinite library and broadcaster of material, information, media and advice. Brands can play an invaluable role to help separate wheat from chaff in the overwhelming landslide of this content — and in doing so bring the best of third party media forward in an organized, easy-to-consume way.

The goal: be an expert and respected tour guide in subject areas that matter to the relevant lifestyle passions and interests of your core consumers. Simply said don’t just publish exciting original content but also edit the abundance that’s already out there from other credible sources.

Add context to the content…

There’s more to it than simply aggregating a portfolio of blogs, articles and broadcasts. Add context and commentary that helps layer on a sense of meaning, direction, guidance and interpretation. This is what a trusted source does: separate the useful from the not so and then add color and value to the most relevant material out there.

After all, your brand is an “expert” in its category, right? Who better to help sift through and identify the best and then provide it to your fans and followers.  Just another way to add greater value  — to matter — in the relationship you’re working tirelessly to build with consumers and stakeholders.

You agree?

Keys to making branded content come alive

By Robert Wheatley

Ok, so what’s an editorial voice and why does it matter? If you’re exploring the role of content marketing (brand produced media content) in the mix of your communications efforts, then editorial voice is job one in helping you define the best practices to position your brand as a trusted source.

In a recent edition of AdWeek magazine some important facts emerged: 27 million pieces of online content are shared daily. 23 percent of social media messages contain links to content. There are brands in virtually every consumer category now looking for the right path to more productively activate their presence in social media channels. Fundamental to that goal is creating and offering compelling content that serves as the fuel to drive and activate social engagement.

So it’s no surprise brand owned content is rapidly gaining traction as a rising star in the marketing arsenal. Back in the day brands looked at media as something you bought. Today brands ARE media – publishers and producers of video and narrative content that operates in the same way as conventional media to reach, engage, educate and sometimes purely entertain your best customers.

But this is unlike the media proposition most CMOs are used to. It is not advertising. And shouldn’t be handled as such. It is closer in many respects to the tenets and principles of editorial media and reporting – the province of PR. News has always thrived no matter if its investigative or soft feature oriented, based on its relevance, value and credibility as a reliable source of interesting information. Even as brands acquire the tools to become publishers and producers, the same rules apply: you must first be a trusted source. And that’s as much in the saying as it is in the doing.

What’s the key to making all this work? Finding your editorial voice.

It is hard for businesses to do this internally. The skill sets and needs require a blend of editorial savvy, experience AND creativity. Consumers recognize a voice that is pure promotion from one that is meant to inform, teach, advise, explain or entertain. And its not that easy – you can’t bore your audience into engagement either.

Public relations has been viewed and defined for decades as a discipline focused on knowledge of the news media, reporting principles and access to this credible and powerful channel of communication.  To be sure there’s more going on in the PR discipline than publicity. But for the most part, the outside world quickly “goes there” when looking at the value proposition for PR in the mix of communications tools for businesses and brands.

Now that same expertise and capability you reached for to get into the newspaper, magazine or TV program, is coming to the fore as best-in-class creators of content published by brands in social channels.

Editorial voice is about how messages are crafted and presented. Whether in narrative or video form yes, it MUST BE entertaining and interesting but it also can’t feel like a sales pitch.

Here are the essential keys to doing this right:

Editorial calendar

Put some infrastructure underneath this effort to think and operate like a traditional media organization. From quarter to quarter, what topics will you cover that will be of interest to your consumers? Build an editorial calendar to shape this content schedule and help you focus on tasks required to produce it.

Deploying outside expert voices

Outside experts bring added cachet to the table, respect and credibility to what’s being said. Trust is key here to success and can be helped along by routinely using outside experts as quote-able sources. The brand gets instant rub-off benefits of reliability when respected third parties are involved in the content you develop.

Reportorial approach

Don’t pitch, inform. Start a conversation. Speak with not at. Yes authority is useful and important but the editorial voice doesn’t cross the line into overt selling. It’s an unselfish form of communication that springs from businesses that truly care about their customers and thus want to become a relevant part of their lifestyles.

Emerging trends

“You heard it here first.” Well if not first then at least early in. Start the discussion on emerging trends. Become a valued source on information about subjects that impact your consumer’s lifestyle.

