Marketing with Meaning

The Blog

Monday 05.11.09

Big Brands Borrowing Interest Everywhere

Bob Gilbreath

I’ve been watching more live television than normal lately, mainly because I’ve gotten the NBA Playoffs bug. Something that has amazed me as I dip back into “normal” non-ad-skipped TV viewing is that there are a LOT of television commercials for big brands that advertise completely different products. Here are some examples:

Microsoft advertises Quiksilver. In this ad, Microsoft plays a sketchy and scratchy phone interview with Quiksilver President and CEO Bob McKnight, and we learn that “without technology, we would be nowhere.” There’s nothing in the ad about Microsoft, other than an animated, wadded-up piece of paper suggesting that Microsoft technology is “people ready.”

AT&T advertises TOMS Shoes. In the ad below, we follow the day of Blake, Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes. During a 30-second span, we learn that for every pair of shoes the company sells, it actually gives away a pair to a child in need. Blake is running around the world giving away shoes, so he depends on a global communication network that works. While his company doesn’t clearly endorse or even mention AT&T, there is a simulated, branded screen on Blake’s BlackBerry.

TrueNorth Snacks advertises Inspiration Cafe. This is one of a handful of ads in which TrueNorth (a Frito-Lay brand) highlights the story of an individual who is improving the world. The ad below (which I wrote about in this blog post a few months ago), tells the story of Lisa Nigro, who created the Inspiration Cafe to serve Chicago’s homeless population with dignity and respect.

There you have it: Three really big companies are spending millions of dollars on media and commercial production to advertise other brands. In each case, the spending brand plays a very minor part in the background of the message, somehow “powering” the featured businesses, or in TrueNorth’s case, sharing a mission to change the world.

My Takeaways:

1. Many brands are struggling to find a purpose and become meaningful. The fact that these brands cannot find a way to stand out on their own suggests a breakdown in their brand equities. I cannot fault these brands for leveraging others’ stories to break through and attempt to connect with their target customers, but I believe borrowed interest is very, very difficult to win with in today’s market. First, in a 30-second sitting when people are barely paying attention, they are lucky to recall the featured brand, much less the “sponsor” of the ad. My wife, for example, recalled everything about the TOMS Shoes commercial when the topic came up over dinner the other night, but she had no clue that AT&T was involved.

Second, people love TOMS Shoes for what it does, and likely cast aside the very weak connection to whatever global communications network the company happens to use. Further, I find it weak that none of these brands is actually doing something to be part of the mission/vision of the organizations they are borrowing interest from. AT&T is not offering free mobile service to TOMS Shoes efforts around the world, and TrueNorth is not actually helping establish new Inspiration Cafes around the country.

2. Meaningful brands attract attention, and maybe even free advertising. I tell people all of the time that there has never been a better time to launch a new brand. The costs of launching a new product are declining everywhere thanks to contract manufacturing efficiency and low-cost global marketing tools on the Web. All you need is a quality product, great story, and some fans to personally spread the buzz. Now add in the fact that big companies just might swoop in and put tens of millions of dollars of marketing support into your lap for the chance to borrow your mojo. Hell, the ads above show that your new brand doesn’t even have to explicitly endorse the big spenders.

So what should Microsoft, AT&T, and TrueNorth be doing instead? Simple: not rest until they have found a way for their brands to become cherished by their customers. Commit the entire organization to a brand purpose that resonates with the target customer, and then create marketing that itself delivers meaning.

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Friday 05.08.09

Book Introduction Video Release!

Bob Gilbreath

As regular readers know, my team at Bridge Worldwide and I continue to gear up for the launch of my book, to be published by McGraw-Hill in October 2009. At this point I’ve almost completed the actual writing process, and I’m now shifting to focus on the marketing of the book itself.

According to many of the successful authors I have spoken with, one of the key steps to a successful book is a strong introduction video that can be placed on the websites for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Luckily I happen to work at an incredible digital advertising agency and was able to work with a stellar team on my video. The team decided to audit several best-in-class examples and decided to aim for the top. Of course their drive and passion put me on the spot to perform as well. The shoot went very well and I think the final product turned out great.

In the video you can see a summary of the structure of the book, as well as the final title: The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect with Your Customers by Marketing with Meaning. I hope you will provide your feedback and reactions either in the comments below or on the YouTube page of the video.

Thanks for your support and encouragement and my special thanks for Alex Rolfes, Brad Lark, and James Marable for making it happen!

