Archive for the ‘brands’ Category

March12

Your Cause Might Not Be What You Think

By: Spike Jones

tumblr_lc8pebWUz71qf30hxo1_500_largeAs SXSW roars on and the interactive portion comes to a close, there’s a lot of chatter about the highs, lows and in-betweens. But through all the clutter, there are a handful of things that stuck out for me – and one that got stuck in my craw.

It has to do with companies and causes.

There are, of course, many variations of this conversation. One of them is brand as cause, like Love146 or the World Wildlife Fund. In other words, they are brands that exist wholly around the cause that they stand for. Then there are the ones that have a product, but stand for that one north star. Take Patagonia, for example, which is committed to helping the planet and makes sure everything they make and do supports that cause. Check out their Common Threads and 1% for the Planet programs, just to name a few (or the fact that after two or three times that they sent me a catalog and I didn’t order anything, they asked if they could take me off their mailing list to save paper). Or even Toms, a company that donates one pair of shoes to those in need for every one they sell.

And then there is, well, everyone else. And this is where the conversations I heard land. These people were saying that if your brand doesn’t stand for something – a cause, if you will – then people won’t care about it. And I absolutely agree. Where I absolutely disagree, however, is that your brand needs to align itself with something like saving the planet or curing cancer in order for people to care about you.

Let’s go ahead and get it out of the way: I’m not saying that’s a bad thing or even an ineffective thing. But experience has taught me that a brand can stand on its own as a cause, you just sometimes (okay, a lot of times) have to get your hands dirty to find it. And instead of having some arbitrary cause that sounds good, why not find the one that matters to your customers? For a crafting company, we found that their cause was to create a place that was safe online to share and celebrate each other’s work instead of the hostile communities that plagued the online space. For a city park client, it wasn’t planting trees and picking up trash. Their cause was celebrating the memories you make in a park with your family, your partner, etc. For a musical instruments initiative, it wasn’t about selling guitars and drum kits while looking for the next American Idol, but unlocking the music inside us all – no matter your skill level.

As an old colleague used to say, brands exist for two reasons: Solve my problem. And make me feel good. It’s no secret that people want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. But instead of looking outward for that cause, maybe you should look inward. Because when you find that thing to fight for, you a one step closer to putting a stake in the ground and defining who and what you are as a brand. And giving your customers something to fight far makes it even better.

Posted in: brands, Featured, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

December13

Turning the Tables on Loyalty

By: Spike Jones

Loyalty-CardsBrands talking about loyalty has been happening for decades. And it’s a frequently visited topic for articles, blog posts, conference sessions and the like these days. We’ve got loyalty programs. Loyalty membership. Loyalty cards. The list goes on and on. And when you think about, there really haven’t been very many revelations or advancements when it comes to how brands think about loyalty.

Let me take a quick moment to remind you, as I wrote three years ago, that frequency doesn’t necessarily equal loyalty. Take that gas station on the way to work. You go there frequently because it’s convenient and on your route – but are you loyal to that gas station? I doubt it.

But I digress.

By the current state of thinking, brands are asking you to be loyal to them. They are asking you to join their program or carry their card. They, in essence, are asking you to buy more and buy more often. Sure, you can earn points or miles or free meals, etc., but in a lot of instances, it’s a game.

But what if we changed how we think about loyalty? What if we turned the tables? What if a brand had to join your loyalty program? So instead of pledging your loyalty to them, they pledged their loyalty to you? So American Airlines could join Spike’s loyalty program. Or Starwood. You get the idea.

So often we ask customers to put skin in the game and do things for us. Maybe it’s time brands did as well?

Just food for thought.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth2 comments

November26

What real word of mouth looks like

By: Spike Jones

Gather ’round, kids because I want to share a case study with you that I just can’t seem to get out of my head. It’s about a year old now, but the lessons you can learn from this one will stick with you for a long, long time. It’s got everything: an unsexy product. An audience in middle America. Oh, and word of mouth marketing at its finest.

I’m talking about the kids over at Fizz and their work with the American Dairy Association of Ohio.

You can read the full, award-winning case study here, but let me give you a recap.

Challenge: Milk sales in Ohio were slumping (just like the rest of the country). If fact, consumption had dropped over 50% since the 70s.

The Legwork: Fizz dug into the ethnographic research and found that 65% of Ohioans live in cities under 50,000 people and 22% live in towns under 10,000. In other words, just like we learned with the teen anti-smoking movement in South Carolina, if you want to reach the majority of people in a rural state, you have to take the message to them.

