Last week I was interviewed by PR Week on the European Brand Advocacy research that Weber Shandwick conducted across Europe. The video is a useful summary of what we found and what we believe business and brands should be considering when building their communications strategies.
Congratulations to the editors of PR News for their new blog. Diane and Courtney share some refreshing perspectives and blunt commentary about things that are happening in the PR industry — something we need much more of in the industry.
In particular, Courtney’s post about the recent CMO Leadership Forum in NYC was spot on. After several hours of hearing speakers talk about PR-related topics like social media, customer advocacy, thought leadership, word of mouth, measurement and other initiatives — but never once mentioning “PR” in their comments — Courtney spoke up and challenged them on it. Which is *exactly* what we as a PR industry need to be doing on a regular basis. Thanks, Courtney, for “representin’”!
It was a retail paradox that caused me to freeze mid card swipe. There I was, returning a gadget I didn’t want, on the one hand. While, on the other, still singing its praises to anyone that would listen. Now, you typically don’t see positive advocacy like that on the return cue (least of all in the Big Apple). But this was no mere gadget. It was the biggest Apple going today of all: the iPhone.
This reminded me of an important lesson about advocacy: the who, when and where of advocacy is not always what you expect.
We see this time and again in our work. But this particular pearl came from a study to gain insight into who smart phone buyers turn to when seeking information, advice and recommendations; sources of advocacy in other words. We used a proprietary Weber Shandwick model called a Hub Analysis comprised of four main hubs. The day-to-day hub representing core ties, such as family and close friends. The social hub covering on- and off-line social groups and networks. The expert hub representing opinion shapers of scale from traditional and new media. And the mega hub for the world of celebrity and influence of culture and entertainment, even advertising.
You’re right if you guess the center of the model is the day-to-day hub. This is advocacy’s wheelhouse. Where it is most familiar, trustworthy and powerful. Not some unknown influential somwhere–no disrespect to Gladwell’s mavens (though his “law of the few” sure sounds good on paper). While the other hubs play a very important role, the relative influence weight they have will depend on the characteristic of the consumer group itself. We found in our study that some were brought into the category through the mega hub (as style cues were important). Others by the expert hub (as making the smartest decision possible was the driver). But it’s the day-to-day hub that’s most often the deciding factor and final arbiter.
But it wasn’t who shoppers turned to for recommendations that caught our attention this time. It was what they did right after purchase. Instantly, actively and some quite virally, many became advocates themselves about their brand new purchase. Spreading brand WOM and recommendations back through their day-to-day and social hubs (easy to do when trying out your new all-connecting smart phone). Stopping to show strangers in line at Starbucks or the airport. And more. Been there done that too?
The lesson here is don’t assume you know who and what makes advocacy tick for your consumer, or when it can be harnessed to the hilt. It requires looking at the world in a different way. Not top-down as in traditional marketing research. We must seek out advocates on a human scale. Look for more on this topic in future posts.
For myself, it took returning an iPhone (that I received as a gift and hadn’t even taken out of the box) to truly take the lesson to heart. And marvel again at how the game-changing iPhone can spur positive advocacy even among those who don’t own one. At least not yet anyway…
A close friend told me to wait for the next release, which will sync better with my corporate e-mail and have other improvements. Whoops–there goes that day-to-day hub again!
It remains to be seen if it will last. But, with one democratic victory under his belt in Iowa already and another upset potentially in the making in the New Hampshire primary, Barak Obama’s “it moment” in American politics is already one incredible ride. Conventional political wisdom about advertising spend and primary voter behavior is a poor guide to understand why, especially when it comes to the young people and independents who are turning out in droves.
No, you’ve got to throw away the old playbook (and I don’t think Mark Mellman and Michael Bloomfield quite got it right in their recent New York Times Op-Ed talking about word-of-mouth either). This is about something new: the advocacy mojo of a very different brand of candidate. Authentic, multi-cultural, positive, engaging, and utlimately electric, Obama not only delivers the right message about change to today’s newest voting generation. He literally embodies it. “It’s not something he’s doing… it’s something he’s being,” is how one commentator put it. And, if you’ve been following our blog or research at Weber Shandwick, you know that’s when advocacy is at its strongest. This transcends any ad spot and explains the why behind the word-of-mouth that’s at work in the Obama campaign and how it can be sustainable.
Small wonder then, as reported by the New York Times today, that fifty-seven percent of voters ages 17 to 24 said Mr. Obama was their first choice in Iowa, compared with just 14 percent for John Edwards and 10 percent for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Even Howard Dean’s celebrated net roots campaign only turned out 23 percent of the youth vote during the last presidential primary in the state.
Advocacy is the most powerful and trusted form of communication today, particularly for a new generation of young people who are cynical not only about traditional politics but traditional methods like advertising that try to persuade them. When it’s core to your brand, like it is for Senator Obama, look out. No traditional campaign or candidate may be able to touch it. The race has already been historic. That it will continue to be exciting and interesting is an understatement. Stay tuned.
The Journal of Consumer Research published fascinating research that speaks to Weber Shandwick’s thought leadership research-based initiative on advocacy (see a previous post by Liz Rizzo on the topic last week — we are on the same wave length). The research by Columbia University’s Duncan J. Watts and University of Vermont’s Peter Dodds reports that opinion elites – that group of influentials that everyone endlessly chases – are not really the ones that make the greatest impact on public opinion. In fact, the researchers found that there is a large group of “easily influenced” people who influence other “easily influenced” individuals. For decades, the two-step flow of influence was the dominant theory of influence — when media’s influence on opinion leaders (step one) impacts the wider general population (step two). Instead, Watts and Dodds posit that although there are situations where influentials are responsible for triggering large-scale “cascades” of influence, these conditions are the exception rather than the rule: “…that under most of these conditions influentials are less important than is generally supposed, either as initiators of large cascades or as early adopters.” The question that has been raised in various postings is finding those easily influencable individuals and seeding their recommendations.