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Remaking the American Advertising Federation

Bob Gilbreath

Yesterday the Cincinnati chapter of the American Advertising Federation—aka “The AdClub“—hosted a luncheon with James Edmund Datri, the new President of the AAF, and I was lucky enough to break away from the daily grind to hear from the man who represents the advertising industry in Washington, D.C. In a short but wide-ranging discussion, Datri presented himself as a strong leader who promises to help us transform into a more meaningful industry.

The title of the luncheon was “The State of the Advertising Industry,” but it actually started with a description of how the AAF itself is also working on a turnaround plan. I was surprised and impressed to hear that Datri is walking in the shoes of many business leaders by trying to cut costs in a tough economy. (He came into the role with a $500,000 budget deficit.) I was further impressed to hear that he is making some critical moves; for example, he has already downsized staff, reorganized jobs by workload (versus function), moved to a paperless office, and cut his and other executives’ salaries by 15%. Datri understands that these moves not only help close the budget gap, but show his members that their organization is sharing the pain of its constituents.

But Datri has also recognized that his organization—like the ad industry itself—must use these tough times to invest in transformation. Datri spoke of his belief that organizations that fail to invest in needed areas will miss the chance to benefit from the transformation thrust upon us.

The AAF is taking a few smart measures to become more relevant and financially stable. First, Datri is leading a charge to recruit more corporate members into his organization. New wins include Wrigley and the Jim Beam brands. Of course, with a new President and Congress, it’s a pretty compelling time for big businesses to become more active in Washington through the AAF.

I was more impressed with Datri’s drive to do more at the grassroots level through his embrace of new social networking technology. His strategy is to make the organization more valuable and better able to act on national politics by activating the 40,000 members around the country with new tools. He has already gotten the group on Facebook and Twitter (although I cannot find the Twitter account).

I asked Datri whether he was personally engaged with these tools, and he admitted that he was behind but will be making them a center of his communication plan in the weeks and months ahead. He clearly gets that these tools are not simply broadcast media, and he seemed genuinely excited about the chance to digitally network with people in AdClubs around the country when he returns from his cross-country luncheon tour.

Toward the end of his speech, Datri admitted that advertising professionals are not viewed with a great deal of respect. He specifically called out that too many people (including lawmakers) think of our industry as made up of Mad Men and pockets of elites in New York City and L.A.—completely missing the AdClub folks in places such as Houston, Minnesota, and Seattle, which are full of good people doing important work for businesses. Datri committed to driving the AAF to help rebrand our industry and show the world the value of our profession.

I just hope the AAF does more than simply telling the public we are doing good, but rather it helps its members embrace the more meaningful-marketing model that we must follow to deliver on this promise.

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Value Tips from Food Retailing Forum

Bob Gilbreath

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.

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Shopping: The Next Killer Social Media App

Bob Gilbreath

If your brand or your client sells anything using the Internet, you need to put down the BlackBerry and start working on a recommendation to build social media tools into the purchase process. I can’t overwhelm you with case studies and ROI models yet, but the forces of e-commerce and human habits are combining to make digital/social shopping a killer app. Act now before your competitor steals the spotlight and market shares.

Let me break down why this gets me excited enough to push a recommendation at you: First, people love to shop together. Many female friends, couples, and even a few bromances get together regularly to hit the stores to find deals and get second opinions together in the physical world. Second, more and more shopping is done online, but people lose the chance to have fun and get help from friends in this way. But digital social media tools are bringing friends together virtually, and people are using them to keep in touch with more people more often. Digital + Social Shopping (needing a better buzz word, btw) puts it all together. And when marketers get into the act of encouraging these meaningful connections, they have a high chance of closing the sale.

I’ve heard this trend called “social commerce,” a blend of social media and e-commerce, but so far this phrase has been used mainly by companies such as Bazaarvoice that enable product reviews. What I’m talking about is deeper than just getting help from people; it’s specifically around enrolling your trusted friends in the live-ish shopping process itself.

Case studies: Of course, you need case studies to buy into this new world of buying. Check out these three:

Sears Prom Dresses + Facebook

I would argue that a very modest Facebook application for Sears last March was the best marketing use of this social networking service yet. The idea was pretty simple: Allow girls on Sears.com to share pictures of their favorite prom dresses out of 70 available on the site, and ask for feedback from their friends on Facebook. The beauty of this application is that it put the social network to work for the customer, creating a fun conversation and getting real help to a girl in need of a second, third, or 10th opinion. For Sears, this tool provided a meaningful way to attract customers to its stores, and it benefitted from the viral aspect of a girl virtually bringing several friends into the shopping process.

