This past weekend I was in the wedding of a good friend.  On her wedding day, she took a moment to thank each of her bridesmaids with little gold necklaces, each containing different charms reflective of our individual personalities.  It was perfectly representative of what makes this particular person such a good friend:  she treats those that she cares about well – in particular, through her thoughtfulness and generosity.
In social media, these same hallmark characteristics of being a “good friend” hold true.  Brands that outwardly exhibit these traits seem to make more friends, attract more friends, keep more friends.  Some examples of how brands can successfully activate behind these principles…
•“Generous” brands…
◦Give you presents:  Starbucks frequently runs giveaways and discounts.  Regardless of where they’re originally hosted (i.e., via Living Social, their homepage, etc.), the brand always keeps Facebook and Twitter fans in the loop.
â—¦Make you things: Â Old Spice gives fans special content, like short films, screen savers, and clever images.
◦Treat you “special”:  The Daily Show makes a point of providing its Facebook page fans content they can’t get anywhere else, like extended interviews and special segments.
◦“Thoughtful” brands…
▪Go out of their way for you: When one fan expressed his longing for a Morton’s steak via Twitter, the brand came through with a special steak delivery (from a tuxedoed waiter, no less) to the Newark airport.  Occasionally going above and beyond goes a long way.
▪Tell their other friends how great you are: Dunkin’ Donuts features a different fan on its Facebook page each week.  The winners are always featured on the brand’s billboard in Times Square.
â–ŞSeek out (and care about) your advice: During the payroll tax debates, Obama and teamasked constituents to tell them what a $40 cut in taxes would mean to them. Â Responses, received via Twitter, Facebook, and The White House Web site, were overwhelming enough to help the White House win an extension on the tax cut.
Sounds relatively straightforward.  But even good friends make little mistakes and exhibit bad judgment or offensive behavior at times.  In real life, you can usually patch things up relatively easily.  When you’re communicating with the world at large, it’s not so simple.  So here are some things you may consider NOT doing when it comes to SM:
•Stepping over the line:  Belvedere Vodka posted this gem on its Facebook page and was quickly inundated by posts and Tweets from outraged fans and observers – and that news traveled into the media fast.
•Ignoring your friends: Chapstick posted this add, which didn’t go down so well (shocking, I know) with the ladies – who reacted vehemently.  But instead of taking constructive next steps, Chapstick simply deleted all the posts.  Which only made its fans angrier…
•Being generally inconsiderate:  Too many examples here to include.  Sometimes brands simply don’t think about the broader context and implications of their actions.  A good general rule of thumb:  before you send a communication out into the SM world, think about how your real friends would react.  If there’s potential for hurt feelings – abort.
Activating behind social media is daunting.  It’s daunting because it’s still relatively new, because it has no established rules, because it can feel more uninhibited and flexible.  But if you think about all those millions of people out there than you’re communicating with as potential friends, and reflect on how you treat your close friends, you should be starting yourself out in the right direction.
This past weekend I was in the wedding of a good friend. On her wedding day, she took a moment to thank each of her bridesmaids with little gold necklaces, each containing different charms reflective of our individual personalities. It was perfectly representative of what makes this particular person such a good friend: she treats those that she cares about well – in particular, through her thoughtfulness and generosity.
In social media, these same hallmark characteristics of being a “good friend” hold true. Brands that outwardly exhibit these traits seem to make more friends, attract more friends, keep more friends. Some examples of how brands can successfully activate behind these principles…
“Generous” brands…
Give you presents: Starbucks frequently runs giveaways and discounts.  Regardless of where they’re originally hosted (i.e., via Living Social, their homepage, etc.), the brand always keeps Facebook and Twitter fans in the loop.
Make you things: Old Spice gives fans special content, like short films, screen savers, and clever images.
Treat you “special”: The Daily Showmakes a point of providing its Facebook page fans content they can’t get anywhere else, like extended interviews and special segments.
“Thoughtful” brands…
Go out of their way for you: When one fan expressed his longing for a Morton’ssteak via Twitter, the brand came through with a special steak delivery (from a tuxedoed waiter, no less) to the Newark airport. Â Occasionally going above and beyond goes a long way.
Tell their other friends how great you are:Dunkin’ Donutsfeatures a different fan on its Facebook page each week. The winners are always featured on the brand’s billboard in Times Square.
