Is it customer service if you’re not a customer?
When you’re interacting with brands using social media marketing: is it customer service if you’re not a customer?
With all the brands using social media to outreach and build up relationships, there are many paths to becoming a customer beyond the traditional one to many, company to customer “traditional” marketing model. Social media is causing a major rethink of the one way conversation. I found this great summary of the degrees of relationships in social media marketing…
Jetstar’s 5 cent fail sale
Like all Jetstar members who’d opted in to their communications, I was sent 2 eDMs hyping up a sale which started at 10pm tonight. Here’s the web version of the eDM promising 5 c seats from Melbourne to Hobart and Brisbane to Newcastle and Gold Coast to Sydney.
So what was the catch? The only way you could book was clicking on the link from the eDM or the webpage version. And of course thousands of people were trying to book in the hour or so the offer was available. Of those thousands who tried to access the site, they were presented with a website fail screen, prompting very vocal negative responses on Twitter.
Too many agencies spoil the brand
I find the most successful campaigns or brand strategies has the idea owners (usually the strategic, brand or above the line agency) run the idea through the relevant channels. That’s not to say that they need to do everything, more that they need to be hands on where the the rubber hits the road, the point at which the creative concept (the big idea) becomes a tactical execution. It’s in the clients interest to give this responsibility to the lead agency, and hold them accountable for the execution. So many times, the way the “big idea” is executed becomes about cutting corners because of “saving money”, or its “death by a thousand cuts” the slow, slicing and removing of functionality because of a lack of understanding how it is an essential part of the bigger, strategic picture.
What’s in a name? More on building brand you
What’s consistent about all these personal brand identities, is that that they have built an authentic brand without necessarily using their real faces or their real life names. That’s not to say they aren’t also known as their real life names, only that they have constructed a consistent and authentic online or brand persona that lives over and above their real life personality. Its the consistency in communication or voice as suggested by Seth is what makes the personal brand authentic.
Flight of the Conchords rock social media
Flight of the Conchords is a great HBO television show about 2 NZ singing dudes who “make it” in New York City. Flight of the Conchords has a Facebook fan page they actually use. I say that in all seriousness, as so many Facebook pages get set up and then forgotten. Or ignored. On Facebook, [...]
Why it takes balls to Skittle
The Skittles social media mashup site works on so many levels. Firstly, it shows confidence in the strength of the Skittles brand. The social media strategy behind Skittles site shows confidence in being able to go with the conversation about the product. While I was on Twitter yesterday, the chatter around Skittles wasn’t necessarily positive, but it added to the general momentum of Skittles being talked about and staying in the top 2 or 3 trending topics on Twitter (a bonus really). Lesser brands would be feel buried in negative conversation.
This is an unscripted Brand Review™ review
When I wrote about digital video recorders killing TV advertising, one of the comments (thanks Doingwords) suggested that there will be an increase in “home shopping” type of advertising where the ads are extended into infomercial lengths. Given this is a trend happening in the US too, watch E! channel Australia to see the millennial [...]
Is timeshifting killing television advertising?
Nielsen report 37% more consumers are watching programs via DVR (digital video recorders) which timeshift TV rising about 9% in the fourth quarter from the third quarter. The other key of the report is that viewers are watching their television content online, and on mobile devices rather than watching it through the television itself. Nielsen’s report covers the US but the same trends are taking place here in Australia. Foxtel is now in nearly 1.6m Australian households. One-third (more than half a million) of these subscribers have a Foxtel IQ digital video recorder. Subscriber’s are up 7% and Foxtel’s revenue is up 13%
So instead of watching TV when the advertisers and the networks intended them to be watched, viewers are watching them in a different timezone or online or on a mobile phone. The viewers who watched TV online consumed even more video content, to the tune of another 3 hours per month. Even Nielsen’s report is called the “3 Screens Report” reflecting the fact that the traditional TV screen is only one of the delivery mechanism for television content. What happens to the ads ? The fast forward button is killing television advertising.
Your brand is just not that into you
As advertising and marketing budgets are being slashed (don’t mention the “R word”), it’s probably worth looking at the way brands engage and relate to their customers. I’m inspired to put this into relationship terms after seeing the film, “He’s Just Not That Into You” (HJNTIY) . One of the male characters, Alex, is brutally frank in telling Gigi, how she is deluding herself on male romantic behaviour when a series of guys don’t call her or ask her out again – all when they say they are going to.
In much the same way Alex did, I am going to tell it like it is, with regards to the way brands (and the agencies acting on their behalf), toy with customers’ feelings, and keep them at arms length, or promise to contact without any actual delivery.
Here are my interpretations of the classic, dysfunctional customer relationships where customers are treated badly by brands:
Brand Hijacking, Brand Advocacy and Social Media identities
If you are in the brand building business, whether agency or client side, it pays to think early about your brand’s online and social media component – no matter what the brand is.
The best case study to illustrate this is what happened to to AMC’s Mad Men, a drama about a Madison Avenue advertising agency Sterling Cooper in 1962, shown in Australia on Movie Extra. Despite critical success for Season 1, and numerous awards including the Golden Globe® for Best TV drama and actor, Season 2 started well but had lost a million viewers in a month in the US. The characters in Mad Men are completely compelling – cigarette smoking, hard liquor swilling and delightfully old school.
Social media douchebags a.k.a. New Media douchebags
I found this gem - just replace New Media with Social Media. New Media Douchebags in plain English
Trends in data visualization: NY Times interactive Twitter mashup, Web Trends Map 4
Data visualization can do so much to simplify the complex, so was very excited to see this amazing interactive timeline mashup of Superbowl Tweets on NYtimes site. The creators kindly even put a separate stream just for the ad mentions and the Audi spot I wrote about yesterday got noticed. I think the IP settings [...]
Superbowl spots and Audi’s brand authenticity
It was the Superbowl today and I really loved Conan O’Brien sending himself up as a celebrity in the Bud Light spot. Its also heartening to see Hollywood Jason Stratham aka The Transporter acting in a send up of his Transporter character in the Audi spot. In another twist, it turns out that Audi are giving themselves film credits on the Australian TVC this time for funding the latest movie – Transporter 3
Social media in 2009 – social media changes or changing the world?
Creating relevant social networks – People like having multiple conversations going at the one time and involving others they feel that would benefit. This becomes the cornerstone of defining yourself in your various social media conversations, and you also become the advocate or champion of what/who you are talking about. And by definition, most human beings are multi-faceted and multi-dimensional so expect one person to be part of many networks.
Ooops! Tourism Qld faking it loses friends and credibility
“best job in the world” Tourism Queensland had a great advertising/PR strategy going with the gig – it made a huge splash in New York when I was there, capturing the imagination of people in deepest winter and recession induced depression. The premise? Apply for the ultimate caretaker job and get paid to scubadive and [...]