Vans Sneakers

Three Minds on Digital at Organic alerted me to a great example at Vans.com. The site is a custom shoe creation tool that includes a very simple option to email or SMS a photo of your proposed shoe with a short message to friends. For something “artsy” such as self-designed Vans shoes, a quick peek from a buddy can really help make sure your fashion statement doesn’t produce laughter.

Bob Gilbreath’s New Shoes

Yep, that’s me, your friendly blog writer, with a case study that’s actually an example how people will use these tools whether marketers are involved or not. Two weeks ago I was looking for some shoes to go with some new agency-wear summer shirts from Lucky Jeans that I bought online. In the office I was walking by three female friends in our Client Service organization who I know have good eyes for fashion. I was wearing one of my new shirts and stopped to ask for shoe advice. Within an hour Amanda emailed me four choices from Piperlime.com, with some comments. She cc’ed Andi and Tiffany, who added some comments on their preferences. That evening I took a look and clicked to buy a nice pair of brown Steve Madden shoes. Of course I had to upload a photo to my Facebook account (above) and share with my fashion outfitters, as well as the rest of my friend network. I’m now looking a little sharper, and everyone who was involved in the process had fun.

If fashion victims like me are going to use digital/social tools for shopping anyway, why isn’t your brand part of the solution? There is absolutely no reason for any e-commerce provider to ignore this opportunity to build social shopping and sharing into their existing e-stores. Tools such as ShareThis already make it easy, and if a customer is wavering, this could be an easy way to prevent shopping carts from being left idle. Meanwhile, the chance to essentially place a free ad in front of trusted friends is simply wonderful.

What’s next is that these digital social networks will come into the store, thanks to better smart phones and mobile access. Take a quick picture of yourself in the dressing-room mirror and upload it to a handful of trusted consultants or even millions of strangers. Smart stores will find ways to make this more fun and useful.

So, e-marketers, please embrace social media to aid the shopping process. We customers need the help, and you surely could use the extra sales.

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Wednesday 04.29.09

Adding Sustainability to the Value(s) Equation

Bob Gilbreath

(In June I will be going to Rome for the P&G Global Alumni Reunion. My parent company, WPP, will be preparing a small magazine for the event, and I was asked to write an article around sustainability. I have to turn it in next week and figured that I would share it here both for your enjoyment and feedback. Please let me know what you think in the comments below.)

In September 2008, Advertising Age challenged the practitioners of green marketing by raising the possibility that support for sustainability would decrease with the imploding global economy. A study by Duke University showed that CMOs ranked marketing that is “beneficial for society” as the last of five priorities over the next year. Meanwhile, in boardrooms and multiagency brand summits around the world, “value” has risen to the top of marketers’ concerns. While most think this is a clear shift from one priority to another, I believe both goals are achievable by shifting to a model of meaningful marketing that adds values to consumers’ brand decisions.

With the meltdown in the global economy, many marketers have given themselves a refresher crash course in the Marketing 101 definition of the “Value Equation”: (Product Benefits + Brand Equity) / Price. This formula naturally leads many brands to refocus their advertising efforts on long-ignored product benefits. Product demos and narrow superiority claims are back in vogue. Results in many cases are mixed.

I believe this textbook formula is due for a new edition—in the form of an addition to the numerator that recognizes the benefit that marketing itself can bring to the value equation. Let’s admit it: Historically, marketing has been dominated by unwanted, interruptive ad messages that hope to gain consumer attention for a few seconds. But with 3,000 ad exposures per day and technology such as DVRs and iPods that have little use for our messages, we are now forced to earn consumers’ attention by adding value through the marketing itself. We call this “Marketing with Meaning”—and examples include the Nike+ system that helps runners track their workouts, Samsung’s laptop-recharging stations in airports, and mobile cold and flu alerts from Vicks. These brands are putting marketing into the value equation:

Six months after Advertising Age raised the question, new studies show that consumers’ interest in buying green has not withered with the economy. A study of CPG/FMCG categories by IRI and TNS found that buying habits have continued a five-year shift toward sustainable spending, and that 30% of U.S. consumers feel it is important to purchase eco-friendly products. Overall, sustainability is still valued by a broad and growing share of the market.

Brands that are making the most gains through the economic crisis have closely tied sustainability between the product and marketing. The SunChips snack brand, for example, delivered on its brand promise to “grow the best snacks on earth” by moving to a completely solar-powered manufacturing plant; and it recently announced that it would release the first compostable bag by Earth Day 2010. Sales in 2008 were up 18%. Clorox worked with the Sierra Club to earn an endorsement of its new Green Works line of cleaners, and quickly rose to 42% share of this growing category.

