Author Archives: Nicole Armstrong
At the beginning of the year, I featured a write-up by Paul Worthington, from Wolff Olins, regarding the evolution of branding. Since then, I feel the increasing adoption of smartphones and other mobile technologies has influenced the continued evolution of branding.
The initial three phases of branding, begin with the introduction of TV advertising and its ability to communicate to mass audiences in a visual manner. This was the ‘product age’ were brands differentiated on a unique product feature – creating the unique selling proposition.
However, product features can be easily duplicated by the competition, eliminating long-term differentiation. So, with the introduction of the PC computer and consumer research, we saw the introduction of the emotional selling proposition. This phase aimed to establish an emotional connection with customers by featuring how the product/service would meet their needs and wants.
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Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
Last week I had the pleasure of attending The Art of Marketing Conference with a few colleagues from Critical Mass. It was a great day for inspiration with an amazing line up of Guest Speakers:
- Chip Heath – author of Made to Stick
- Gary Vaynerchuck – author of Crush It and creator of Wine Library TV (http://tv.winelibrary.com/)
- Sir Ken Robinson – author The Element and internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources
- Mitch Joel – digital marketing expert and author of Six Pixels of Separation
- Sally Hogshead – author of Fascinate
- Max Lenderman – Director of OuterActive at Crispin, Porter + Bogusky and author of Brand New World
The key takeaway I took from this conference was how important it is to have a strong, unique & motivating force guiding the organization forward in an open, honest and caring manner, because the digital environment has revolutionized the way consumers & brands interact.
As I’ve written in the past, consumers are more in control of an organization’s brand promise than ever before, since word of mouth (WOM) is on steroids thanks to social media. I think Gary Vaynerchuck described how brands must adapt to this digital environment brilliantly when he said that businesses have to go back to small town business values – where customers are people you interact with directly and shouldn’t be treated like faceless numbers. Under this principle, if you don’t deliver on your promise, consumers won’t give you their business and they will make sure to tell everyone in their community about your shortcomings. However, if you do deliver on your promise and care for your customers, they will be proud to recommend your brand to everyone they come across.
To reap the benefits of creating strong brand advocates with extensive reach, brands must change their perspective on interacting with customers in this highly engaging digital world and focus on their purpose to become open, honest & caring. An organization’s purpose stimulates the brand promise. This promise must be captivating & relevant to customers as the market becomes more competitive to give reasons to select/buy your brand over another-especially as brands become more global increasing the competitive set. Sally Hogshead described this as the need to fascinate in order to captivate & win your customer’s attention. This unique point of fascination & intrigue not only attracts customers who appreciate what the brand is all about, but it also attracts talent to the organization who feel they can contribute & help the organization deliver and even overachieve on its brand promise.
Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
Yesterday, I read the Fast Company article about the new logos Greenpeace followers have created to provide a more accurate visual representation of the brand, considering how out of place the green and yellow sunburst seems when, as the article puts it, “the defining image of the company is a dark blob spreading across the Gulf”.
This article made me immediately think – actions speak louder than words!
On BP’s site, they define themselves as:
Unfortunately, the actions associated with BP (i.e. giant plumes of oil as big as 10 miles, long 3 miles wide and 300 feet deep, including oiled smeared beaches and pelicans dyed with crude) have gone completely against the image Beyond Petroleum was trying to create for themselves. This has seriously impacted consumer perceptions. Especially in instances like this, when actions cut to the quick of consumer’s values, the outcry against brands tends to be far-reaching and irreversible. In this case it has even led to new visual cues – like an oil stained logo at left.
What’s more, this is all consumer generated content. There has even been a fake BP twitter page created: @BPGlobalPR:
This page was created less than a week ago, and it already has over 46,000 followers, nearly 8 times as many followers as BP’s official twitter page. This site is making a farce of the BP brand with tweets like:
- It’s official, the phrase ‘All the tea in china’ has been replaced with ‘All the oil in the gulf” – Can’t wait for the royalties! #bpcares
- If Top Kill doesn’t work, we’re just going to toss a giant ‘Get Well Soon’ card into the Gulf and hope for the best.
- Negative people view the ocean as half empty of oil. We are dedicated to making it half full.
The consumers are beginning to reshape the BP brand – in fact they are making the BP brand as dirty as BP has made the Gulf!
It’s like I alluded to in my Semantic Web post – consumers are in control of defining the brand within the marketplace, based on that brand’s actions. And here we are seeing this happen to BP – going as far as consumers rebranding the organization themselves.
Nikki is an Associate Planner in the CM Calgary office.
By Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
With the rise in consumer-generated content – an increase in people willing to create it and wanting to consume it – we are going to see the creation of something called the “Semantic Web”. This means the web isn’t going to be based solely on set content like it is now, but rather around people’s sentiment around topics, ideas, organizations, people, etc.
We already can begin to see the rise of the semantic web through things like Twitter, where we can search real-time sentiment on a topic. For instance, I didn’t learn about Michael Jackson’s death on a news site, but on Twitter! We even see Twitter being integrated into Bing’s search results.
This is a real-time search on Twitter for Manchester United.
Even sites like GoodGuide, which help consumers find healthy, socially responsible products, are establishing the semantic web by having people rate products they feel are the best.
Or who needs to research a product, when they can use Facebook Connect to message all their friends who have the same product and ask them how they like it and would they recommend buying it!
This is a very interesting concept to take into consideration by brands as the web and how we use it continues to evolve!
So, what does this mean for brands?
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By Nicole Armstrong | Critical Mass Calgary
Last year, the ENGAGEMENTdb Report came out proving the more socially engaged a brand is the better it performs in both conversations (building consistent brand perceptions) and financial performance. And last month, eMarketer came out with a report finding that people who follow brands on social platforms have an increased intent to purchase that brand. In addition, 60% of respondents claim their Facebook fandom for brands increases their chance of recommending that brand to a friend–this is almost 80% for people following brands on Twitter.
So, this makes it very clear that online brand engagement leads to positive business results: increased purchase intent, positive word of mouth & brand affinity. However, if not approached from the appropriate angle, things can turn very sour, as bad news travels faster than ever because of social platforms. More importantly, if a brand is not being honest & genuine in its actions, consumers will discover its falsities just as fast.
So, when a brand engages with its customers, it must do so genuinely and with purpose.
The other day, one of my colleagues mentioned that his dentist sent him a Happy Birthday email. He explained how out of place it felt, as it was a generic, insert-name-here kind of email, plus he doesn’t have that kind of relationship with his dentist – a person he sees once, maybe twice, a year. Now, if he sent a Happy Anniversary: Thank you for being a valued patient for ‘X’ number of years, that would have made more sense, because it would have been in context with his brand relationship.
This got me thinking: if engaging with customers can lead to such fantastic results, yet becoming too buddy-buddy can sour that relationship, where is the line for appropriate brand engagement? Because, really, there is a fine line between treating customers like revenue generating units and going too far in trying to “friend” customers.
So, I began looking into how customers want to engage with brands online. What I found was 4 key things customers want from an online brand relationship – they want to:
- Ask questions / make suggestions and be answered / heard
- Be “in the know” with exclusive content about new products, features, services, etc.
- Be rewarded for showing their support with exclusive offers & promotions
- Be introduced to others who are associated with the brand as well
In essence, customers don’t want to become friends with their favorite brands; rather, they want to form a utilitarian relationship with brands. This helps them get the most out of their brand experience, whether it be insider tips & tricks, deals on the next hot thing, recognition for being a valued customer, etc.
So, in the end, social media should be leveraged to enable brands to reach the middle ground, between treating customers like numbers and close friends, and, instead, treating them like people, who want to get the most out of their brand experience, beyond the product and/or service.
Nicole is an associate planner from our Calgary office.
Recently, I read an Accenture report on post-recession consumer behavior, called The Road to Recovery. Overall, the report found consumers to be unsatisfied, with low brand loyalty, demanding brands to meet steep expectations for less.
Delivering on your brand promise couldn’t be more important than it is today!
Consumers are more mindful of their spending & are allocating dollars to items with the most perceived value – items they feel are special to them. For instance, I will save on toothpaste, and spend money on a good camera because capturing memories is essential to me OR I will buy a mac, which may cost more, over a PC because I trust the brand and want to be associated with it.
Today, brands need to create, reconfirm or prove their value to consumers to maintain demand. In addition, they must be consistent & transparent with their actions, when proving value, to earn or maintain loyalty.
An interesting trend that is emerging, mostly from the explosion of mobile app popularity, is the idea of Brand Utility – meaning a brand is providing additional experiences/touch points to aid consumers in a time of need that is relevant to the brand’s skills and purpose.
Take for example ING, who created a mobile app last January that helps customers find the closest ING ATM. This uses something called augmented reality, where it uses your camera phone and GPS to show you where you are, and where you need to go to find an ATM. Very helpful when travelling and need to find a bank. Similarly, last year, we developed an Ale finder to help Budweiser fans find its latest beer: Budweiser American Ale.
