Tag Archives: Advertising and Marketing

June 24, 2013 · 10:38 am

Radiant Marketing

Ever seen someone who you might describe as “radiant”?  You know what I mean – filled with light.

049e that inner glow

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Glowing.  Beaming.  The immediate image that comes to mind is of a bride on her wedding day or a parent watching their child do something that makes the kid beam and the parent glow even more brightly.  Radiant.  It’s pretty easy to read these people – that glow just shines through all the layers of defenses in which we adult humans often wrap ourselves.  You can’t fake it.

The same thing is true about businesses.  Consumers can see when a company has that “inner glow” and when it’s faking it.  Think about brands you know that seem to have a core confidence and I’m willing to bet that you can pick up that “radiant” vibe.  It’s not that they don’t ever commit missteps or do anything that wouldn’t cause them to be “perfect.”  In fact, quite the contrary.  They have the inner peace to admit when they’re wrong and they don’t stray from their centers to “fix” an emergency.

Why I raise this is  that more and more businesses are spending time engaged via social media with their customers and they’re putting out all sorts of messages.  The thing that gets lost is that customers can tell when it’s a marketing program and when it’s a reflection of a centered, radiant brand.  Some brands – Patagonia and Apple are the first two that pop into my head – have become enormous because they “found” themselves and stay true.  They don’t pander.  They radiate.  Everything they do glows.  When companies try to mimic that what they fail to realize is that it’s replicable only to the extent that a company can find its own core.

Consumers are people.  They’re used to spotting fakes and once in a while they see someone who radiates light.  They can sniff out when you’re trying to foster “engagement” when what you need to be doing is looking within and sharing what you find (hopefully there IS something to find) with them.  Maybe it’s allowing them to bask in your glow.

Finding and marketing that radiance is not marketing at all, in my book.  It’s a key to success and one that your fans will love to share.  After all, don’t we all love it when your friends have it?  Isn’t it catching?   Tell me.

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June 11, 2013 · 10:05 am

Ratings Are Back-Assward

I saw something this morning with which I agree totally. It’s a statement, reported in MediaPost, by Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Laura Desmond about how media is measured and how consumers’ multi-screen consumption makes the traditional methods far less useful. As she said: “We need to invest in new measurement techniques for brands.”  That’s right, except that for the most part what we hear about has nothing to do with brands.  In fact, what we do now, and what I expect the industry will do in the future is completely backward.  Let me explain.

When you read about the most-viewed content of the week, have you ever seen a mention of a commercial?  Nope.  It’s all about programs – The Voice or Idol or Duck Dynasty.  The measurements, as Ms. Desmond said, tend to be channel-specific and, therefore, might not reflect all of the consumption that’s occurring.  The point that’s missed from a marketing perspective is that brands use these ratings to estimate how many times their ad was seen and what value they derived from their investment.  My question is this:

Why are we measuring for one thing and reporting for another?

If what we’re after is how many people are seeing a message, why do we care about the vehicle in which that message is delivered?  The industry makes the programming entities measure themselves (fair, since that’s who’s getting paid to deliver the message) but then assumes everyone watching sees the message (OK, I know some folks adjust the numbers slightly but humor my rant here, please).  Why aren’t we working on a system where a brand message carries some sort of tag across all channels that would allow all the impressions to aggregate?  Further, those tags could be used much like cookies to track conversions.  Since it’s the brands that pay for the impressions, should it be their own results that are tracked?

If the industry follows Ms. Desmond’s thinking and does invest in new techniques to measure cross-channel results, they’ll have a hard time if what they’re measuring are programs.  Many programs aren’t in all the places brands want to go.  Some are sold by different sales entities across channels.  It’s backward to measure an inconsistent series of channels instead of the consistent brand who is paying the bills.

What do you think?

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January 17, 2013 · 11:30 am

The Most Effective Marketing Words

Since I seem to be emptying my “possible posts” research folder this week, here is something recent that comes to us from the good folks at Weber Shandwick.

English: Good customer service requires high p...

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It’s a study called “Buy It, Try It, Rate It” and you can read the study here.  While this may fall into the “duh” category of research, the study found that consumer reviewers trump professional reviewers as the key purchase influencers and further shows that 65 percent of potential consumer electronics purchasers are inspired by a consumer review to select a brand that had not been in their original consideration set.  It turns out that the average buyer consults 11 consumer reviews as they get ready to purchase.   A few other key findings:

  • Consumers report that they pay more attention to consumer reviews (77 percent) than professional critic reviews (23 percent). The gap between consumer and professional reviews closes noticeably, but not entirely, for more advanced technologies like tablets and computers.
  • The most influential reviews include certain elements. In consumer reviews, the most helpful ones are those that seem fair and reasonable (32 percent), are well-written (27 percent) and contain statistics, specifications and technical data (25 percent).
  • Shoppers trust consumer reviews on Amazon.com (84 percent) and BestBuy.com (75 percent) the most, topping Consumer Reports (72 percent). Consumers show no apparent discomfort in getting their research from a seller of the products they’re considering.

This gets to the notion of authenticity.  I’ve remarked to some people that the next review I find in a golf magazine which gives a bad review to a piece of equipment will be the first.  It’s pretty obvious that without golf manufacturers advertising in the books most of the publications would be in deep financial trouble.  Professionally generated content about electronics, cars, and other goods can have the same skew, or at least raise the issue in consumers‘ minds as the study shows.  What can you do as a brand?

First, be transparent.  This means, among other things, don’t do everything you can to have negative reviews pulled down and certainly don’t censor them on your own site.  Second, as the study suggests,

companies need dedicated resources to manage social network communities for purposes that go beyond branded content. An online community manager should be encouraging customers to review products, disseminating positive customer and professional reviews through social channels, and working in tandem with customer service to respond to customer feedback or issues quickly.

Third, be authentic.  Don’t use marketing speak – write as if you are a consumer.  Finally, don’t be afraid to engage on other sites – Amazon, for example – which have become so influential in the process.  Do so openly though.

The most effective marketing words are those coming out of consumers’  mouths.  While we as marketers can’t put them there, we can listen carefully and respond honestly   That can help make sure those words are positive.  You agree?

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