Weber Shandwick’s Advocates are those individuals who behave in such ways that they influence many people and create cascades of influence by virtue of their passion, personal investment and championship. Finding a company, brand, issue or cause Advocate is in fact easier today because of the Internet and also because nearly one-half (45 percent) of the global population is now an advocate of sorts. The ring of influence has broadened considerably and although we agree that “influentials” and offline influence should not be ignored, Advocacy represents a new shift in communications and success.
More research into word of mouth has been released this month, questioning the relevance of targeting influencers – the elite in society who are the charismatic, well networked, all knowing, few. The research suggests that in the digital world the cost and complexities involved in hunting out these individuals is unnecessary, when in reality most of us are willing and able to advocate a product or service at some point, as long as the message and experience pleases us.
In some situations this may well be the case. This is why targeting customers who are advocates and turning them into powerful word of mouth influencers is undoubtedly the cost effective place to start. Equipping your buyers to influence other potential purchasers and giving them a platform to talk about their recent purchases for example, has got to be a lot easier to execute and far more credible than trying to hunt down the illusive S. Claus at 90 degrees north and rewriting his script.
Humbug!
Blowfly and Procter & Gamble. One’s a multinational behemoth whose products have probably been used by more people on the planet than any other company’s, including Microsoft. The other is an Australian pub. Not much in common there then. Wrong.
Despite their differences in size, both organisations embraced the concept of crowdsourcing long ago and, like a thousand others businesses since, benefited enormously from it. Far beyond the realms of quantitative and qualitative research, these companies have gone to their customer base with a blank sheet of paper and asked them what they want. They’ve then gone out and done it. It’s a democratisation of the R&D function and it has since gained ground as a credible and highly valid business process.
On the other side of the boardroom table, recognition of the power of Advocacy is on a rocket-fuelled trajectory right now. Its place in the world of marketing and communications is matched only by the global embrace of emerging media. Both are inextricably linked. So add the concept of crowdsourcing to this particular cocktail and you have a pretty compelling marketing proposition.
As PR practitioners we rarely have the chance to work collaboratively with the R&D team (with perhaps the exception of the healthcare sector). So imagine the impact of a community of advocates who not only buy the products but had a part in making them too. The possibilities are mouth watering.
Or “DIY Advocacy” perhaps? With all this talk about advocacy, wouldn’t you like someone to be YOUR advocate? Well, like anything else, probably the best person to do that is YOU and entrepreneurial German artist Markus Kison is offering just the solution with the Vanity Ring. When you pop the ring into a docking station attached to your computer, it will update how many Google results your name generates and display it on the ring. Then you can undock it and wear it about town for everyone to see how popular you are.
PS – adornment of brand names and logos is one of the hallmarks of an Advocate. Our multi-market New Wave of Advocacy research found that 63 percent of Brand/Product Advocates wear logos or carry branded products to show their brand allegiance. That’s more than double the number of our overall respondents (30 percent).
STOP THE PRESSES!
Eight years ago I left a promising FMCG marketing career to join the PR industry. At the time my colleagues couldn’t understand why. On Tuesday I was able to share with some of them the results the Advocacy Study that we have recently conducted with Dr Paul Marsden. It identifies that today, across Europe, advocacy is five times more effective at driving brand sales than advertising. That a third of brand trial is driven by advocacy. That advocates believe that when they promote a brand, it results in a sale every other time. And that brands in Europe have only activated just over half of their available and clearly very effective advocates.
It’s compelling stuff that should put advocacy at the heart of every marketing agenda. But do you know what’s more interesting? It’s that these advocates don’t talk to each other about brand onions, one word equities or indeed advertising. They tell stories - simple, compelling, credible stories about their experiences. And do you know who is best placed to help you create, test and seed these brand advocacy stories? You’ve got it … it’s the PR industry!
One of the most interesting news bits from the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Summit this month was the PQ Media report that proclaimed WOM spending will top $1B in 2007, and grow to $3.7B in 2001. Time to party? Not so fast. Despite the “meteoric rise” that Ad Age reported, WOM spending is still less than 1% of the $254B marketing services industry.
The real question: Why is WOM spending still so ridiculously low? We’ve all seen the data that says a friend’s or colleague’s recommendation has more sway than marketers do when it comes to trying, buying, registering, voting, etc. We’ve also seen that people are spending more time in front of their monitors than their TVs. And we’ve also seen the *real* meteoric rise of Facebook, MySpace and other social networks.
So what gives? Part of it is definition — PQ specifically excludes in-store sampling, event marketing, PR and other categories to “avoid double-counting.” While that’s admirable, I can equally argue that most if not all PR and events work could be counted within WOM. At least PQ recognizes that WOM is intertwined with other disciplines — which takes me back to an academic “is it the objective” or “is it the strategy” debate.
Beyond definitions, the other barrier to WOM is good ol’ habit. Traditional advertising is still very comfortable for most clients, and marketers love the appeal of 30-second spots. As a relationship and reputation function, PR is arguably much better at fueling WOM — but it doesn’t package up so neatly in a pitch. The “big idea” is more easily consumed as an “ad” than it is as a “conversation” or as a “community.” But while old habits die hard, the times they are achangin’…
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