Seek out (and care about) your advice: During the payroll tax debates, Obama and team asked constituents to tell them what a $40 cut in taxes would mean to them. Responses, received via Twitter, Facebook, and The White House Web site, were overwhelming enough to help the White House win an extension on the tax cut.
Sounds relatively straightforward. But even good friends make little mistakes and exhibit bad judgment or offensive behavior at times. In real life, you can usually patch things up relatively easily. When you’re communicating with the world at large, it’s not so simple. So here are some things you may consider NOT doing when it comes to SM:
Stepping over the line: Belvedere Vodka posted this gemon its Facebook page and was quickly inundated by posts and Tweets from outraged fans and observers – and that news traveled into the media fast.
Ignoring your friends: Chapstick posted this ad, which didn’t go down so well (shocking, I know) with the ladies – who reacted vehemently. But instead of taking constructive next steps, Chapstick simply deleted all the posts. Which only made its fans angrier…
Being generally inconsiderate: Too many examples here to include. Sometimes brands simply don’t think about the broader context and implications of their actions. A good general rule of thumb: before you send a communication out into the SM world, think about how your real friends would react. If there’s potential for hurt feelings – abort.
Activating behind social media is daunting. It’s daunting because it’s still relatively new, because it has no established rules, because it can feel more uninhibited and flexible. But if you think about all those millions of people out there that you’re communicating with as potential friends, and reflect on how you treat your close friends, you should be starting yourself out in the right direction.
As we all settle back into our work routine at the start of yet another New Year, it seemed like a really appropriate time to reflect back on the dominant themes we heard from the marketplace throughout 2011.
This is not intended to be a list of every brand question out there – more a selection of the most interesting, relevant and even provocative questions that every brand should be thinking about right now.
So in no particular order of importance, here goes:
1.) What is your point of view about the consumer’s appetite for spending in your category in 2012? Are you still in recession mode? Are you taking note of all the latest indicators? Without a point of view, there is no point.
2.) What lessons can the rest of us learn from the surging success of the leading technology brands? And can some of their success factors be applied to your brand?
3.) Given the generally stagnant overall marketplace, growth in 2012 will likely be achieved by winning share. So, if you are to win share, then who is going to lose?
4.) How much should you commit your brand to Facebook, not just in dollar terms but in overall exposure? Is Google + a better bet? Remember what happened to Myspace and they were also seen as indomitable at one time!!
5.) The innovators in the marketplace are talking about new concepts such as “brands of meaning” and “brand generosity”. Where do you stand on these and other emerging ideas? Are they a part of your brand chatter?
6.) Should your brand be doing more to help the national unemployment phenomenon (see Starbucks for inspiration)? With an election year government, shouldn’t this be a time for brands to stand up and be counted?
7.) With data equity becoming as important as brand equity, how good is the data used to make decisions on your brand? Do you really have the best data? And more importantly, do you have the best data decoders? If not, you’re missing out.
8.) What would you do with your brand if you weren’t afraid? Or put another way, If it was your company, what would you be recommending for the way forward? And what would you retain, gain and lose from your current strategy?
9.) Really, how different is your brand vs the competition, and more importantly, how relevant and meaningful is that difference to consumers? Is this the time to be finding the new white space?
10.) For the past 5 years, Steve Jobs and Apple have been the primary point of inspiration for all of us  - will that change now? And if so, which brand takes on that role for you for that daily dose of inspiration?
11.) How unadulterated is the feedback you get from your team? Is it cleansed and filtered? Do you see the whole research report or just the executive summary? And if so, is there a risk that many of your brand decisions could be sub-optimal?
12.) Are you really partnering with consumers to build your brand or is co-creation still a question mark in your mind? Are you the barrier to progress in this area? And what will it take to get you to put your toe in the water?
In summary, I suspect that these questions will resonate with some of you and for others they’ll read like gobbledygook. And that’s fine as well. But please remember that we’re out in the marketplace almost every day of the year working with clients and these twelve topics are just some of the consistent themes and discussions that we’ve heard and if nothing else, aren’t we nice people to just want to share them!
The recent termination of Hewlett Packard President & CEO Leo Apotheker in late September was hardly a surprise given that his policies and strategies had become more and more unpredictable and perplexing. But what was surprising was that his severance package was somehow valued, by the powers that be, at a staggering $25million. Now I never met the man but it seems pretty clear that he was verging on the incompetent. It also seems clear that he was let go because he wasn’t good enough. So will someone, anyone, tell me why his termination for failure required an accompanying package of $25million.
