Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The Next Evolution of Marketing: Book Cover

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

One of the things I love about this blog is that it offers a chance to share progress on my upcoming book, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning. My hope is that regular followers of this blog and believers in the overall concept enjoy seeing a little bit behind the curtain as we work to make this an industry-leading idea. Today I am excited to share the final book cover!

Just as I was warned by many authors before I started the writing and publication process, aligning on a final cover was not easy. The biggest challenge is that, despite the old adage, everyone DOES judge a book by its cover. The first impression at the buying moment of truth is critical. The challenge is that there are many conflicting priorities that go into the process. You want to stand out on shelf, but your customers don’t want something that scares off customers. You need something with lots of selling points, but the more words on the page, the less someone wants to read any one of them. Oh, and it needs to look good on a tiny piece of a screen on Amazon.com. There’s also the natural tug of preferences between my team at Bridge Worldwide and our publisher, McGraw-Hill.

Despite some stress, I’m very excited with how the book cover turned out. The final book is a combination of work by McGraw-Hill designers and a team at the branding and design firm of Landor Associates, and specifically Richard Westendorf and Joe Napier. They created a cover that stands out on a crowded shelf and catches the eye thanks to interesting color and the turning title words. While at first I was just happy to be finished with the cover, I’m really loving it now.

Another thing you might notice is the endorsement by Seth Godin at the top of the book. I am incredibly honored to receive his kind words; it means a lot to me to get such positive feedback from a guy who has inspired me for my entire marketing career. I was lucky enough to land several other very strong endorsements from a collection of friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, and complete strangers. As a first-time author, I believe these words of support are important positive signals for prospective buyers as they consider shelling out $27.95 for a copy. And I can’t say enough about how great it feels to have this cast of all-stars support my writing. Here’s a full list of endorsements that will appear on the back cover and inside pages:

  • “Bob is one of the marketing industry’s young bright lights. The Next Evolution of Marketing is a true beacon for all brand builders—many books claim that; Bob’s book delivers. It is part inspirational stories, part handbook for change… change we must embrace if we are to grow brands into the future.” Jim Stengel - Former Global Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble
  • “Some timeless truths restored for modern marketing—and many new ones added. An inspiring reminder of the value of brand behaviour and how to make it happen.” Sir Martin Sorrell - CEO, WPP
  • “In the always on, text-messaged, TiVo-infested, social media driven world of today, traditional advertising has been rendered virtually meaningless. Bob Gilbreath brilliantly shows why we’re no longer living in our fathers’ marketing era. Better yet, he details how marketing works best when it adds value to people’s lives and he provides a playbook for success.” David Meerman Scott - Best-selling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR and World Wide Rave
  • “Advertising is changing rapidly and the old formulas don’t work anymore. Bob Gilbreath’s new book is loaded with ideas and concepts that will help you deal with the new realities in the marketing arena. Well-written, too.” Al Ries - author of War in the Boardroom
  • “The world has changed, consumer expectations have changed, and, as a result, traditional, interruptive marketing is significantly less effective. In his book, Bob Gilbreath not only defines and makes the case for the evolution to Marketing with Meaning, he provides a strategic framework, excellent real-life examples, and a clear road map to deliver, all in an insightful and engaging way.” Brian McNamara - President Europe, Novartis OTC Business Unit
  • “As the world becomes more immune to “advertising as usual”, the urgency for finding new and better ways to connect with consumers is rapidly increasing. Recognizing the need and responding with a solution, Bob Gilbreath introduces Marketing with Meaning, a fantastic way to earn consumer attention and make the world a better place in the process.” Kevin Doohan - Director, Digital Marketing, Red Bull North America
  • “One of the many illuminating insights in Bob Gilbreath’s important new book is that many marketers are finding success in social media because they’re rediscovering their generosity. Persuasion has given way to sharing and marketing will never be the same.” John Gerzema - Chief Insights Officer of Young & Rubicam and author of The Brand Bubble
  • “This immensely important book presents a new marketing model in sync with today’s new consumers hungry for meaning in their lives. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at how the greatest brands are leveraging their power and an essential read for anyone looking to add value to their business, career and life.” Jim Heekin - Chairman and CEO, Grey Group
  • “I thoroughly recommend this book. Bob Gilbreath demonstrates how marketing can go beyond interruption to add value for both consumers and brand owners. He illustrates his case with a rich and diverse set of case studies complemented by guidelines designed to help others create marketing with meaning.” Nigel Hollis - Chief Global Analyst, Millward Brown, and author of The Global Brand
  • “At The Coca-Cola Company we believe that nurturing brand love and advocacy is critical to building brands in this age of social media. This book provides a framework and compelling examples for creating the next generation of culture- leading brands.” Mark Greatrex - Senior Vice President, Marketing Communications and Insights, The Coca-Cola Company
  • “Today’s technologies have shifted power to consumers. The Next Evolution of Marketing shows how companies can leverage that power to benefit both their customers and themselves.” Peter Golder - Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and author of Will & Vision: How Latecomers Grow to Dominate Markets
  • “Bob Gilbreath has written an exciting and articulate guide to the future of marketing in the new media environment. Kudos!” Bruce Owen - Morris M. Doyle Professor in Public Policy at Stanford University
  • “Tell and sell was never authentic. Smart companies have watched their products soar by adopting a more meaningful approach, but no one has named the new model, codified it, or provided any guidelines for implementing it. Until now, right here in this book, where Bob Gilbreath does all three.” Pete Blackshaw – EVP, Digital Strategic Services, Nielsen Online, author of Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell Three Thousand
  • “Gilbreath is onto something important with The Next Generation of Marketing. I can’t recall a book that contains more actionable, real world examples.” Tim Kopp - CMO, ExactTarget
  • “This is a comprehensive and practical approach to marketing connectivity. With media no longer ‘dumb,’ marketers must truly connect their brands with their key customers. The plethora of new media vehicles fragments the marketplace, but also creates a tremendous opportunity. Bob skillfully uses real-time examples of how we can capitalize with richer and deeper connections.” Mark Chmiel – Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer, The Denny’s Corporation

