Archive for October, 2009
Forbes just wrote about one of our favorite topics – Badvocates. The article, “Marketers Grapple With Brand-Bashing ‘Badvocates,’” was written by Laurie Burkitt who did a great job providing some real-time events where Badvocates have been bad. But as we have said often, Badvocates are sometimes your most passionate enthusiasts who want you to do better… so listen carefully to them. Here is the article (I don’t think Forbes will mind my repeating it.)
During General Motors’ financial meltdown this year, politicians, corporate executives and journalists piled on to gripe about the auto-maker’s business. Most of the chatter was expected, admits Christopher Preuss, GM’s vice president of communications. What surprised company execs was the number of bloggers and social media hounds who chimed in to grouse about the car-maker and its vehicles.
One was David Meerman Scott, a blogger on WebInkNow.com, and the former vice president of marketing for media company Knight-Ridder. Scott’s scathing commentary about “faceless,” “nameless” GM’s marketing strategies fetched 20-plus comments from other GM bashers on his blog.
GM is one of many companies trying to manage a slew of online critics like Scott, particularly since the economic downturn has made so many bloggers–and their followers–distrustful and critical of big companies. The musings and grumbles of these “badvocates,” as they are called, can now be transmitted around the globe. These powerful critics represent 20% of the world’s adult population online and they reach an estimated 14 people with their opinions, according to New York public relations firm Weber Shandwick.
Muzzling them is impossible. So how do GM and other companies handle these critics? At GM, a social media team of six employees trolls the Web, tweeting, updating Facebook and occasionally commenting on personal blogs. In the case of Scott, who has 29,000 followers on Twitter, GM invited him to Detroit and encouraged him to log the details of his trip and post video clips of interviews Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson and other executives. Other companies are also setting up meetings with bloggers to try and establish better relationships with them. Some even hope to drown out critics by getting brand fans to write positive blogs.
GM’s Preuss says executives can’t invite every blogger to the company, but they plans to reach out occasionally to make sure that influential writers are equipped with correct information about the car maker. In July the Detroit company also launched AskFritz.org, a site where consumers can leave their gripes or ask questions and actually get comments from Henderson. The site, Preuss says, has helped GM respond to critics who might otherwise be splattering comments elsewhere on the Web.
Airlines have experienced a lot of brand bashing on the Web in recent years, particularly on trip-planning sites and, more recently, on Twitter. When consumers miss connecting flights or experience delays, they reach down for their mobile phones and Tweet or blog about it.
American Airlines of Fort Worth is reaching out to people on social networking sites, says Roger Frizzell, vice president of corporate communications, brand and advertising. In August, when New York’s LaGuardia Airport closed a terminal due to a bomb threat, American Airlines posted notices on its Web site and sent a Tweet to its followers on Twitter. It leaves general information on lost baggage and canceled flights on its Facebook site. Getting the word out before consumers run into problems at the airport is one way to avoid criticism, says Frizzell.
That’s key, agrees Jack Leslie, chairman of Weber Shandwick. Companies should check out what’s being said about their brands and figure out if they should react or comment. Worst case scenario, says Leslie, is to have a viral video like the one United Airlines experienced this past July, when country singer Dave Carroll wrote a song about the airline’s failure to replace the guitar the airline supposedly smashed in transport.
GM watcher Scott says he still feels comfortable speaking out against companies, but he’s more likely to talk to them first to get information and comments. He recommends that all big corporations should respond to bloggers who bash their brands. “It’s easy for a blogger to see a company as a faceless entity,” says Scott. “We need to know there are real people out there.”
For more info on badvocates, check out The Good Book of Badvocacy.
I am reminded that I am a big fan of Robert Pasikoff of Brand Keys each time I read about his work and insightful approach into what drives brand loyalty. Like the 2009 Loyalty Leader rankings research they recently published. So here’s three cheers and a sis-boom-bah as it’s worth a read.
Not least because the rankings show “value” brands like McDonald’s Coffee and Hyundai rocketing up the rankings: from way down at 155 last year to number 16 on the list for McD’s, and from further back at 295 in the case of Hyundai to rank in the latest results at number 24.
Since Brand Keys’ research is predictive and forward-looking, these high loyalty rankings mean that consumers are not likely to pass up these brands for the next best deal that comes along anytime soon. Why? According to the study, the brands have earned fiercely loyal fans by providing something that differentiates them beyond just price. What that is, I imagine Pasikoff might say, is standing for something with authentic meaning and connecting to consumers’ changed set of values, beyond just communicating value.
The surge in brand loyalty for McDonald’s coffee is followed by a bold move up the rankings of its own by Dunkin’ Donuts, another new kind of value brand, to 54 from 123. If you guessed Starbucks is on the opposite escalator heading down then you’re right: its ranking fell from 192 last year to a back of the bus 428 this year.