The next big thing they discovered is that there is a solid case to be made for chocolate milk as a sports recovery drink. Seriously, look it up. “Researchers and nutritionists at Indiana found that chocolate milk, the drink of little kids, was the perfect beverage to drink after strenuous activity. It was, in reality, a better for you, high tech sports drink.”

But the big A-HA moment came when Fizz was identifying their influencers for this campaign. Did they go to food bloggers? No. Health and wellness bloggers? Sports bloggers with big Twitter followings? Nope. In fact, they didn’t use online influencers at all. So think to yourself, who, in rural towns across Ohio, would be the go-to person(s) when it comes to sports, nutrition and performance – all wrapped up in respect and a source of authority?

High school football coaches.

Smart, right?

Think about it. Football is huge in small-town Ohio. It’s an honor and privilege to be on the team. So if you’re on the team, your coach’s word is law. And also if you’re on the team, you’re more than likely a popular kid in the school – so you have people watching and looking up to you. Coach says drink chocolate milk because it’s good for recovery, you drink it. Others ask you why and then they drink it, too. This has a huge trickle-down word of mouth effect.

Results: Straight from the case study:

Kroger’s chocolate milk sales in the Cincinnati region increased an incredible 475%. That is a Kroger system-wide record for increase in milk sales;Kroger management could not believe so much milk was being sold. In markets across Ohio, milk consumption increased 12-28% YTD as verified by IRI Scandata. This was 10 times the rate of the rest of the country. The sales rise was so dramatic that concerned convenience store owners even contacted the agency staff about chocolate milk’s possible illicit use because of the unprecedented sales to teenage boys (remember “Whipits?”).

There is a lot more to the WOMMY-winning case study that you’ll find interesting, so be sure to head over to the Fizz site and take a look.

The biggest take-away for me is this: Influence comes in all shapes and sizes. And it takes carefully planned, insightful digging to find out where your story is going to resonate. The days of making a list of influential bloggers and then pitching them are waning. Because the very definition of online influence is changing on a daily basis. It’s a moving target. And if it’s where you put all your hope (and money), you’re bound to fail. The social media marketing world is falling into a Facebook, Twitter and blog rut. As John Bell said at the recent WOMMA conference: “It’s our job to build belief in the fundamentals.” How true. When we forget the basics, we will fail. When we forget that 90% of word of mouth happens offline, we will fail. But when we combine online and offline in meaningful ways, it opens up a whole world of opportunity. Easier said than done? Of course. Impossible? Not on your life.

Posted in: brands, Featured, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth2 comments

August30

Giving Customers the Finger

By: Spike Jones

Over cocktails with colleagues this week, we were talking about the usual – agency life, working with clients and oh, yeah, how the Internet has become one big pity party with a lot of whiners and complainers.

This is nothing new. In fact, the amount of noise that complainers make is getting louder and louder. To be clear, I know there are MANY legitimate things that we can complain about. But because we live in the age where anyone with an Internet connection “has a voice,” we’ve become used to reading our “friends” posts about delayed flights. Bad drivers. How their coffee is too hot. Even complaining about all the complaining (guilty). I’m sure the human behavior scientists are having a field day with all the data they’re collecting when it comes to wanting to be heard and ego and on and on. After all, studies show that the number one reason people post things on social media is for ego-driven purposes.

But no, this post isn’t going to be about how bad customer service stories get shared more than good ones. And it especially isn’t going to be about how to turn detractors into advocates.

Instead, I want to talk about telling your customers (or A customer) to go screw themselves. First of all, this is not a luxury all brands can afford. In fact, it’s one that very few can pull off. The example that comes to mind is the Alamo Drafthouse (from about a year ago). If you haven’t been or don’t know, the Alamo is a movie theater that serves you food and drinks during a show. They also have quirky film screenings with themes like quote-alongs, sing-alongs, shooting cap guns during action movies, etc. But what I REALLY love about the Alamo is how, before every movie, they explicitly warn you that if you talk or are on your phone during a movie, you get one warning and then you’ll be escorted out of the building (“we’ll kick your ass out” is how they so delicately put it). Because, as they say, they don’t mean to rude, but if you’re gonna be, then so will they.

