Your Brand Could Be Hijacked - Get Ready!

In the good old days, when your company inadvertently disenfranchised a customer by some tacky bit of poor service or poor product performance, there wasn't much they could do.  The really angry customers would simply stop doing business with you.   If you were lucky, an aggravated customer would send a complaint letter or email or make a call to your customer service desk.   Customers like these were providing both incredibly valuable feedback to your business as well as giving you a chance to remedy their problem so they could continue to do business with you.   If you mishandled this golden opportunity, only the disgruntled customer generally knew about it and the worse that could happen is that you lost them as a customer.

In today's world, the downside of creating angry disgruntled poorly-handled customers is much greater.  That's because it's not just between you and them anymore.  Now, customers have the power and the ability to literally inform the world about how poorly your company or one of your brands has performed and how badly your people have responded.  

In today's world, BEWARE THE TECH-SAVVY DISGRUNTLED CUSTOMER!  They can hijack your brand.  They can dominate the Internet conversation about your brand.  All it takes is one really angry and highly motivated tech-savvy brand pirate and your goose could be cooked.

The Internet is the tool.  Anti-brand blogs and text messaging can be powerful but the real brand killer is video.  

Image the following marketing nightmare.   One of your customers records and uses their cell phone to video tape a particularly idiotic and callous encounter between them and someone from your company.   The video (because it's either funny or outrageous) finds its way on to YouTube and then starts showing up on emails and on other social networking sites.  People who may have had similar experiences with your company appear out of the woodwork and jump into the exploding and negative Internet conversation that's happening about your brand.  Your brand is being "flamed."  Are you paying attention?  Are you aware this is even happening?  Are you prepared to do something about it?  Or are you asleep at the switch as millions of dollars of your marketing investment go up in smoke?

Even if you don't experience this type of brand nightmare, there is still an Internet conversation going on about your brand.  It's happening right now.  Are you plugged into it?  Are you tracking it and using it to understand what is being said and thought about your brand?  Are you using it to gain brand insight?

You must recognize and embrace the idea that you are no longer in complete control of your brand.  Viral transmission and re-transmission of messages can propagate negative information FAST.  Is your company ready to deal quickly with information like this that gets out there? Do you have a company blog that you can use as a communication tool to combat this kind of thing?  Do you have a PR response plan ready to implement?  Is your marketing team empowered to respond FAST when these situations occur?

If you don't, you've got a time bomb on your hands.  The clock is ticking.  What are you waiting for?

Marketing Metrics - Meaning vs. Misery

It's amazing to me how many otherwise intelligent companies don't invest any money to adequately measure the impact of their marketing programs.  The logic goes something like this....the marketing budget is too small to enable us to afford any marketing research...we need to put all our money to work on programs and not waste it on research...we've never done research like this in the past and we don't need it now....there are too many other important things that we need to fund in this year's budget....we don't need this type of research because we use our sales results (or input from our sales force) to determine if our marketing programs are working.

Sound familiar?  If so, it's more marketing insanity at work.  

The result of this type of thinking is an often catastrophic situation where someone's "opinion" (usually a heavy breather like the CEO or CFO) determines what marketing programs get funded.  These same C-level opinionators (I know there's no such word) also determine whether the top marketing exec is doing a good job or not.  If you happen to be that top marketing person, you are in big trouble.  You better measure or you're headed for misery.

In today's metrics-management business world, it is imperative that marketing metrics be clearly defined and measured with regularity.  The information needs to be relevant and useful so that marketing programs can be evaluated and fine-tuned (or scrapped) based on what is learned.  

It's Marketing 101.  Start by clearly defining the objectives of your marketing efforts.  Define these objectives in terms of the things that marketing can directly impact.  For example in a B2B company, marketing has an indirect impact on sales, but it has a very direct impact on leads generated (both quantity and quality).  It also has a very direct impact on the awareness of your company and its products and services among with your target audience(s).    It has a direct impact on the perception and attitudes that prospects hold.  (Your customers opinions and perceptions are the result of first hand experience with your company but your prospects have opinions and perceptions based largely on your marketing).

It's very possible that marketing is working great (generating high-quality leads, increasing awareness, moving perceptions in a positive direction) but that something else inside the company is falling short and THAT is the reason why sales aren't improving.  Maybe the sales team is dropping the ball.  Or the products or pricing are flawed in some way.  Can you tell?  Do you know?  Or is it "opinion time" when the executive team sits around and tries to figure out what is going on?

