Archive for the 'Advocacy' Category
In an article by Stefan Stern of the Financial Times, I always find something thoughtful for this blog. This past week he wrote about where marketing was going (or not going) in this current economic environment. Stern was describing his conversation with the “father of modern marketing” Phillip Kotler. One part of the conversation had to do with advocacy, the mainstay of this blog. The other one was just plain funny.
Kotler was reminiscing about a book he enjoyed titled Firms of Endearment (the best title). He said that in the book they talk about how some of the most successful companies spend less on marketing than the less successful ones. Sounds counterintuitive? Kotler says, “But they used the word of mouth effect of unpaid advocates – loyal customers – to boost their reputation.” Advocates will do your marketing for you if you mobilize them, listen to them and engage them. Our research at Weber Shandwick found this to be the case. Indeed. Kotler is apparently publishing a new book on the role of advocates in marketing titled Marketing 3.0.
What made me laugh was a statement by Kotler who is 79 years wise. He is quoted by Stern as saying, “At least it’s the finance people who are getting blamed for a change.” Marketers and communications professionals are getting by without the blame for awhile.
Tags: advocates, Financial Times, Weber Shandwick
The economic news is getting better for a change. But don’t expect people to consume the way they used to—not after learning to get along with lower-priced brands and living with less. The impact the recession has made on consumption will be long lasting (sigh).
And not just on what we are willing to spend money on. But in the way we go about buying things in the first place. The difference goes beyond using cash vs. credit or shopping offline vs. online. It’s in how we’re increasingly buying “social”: turning to what other consumers say, think, publish or otherwise share about a brand online when we make purchases as opposed to what a brand communicates alone. This has implications for the way we market and build brands.
It’s a transformation that was well on its way back in 2006 when Time Magazine boldly declared “You” the person of the year. It seemed like the only thing not going for the new medium was consumer trust, which was tentative at best.
The recession has helped to change that—globally. A recent survey showed that 43 percent of consumers in Western Europe, China and the U.S. now report far greater trust in online consumer content such as blogs, review sites and forums than they did before. By contrast, confidence in established companies, brands and media channels has fallen to record lows. The shift is one of the reasons why “social” has become more than just the latest buzzword but a powerful force on the media landscape.
“Social” is increasingly how we consume and create media, most dramatically online . Today, 33% of all online content is user generated and 6 out of the top 10 websites in the world are social. Social is also how we are increasingly learning about brands: 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are now links to user generated content.
But that’s not all. Social is now a powerful force in commerce, too. It’s increasingly the way we buy—more, in fact. Retail surveys show that two-thirds of shoppers spend more online after reading recommendations from an online community. And 84 percent of consumers say they are now more likely to check online for reviews prior to making a purchase than they were twelve months ago. Translation: the community “closes the sale.”
It’s happening right in your neighborhood, too, thanks to fast-growing local social networks like Yelp, where consumers share the experiences they’ve had with local businesses. Yelp’s unique users jumped from 16 million in December 2008 to a whopping 26 million in December 2009, doubling the number of total reviews posted to the site to 8 million.
When the pace of change is this furious, it’s time for marketers to do some accelerating of their own. But creating another Twitter account here or Facebook fan page there, as my colleague Chris Perry often says, is not the solution.
He also says, and I agree, that this has become part of the problem. The jump in use of blogs, branded social communities, discussion forums, Flickr, Wikis, ratings and reviews, YouTube and other types of social media is rapidly creating a fragmented and inconsistent online presence for more than a few brands and companies today. What’s more, it’s not unusual for it to be managed by different functions within a company as well as by different agencies. While this a good problem to have, it’s still a problem.
The bigger challenge, of course, is that companies have ever less control over the empowered consumer voices speaking on behalf of their brands. The result is an increasingly two-way marketing dynamic—less communication and more conversation—that requires as much embracing of what audiences are saying as it does talking at them.
So expect to see more and more brands wrestling with how to communicate who they are as a brand and what they stand for in social media in a far more consistent, strategic and global way.
The key, we believe, is a new strategy that takes the principle behind the brand architecture systems, guidelines and standards brands have traditionally used to manage their visual identities and logos and evolves it for the two-way, verbal, visual, experiential and interactive world of social media engagement. Does this approach look different? You bet it does–big time. But the concept is based on the same mission of better integration and brand building, even though the rules of the road in social media couldn’t be more different.
We’ll be talking a lot more about this new approach for building stronger socialized brands in the coming weeks and months.
Image credit: Getty Images
Admittedly I am not a “Deadhead” but I know people who are and I bet that some of them would call it sacrilege to acknowledge the brilliance of the Grateful Dead’s advocacy business 
model, as written about in this month’s The Atlantic.