    •  

    The official launch date for the book is October 2, but you can pre-order it now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

    I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, dear readers, for all of your kind words and helpful comments in the past 15 months that I have been blogging away here. As anyone who has put their heart and soul into creating content would agree, there is something incredibly special about having others enjoy and learn from your original work.

    But just writing and selling books is not why I started on this journey years ago. Instead, I hope to spark a movement in the marketing profession—one that will elevate the importance of the work we do and make the world a better place in the process. A book is only one “chapter” in the story. The next chapters will be written by you, and I’m happy to say we’ve got much more planned to help you make meaningful marketing in your companies and careers. Stay tuned…

    Tags:
    Posted in book, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

    Bayer Creates Nintendo Game for Diabetes

    Friday, July 24th, 2009

    A few weeks ago I was alerted through buzz-tracking site Boing Boing of a new Nintendo plug-in from Bayer called Didget, which helps encourage children with diabetes to build good blood glucose testing habits. It is an incredible example of meaningful marketing and I hope the first of many such examples in the healthcare industry.

    While I’m not a child with diabetes, I know a little something about the disease through work with one of our clients, the Glucerna brand at Abbott Nutrition. Several years ago we helped launch a program called Diabetes Control for Life, which helps people manage their disease through better eating, exercise, and regular glucose monitoring. And I have learned how important regular blood glucose testing is for people with diabetes, as it helps people learn about how their body reacts to food and activity. I have actually pricked my finger a few times to test my blood—and I can tell you that it’s not fun for an adult, much less a child. So anything that makes it easier—and even fun—for children to manage their diabetes is a huge opportunity to improve lives through marketing.

    Bayer created this program with the help of a parent, Paul Wessel, who noticed that while his son was constantly losing his glucose meter, he always had his Nintendo Game Boy close by. In its final product, Bayer has done a lot of things well. First, it has developed an add-on to an already very popular and widespread Nintendo DS game system. Nintendo was likely very helpful in the development, both because of the revenue upside and chance to do good work. Second, the company created new games that tie into the monitor and reward kids with virtual credits that can be redeemed at a personalized website online. I know my own kids have improved their math and language skills through the educational games we have bought them with similar benefits.

    Bayer’s Didget tool lies somewhere between the definitions of “product” and “marketing.” It is a new device that sells for around $50 in the U.K. and comes from Bayer’s family of glucose testing devices (including the Contour brand). I consider the online site and digital prizes part of a meaningful marketing program, much like the Webkinz online experience that is unlocked by purchasing a stuffed animal.

    It will be interesting to see if Bayer will quickly expand this program to the U.S. and other countries around the world. I would be interested to see the company commission and share research showing that this device is helping kids learn to test regularly. This could help drive other healthcare companies into a new way of encouraging education, testing, and treatment by making it more fun for children of all ages.

    Tags: , , ,
    Posted in Games, healthcare, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

    ExactTarget Visualizes Personalization Payoff

    Monday, July 20th, 2009

    Last week a group of us at Bridge Worldwide got to spend some time with a team from ExactTarget. ExactTarget is a leading provider of one-to-one communication services, with particular leadership in email delivery. A former colleague of mine at P&G, Tim Kopp, is now the CMO of ExactTarget. Great things are happening with their business: The company’s revenue growth is accelerating, and it recently raised $70 million in funding during one of the worst periods in market history. I love the services the company offers and we’ll be exploring ways to work with them in the future. But for this post I wanted to share something special that stood out in their presentation last week: a chart (above) that shows the evolution and payoff of meaningful marketing.

    I apologize if this is a little difficult to read, but the visual above is an incredible way to diagnose where your brand lies in the evolution of one-to-one communication. Many brands begin at the far left segment, blasting out the same email to everyone in their databases. But over time, some discover the need for and benefit of adapting their communication by using customer profiles—information such as age, income, and purchase history. Some then do research into the goals of their customers and progress to Persona-Driven models. A small number of brands are using historic and real-time behavior to adapt messaging, and a rare few leaders have modeled their entire database of customer activity in order to predict the rhythms of customer engagement and give them the content they want before they even know they want it.