Consistent with this overall trend, other brands that are earning fiercer loyalty include Walmart, Verizon, and J. Crew. Topping the loyalty list? Wireless handset brands like Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Rogue, Smooth and Trance handsets. See this article in Brandweek today for more discussion and commentary on the kinds of brands consumers are increasingly cheering about.
Image Credit: Image Source
In today’s Sunday The New York Times, the U2 singer Bono writes an opinion piece on Rebranding America. For those still scratching their heads about President Obama’s recent honor as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, this article provides insight into America’s renewed reputation in the world and President’s Obama’s role in that shift. As a non-American, Bono explains:
“But I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines.
In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.”
What was revealing to me was how Bono is described in the footer where the author’s bio and background are set forth in what seems like less than 140 characters. It says: “Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.” This being a blog all about advocacy, Bono’s ONE organization is breezily identified as an advocacy group. Today it seems fairly common to describe groups organized around causes or issues as advocacy groups whereas years ago they might have been described as non-profits or NGOs…non-governmental groups. Worth noting how times have changed along with our descriptors.
Tags: advocacy group, America reputation, Bono, NGO
What’s up with the classic “What’s up doc?”, you ask? The one from long ago where Bugs conducts the opera and the great maestro himself at the Hollywood Bowl, literally bringing the house down? What’s up is this Advertising Age story from today, “Why It’s Time to Do Away with the Brand Manager,” and its preview of an upcoming report from Forrester that puts forth a few ideas we think are worth any marketer’s consideration. Ideas about how managers need to think and act more like maestros of advocacy.
The report is set to recommend that marketers make a number of structural changes as a result of, and a response to, the changed media and consumer world today. Chief among them: changing the role, and name, of “brand manager” to “brand advocate.” Why? So marketing can be nimbler. More consumer-centric. More opportunistic. More open and real-time. More adaptive. And very much more digital, according to the article. So a brand manager acts less like a “manager” and more (here it comes) like a maestro (an analogy actually coined over at Unilever). A maestro of advocacy for the brand whose mission is to bring a diverse range of players and experiences, interactions and influences, together in concert to generate greater alignment, engagement, favorability, loyalty, growth, etc.
It’s no Looney Tunes idea. In fact, we’d go a step further at Weber Shandwick and say that the imperative today is to create not just well-orchestrated marketing but truly “Inline Brands.” Brands that are in-line with what engages the consumer and creates more fans. In-line with what influences them from traditional opinion shapers to those of empowered consumers. In-line with their shifting media and news consumption habits across offline and online channels.
All told, the kinds of things that are by definition often unmanageable, beyond control and often shifting, especially now. The goal, then, is to take what’s immutable and core about a brand and connect and relate it to what is inline (again our nomenclature) with what will create greater advocacy among your fans and beyond.
Let’s just hope they are not all fans of the opera. As the iconic wascally wabbit himself intoned at the end of this 1949 short: “Well, what did you expect in an opera, doc? A happy ending?”
Image source
Ad Age’s Jack Neff wrote that Forrester is coming out with a new report recommending that “brand managers” be newly named “brand advocates.” Forrester makes the claim that it is high time for marketers and agencies to capitalize on the Internet and focus on customer cohorts. The report being issued next week, Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age, has many other recommendations about brand advocacy programs and what it means for marketers in 2010. Weber Shandwick agrees with this call to action for advocacy-focused marketing. In this complex and resource-restricted world, identifying your advocates and badvocates (what we call detractors) is the right solution. We are all advocates under the skin — maybe not all. Our research found that nearly one out of two (48%) of us are advocates, some more active than others. Non-advocates are also worth identifying and finding ways to communicate with and engage. Looking forward to the report.
Tags: Ad Age, brand advocates, Forrester, Jack Neff
Jeremiah Owyang, formerly of Forrester and now at Altimeter Group, recently posted some helpful tips on building a successful Advocacy Program on his blog. They are worth reviewing for those advocates among us.
Here is a brief rundown (paraphrased) on the 9 ideas that went into his checklist.
1. Get your internal officers onboard to deal with the “raw” discussions that will be coming your way from those noisy and vocal advocates you have enlisted and engaged. It is not as easy as it may sound.
2. Find credible advocates. Make sure they are the real thing and not posers with no influence or credibility. Make sure they have a platform and are highly regarded.
3. Disclose disclose disclose. Any advocay program should be upfront about the relationship between the company and advocate.
4. It’s their agenda, stupid. This is not about your company’s agenda so make sure that advocates are fully comfortable with you because their reptuation and yours are at stake.
5. Recognize your advocates but no pay day here. Owyang recommends letting advocates you enlist be beta testers or publicly thanking them or give them access to events.
6. Give advocates platforms to speak, whether it is your web site, social networks or letting others know that they are to be trusted.
7. Listen and act. Do something about what your advocates are saying about your products and services. Take their advice.
8. Turn them into a community. Figure out how to help them band together .
9. Measure your advocacy program and provide results.
Tags: Advocacy Program, advocates, Jeremiah Owyang