Frequency matters

What’s the shelf life of a newspaper? One day and then it lines the cat box. Similarly news and content should be constantly in a state of evolution and change. New episodes, articles, interviews. Keep it fresh. Short lead media like blogs can be supplemented with long-lead material like e-zines, webinars and e-books. Mid-stream content in the form of video and podcasts should be considered in context of where these mediums most benefit the story telling.

Aggregate and curate

Bring in and showcase other outside sources of content you know are relevant and offer it up to your audience of brand fans. Again your objective is to be a respected and trusted source and thus a reason to be generous in recognizing other work from other places that is meaningful.

PR lives in the editorial space and understands how to create messaging that conveys information in this way. The great news: the end product is nonetheless a controlled message. Its delivery is assured. And the platforms where it exists are measurable in every way. What is your responsibility though to make this work successfully? First find and retain your editorial voice.

What do you think?

Agencies that lead bring more value than order takers

By Robert Wheatley

Hugh MacLeod is a creative and insightful expert who regularly exposes the soft underside of the marketing world — and helps us laugh at ourselves. His thoughts, expressed as graphic images, can be down right powerful. Today’s post in some respects is a perfect foil for a few of his engaging ideas. (Check out gapingvoid.com – and subscribe to his daily image emails).

Great work falling from great ideas can transform the future direction and growth of business. Yet more often than not, by definition, it will require clients to stretch, to have faith and take risk. And none of this will see the light of day unless agencies step up to passionately support and defend solid out-of-the-ordinary thinking. This is often the price of strategic concepts that are unique, unexpected and disruptive (in a positive way).

An insightful article on this subject was published today by Cory Treffelett of Catalyst SF. You can read it here . In his excellent piece he accurately describes the difference between a vendor and partner style relationship between agency and client. Essentially the order taker vs. the leader.

Good agencies are in the strategic idea creation business. Clients make investments in programs and concepts that will grow business, build brand reputation and attract or retain new customers. No easy task. And I can recount over the years in virtually every instance of needle-busting results, innovative concepts always supplied the accelerant. Thus risk and leadership is demanded of the agency.

The path of least resistance is easily followed and at times it feels much safer to stay within the comfortable bounds of serenity — a quiet surf made calm by the absence of tough discussion that can whip up a big wave or two along the way.

Fear – collectively our greatest enemy
What stands in the way of great ideas and game-changing initiatives? It’s fear. Fear of rocking the boat. Fear of losing the account. Fear of failure. Fear of disagreement. Fear of ruffling feathers. Fear of slaying sacred cows. Fear of the unknown. Fear of folded arms and taught expressions. Fear of shaking heads. Fear not being loved. Fear of losing the budget. Fear of the boss. Fear of mistakes. Fear of conflict. Fear of perception leading reality. Fear of risk, of making the big bet. This insidious human condition interferes so many times, closing the gate on otherwise powerful moves that may occasionally require a willingness to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

This is not a call to arrogance and conceited behavior by the way. What is in the client’s best interests at all times will be growth and development of their brand and their business results. The fact that innovation is often at the fulcrum of transformative periods only means that risk will be part of the mix in bringing these things to fruition. Clients who are challenged by their agencies to accomplish more through bolder initiatives are needed now more than ever. And are often in short supply for all of the reasons mentioned above. Just take the order, do the work and make sure everyone is happy and smiling all of the time? No great thing was ever accomplished by simply riding the existing wave. Blazing a new trail will be required of us.

Agencies and Clients Together Offer the Best Formula…
There’s an old saying, “an agency is only as good as its client.” Well in some end-game sort of reference I suppose this is true if all you ever hear is no. Should clients run from risk and punish their agency for bringing bold ideas then Houston, we have a problem!! Ultimately however, agencies have an obligation to bring this kind of thinking routinely. It should be the rule rather than the exception.

Clients can help this process by openly inviting and encouraging their agency partners to challenge them, to say no when its necessary, to think big, to look for new territory to trail-blaze. In essence to disrupt the category conventions and accepted brand behaviors that can deter major leaps ahead. Clients also acquire an obligation: to be willing to approve and fund campaigns with risk involved. And be prepared to accept a mistake along the way and learn from it.

This kind of healthy give and take — lively discourse built around discovery and epiphany — is essential if transformative programs are to get out of the developmental garage. Our daily mantra should be to make this quest genuinely a part of our culture and operating philosophy. To do less is to compromise the values and integrity of what we’re on the planet to accomplish.