    As this graph shows, case study after case study proves that the more sophisticated companies become at serving meaningful communication to their customers, the higher the return on investment. And this is a payout with increasing marginal returns. For example, a blast email that creates a 1X return on investment might move to a 2X return through Persona-Driven modeling, and to a 10X return with Predictive Messages.

    As one might expect, the companies that are doing the most in this space are those with heavy e-commerce businesses, such as Retail and Travel. The reason is that the impact on sales from these adjustments can be measured through actual purchases in real time. To date, industries such as CPG, Healthcare, and Automotive have been slow to adopt sophisticated personalization of messages because they are a step or two away from the final purchase, and the purchase might not ring up for weeks or months after the email arrives.

    It takes a leap of faith to make the financial and time investment to turn your one-to-one marketing efforts into something more personalized and more meaningful. But the accelerating benefits make this very difficult to ignore for much longer. Fortunately, companies such as ExactTarget exist to help do the dirty work of making sophisticated marketing happen, and I look forward to working with them in the future.

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in content, Personalization, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

    Time Warner Cable Dictates Bill Pay

    Thursday, June 4th, 2009

    My friend Pete Blackshaw has been saying for years that “customer service is the new marketing,” meaning that more and more companies are discovering that the people on the front lines of direct customer contact are having a growing potential to turn customers into brand fans or outraged detractors. Unfortunately, many big, slow, monopolistic companies refuse to see this shift. And it’s time for this customer of Time Warner Cable to put up some meaningful marketing against its poor practices.

    Over the weekend, my wife shared the story of her recent frustration with Time Warner Cable. On Friday, May 29, she received an email that stated the company would no longer be accepting payments from our bank’s online bill payment provider. As you might be able to see in the actual email above, this change came with no explanation, no customer service contact to reply to, and only the general website URL for further information. Her reaction: WTF?

    And so my lovely wife started to track down what was going on with our cable service. After more than an hour of digging through the website and the back and forth with an IM bot that spit back the same formulaic answers to her questions over and over, she discovered that Time Warner Cable was migrating customers to its own preferred bill-payment system. We had the “opportunity” to sign up for this, of course handing over more personal information and changing our entire bill-paying habits.

    This is a horrible example of customer service from start to finish. First, the decision to disallow our preferred method of bill payment, which we use for every other service, is blatantly bad for its customers. Nearly every other company on the planet is embracing NEW options to allow bill payments, from PayPal to mobile phone, in order to provide better service and close the sale. Second, the fact that this significant change in habit came with no explanation and nothing more than a terse email is unfathomable. Only a company with a complete disregard for the customer would do such a thing. A simple email written by an actual human being with some explanation and remorse would have done wonders.

    Of course, cable companies are not new to completely screwing over customers in very visible ways. My favorite example is Bob Garfield’s “Comcast Must Die” campaign. A search of any cable company and the words “sucks” or “protest” land on thousands of horror stories from people who have been treated horribly by companies that cling to one of the last market pockets of low competitiveness.

    Fortunately some alternatives are starting to break into the market and break up cable companies’ hold on our lives. New competitors are entering the TV market, such as Verizon with its all-fiber FiOS system, and AT&T’s U-verse system. They are bringing down rates in the market and bringing up service levels wherever they go. Meanwhile, some local governments are getting in on the act; in Wilson, N.C., residents organized to create a city-owned broadband network with lower rates and higher speeds than Time Warner. And now a growing number of households are cutting their cable cords altogether and using broadband to download video directly. More than 900,000 people now rely on Web video alone, dealing a significant revenue blow each time it happens.

    My family and I are getting ready to move to a new home in a few months. The current owners have been using DirecTV. I think it’s time to give Time Warner the boot and let a new company vie for my business. And while I’m not a heavy commercial watcher, this ad for DirecTV certainly attracts my attention…

    Tags: ,
    Posted in customer service, Marketing Without Meaning, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

    Chick-fil-A 100 Hits Cincy

    Thursday, May 28th, 2009

    Last Thursday I was driving to a client meeting in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason when I drove by a Chick-fil-A restaurant. It caught my eye for some reason; maybe it was the fact that there was a grand-opening sign but more likely because the grass around the restaurant was covered in tents. Luckily someone at the meeting I attended that morning told me about the “Chick-fil-A 100,” and I learned about yet another fantastic example of Marketing with Meaning.

    If you are one of the unfortunate few who has never eaten at Chick-fil-A, let me just say you’re missing one of the greatest fast-food chains in the world. Like me, the brand grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. It began in 1967 with a killer chicken sandwich and has since spread to nearly every state and more than 1,300 locations. The brand has always retained certain eccentricities. Due to religious beliefs of the founders, Chick-fil-A is always closed on Sundays. And the brand is loved for its outdoor ads featuring cows who spell out “EAT MOR CHIKIN.”