Although the writer, Joshua Green, doesn’t call it “advocacy,” the Dead’s strategy for “delivering superior customer value” and applying communications and marketing tactics to ensure a loyal following is a fantastic example of advocacy. The advocacy strategy, of course, was the Dead’s building and cultivating of a legion of fans, the Deadheads. The band used tactics, such as a telephone hotline alerting fans to concert dates, and created a profitable social networking structure unlike any other.
The Dead has long been studied by the academics. Just recently business scholars and management theorists have realized that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created customer value and used social networking. Just another proof point for why organizations can’t afford to miss out on their advocacy opportunities.
Google today launched a person finder to quickly connect those looking for missing people in Chile and those with information about earthquake victims. You can choose between – “I’m looking for someone” and “I have information about someone”, and then query the database or enter new information. A great way to advocate for people searching for loved ones in this new world calamity.
Tags: Advocacy, Chile, Chile earthquake, earthquake, Google, person finder
What would you advocate for if you were given $100 to give away and report back? Interesting thought, right? Courtney Martin gave each of nine friends that amount and asked them to report back one month later on their advocacy choice. This appeared in the New York Times. They were also invited into the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy which now meets on a regular basis to discuss their acts of advocacy or “kindness.” Ms Martin received a huge book advance and decided to make the giving away of some of it the problem of others. As word got out, some other small-time philanthropy advocates joined in. Small philanthropy takes a lot of creativity when you have that responsibility and have to tell others. This mini-advocacy idea has generated chapters of the Secret Society in different cities. Here is a list of what some people did with their $100.
• Turned the writing of New York City children in a literacy nonprofit into books.
•Distributed 10,000 pennies to friends throughout the country to drop so there would be more lucky pennies for people to find.
• Inspired by Lewis Hyde’s book “The Gift,” bought a handmade platter on etsy.com and gave it to a friend, who she hopes will pass it on to others.
• Slipped $100 into a thank-you card and asked a friend to give it to the clerk at her local Duane Reade who makes her feel like a million bucks whenever she buys toothpaste.
• Gave $100 to the most frequent commenter on her Web site, who turned out to be a former correction officer aspiring to write.
• Gave to four established nonprofits that work in Haiti.
• Gave the money to a woman he sees collecting recycling on the street.
Tags: Advocacy, philantrophy
I was wondering what was taking so long. This week a group of brokers and traders started their own advocacy group to stick up for Wall Street. The nonpartisan group can be found at restorewallstreet.com. The CEO of John Thomas Financial, a fairly new investment house, is the head advocate of this rallying cry. At this week’s first meeting, CEO Thomas Belesis said that he formed the group to counter “the repeating, relentless attacks on Wall Street.” The tag line under Restore Wall Street on the web site is “putting the pride back into Wall Street.” This is a group to watch, just as the Tea-Baggers were months ago. I think that Wall Streeters have had enough of the name-calling and are smartly adopting similar counter-insurgency tactics as their critics. Stay tuned.
Tags: John Thomas Financial, restorewallstreet.com, Wall Street
As this blog has addressed many times before, there are many ways people demonstrate their advocacy for a company or brand. They talk or act on its behalf and actively spread word of mouth. They may wear their causes on their clothes and discuss them in social networks. They might carry branded products. They will pay a premium price for brands they support. In doing so, these advocates can have a significant impact on a business’ success (or failure if the business does something to damage its advocates’ trust).
Consumers aren’t the only ones with the ability to influence company success. Employees have increasing influence (see my first post on The Employee Advocate) and more opportunities to advocate for their employers. They often set up fan or group pages on Facebook for example. Of growing importance is their ability to “vote” their companies onto acclaimed “best employers” lists. These lists, awards and rankings not only help to recruit more great talent but signify to the world that the company values employees and in turn the valued and proud employees work harder for their customers. A client once told us that her company’s salesforce uses these honors as a sales tool because their customers want to do business with a company that treats its employees well. Happy employees, happy customers.
As close observers of these rankings (Weber Shandwick’s SCOREBOXX™ database includes approximately 900 awards of all kinds, roughly 100 of which recognize companies for its employee satisfaction and/or training and development), we’re seeing the popularity of these rankings growing. Most glaring has been an increase, particularly in the past year, in the number of our clients who want to understand how their strengths can be recognized by their industry, talent prospects and other stakeholders through unbiased third party recognition. Aside from that anecdote, here are just a few facts…
- A Google search of “best companies to work for” generates 661,000 results for the 2009 time period, compared with 190,000 in 2007 and 309,000 in 2008. That’s a stunning 248% increase of the topic’s online visibility.
- 50% of chief communications officers at North American Fortune 500 companies told us in our annual The Rising CCO study that awards and recognition are an important way their company leadership measures communications effectiveness.
