Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

August 14, 2014 · 1:15 pm

Cheerleaders

It’s getting to be the weekend again which means that many of you will be watching sports.

Cheerleader of the Aachen Steelers team at the...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe it’s your local baseball team, maybe it’s one of your kids, or maybe it’s one of the many hours of televised sports that will be available.  The reason sports rights fees continue to rise so dramatically despite the continued fragmentation of audiences is because the market sees sports as one of the few pieces of content that really must be watched as it happens.  They’re sort of DVR-proof.

That’s part of the secret but the real truth is that sports make people care.  There is an emotional connection with the team or with a player.  If you ever played a sport I suspect there is a part of you that feels the excitement of competition again as well.  Fans are cheerleaders and maybe even more.  Some researchers have found that fans experience hormonal surges and other physiological changes while watching games.  The emotional connection is strong because, to a certain extent, whomever you root for represents you.  When they win, you do too.

That got me thinking.  How do we bring that deep connection outside of sports? How do we get them to see themselves not so much as buying products but rather belonging to a larger movement?  Apple certainly has done that.  Some mom and pop local businesses manage to do that as well.  The get their customers to root for them as they would a sports team.  Those teams are a central component to their daily lives.  How can we make our brands play that kind of role?

It certainly isn’t by selling.  When your team takes the field, they sweat and get hurt for you to win.  Are we making consumers feel that we’d do the same thing for them, or are we constantly asking them to do something for us?  How can we turn customers into cheerleaders? Something to think about.

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August 13, 2014 · 11:31 am

Critics Vs. Trolls

Any of us who work in and around marketing understand that to a large extent consumers control our brands these days.

Troll in Trondheim

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ask any company that’s run into difficulty with its image due to a social media faux pas or to some bad consumer experience that’s gone viral and they’ll tell you.  I think that brands lay the groundwork – they shape the experience but ultimately consumers are the ones who refine that groundwork into the image the world at large has of a brand.

Given that, and given the need for brands to participate in the social world, they’re going to encounter people who have had either a less than optimal interaction with the brand or who just don’t like whatever it is that the brand is selling/doing.  Those people might use the social tools to let the world know about it since as we know it’s the less happy people who tend to lead brand discussions and not usually the staunch brand advocates (until they’re prompted somehow).  I think it’s important that the recipients of the criticism differentiate between the two main types of people who offer it up:  critics and trolls.  They need to be dealt with differently.

Critics tend to express their displeasure in a thought-out, rational way.  They usually have facts at their disposal and will listen both to other facts and promises to rectify whatever it is that irked them in the first place.  Think of a restaurant review – maybe they just didn’t like the food – that’s opinion.  Or maybe the food arrived cold and slowly – those are facts and problems which can be fixed.  Critics help brands make themselves better.

Trolls, on the other hand, tend to be deliberately inflammatory.  They are not trying to help fix anything – they just want people to respond, start flame wars, and get their jollies this way.  They usually lack facts, they usually direct personal attacks as part of their rants, and harassment and stupidity are the cesspools in which they live.

What does one do?  As we said the other day, you must respond to them both.  Don’t do so by attacking them.  Get your facts straight, point out opinions (which you respect) from facts, and accept that the critics might help you get better.  Trolls go away when no one takes their bait.  Good critics acknowledge improvement and it’s fair to reach out to them once you’ve fixed whatever was wrong.  Our constant focus on the customer means we need to allow them to help us get better even as we continue to shape the brand we want them to see.

Make sense?

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July 29, 2014 · 8:54 am

Trusting Sponsored Content

We’ve explored the subject of branded content or advertorial or deceptive editorial or whatever you want to call it here on the screed a few times.

English: Example of a variable data tear sheet...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some data on the subject that I came across from Contently is worth a minute of your time.  They were spurred to do the research by a statement from the CEO of Chartbeat, an analytics company, who claimed that only 24% of readers were scrolling down on native ad content compared to the 71% of readers who scroll on “normal content.” Since that content is advertising that is supposed to integrate seamlessly with the site’s other content and, therefore, get the sponsor higher brand engagement, that number is pretty disturbing.  For my money, not quite as disturbing in some ways as what the subsequent study found.

Putting aside that most of those surveyed disagree about what exactly qualifies as “sponsored content”, some of the other findings were:

  • Two-thirds of readers have felt deceived upon realizing that an article or video was sponsored by a brand.
  • 54 percent of readers don’t trust sponsored content.
  • 59 percent of readers believe a news site loses credibility if it runs articles sponsored by a brand.
  • As education level increases, so does mistrust of sponsored content.

In fact, the study found that people would rather have to deal with banner ads than sponsored articles, and the more education the consumer has the greater chance they feel deceived by a piece of branded content.  The fine print labeling it as something not quite the same as other editorial does nothing to change consumers’ views.

Way back in October of 2012, this is what I had to say on the subject:

I’m not a fan.  Obviously I’m a big fan of ad-supported media – I worked in it and sold it for decades.  I do think, however, that doing this in digital in particular is an issue since there is so much content out there and users’ expectations of editorial integrity…are not met when the line is crossed.  It calls into question all of the legitimate reporting.  I get that people might ignore advertising but pay attention to this.  They need to know it’s not the same as other content.

My views haven’t changed.  Have yours?

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