And I’ve been carrying a bit of a grudge about this ever since. I mean, when will we learn that success in business needs to be rewarded but that failure mustn’t be. HP was the latest to do the business world a disservice and I have been unable to explain to anyone as to how and why this could still happen given everything that has transpired to corporations in the spotlight over the past few years.
So you can imagine my delight when I started doing some research a few weeks ago on potential replacements for Steve Jobs as our daily point of inspiration (more…)
I wanted to be respectful and let some time elapse after the sad and premature passing of Steve Jobs. But now that the eulogies are mostly complete, I wanted to raise a very important question that’s been bugging me for the past couple of weeks. Namely, with Steve Jobs no longer with us, just who will be our new source of inspiration in our daily work?
Let me tell you why this question is important to me, and to hundreds of other marketers around the world: (more…)
There has been a lot blogged and written in the last week or so about the Starbucks logo change and on balance, it seems to have received a much more balanced response than other recent logo changes…no names mentioned!!   Much of the consumer feedback not surprisingly has been centered on the new design,the most articulate piece in my opinion being by Howard Belk at Siegel & Gale.
I’d like to concentrate on two other aspects of the latest brouhaha regarding Starbucks. First by looking at the strategic side of this issue as this is where the reason for change originated.
So think about it…at a very fundamental level, brands have to put in place growth strategies in order to thrive and growth creates expectations for more growth. For very successful brands such as Starbucks, this can soon involve expanding into new adjacent categories as well as new geographies. This expansion often necessitates repositioning the brand, which results in changes across all of the brand visual expressions. Additionally, in the case of Starbucks, the competitive situation is intense and it is not surprising that in order to grow, the management team has to consider a range of new ideas and new experiences for the brand…many of which will lie outside of coffee.
So the new logo is simply just the first manifestation of the change in strategy and in many ways over the longer-term, it is not often the most important. But ironically, it is the one that consumers relate to and react to most vehemently. The real changes in the Starbucks brand and in its future financial performance will not be fully known or fully implemented for months and maybe years and this is definitely a case of “watch this space”.
Whatever is contained in the new Starbucks master plan, it is quite clear that the word “coffee” is going to be a restriction to future growth and strategically, this was one of the first things that needed to be changed. There are many precedents for this –remember Apple Computer became Apple, Boston Chicken became Boston Market, Citibank became Citi, all in order to become more broadly-based.
The second point I want to raise is the whole issue of consumer involvement in brand decision-making.
We do know that any meaningful brand change is instantly assessed by consumers and most sensible companies would agree that not exposing and sharing the changes with them is a recipe for trouble.
But those of us with experience in this business know that asking consumers about change is always a hazardous business – they’re consumers first and foremost and they are almost always going to favor the familiar. The fact that consumers have a much more powerful voice must obviously be incorporated into any brand change program but consumers are not responsible for the brand strategy or for brand performance and so we need to very carefully separate the issues of consumer feedback from overall brand accountability.
Starbucks seems to have done as good a job as possible in the transparent world in which we operate by focusing on the more objective, strategic reasons for change rather than on the more subjective, creative reasons for change. They have equally appeared totally comfortable and confident in the change – so much so that backing down to public pressure was never remotely an option…or so it appeared.
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Personally, I am excited about what lies “in store” for Starbucks. Howard Schultz is a brand wizard and as he and his team begin to execute their new magic plan, we should all remember that memories are short and it won’t be many weeks before we’ve all moved on to something else and the Starbucks logo issue is downgraded to no more than a storm in a tea-cup!!
I have to believe that the current Toyota brand trauma has resulted in many nervous boardroom discussions in other corporations around the world. I mean, how did one of the most sought-after and respected brands trip so badly and tumble so far. And have we even gotten to the real truth, yet?
But as ever, here’s my point of view. From everything I know about brand building generally and Toyota specifically. I’d put the cause down to an almost psychotic pursuit of becoming the biggest…at the expense of virtually everything else. (more…)
In our positioning work, we focus our time on designing winning strategies for our clients – strategies that are projective, aspirational and that focus on growth. Nothing surprising here. After all, positioning is all about the future and directing efforts to finding meaningful “white space”. (more…)
Our people Simon Williams, Austin McGhie, Debbie Millman and DeeDee Gordon are the inspiration and energy behind Sterling Brands’ success. Learn more about our team now. Read more