What do you think?

Connections to key lifestyle interests invoke openness to engagement

By Robert Wheatley

“The problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.” — George Bernard Shaw

Business growth opportunities abound for brands that fully understand the conditions and events that set in motion openness to communication – as in “I’m listening.” Much of the time consumers are not. The presence of brand communication at any given moment is not nearly as important as the audience’s willingness to pay attention. That may feel a bit like saying water is wet. But hear us out: lifestyle interests and events drive the readiness to listen. There’s an optimal time and place when consumers will be primed to engage.

Our point: brand communication gains a whole lot more traction when it occurs in tandem with relevant consumer behavior than it does randomly. Yet all too often, brand outreach is showered broadly as a form of messaging rain, timed to coincide with retail distribution or promotion period considerations more so than consumer lifestyle connection. In effect, brands remain ever hopeful that consumers will simply collide with the message storm or will be magically lured into engagement through its ubiquity, entertainment value or sheer novelty.

Lifestyle events prime the pump of openness…

Brand communication and PR strategies anchored to a foundation of real insight about the consumer’s relevant lifestyle concerns and passions will help crack open the door to hyper-targeted communication that conveys the right thing at the right time to the right person.

Getting Alignment With Target Audience Interests

Here’s a living example — Nesties – as defined by market research firm OTX and on-line retailer The Knot – are a unique segment of 25 to 32 year old female consumers. They represent the low hanging fruit for an array of household and lifestyle products. When these women become engaged to be married it triggers a period of three to five years devoted to wedding planning, new household creation and starting a family. These events in turn motivate an array of purchases.

It is the events and changing conditions in their lives that activate a behavioral response. Collectively Nesties are long-range “planners” who feel they have primary responsibility in setting up their new households and take responsibility for decorating, cooking, social activities, household chores, caring for children and pets.

This group shows evidence of predictable purchase behavior. And offers brands an audience already receptive to establishing a relationship that could continue beyond these formative years. So investments should be made in carefully crafted dialogue focused on this unique tribe — and grounded in positioning the brand as helpful and involved with her changing lifestyle needs, concerns and aspirations. This will lead to business growth.

Finding The Optimal Moment

Strategic timing and location of communication can also yield added engagement value. Meaning if it occurs when a person is actively doing something germane. A simple example of this is what we call leveraging a food brand’s kitchen footprint or in effect building its “share-of-countertop.” There is increased receptivity to brand messaging when the delivery timing coincides with related consumer’s behavior – in this case when working in the kitchen space. An obvious starter is to provide useful meal ideas, entertaining suggestions, tabletop recommendations, recipe preparation hints and serving suggestion guidance. It is an optimal environment for having a conversation — because the consumer is naturally open to it and their brain is switched on to the subject matter.

Nailing The Best Message

Messaging gains power when it is configured around the consumer’s lifestyle interests. Finding this sweet spot of alignment is what we call identifying a brand’s Higher Purpose. When the brand positions itself as an enabler, facilitator and supporter of a consumer’s personal passion, you’re able to forge powerful outreach tactics from this base. Consider the strategic possibilities that could fall out of sharpening your focus on consumer groups devoted to specific lifestyle interests such as fashion, travel, music, art, pet care, food enjoyment, cooking, child rearing, fitness, sports, home decorating or improvement, self-improvement, gardening, outdoor recreation, entertainment, entertaining, relationships and socializing. We could go on. The point is: the days of the hard sell, transactional style relationship are over and that form of messaging is out the window with it. So you want the consumer to understand some of the unique functional benefits in your product. Ok. And the path to getting their ears switched on springs from your willingness to be generous and unselfish — and thus play a role in their passions. It’s a richer, deeper and more personal relationship you want to construct.

The end result will be increased brand relevance, preference and sales.

By Bob Wheatley

Photo credit: Sharon Dominik

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…

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

By Robert Wheatley

Image c/o Philip and Karen Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not so.

What’s needed…?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: Carrie Becker

Image c/o Flickr Thomas Hawk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moms seek advice from “live” sources…

By Robert Wheatley

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:

Children’s toys and games 86%

Entertainment 84%

Cooking and baking tools 82%

Online/offline shopping 78%

Drugs and remedies 75%

What do you think?