Promotional efforts can also have a big impact when they allow the consumer to change behavior with help from the brand itself. For example, my team at Bridge Worldwide developed a program for the Kroger grocery chain in the U.S. that allows shoppers to go online and design their own reusable grocery bag. For each bag designed, Kroger offers a free disposable bag. This small step taps consumers’ creativity, encourages them to share, and saves the equivalent of more than 12 million plastic bags each day. The program is driving traffic to stores and increasing registrations to its loyalty-card program.

At the end of the day, the overarching story that encompasses both value communication and sustainability marketing is that consumers demand more than ever before from the brands that they choose to buy. For too long we have failed to turn our marketing itself into part of the value equation that consumers consider. We need to make marketing itself more sustainable. As Jim Stengel said recently, “If the money we spent on marketing can be spent in a way that brings joy, help, and service to people… the industry will be far better off.”

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Results Update from Previous Posts

Bob Gilbreath

On Friday afternoon, I was trading blog war stories with my friend Jonathan Richman (check out his fantastic healthcare marketing blog, Dose of Digital). We agreed that it was unfortunate that some great posts that we wrote early on in our blogging days were basically unseen because they came before we had a critical mass of readers. That’s a shame because there’s some good content back there. At the same time, I don’t want to simply republish old work. But today I have a solution: I will bring new data to two older posts that can add value for recent and longtime readers alike.

Hyundai’s Assurance Program

Back in January, I wrote about Hyundai’s novel promise to allow customers to return cars if they lost their jobs during the time of a lease or loan repayment. Some of the reasons I loved the program include:

New and novel idea at a time when people need economic insurance the most
Plays on the insight that a lot of people really are delaying big purchases such as this
Differentiates a small player in a big market
Draws enormous free PR coverage
Builds a very positive long-term equity for Hyundai, a brand that has struggled to break through

Even within its first weeks, Hyundai spokespeople claimed that the results were encouraging and traffic to their dealer lots was up.

Today, just about everyone knows that this program has been a grand slam for Hyundai. Sales for Hyundai were up 14% in January 2009 compared to the previous year, while the entire industry’s sales are down dramatically, including GM and Ford down 32% and 42%, respectively. Meanwhile, not a single customer had returned a car through March!

The only downside of the program is that it was quickly copied by others. GM and Ford now have programs that match it, and Hyundai has added an Assurance Plus program that will fund your car payment for 90 days if you lose your job. Meanwhile, many other companies have been inspired by the economy and Hyundai’s example, including Pfizer, JetBlue and the Minnesota Timberwolves. And there’s now a parody ad of the Hyundai program.

Gatorade’s “Got G?” Campaign

In another post from January, I wrote against the raft of new equity campaigns from brands such as Honda and Coke—my point being that these brands under pressure are simply using the old playbook of hiring a new agency and trotting out another meaningless and interruptive TV campaign. I saved my biggest dose of venom for Gatorade, which has just launched a campaign called “Got G?” The screenshot below pretty much sums it up:

According to the Sarah Robb O’Hagan, Gatorade’s chief marketing officer, as written in Slate, “…the idea behind the new look and the new ad campaign is to make the brand feel more contemporary and to appeal to the next generation of electrolyte drinkers.”

Here’s what I disliked about the Gatorade solution to its rising challengers and a crowded market:

Overall, the new generation isn’t watching television, and they don’t respond to an advertiser’s slick message jammed in their faces. I believe this ad is what a group of 30-year ad-agency veterans would think that the next generation wants.
People won’t spend their time searching Google to figure out what your new TV campaign is about.
Pure equity ads that add no value won’t work anymore. You can no longer tell and sell.
Gatorade missed an opportunity to add value to athletes’ lives, like Nike has with Nike+ and countless events and training websites.
The star-studded lineup of actors in the ads signifies only that the client had a big budget; consumers see through this today.

Well, Gatorade spent millions on expensive actors, high-end commercial production, and heavy media weights during major sports events. The brand also underwent packaging changes that focused on the “G” of the brand. This was the brand’s big move to regain momentum. A second ad with Kevin Garnett and others offered a mock-up of Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Again, more sizzle but no steak.

The results are now in: Gatorade sales were down 13.7% in the first quarter of 2009. Yep, that’s in a quarter in which it likely spent well north of $50 million on media and commercial production. About half of the sales decline can be attributed to a 6.3% drop in category sales, but Gatorade also lost 6.4% share. Gatorade’s only strategy now seems to be suing Powerade for product disparagement. That’s just another old-school strategy that won’t work either.