Most marketing people love to create programs and they want to spend their time doing that, but it's the road to marketing misery.  You've got to fight to measure the impact of your programs.  Even if your overall budget is small.  I would argue ESPECIALLY if your marketing budget is small.  

Measuring your programs creates meaning and purpose and effectiveness and accountability and (if they're working) some measure of job security.  Failure to measure is insanity, leading to finger-pointing, guesswork, ignorance and probably unemployment. 

Stop Thinking Like an Advertiser and Start Thinking Like a Brand Programmer

The classic ad model is quickly dying.  

Cable TV started to kill it by dramatically increasing our viewing options and making it easy to zap ads and switch channels.  The Internet is finishing off the job because TV is no longer the only place you can use video to communicate about your brand.  Everyone now has the web.  It's easy to use video on your brand's web site.  In fact, you can create whatever web programming you want.  You're not interrupting anything with an ad.  You're now conveying information (or branded infotainment) that people have surfed their way to your web site to find.  You are no longer an advertiser.  You are now a brand programmer.   Big difference!

As a brand programmer you're free from all those constraints that "advertisers" face.  The big one being the limitation to thirty seconds (or sixty if you've got the big bucks).   Hey, it's your web site.  Those videos can be any length you want.  But long videos cost too much money to produce I hear someone saying.  Not necessarily.  You can spend a fortune or you can spend almost nothing.  That's a marketing decision based on what you think your brand requires.  The most popular viral videos from the web are home-made and that's a big part of their charm.  They are not slick and they are not overly produced and people can't get enough of them.  They're real and that makes them believable and (potentially) persuasive.

Research  techniques that play a large role in shaping TV ads at many companies are not relevant for web-based video.   The research tools that have been used for years to measure and evaluate TV ads don't apply to web-based brand video.  All those research-driven "do's and don'ts" can be tossed right out the window, too.  How liberating for brand communicators!  And how scary.  No rules.  No road maps.  A blank palette where brilliant creativity can flourish and where lame creativity has no excuse to exist.  

But this new world requires a new mindset among marketers and "advertisers."  An ad created for traditional TV is not likely to work on the web.  New thinking and new approaches are required.   Similarly, if you've never been a TV-driven marketing company, you now need to move into the world of video production and become a brand programmer for your web site.   There are many small B2C and many B2B companies that have NEVER considered video as a brand communication tool.  Today, this is just silliness.  If you've got a web site, you've got a platform to use brand video as a marketing tool.   

The Secret Weapon of All Smart Marketing Companies - Their People

How many times have you personally been snagged by some marketing campaign or another only to walk away without buying anything because when you actually came into personal contact with the company, you were turned off or disappointed by the experience?

You call a phone number and get one of those maddeningly impersonal phone trees that make all of us want to hang up.  You walk into a store and the sales people either ignore you, act like they're angry about something or they know nothing about what you're interested in.  You send an email and no one responds or the response is not helpful.

Earlier in my career when I was in the agency business, we did a research project for a client that was desperately seeking some way to differentiate themselves from bigger competitors with stronger national customer service reputations.  We uncovered a gem for them.  The single best thing they could do to stand out, according to their prospects, was to eliminate their automated phone answering system and move to live operators.  The client choose not to listen to the research.  Why?

Because the phone system, despite it being the most intense customer contact tool they had, was not considered "marketing."  The phone system and everything to do with it was part of "operations."  It was cheaper NOT to have live operators.  It was also insane marketing.

The best ads, web sites, promotions, direct marketing and PR can all be undone by one knucklehead on the phone or in the store.  Conversely, mediocre traditional marketing can be overcome with great personal service.  Word-of-mouth is the best advertising.  And the best way to generate it is with incredible personal one-to-one service.  

The smartest marketers realize that and they make sure that the marketing team is either in charge of or deeply involved with all decisions related to any type of customer contact.  It's marketing insanity to consider your customer contact people and systems "operations."  Your people can and should be the most important marketing tool your company has.  If you're not thinking this way, it's time to start.

All your customer contact people should be Brand Ambassadors, capable of preaching the marketing gospel of your brand to anyone they come into contact with.  It's not that hard.  It only takes the right kind of recruiting (are you listening HR?) and the right kind of ongoing training, reward and retention system.  For models, look at companies like Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, and Nordstrom's.

Is it smarter to spend more of your budget on more marketing stuff?  Or is it smarter to spend more of your budget training (and then retaining) your customer contact people to be the best brand ambassadors they can be?  