- CNBC dedicated a five-minute segment to this week’s release of the the Fortune Best Companies to Work For list. Perhaps one of the most well known of the best employer rankings, this list uses a rigorous method to identify the best place to work in the U.S. with employee ratings accounting for most of the score.
- Glassdoor.com’s annual Employees’ Choice Awards of the 50 Best Places to Work included reviews of 11,000 companies among nearly 75,000 employees in 2008 and 37,000 companies among nearly 100,000 employees in 2009.
Based on facts like those above, and by the growing demand from clients to better understand and leverage these lists, we think that ‘best employer’ awards will take on more significance for promoting and rewarding good corporate cultures. Companies with less than stellar environments may be pressured to listen much more closely to employee opinions.
Tags: Weber Shandwick
The outpouring of help for Haiti is a prime example of Advocacy in action. All eyes are on the devastation and the many forms of relief being sent to the victims reminds us of what people (Advocates) can do when the chips are very down. Of course, it has to get into the hands of the Haitians quickly. As a resident of Brooklyn where 61,000 Haitians live, nearly everyone feels like they know someone whose family has been hit by this tragedy.
The amount of money raised through texting is encouraging and makes Americans proud of their generosity–over $10 million has been raised in the U.S. alone. Here are the many ways to help via texting (from the Washington Post) :
*Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
* Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
* Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
* Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
* Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
* Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International
* Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
* Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
* Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
*Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
* Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
*Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to YeleText RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
*Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United WayText CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
*Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International
Tags: Haiti
I’ve been monitoring the coverage of our Good Book of Badvocacy since we released it last May. We didn’t do a press release for it – just put it on the Weber Shandwick Web site, shared it with clients and the Weber Shandwick network, and discussed it in events and social media forums (including, of course, this blog). Needless to say, we’re more than pleased that a book about the power of word-of-mouth has made its way around purely on the power of word-of-mouth. In fact, as Leslie Gaines-Ross blogged, the Book was presented in an IT meeting at a company that is not in anyway affiliated with Weber Shandwick. The review was glowing. One of the meeting attendees was my husband so you can imagine his surprise when the book appeared (in case you’re wondering, he had not discussed it at work nor does he carry it around with him but I think he should).
And who can forget when “badvocate” became Addictionary’s Word of the Day! Or when Forbes.com interviewed Jack Leslie, chairman of Weber Shandwick, about badvocacy. Certainly I don’t want to overlook the many bloggers and Tweeters who kept the discussion rolling along. Many thanks to these folks for being badvote advocates:
Wishing all our badvocate followers a new year filled with nothing but advocates on your side!
True, the H1N1 influenza is now receding. True, it has not proven to be the population threatening pandemic strain the hyperventilating media made it out to be. True, that is, until we look at kids. Here the picture is different.
The swine flu has had a tragic impact on the young.
Despite it being December, well past the prime of the flu season, the number of pediatric deaths due to H1N1 remains alarmingly high. According to the CDC, the total number of pediatric deaths since the end of August is 204; since the end of April, 267. There are usually less than 100 pediatric deaths from the seasonal flu every year.
Reports show that complications brought on from the swine flu are the major cause of these deaths among our youngest citizens, such as from pneumonia and staph. So while conditions like asthma and diabetes can certainly increase a child’s risk, it doesn’t take a pre-existing health condition for a kid to be vulnerable.
It’s with these unsettling stats in mind that I was further unsettled to read a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Danielle Ofri, M.D., Ph.D. about why, at least from one physician’s standpoint, parents have been choosing not to follow the recommendations of the medical community to inoculate their children against H1N1.
As someone who looks at both advocacy and badvocacy, I found her description of the emotional epidemiology of H1N1, particularly of parents who say they “don’t do flu,” of great interest (my personal judgments and feelings about vaccination aside). It makes it clear just how badvocacy, not advocacy, is what can take root in a hyped-up health crisis. How, as she says, “suspicion has its own contagion.” And how unless there is an aggressive public health/public relations effort to counter it demand will not meet even the readiest supply of vaccine. And we wind up with the worst kind of results: too many sick kids and worse.
Below is the article for those who just want to read it here and now. We welcome your thoughts and comments about the public relations aspects of responding to H1N1. Please refrain from sharing views on what you think about vaccination or the H1N1 vaccine itself. Let’s just not go there.
Last spring, when 2009 H1N1 influenza first came to our attention, my patients were in a panic. Our clinic was flooded with calls and walk-in patients, all with the same question: “When will there be a vaccine?”
It was all so new then, and we didn’t have an answer. That lack of answer seemed to fuel anxiety to a fever pitch. A substantial cohort of my patients continued calling, almost on a weekly basis, to ask about the vaccine.