    Back in 2003 at store opening in Goodyear, Arizona, the local Chick-fil-A opened with a large parking-lot carnival. One of many promotions of the event was a promise to give the first 100 customers coupons for a free combo meal every week for a year. Since then, the company has offered a similar benefit for the first 100 at every store opening, which ends up attracting people who camp out in tents for several days and drive from hundreds of miles away. The video from a local news station below is one of many great snapshots of these events:

    Chick-fil-A has discovered a very smart formula for success with these meaningful store opening events. The key business objective of any local store opening is to generate awareness and traffic as early as possible. The Chick-fil-A 100 makes for a picture-perfect local PR event. Local newspapers and TV stations can’t resist stopping in to see people waiting out all night for free meals, and the national attention and attendance from people who drive for miles to join in adds to the impact.

    Aside from the initial awareness boost, Chick-fil-A benefits from the thousands of fans it creates each year through these opening-day events. Like people in London who sang together thanks to T-Mobile, those who join the opening-night experience enjoy a special moment that sticks with them forever. And, let’s face it: These experiences can really stand out as special in the rural communities and exhurbs where Chick-fil-A stores are mainly going up. No wonder that a contact of mine with a connection to Chick-fil-A told me that the brand has a higher Net Promoter Score than Apple.

    The next Chick-fil-A opens in Gaffney, South Carolina, on May 28, a town also known for its large, peach-shaped water tower off I-85. Road trip, anyone?

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Connection, Experience, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

    Philips Wins ‘Advertising As Service’ Award

    Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

    For the past two weeks, Advertising Age has been sharing case studies that have come out of the annual Festival of Media Awards. Last week I hammered award-winner Gatorade, which was praised by the awards jury but managed to offend gamers. But this week I’m happy to praise Philips, which found a way to add value to China’s crowded hospitals.

    For more than three years, Philips has stuck with a campaign that has meaningful marketing written all over it. Dubbed “Sense and Simplicity,” Philips is investing its marketing dollars across the board to save time for and sanity of its consumers, thus earning brand respect and product interest. The campaign first got recognition when Philips paid magazines $2 million to remove the annoying subscription cards from magazines for a month and allow readers to flip straight from the cover to the table of contents. The company also has paid for free access to paid areas of ESPN.com and WSJ.com, and it bought up blocks of commercials on shows such as 60 Minutes and gave the time back to programmers.

    The company later created a service called Philips Simplicity Concierge that answers texted questions from travelers in major cities. According to a 2007 article in The New York Times, Philips committed about 25% of its advertising budget to such value-added efforts.

    Now Philips has applied the campaign to its medical-products business in China with a very compelling solution to the country’s notoriously crowded hospitals, where people can wait three hours to see a physician. Philips created and installed terminals in 10 major hospitals where patients can enter their phone number to reserve their place in line and get a text message when they are near the front of the line. This simple but effective tool is used by 125 people per day. In a second effort, Philips teamed up with the Public Health Bureau to drive awareness of the country’s system of smaller, newer health clinics as an alternative to hospitals. According to research from Philips, these efforts are saving the equivalent of 156 years in total waiting time per year.

    What I love most about this campaign as a Marketing with Meaning case study is that it shows a killer B2B campaign. Yep, although all benefits go to consumers, the company’s efforts are actually completely targeted at the hospitals and clinics that purchase Philips MRI, ultrasound, and other products. The brand’s waiting-room texting kiosks and campaign to drive patients to community clinics are both clearly benefits to the hospitals they sell devices to. And at a time when healthcare costs are under extreme pressure around the world, these added-value services help Philips drive loyalty with hospital administrators.

    Meanwhile, of course, Philips is able to deliver a valuable service to its consumer-products target market at a very meaningful time. The brand is seen as a hero when people are under stress and worried about their health. And when the time comes to look at big-screen TVs or DVD players, that positive brand experience can have a big impact on the bottom line.

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in B2B, healthcare, Solution, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    T-Mobile, McDonald’s Make Memories

    Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

    I am happy to report that two of the biggest traditional interruptive advertisers are finally getting it. This week I discovered incredible examples of how T-Mobile and McDonald’s are launching marketing that creates meaningful experiences for their target consumers. Both examples happen to take place in London; here’s hoping that their model spreads both geographically and habitually.

    Over on our Marketing with Meaning community space on LinkedIn (where 367 people and counting have joined despite little promotion), Jonathan Levy shared a video of T-Mobile’s recent event in Trafalgar Square. The brand distributed 2,000 microphones, and more than 13,000 people joined to sing The Beatles’ ballad, “Hey Jude,” together. Here’s what it looked like:

    This event is part of a campaign from T-Mobile called “Life’s for Sharing,” which brand representative Lysa Hardy calls, “…something that’s unexpected, wonderful, and exciting that you want to share with your friends and family.” The surprise sing-along was aired for the first time on the TV show Britain’s Got Talent last Sunday. This campaign execution follows a few months after the brand filmed a commercial in which dozens of improv dancers spontaneously appeared and performed at a Tube station in London.