If you’re not familiar with the story, an intoxicated young lady got kicked out of a movie for being loud. She called and left a message voicing her disgust that she couldn’t believe such a thing would happen. That they ripped her off. That this is America, for cryin’ out loud. But did the Alamo apologize and invite her to come back for a free movie? No. Instead, they made an example out of her and turned her voice mail into a commercial.

It went like this:

1)    Brand has policy.
2)    Brand highlights policy outlining rules and consequences when you break the rules.
3)    Customer breaks rules.
4)    Brand gives customer the finger.

Like I said, not all brands have this luxury. But because the Alamo stood up for what they believe in and pushed back on a whiny customer, it not only endeared its current customers to love them even more, but they won new awareness and probably customers because of it.

Holy moly, this makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl. We live in a world of contingency documents and crisis planning. We prepare for the worst-case scenario. We cringe at the stories of vigilante customers and fear the almighty social media influencers.  Brands spend half their time trying to figure out how to engage with their customers and the other half preparing for the backlash of engaging with their customers.

Again, allow me to reiterate. AT&T can’t do this. Ford can’t do this. American Airlines can’t do this. But when it comes to niche brands with deeply loyal followings, there’s an opening. No, you shouldn’t be looking for opportunities on how you can tell your customers to go fly a kite. But if you have a set of simple, ironclad rules that come with your brand and someone breaks them, then a whole new set of opportunities opens up.UPDATE: Since penning this post yesterday, I was reminded of this tried and true story about Southwest Airlines from the book “Nuts.”


Jim Ruppel, director of customer relations, and Sherry Phelps, director of corporate employment, tell the story of a woman who frequently flew on Southwest, but was disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint. She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere. And she hated peanuts! Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. Phelps explains: “Southwest prides itself on answering every letter that comes to the company and several employees tried to respond to this customer, patiently explaining why we do things the way we do them. [Our response] was quickly becoming a [large] volume until they bumped it up to Herb’s desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’ In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’

Personally, I love hearing stories of brands fighting back. When it’s done “on brand” and is legitimate, it can go a long way. And who knows? Maybe one-day things will even out and the cry-babies will think twice before they post that negative comment about the tiniest thing.

We can dream, can’t we?

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, rants2 comments

May15

Social Business Means Cultural Change

By: Spike Jones

Social business. All the cool kids are doing it. Come on, you should do it to. Why? You’ll be POP-uLARRRR!!

Like victims of high school peer pressure, everyone in the digital world is talking about how social business is the next big thing. And I’m not here to argue if it is or isn’t. Brother Armano recently wrote a great post about the evolution of digital that lays it out very nicely and talks about the natural evolution of social media into social business. It’s the next logical step, really. In fact, we’re seeing more and more businesses come on the scene that not only are trying to crack the social business nut, but are actually calling themselves social business businesses.

That’s pretty bold.

In a conversation with Chuck last week, we were discussing the state of the digital industry. It started with the obvious: that social media is just that: media. Tools. Things we can turn on and off and plug in and unplug and dial up or down  – you know, just like advertising. It’s mechanical “things” – at least the media part of it. But social business – this idea that social will come in and permeate every singe section of a company – that’s waaayyyyy different. In fact, it can’t happen unless there’s a fundamental cultural change within a company.

And therein lies the problem. Impossible? No. Hard? Very. To walk in to a company and tell them that in order to become a social business, they’re going to have to fundamentally shift the way they think about everything they do – internally and externally – is a damn hard sell. Because changing the culture of the company is no easy task. Volumes have been written about it. But ultimately it comes down to a willingness to do it from all parties involved and a push from the both the top-down and the bottom-up.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in word of mouth projects that have ignited cultural change within companies. I wish we could say that we set out to do it in the first place, but it was a result of a long-term, sustainable program that started under the PR division and then spread through marketing, advertising, HR, finance and so-on. It was amazing to watch and within 12 months, the entire company had begun to shift culturally.

So maybe that’s how you start. Small. Bit-by-bit. With something obvious that you know will begin to creep into the dark corners of a company and bring them into the fold. Telling a company of 400,000 people that everything is going to change is a lot harder than letting them see how you can take one section of a company, change it for the better and let them wrap their heads around it.

Change is hard. But when the right people (dare I say “influencers?”) within a company are dedicated to make it happen, it’s a beautiful thing. But before we go throwing around the term “social business,” let’s really be clear what we’re talking about.

Posted in: brands, marketing, word of mouth4 comments

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