 

Olympic TV Ads: The Gold Medals and the Insanity Awards

If you're like me, you've been spending quite a bit of time watching the Beijing Olympics, from the incredible opening ceremony to Michael Phelps amazing eight gold medals to Dana Torres (at 41) competing with swimmers half her age to the Dream Team to the Chinese gymnasts (some of those girls were definitely under age!) to the lightening fast Usain Bolt from Jamaica.  All this Olympic wonderfulness is brought to us courtesy of those wealthy companies with enough money to run their TV ads during the games.  And since my last blog was about the importance of brilliance if you're going to invest in TV ads, I thought it might be fun to take a few minutes to assess some of those ads we've all been watching during the games.

Gold Medal Winners

1. Audi:  They illustrate their "Progress is Beautiful" theme in a visually compelling way by transfixing us on a living room as it evolves and changes and grows more beautiful over the years.  The final touch that makes the ad brilliant is the pan to the driveway where a Mercedes "progresses" into a new Audi A4.  
2. Nationwide:  Their "Accident Forgiveness" message is cleverly reinforced by showing an older couple who are on the wrong end of a parking lot mishap being VERY unforgiving to the poor young guy who accidentally and gently side-swipes their old car.  The old lady beats the snot out of the guy with her purse while her husband eggs her on.  "Hit him in the head, Rose."  Too funny.  However, I have to give Nationwide serious style point deductions for over-running this one spot.  Way too much of a good thing.  Especially considering the core idea of this ad lends itself to so many other situations.
3. Budweiser:  They've been running lots of different spots but only one really stands out.  The Dalmation training the rejected Clydesdale so he can earn a spot on the team next year.  The Rocky theme music is used perfectly and the payoff is great.  Fantastically clever way to put their tried and true brand icons to work and generate a major warm & fuzzy feeling for the brand.  

Silver Medal Winners

1. Target:  Catchy spot with two college roommates decorating their dorm room with stuff bought at Target.  Cool music and both girls dance great.  Impossible to not watch.  Fun and the back-to-school timing of the Olympics is perfect for the message.
2. VISA:  Their understated but very elegant "Go World" spots do a great job of capturing the emotional specialness that is the Olympics.  They also have done a number of spots timed exactly to the events of that Olympic day.  The timeliness makes the spots all the more compelling.
3. Chevy/GM:  Like Bud, they've been running lots of ads and most are very mediocre and easily forgettable.   However, one truly stands out.  It's called "Progress" and it illustrates the evolution of a gas station (and the Chevy cars and trucks that use it) in a pristine mountain setting.  The spot ends where it starts - with no gas station and just the pristine setting.  The reason?  Chevy is developing a car for the future called the Volt that won't need gas.  More ads like this and GM might not be in such trouble.
4. GE:  I found three of their ads memorable and compelling.  The first was the "eco-imagination" ad that focused on GE's jet engines using amazing imagery of island birds, with the cute trick of having them lined up runway style waiting for a parade of baby sea turtles to cross on their way to the ocean.  The next two both had to do with GE's healthcare products.  One was a wonderful little love story between a young handsome Chinese street vendor and the pretty intern.  The second was another nice story featuring an Indian doctor delivering care to a remote village thanks to GE products.

The Insanity Award Winners (So Bad That Someone Needs to Lose Their Job)

1. Lenovo:  A series of spots that are utterly unrelated to their product.  The one that is the most interesting to watch features hundreds of sumo wrestlers coming together in the street, assuming the shape of a plane, picking up speed as they march down the street and then taking off.  Every time I see it, I'm thinking "what airline is this for" and then there's some inane Lenovo message at the end that I still haven't heard or understood.
2. Subway:  A promotion spot for their Scrabble game that shows people getting so excited that they spill their soft drinks on everyone else at the restaurant.  Yeah.  Right.  How dumb is this?  Nothing fun about this.  Just stupid.  

The Mediocrity Awards

There are lots of other Olympic advertisers who are spending seriously big bucks to get noticed and who are running ads that are plain vanilla - not awful but definitely not brilliant.  Just so middle of the road that it's sad.  It's a shame that all these smart companies couldn't do better. Here's my list:  McDonald's, J&J, AT&T, Nissan, Samsung, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, VW, ExxonMobil, Home Depot, United and Hilton.  

Brilliant athletic performance like we get to see during the Olympics ought to be supported by brilliant advertising performance, too. 