    After enjoying a special moment in Trafalgar Square, locals and tourists might have ventured over to Piccadilly Circus to take a picture with an entertaining digital sign from McDonald’s. No, it wasn’t another high-tech tool for ordering a Big Mac from your cell phone. Video describes it better than words:


    Find more videos like this on AdGabber

    Both the T-Mobile and McDonald’s examples are clearly examples of Marketing with Meaning. More specifically, they fall under what I refer to in my upcoming book as Branded Experiences. What I love about both of these campaigns is that they deliver on what the brands hope to stand for in their target consumers’ hearts and minds. T-Mobile recognizes that mobile phones are used in a very emotional way by people who want to enjoy and share life together. The McDonald’s vision statement is to make every customer smile. Instead of continuing to show us commercials that tell a story of some other people (actors) enjoying life and smiling, the brands finally understand that they have the ability to make special moments happen for consumers—through the marketing itself.

    One similar example that I share in my book is that of De Beers and its “When Forever Began” event in New York City in December 2008. The brand created a romantic stage in Madison Square Park and offered kissing couples the chance to be photographed with a 360-degree camera. Instead of more staged actors and TV ad copy, this time De Beers enabled couples to experience and remember a very special moment together. The brand created real moments—through the marketing itself.

    There are some downsides to both of these branded experiences. First, there were a few comments on the T-Mobile sing-along that suggested the enjoyment of the event was weakened by the fact that it was organized by and for a brand. This cheapened a special human experience for some people.

    Another complaint could be that both programs are difficult to scale up to replace the millions of eyeballs that are lost when TV or print dollars are shifted to expensive events. After all, how many people were in London on April 30? How many Big Mac buyers will get to Piccadilly Circus this summer? There’s no easy answer to this complaint, but I believe such events can be very effective. First, they generate a significant amount of sharing through photos on personal networks—in effect breaking through the clutter with a trusted endorsement. The YouTube video above already has more than 200,000 views, and imagine the PR coverage that comes from taking over a global city like this. Second, I believe it can succeed by winning lifetime loyalty from a core group of consumers, rather than spreading interruption across millions of eyeballs and hoping some tiny percentage actually buys your brand (only because they were unconsciously seeded).

    So here’s something to think about over the weekend: How is your marketing creating special, personal moments for your target consumers? Needless to say, 30 seconds of a canned message times a few million pairs of eyeballs won’t cut it.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Connection, Experience, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Value Tips from Food Retailing Forum

    Monday, May 4th, 2009

    I received a lot of attention from my recent posts about how to improve the value equation through meaningful marketing, so I assume that this is a very relevant topic for readers and Googlers. A few weeks ago, our friends at MVI hosted a Future of Food Retailing Forum here in Cincinnati. I was unable to attend the event, but one of our star Client Service Managers, Andrea Bollin, provided our agency with a nice summary of the event, which hit again and again on consumers’ value needs.

    The main purpose of the conference was to hit many topics that are useful for vendors and suppliers of all types that serve retailers—and we attended to get more perspective for Bridge Worldwide’s major food retail client, Kroger. There were two main takeaways from the two-day conference that hit on both value and meaningful marketing:

    1. “The New Premium”—The concept of what consumers expect in a “premium” brand is shifting dramatically due to the economic downturn, a concern for environmental sustainability, and an overall desire by people to make a more positive impact in their purchases. According to MVI, the new premium brands are transparent and have a focused purpose. New premium brands also never mention price, but instead show added value through their social, sustainability, and health/wellness contributions. In a world where premium brands are less and less better performing than low-cost store brands, they must differentiate along other lines that people care about. I’m very excited to see the future of marketing when leading brands innovate and create marketing along these lines.

    2. Teach People New Skills—One of the conference sessions shared some emerging themes in consumer messaging. One specific example is the opportunity for brands to help consumers learn or rediscover new skills. A few things are driving this: (1) People are increasingly interested in “doing it yourself” to save money and enjoy an experience, but they need to learn how; and (2) young adults today spent less time in the kitchens, yards, and garages with their parents learning how to bake a cake, landscape, or change the oil, respectively, so there is a skill gap waiting to be filled. Teaching a skill is one of the big opportunities for brands that I explore in the upcoming book, using examples such as Home Depot’s in-store classes. The idea is that brands can close a sale and earn long-term loyalty by helping people better themselves.

    Overall, it’s great to see more and more industry minds triangulating on the importance of marketing that itself adds to the value equation by improving people’s lives.

    As a special offer to readers of this post, you can read Andrea’s brief summary of the event by downloading it here.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Achievement, Cause Related, Conferences, purpose, Sustainability, Uncategorized, Value | 1 Comment »

    Social Media for Auto Sales

    Monday, April 20th, 2009

    Last week I drove the 90 miles from Cincinnati to Lexington, Kentucky, to present Marketing with Meaning to the local Ad Club. The lunch-and-learn session drew about 60 people in all.

    During the Q&A session after my speech, one of the people in the audience asked me how her company, a local BMW dealer, might better use social media. I answered her on the fly but wanted to explore the question here as a way to show how to start strategically, rather than jumping on the bandwagon of what’s hot today.