$11,000 (per occurrence) consequence if rules not observed

By Robert Wheatley

Over the last few months we’ve been reporting on the FTC’s efforts to refine guidelines on use of celebrity/third party spokespeople and the emergence of bloggers as a new, legitimate channel of media. A channel, by the way, that comes without the built-in rules traditional media organizations observe regarding ethical separation between PR and reporter.

Let’s start with the FTC’s hard news: if outside spokespeople participate in communications activities outside of advertising, such as a talk show interview, they need to disclose the paid relationship if they are going to talk about a brand or business. Similarly, if Bloggers (or other word-of-mouth sources) receive consideration in the form of payment or freebies in return for promoting a product, that also must be disclosed.

The FTC is saying something that only makes sense: consumers have a right to know if the mouthpiece has received payment in return for endorsement. While there may be some tawdry exceptions to this, for the most part, PR people in previous eras have not been in the business of buying favorable editorial coverage. A story has to stand on its merits. But the spokesperson thing was always a grey area in terms of how a relationship between third party and brand is defined or explained.

Now clarity exists on all fronts, and to the benefit of the consuming public — full disclosure of who is working for whom. Celebrity’s must say in an interview, I’m here today on behalf of brand x. And when Bloggers are paid to write, the deal must include requirements for disclosure of the arrangement. The FTC’s goal is to make sure all information is upfront, should any of it have an impact on the consumer’s decision to purchase something based on what they’ve heard or read.

This is a good thing!!!

One of the hallmark’s of effective public relations strategy is building credibility, and that is best served when all aspects of a relationship with media and third parties is out in the open. Honesty supports integrity and trust reigns supreme in relationships between brands and their users.

• Agencies and clients from here on in must abide by these rules of disclosure or risk punitive action

We applaud the FTC and their decision because it supports what we’ve always believed that great products, services and businesses don’t need to employ fakery or illusion to win in the marketplace. This will foster greater need for PR people to choose wisely in selecting outside spokespeople, preferably those who have genuine interest and reasonable, tangible connections to the products they endorse. Scrutiny, as always, is present these days and authenticity will be apparent to all observers. Why? Because in the new media age anything that can be known will be known.

What do you think?

Talking to consumers like a friend opens the dialogue

By Robert Wheatley

Seth Godin had a terrific post today. It begins with the premise that most marketing is aimed at recruiting new customers — thus the object of a brand’s obsession is very often going to be a stranger. He compares this to the paradigm of friendship where openness to an exchange of ideas is organic. Strangers are harder to talk to and convince of anything than a friend – whom you have motivation to listen to.

Let’s expand on this idea to describe a basis for effective brand communication strategy…

What are the characteristics of a good friendship? Perhaps mutual respect and affection are evident. When you interact with a friend you listen. Intently. You are patient. You care about their aspirations and concerns. You look for ways to be helpful. You give before you get. There’s a bond there that operates in parallel with some measure of compatibility – like-mindedness that serves to energize and put forward momentum into the relationship. Compatibility by the way usually arises from shared interests.

More often than not, business and marketing plans treat consumers as objects to sell to. The communication is built on a presumed clinical exchange – I make a great product and use my marketing plan to inoculate you with reasons why it is better than the other options, then you believe me and buy my stuff – and so the great cycle of consuming life continues. But now for the most part consumers have learned the tricks of the trade and remain systemically skeptical of push-style messages of self-proclaimed benefits, preferring mostly to ignore them.

So what are the fundamental underpinnings of effective communication in today’s wired and transparent world? How do you create the kind of communication that results in brand preference leading to a sale?

Talk and walk like a friend…

Sounds simple enough but to actually do this has tremendous implications for how you go to market, how you view the customer relationship in your operations and certainly in your communication – both content and channel.

Here’s the short form recipe for brand/consumer friendship:

To create and foment compatibility you must understand the personal interests and passions of your target consumer.

You need to identify ways your brand can help enable and facilitate those passions that can breed connective tissue between the consumer’s lifestyle and your brand – we call this finding your brand’s Higher Purpose.

Start a conversation. This has implications for use of social media platforms. It impacts the manner and tone of your messaging. It invites openness, feedback and discourse.

What about the experience the consumer has with your business and brand, is it friendly, is it fair and based on acknowledging the shared goals of a friendship?

There has to be genuine care for your consumer’s welfare – you can’t fake it. You give to get. Reciprocity is at the core of how a brand earns a place in the consumer’s life.