These, of course, were the same patients who routinely refused the seasonal flu vaccine. Each year we’d go through the same drill: I’d offer them the flu shot. I’d explain the clinical reasoning behind this recommendation. I’d strongly encourage vaccination.
“No, thanks,” they’d say. “The vaccine makes me sick.” Or “My brother had a bad reaction.” Or, simply, “I don’t do flu shots.”
The irony was painful. No matter how often I trotted out the statistics of 30,000 to 40,000 annual deaths from influenza, the patients would not be moved. So when they demanded the H1N1 vaccine last spring, I reminded them of their reluctance over the seasonal flu shot. “Oh, that’s different,” they said.
Six months have passed. Flu season is now here. After repeated delays, H1N1 vaccine finally arrived in our clinic earlier this month to the uniform relief of the medical staff. But my formerly desperate patients were now leery. “It’s not tested,” they said. “Everyone knows there are problems with the vaccine.” “I’m not putting that in my body.”
I was unprepared for this response, but maybe I shouldn’t have been. For weeks now, in the schoolyard of my children’s elementary school, other parents had been sidling up to me, seemingly in need of validation. “You’re not giving your kids that swine flu shot, are you?” they’d say, their tone nervous, if a bit derisive.
How to explain this dramatic shift in 6 short months? It certainly isn’t related to logic or facts, since few new medical data became available during this period. It seems to reflect a sort of psychological contagion of myth and suspicion.
Just as there are patterns of infection, there seem to be patterns of emotional reaction (”emotional epidemiology”) associated with new illnesses. When 2009 H1N1 influenza was first detected, it fit a classic pattern that Priscilla Wald recently outlined in her book Contagious1: It was novel and mysterious; it emerged from a teeming third-world city, and it was now making its insidious — and seemingly unstoppable — way toward the “civilized” world.
This is the story line for most headline-grabbing illnesses — HIV, Ebola virus, SARS, typhoid. These diseases capture our imagination and ignite our fears in ways that more prosaic illnesses do not. These dramatic stakes lend themselves quite naturally to thriller books and movies; Dustin Hoffman hasn’t starred in any blockbusters about emphysema or dysentery.
When the inoculum of dramatic illness is first introduced into society, the public psyche rapidly becomes infected. Almost like an IgE-mediated histamine release, there is an immediate flooding of fear, even if the illness — like Ebola — is infinitely less likely to cause death than, say, a run-in with the Second Avenue bus. This immediate fear of the unknown was what had all my patients demanding the as-yet-unproduced H1N1 vaccine last spring.
As the novel disease establishes itself within society, a certain amount of emotional tolerance is created. H1N1 infection waxed and waned over the summer, and my patients grew less anxious. There was, of course, no medical basis for this decreased vigilance. Unusual risk groups and atypical seasonality should, in fact, have raised concern. By late summer, the perceived mysteriousness of H1N1 had receded, and the number of messages on my clinic phone followed suit.
But emotional epidemiology does not remain static. As autumn rolled around, I sensed a peeved expectation from my patients that this swine flu problem should have been solved already. The fact that it wasn’t “solved,” that the medical profession seemed somehow to be dithering, created an uneasy void. Not knowing whether to succumb to panic or to indifference, patients instead grew suspicious.
No amount of rational explanation — about the natural variety of influenza strains, about the simple issue of outbreak timing that necessitated a separate H1N1 vaccine — could allay this wariness.
Similarly, reassuring fellow parents that I was indeed vaccinating my own children did little to ease their apprehension. When the New York City public school system offered free vaccinations for both students and families, there was an abysmally poor turnout. Less than one quarter of the consent forms sent home in kids’ backpacks were returned.
The dramatic shift in public sentiment over the course of this H1N1 epidemic is both fascinating and frustrating. It is clear that there is a distinct emotional epidemiology and that it bears only a faint connection to the actual disease epidemiology of the virus.
We cannot combat H1N1 influenza merely by ensuring adequate supplies of vaccine and oseltamivir. Unless the medical profession confronts the emotional epidemiology of H1N1 with a full-court press, we run the risk of an uncontrollable epidemic.
There is no doubt that we are far behind the curve in terms of public relations. Our science has not been dithering at all, but our articulation of that science has often seemed that way, from the unfortunate initial appellation of swine flu to our inability to clarify distinctions between vaccine-production issues and clinical-risk issues. Suspicion has its own contagion, and we have not been aggressive enough in countering it.
Every practicing clinician is, to some degree, an armchair epidemiologist. We register patterns of disease as they play out among our patients. We are also keen detectives of emotional epidemiology, though we often aren’t aware of this as such. Keeping tabs on the emotional epidemiology as well as the disease epidemiology, and treating both with equal urgency, are the essential clinical tools for this influenza season.