    For the exercise I’ll use a simplified version of the step-by-step model that comprises Part Two of my upcoming book. Let’s assume that the BMW dealer has a gut instinct and interest in social media but is looking to test the rationale and do it the right way. Also let me make it clear that I have never had a car dealership as a client and did not conduct extensive research solely for this blog post. So please take this as a guts-and-opinions strategy.

    Step 1: Setting Business Objectives

    A local BMW dealership could choose from many key business drivers across the purchase funnel, from Awareness to Consideration to Purchase to Repeat business. Let’s leave Awareness and Consideration out of the picture, as I believe most people who arrive at the dealership already have narrowed down their choices based on national marketing from BMW and word of mouth from friends. I also believe it’s difficult to focus on the point of purchase at the dealer level, as people increasingly come armed with facts and look at the dealer conversation as if they are entering a battle. I believe improving Repeat is probably the single biggest business opportunity for a BMW car dealership. People are increasingly drawn to lease deals, which means they are shopping for a new car in less than three years after purchase. For buyers, there is also a large opportunity to benefit from revenue through maintenance and aftermarket add-ons. Let’s classify all of this as Repeat revenue and focus our efforts here.

    Step 2: Uncovering the Insight

    Here we work to understand the question of why people do or do not return to their previous dealership when it is time to buy a new car. In theory, people should almost always go back to their last salesperson; after all, each car brand increasingly has a wide variety of models and prices, and many dealerships sell multiple car brands. I believe one of the reasons this is more rare than expected is that car buyers often suffer from buyer’s remorse. In such a large purchase, which is intense and stressful, they tend to feel like they didn’t get the best deal after the sale was done. High-pressure tactics by sales and finance people don’t help, of course.

    Based on my personal experience, this could be solved if salespeople could develop personal relationships with their customers. Salespeople of big-ticket items such as luxury cars should treat each completed sale like the start of the next sale, and work to cultivate a personal connection that will last for years. There is nothing as powerful as relationships in life. They create trust, loyalty, and mutual benefit. In the agency business, we have a saying: “Clients don’t fire their friends.” What that means is that if you have a good relationship with your client, they will feel more comfortable giving you the feedback you need to improve when they are unhappy, rather than picking up the phone and ending the relationship. The same goes for cars, thus our key insight: Personal relationships with the salesperson are the key to Repeat.

    Step 3: Developing Meaningful Ideas

    It is certainly not a new approach for salespeople to try to build personal relationships with their customers. I remember a salesperson at Macy’s who used to call me when there was a sale on suits at her store, for example. But developing relationships can be difficult. They are long-term investments at a time when short-term sales pressure is always high. Writing letters and making phone calls to each individual contact also can be extremely time-consuming, and when done tend to be focused on making the next sale. Personal relationships need some space to talk weather, sports, and family.

    But new technology is allowing people to build stronger relationships with more people. This is where Facebook can play a huge role. The tool helps people create, maintain, and strengthen personal relationships. We can log in at any time and see what our broad network of connections is doing, and with a few clicks and words we can “touch” them and strengthen the bonds. And in the business world, Facebook is helping people share a little bit about who they are and how they tick. By understanding who we are as people, versus just clients or sales guys, we become closer.

    So my suggestion is for car dealerships to encourage their salespeople to become active on Facebook and use it to build personal relationships with their customers. At the close of each sale, the salesperson should ask the customer to connect on Facebook. The pitch should be that it is a great way to keep in contact and allow for follow-up service questions. Once connected, the salesperson should use the service to “touch” the customer every few weeks. This doesn’t mean continually pitching the weekly oil-change special, but rather even adding things such as a quick comment on an uploaded photo, or a line that reads, “Did you get to drive your 5 Series in the great weather this weekend?” Not every customer will be on the service yet, which is actually a good thing to allow for some time to become comfortable and efficient.

    Step 4: Measuring Meaning and Business Results

    I believe that marketing should be measured both for its impact on customers’ lives as well as the bottom line. In terms of measuring meaning, this idea would be successful if customers are accepting salespeople as Facebook friends and responding positively to the “touches” that are made. Any outreach from customer to salesperson is a big win, as are referrals from customers’ friends. These are all numbers that can be clearly observed, tracked, and compared across individuals.

    Business impact is simple to measure because we focused on a single core score, Repeat revenue, and because individual customer names are known and tracked. The dealership owner can track the specific number of maintenance appointments, follow-up sale rates, number of cars per household, and the overall price of each car.

    Conclusion

    I believe social media is an incredible tool that marketers are just now barely understanding and applying. One of the biggest barriers is the pressure to “go do something on Facebook or Twitter.” My hope for this post and the upcoming book is that you see how a strong business objective and insight can help your brand understand the opportunities for social media, and the right way to execute ideas and measure results.

