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:
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.
Read More about Chip Heath had to say
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:
“Helping the world meet its growing need for heat, light and mobility. And we strive to do that by producing energy that is affordable, secure & doesn’t damage the environment“
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.
As I have been reading the recently released Six Pixels Of Separation by Mitch Joel, I’ve been struck by the (still newly) awesome power of the personal brand within a corporate structure.
But what is personal branding? And why should your company care?
Wikipedia defines personal branding as the “process [note: not end result] whereby people and their careers are marked as brands…defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual…leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable.”
This is just a fancy way to say that who you are and all of the stuff you do can be packaged up into a composite image of sorts – especially online.
The Simple Old Days
Personal brands have largely been troublesome for businesses in the past. Strong personalities or images could draw attention away from the business, itself. Personal missteps could drag down whole companies. And these are just the C-level dangers!
Personal brands below the C-level suite were anathema for business in the past. It was unnecessary fragmentation. It put an individual above the company.
It was, in short, unthinkable.
Back To Mitch Joel And Our Fragmented World
Now, however, we are immersed in fragmentation. We get our news and views from a variety of sources through a wide array of mediums. Despite a few head-firmly-in-sand ostriches, almost all of us know marketing, advertising, and PR are forever changed.
It is in this new world, where everyone possesses the power to publish, that personal branding has irrevocably changed. Joel states that in this new environment:
“[I]t is not about how your business connects and communicates in online channels, it’s about how you (or your employees) as an individual build, nurture, and share personal brands. A company is no longer made up of anonymous people building one brand; rather, it is made up of many personal brands that are telling your one corporate-brand story in their own, personal, ways.” (page 126)
Don’t we see this every day? Comcast has Frank Eliason. GM has Scott Monty. But more and more frequently, brands see even greater success by opening the flood gates even more. Over 450 Zappos employees are on Twitter. Can you beat that evangelism?
I asked Dan Schawbel, author of Me 2.0 and award-winning and syndicated blogger at PersonalBrandingBlog.com, what he thought about Joel’s quote.
“Personal brands can support corporate brands in many different ways, such as with online recruitment of top talent, customer support, sales, brand monitoring and free promotion through social networks. By avoiding your most powerful asset, your people, you are at a severe competitive disadvantage. The visibility of personal brands will only help you build a stronger corporate brand, especially during this tough economic climate.
Are all personal brands created equal? I would say not, which is why companies should find their best spokespeople, who have the most passion and value and enable them to share their voice, without legal constraints.”
‘Nuff said.
A Personal Personal Brand Example
I don’t intend to bore you with rah-rah-ing my own agency, but I’d like to present it as an example of one company striving to use all of its human resources.
One of our most popular blog posts last month was From Chasm to Convergence: Technology Closes the Gap Between Manufacturers and Consumers part 1 and part 2. Authors Johnathan Bonnell and Jason Theodor received 14 comments (quite healthy for an agency blog post) and incited conversations on several blogs. So, how did this happen?
The posts’ success originated from many factors, including:
- Personal brand aids in distribution. Johnathan and Jason were already active in social media, having previously gained a following through their blog (Jason), Posterous profile (Johnathan), and their respective Twitter accounts (@jted and @digitalinfant). They used their already existing personal channels to notify their audience to the agency post.
- Internal support. Critical Mass’ internal marketing team has renewed their efforts to use the company blog as a forum for employee posts. In fact, last month Critical Mass’ blog, Experience Matters, featured 13 posts from 11 contributors – the highest rate of staff involvement in 15 months. (So, props to @CeliaJones and @KTBogda for starting – and keeping – this ball rolling.) Both employees and the agency benefit from using the official company channel to broadcast their thoughts.
Through fragmented social media – owned by both the company and employees – word of these posts spread much further than they could have through any one channel.
From The Authors
I asked Johnathan and Jason about their experience and how the personal/company brand interplay affected the post.
From Johnathan:
“I think what worked well with the Experience Matters post was the combination of the work coming from Jason and I, as well as Critical Mass’ credibility.
It’s a combination of what the brand brings (top tier digital agency that has experience in producing high quality work) and what Jason and I bring (authenticity, personal experience, and a unique point of view). That to me is what worked well with the Experience Matters post.”
From my point of view, Johnathan is describing the machinations occurring just under the surface. Correspondingly, Jason highlights how their message then moved from the post outward into the broader world.
“I was thinking about how Critical Mass and employees who broadcast through social media channels create a symbiotic relationship.
Consider a Venn diagram, with Critical Mass in a circle in the centre, and all the employees who broadcast in circles surrounding it [image shown at the top of this post]. When I write something and it is broadcast by CM, it sucks in and filters all of Critical Mass’ extended audience and aims them at me.
At the same time, as an employee but also as an individual broadcaster, I pull in my OWN audience who then get exposed to Critical Mass. Who benefits the most? I’d say both…”
How This Is Different From GM, Comcast, And Others
So, why is this special? And why should your company or agency consider optimizing the personal brands of your employees?
Two reasons are paramount: Many megaphones and home-grown superstars.
Many Megaphones:
While it is great to give Frank at Comcast and Scott at GM the huge company megaphone, it remains just that – one megaphone. By dispersing content creation across the company, each employee generates buzz around their personal post and the company, by proxy.
Home-Grown Superstars:
And while bequeathing a social media position is a great step, companies and agencies should recognize the benefit of growing their own superstars. Find the employee who stands out, puts in the extra time, and has an innate sense of suitable content. Making your company blog a meritocracy allows for unknowns to rise and keeps the focus on the content and the company, as opposed to any particular individual (especially important when considering employee turn-over).
Who Is Your Human?
So, will you integrate employee personal brands into your company’s brand?
Johnathan summed up my thesis well: “The interesting and important idea is that social media and networks have made it easier for companies to develop relationships between their brand and customers by tapping into their employees as brand voices.”
And why is this important? I’m sure I am not alone in saying it is because the most interesting thing to people is…other people.
Social media strategist Jay Baer concurs that social media is about people, not logos:
“Sometimes, the humanization comes from an employee [or customer] that has a unique job or an unusual passion for the company…
[Paraphrased from the video:] We (and our consumers) are attracted to other people, not faceless corporations. 6 under $6 [the Subway advertising campaign prior to the famous Jared spots] is just features and benefits. It’s much more compelling to be human…Who’s your human?”
Who personifies your company? Do you allow employees to use company channels to spread your message?
Or, are you hesitant to tap into employee personal brands? If so, why?
We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
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