Brilliance: The Only TV Advertising Strategy That Makes Sense

I've been in the advertising and marketing communications profession my entire adult life, so I should be more attuned than your average joe to the ads that are running on TV these days.  So how come I have such a hard time remembering even one or two TV ads (any ads!) that I saw on the tube last night?  I'm not alone in this.  I often ask people two questions to see how much impact the latest crop of TV spots are having on them:  1)  did you watch any TV last night? and 2) if so, can you recall any of the ads (just one) that you saw?  Most people CAN'T RECALL EVEN ONE AD!!  Yikes.  

We all know why this is happening.  Viewing options have exploded.  Zapping commercials is easier than ever.  And, let's be honest, the ads are usually either not personally relevant (so why pay attention?) or they are just plain uninteresting, boring or too obtuse to make their point in a memorable way.  

If you're an advertiser spending the big bucks on a national TV schedule, this means you have three choices:  1) spend your marketing money some other way, 2) pony up enough bucks so that your media frequency is high enough that you can pound your mediocre TV ads into our brains (who other than the Pharma companies have this kind of money today?) or 3) put on your big boy pants and demand that your marketing and advertising team create nothing short of BRILLIANT TV ads before you commit to a TV-driven national media plan.

Brilliant TV ads are uncommon for a reason.  Even the best and brightest advertising pros in the world typically only have a FEW examples of true brilliance in their portfolios.  Why is that?  Brilliant TV ads require insightful innovative strategies (rare) executed by creative people who are capable of developing BIG IDEAS (even rarer), a client who is capable of recognizing a potentially brilliant idea and has the guts to go for it without researching it to death and watering it down (rarer still), AND exceptional production (casting, direction, editing, etc)  to bring it to life (also rare).  The odds are not good.  99% of the time, all of this doesn't happen and we get what we have today:  communication mediocrity that is wasting a huge amount of money.

So, is it marketing insanity to shot for TV brilliance?  Maybe.  But when it does happen, you will have created something with magical marketing power.  Brilliant TV ads not only work now, they work FOREVER.  People remember brilliance for the rest of their lives.  What kind of marketing ROI is that?  Off the charts!

If you're going to do TV,  in today's media world you've got to go for BRILLIANCE unless you're Pharma rich and can afford to pound it out.  Be aware of what it takes and how hard it is to achieve.  Hire the best.  Listen to what they say.  Hold them accountable.  And set the bar high. Let them know only BRILLIANCE will make you happy.  

All Those Unmanaged Web Sites Out There

Is there anyone in business today who disagrees that having a vibrant appealing web site is now an absolute "Must Have"?

It's the first place a potential prospect or employee or strategic business partner goes to learn about a company.  It's the first place they go to evaluate you versus your competition. Remember that old saying "You only have one chance to make a good first impression"?  Well, today, that first impression is made by your web site.  In fact, today, I'd argue that it's your web presence OVERALL and not just your web site that is making that critical first impression. Your company is being googled and whatever shows up on that first page of a google search represents your company in today's digital interconnected universe.

When is the last time you googled your own company or brand?  Try it.  Be a secret shopper for an afternoon and pretend you know next to nothing about your company and/or brand.  Google it.  Do you like what you see?    Do you see things that you'd like to change and improve?  Is your SEM and SEO what it should be?

Now, here's the $64,000 question....do you have anyone in your organization whose primary job is to manage the internet presence of your company and/or brand?  If not, WHY NOY? How easy is it for you to make changes to your web site and actively manage your web presence?   Companies and their senior executives generally get all hot and bothered about building or rebuilding a web site and then they check it off the "to do list" and move on to the next project. That's insanity.  Whenever I revisit a web site and see that it is exactly the way it was the last time I looked, I conclude two things:  1)no one is paying attention and 2) this company doesn't get it.  They are not a sophisticated marketing communicator and probably not a very well run business.  In some cases these are probably erroneous perceptions, but perception is reality.  The point is that if you, as a senior marketing or corporate executive, are ignoring your web presence or attending to it only periodically, you are ignoring a critically vital aspect of your company.

Your web presence is NOT a project or a part-time job.  It is a strategically vital dynamic communication platform that is probably more important than every other communication tool in your marketing arsenal.  It merits full time attention .  It is never "DONE".  It is a work in progress that should be evaluated, measured and managed every single day.  

If your company is not paying enough attention to its web presence, shame on you.  Start!  It's marketing insanity not to.