    Tags: , ,
    Posted in Connection, customer service, small business, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

    Takeaways from the Ad Age Digital Conference #aadigi

    Friday, April 10th, 2009

    For the third time in the last four weeks, I had the chance to attend a marketing conference this week. I’m usually not this frequent of a conference attendee, but I have been fortunate enough to tie multiple objectives together with each trip. Naturally, one of those multiple objectives is to unearth insights that I can share with you, dear readers, in this space. So I’ve risen at 5 a.m. on a Friday to tirelessly record my takeaways from the very insightful Ad Age Digital Conference in NYC. As with my previous blog summaries of the Economist and iMedia conferences, I share the most memorable points from the speakers who stood out most in my mind. Enjoy!

    Fred Wilson, Partner, Union Square Ventures

    We started the day not with a marketing mind, but rather with a venture capitalist who sees significant opportunities in the “chaos scenario” that is the field of advertising today. Wilson focused his presentation on the concept of “earned media.” Earned media is the antithesis of paid media, and happens when brands do something valuable or useful that itself attracts attention, rather than relying on CPMs and GRPs. Wilson presented a few examples of brands that are winning here. One example he shared is “Men With Cramps,” a humorous “mockumentary” created for the ThermaCare brand’s menstrual SKU. Our agency actually helped put that together for the brand two years ago, and it won an Effie last year.

    My favorite story was the example of a business in L.A. called Kogi; it is a few trucks that drive around the city, park every so often, announce their locations via Twitter, and collect dozens of customers at each stop for their killer cuisine. The marketing plan involves the owners and operators blogging and tweeting their life experiences as they run the operation throughout the city. It’s winning because of a combination of great product (spicy Korean barbecue is novel), a unique and valuable service (traveling restaurant you can track around town), and an open, social brand that people can personally connect with. To me, this is the only model of brand building that will increasingly survive and advance.

    Fred tossed out a few other valuable tidbits. He mentioned that CareerBuilder’s Monk-E-Mail viral earned 300 million users who spent 8 minutes each on the site and cost only $250,000 to build. That’s less than the production cost of an average 30-second ad, and got huge results without the multimillion-dollar media buy to go along with it. He suggested that this was a key change of the “earned media” model: less money to media, but likely more time and money toward getting a killer idea. Wilson talked about how he had read data that suggests “clicks from social media convert at 2x to 4x that of paid search,” which makes sense. He ended with examples of the kinds of companies he is investing in within the advertising space; his first question in reviewing a business model is: “Is there some kind of valuable service being provided?” I couldn’t think of a better fit with Marketing with Meaning. You can check out Fred’s presentation on his blog.

    Josh Weiss, Managing Director, Delta.com/Self-Service/CRM

    On a panel about how technology changes your company, Weiss provides some interesting perspective. First, he shared the good news that Wi-Fi will be available on the entire Delta fleet by the end of 2009. In terms of marketing, he shared the story of how Delta was close to putting open consumer comments on the front page of its website redesign as a way to visibly show that it is a new kind of company, post-bankruptcy. But after much debate at the highest levels of the company they admitted that they were not quite ready for it, and instead launched a separate site, blog.delta.com. It’s a good admission and probably the right call for now. Weiss also admitted the challenge of deciding which mobile platform to design for; he shared that he personally has an iPhone and BlackBerry. Each phone has different benefits, and the fact that he has both is proof that no single option is prevailing.

    Bob Kraut, VP of Marketing Communications, Pizza Hut

    Who knew that Pizza Hut was taking digital so seriously? Well, with nearly a billion dollars in online orders, it now has to. Kraut shared the experience of his company seeing these sales spike, and increasingly shifting pizzahut.com from a branded vehicle into its largest single “store.” I enjoyed hearing that the company has moved from trying to have a “sticky” home page that keeps people around as long as possible toward a “slippery” page that gets online orderers in and out quickly. Kraut has found that people ordering online are higher income, less price sensitive, and very picky about the right to choose. Kraut also told the story of Pizza Hut’s recent April Fools’ prank, in which it leaked plans to change its name to “Pasta Hut.” The effort earned a lot of buzz and Pizza Hut was a Top 10 in Google Trends (a very interesting new media gauge of success in itself).

    Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital

    Rubel hosted a panel on “What’s Next, Before It’s Too Late.” To be honest, I didn’t hear any breakthroughs from the panel, but Rubel provides some good quotes. He called Second Life “digital marketing’s Vietnam War.” Rubel also captured a key insight, that most brands that edge into social media are only doing it in support of a limited-time creative campaign. He said that “social media is like soylent green; it’s made out of people,” and called on brand marketers to personally get in the social media space on an ongoing basis. The recent Skittles story, for example, was less effective as a one-time stunt, and missed the opportunity to forge a relationship.

    Mark Sapir, VP of Marketing for Sports & Entertainment, Topps

    Sapir revived many memories of collecting, sorting, and trading baseball cards as a kid. He shared the story of how Topps is evolving its entire approach to a new generation. Baseball cards used to be the main way that kids connected with athletes; at a time when there was no TV or stats in the sports sections of the newspaper, the baseball card was the only way for a kid to really “see” the players. Fast-forward a few decades and kids can watch SportsCenter 24-7 and look up live stats online. So Topps needed a new way to stay relevant and add value; in other words, it needed Marketing with Meaning. So the company has launched ToppsTown.com, which essentially mirrors the Webkinz model. A special code in each card allows kids to unlock virtual cards on the site. Once there they can view their collection, trade with people, read real-time stats, and play games. In the early days of the site and new baseball season, ToppsTown already has 200,000 members.

    Simon Clift, CMO, Unilever

    Clift had one of the most-discussed presentations of the two-day event with Wednesday morning’s keynote address. I was most pleasantly surprised by his story of Greenpeace protests against the company’s use of palm oil from rain forests. The group created a viral video mocking the company’s “Onslaught” viral video with its own version called “Onslaught(er),” which showed the effects of deforestation. Clift admitted that his company needed to listen and respond to the protests, and ended up working with Greenpeace on a plan to develop more sustainable sources. I believe it took remarkable emotional intelligence for Unilever to partner with the group after a fairly unfair campaign.

    I also enjoyed hearing Clift talk about how smaller efforts seem to be more successful in this world of connected consumers and social media. He threw out three of my favorite quotes of the event, all of which point to a new way of approaching marketing: with less media-budget bang and more meaning:

    • “It is possible to become famous on a dollar and a dream. Imagine what’s possible to do with our brands and our resources.”
    • “We may be ahead of some of our competitors. But we’re most definitely behind consumers.”
    • “I’m convinced fat media budgets help make people lazy, and we’ve thought about [whether we] should cut media budgets on some specific projects in order to force people to come up with better ideas.”

    Joe Rospars, Founding Partner, Blue State Digital, and Former New Media Director, Obama for America

    The story of Team Obama’s success with social media has been told many times in many places, but I still pulled a few new takeaways from Joe’s interview on stage. I found it interesting to hear that a key early decision in the campaign was to create a specific New Media team that was separated from the IT group. Traditionally campaigns had lumped digital marketing into IT, but this separate group helped elevate the discipline, and the team had its own seat at the strategy table. I also learned something new about the power of small donations; it seems that many of the 3 million people who donated gave around $5 each. The campaign looked at small donors less for their actual gift, but more as a way key to binding them personally to the brand. This reminds me of why we participate in the General Mills Box Tops for Education program at my children’s school, where I am president of the board; these box tops add up to only a small amount each year, but every time parents cut one out and bring it in they are building a stronger bond with us. But these small donors did add up for Obama: The 3 million online donors ended up making 6.5 million donations that totaled a half-billion dollars.

    Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

    I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Facebook over the past few years. I love the service as a user but hate the overpromises on its advertising platform, which is literally invisible to users. But Sheryl Sandberg earned more love with her fascinating story of how the service is improving people’s social networks in a session titled, “How Many Friends Can You Have?” She broke down various types of networks that people have as follows:

    • Our brains can handle about 150 personal relationships at any one time, which is called Dunbar’s number.
    • Most people know 500 to 5,000 people.
    • Facebook members have 120 friends on average.
    • The majority of our communication is with 10 people on average.
    • We have a close support network of only two to three people.

    Sandberg claims that digital technology, especially Facebook, is creating a new concept called the active social network. She defined this as people who: (1) you know something about what they are up to lately; and (2) you communicate with them somewhat regularly. She claimed that Facebook is proven to double the size of people’s active social networks.

    She went on to describe the four types of relationships that people have on Facebook: friends, family, coworkers, and “public profiles” (brands and celebrities); and she shared the three distinct types of communication on Facebook: inbox, chat, and wall-to-wall.

    Overall, it was interesting to see that Facebook is really getting scientific about its study of human social interaction. It suggests to me that the company aims to become much more meaningful, rather than just waiting to cash out on a new ad model and IPO. In fact, I was blown away that Sandberg admitted that Facebook has realized that traditional banner ads will not work for the firm or advertisers. Rather, they must create marketing that fits with the core idea of the social network itself. Sandberg ended with the example of Honda’s “give a heart” program, which got 1.5 million interactions and 100 million impressions in four days.

    Lucas Watson, Global Team Leader, Digital Business Strategy, P&G

    I’ve gotten to know Lucas well over the years that we have worked with him at P&G, so it was great to see him represent the world’s largest advertiser on the digital stage. On a panel about “Redefining the Media Mix,” Lucas suggested that the key for brands is not to choose a cutting-edge media innovation first (i.e., “let’s do something on Twitter”), but rather to start with a killer idea, and then see where all kinds of media, both old and new, can make it come to life. He also had a good suggestion for brands thinking about social media: The key is to create a “social media framework” early in the form of a good database that you communicate with regularly. Then, when your idea is ready to go, the network is available for your launch.

    So, overall, another good conference where I’ve learned a few new tricks to apply to our clients’ businesses and our Marketing with Meaning concept. My next blogging/tweeting conference will be at the Mobile Commerce Summit in Las Vegas June 3. I’ll be presenting a workshop on mobile+financial services. See you there!

    (Here are some of the best Ad Age articles on the event.)

    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Conferences, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

    « Older Entries
    Newer Entries »