I actually like the Gatorade brand a lot as a consumer. I first got turned onto it while running 10k races as a 12-year-old in Atlanta. Back then it was really like a secret formula for athletes. Today it’s my drink of choice at the convenience store. But the brand could be so much more, and the solution is sitting in front of it in the form of case studies from brands in its own (Pepsi) holding company, such as Doritos, Mountain Dew, and SunChips. All three brands have created marketing that people choose to engage with—marketing that itself improves people’s lives. And all are seeing sales increase despite tough competitors and a sagging economy.

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Ad Agencies to Blame for Recession?

Bob Gilbreath

There is no shortage of people to blame for the economic crisis that we find ourselves in today. Rogue traders, greedy i-bankers, poor government, and credit-card companies just to name a few. But yesterday I discovered the latest group in the bull’s-eye of angry public opinion: those of us who work at advertising agencies. It’s yet another shot against a group that is traditionally rated alongside lawyers and used-car salesmen in terms of public respect, and another example of how we need to collectively get our act together.

A Harris Poll released on April 15 asked more than 2,000 people, “How much responsibility, if any, should the following groups take for the current economic crisis because they caused people to buy things they couldn’t afford?” As you can see in the chart above, advertising agencies received the highest share of the blame among the group, with 66% of people assigning us at least some responsibility for the country’s troubles.

Interestingly, I tweeted this survey result yesterday and got back some interesting responses. (Side note: This proves another real benefit of Twitter; you can get instant feedback and create a “micro-discussion” at any time). Some of the responses were:

@leighhouse: “Could be that 66% of consumers are just looking to blame someone, anyone to blame”
@caffeinatedkate: “That article makes me think of someone blaming the baker for making the donuts they can’t stop eating”
@adamkmiec: “We share part of the blame. We don’t have to do the work. Are agencies doing cigarette ads part of the prob?”
@LeighGeorge: “Sounds like the Twinkie defense to me

Three of the four responses here show a very rational defense of our industry. I would also throw in there that the survey is pretty slanted toward putting ad agencies in the worst light—after all, where are the other groups that bear a lot of the responsibility? The people at the Harris Poll even admit that, “Americans are angry and upset about the state of the economy and need someone or some group to blame.”

I feel this survey and this view of advertising agencies is unfair. But then again, everyone was warned at an early age that life is not fair. We as an industry have to accept society’s judgment: We’re currently seen as part of the problem.

But we can choose to do something about this perception and strive to be part of the solution. Every person in our industry can choose to shift away from the activities that anger consumers, and embrace the meaningful-marketing mantra that I’ve been dedicated to sharing with you here.

Years ago agencies started to shy away from certain products that fell across the moral line as judged by the court of public opinion; the biggest example is cigarettes. Many passed on the chance to collect millions in fees because it was not worth the ethical cost. It’s going to take a lot longer, but what if account planners, creative directors, and client service managers around the world woke up tomorrow and decided to begin dedicating themselves to more meaningful marketing—and started driving their clients and teams to accept the reality that interruption is no longer working, nor is it responsible.

And if I get off my earnest high horse for a minute, this is not just about doing work we feel more proud of—it’s plainly about doing the kind of work that consumers will choose to engage with and tell their friends about. It’s the kind of work that is going to keep meaningful-marketing practitioners employed.

So let’s admit the reality that we’re part of the problem, and start striving to lead the world to a much more meaningful solution. In the next few months, create a community for like-minded marketers. It’s going to be a kind of tribe that I hope will become much bigger than me and much bigger than Bridge Worldwide. And I hope you will choose to join us.

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Testing a Twitter Business Model

Bob Gilbreath

A few weeks ago I shared in a post here that I was working with a small group at Bridge Worldwide to develop a business model for Twitter. Quite a challenge, of course, but we came up with a very compelling idea that fits with our belief in meaningful marketing. At worst, it is giving us a nice strategy-plus-technology learning exercise. Since we started this R&D project a few weeks ago, I’ve been paying more attention to other developers’ attempts to wring cash out of the mighty growth of Twitter. Over the weekend I discovered a service called “Featured Users” and wanted to share my experience here. Overall, it looks compelling at first glance, but my results suggest this is not a big idea for marketers or investors.

Featured Users is an advertising network for Twitter application developers. The home pages of services such as Friend or Follow and Twibes.com agree to place a Featured Users ad unit prominently in their pages. The general idea and hope is that users of these free and valuable services feel compelled to repay them by visiting their sponsors. I decided to test the service because of the lost cost of trial ($10) and the chance to learn something for our work and this blog.

Setting up an account and program takes just minutes. For $10 on PayPal, I was able to buy 1,000 impressions. In the screenshot above you can see what that unit looks like. It is automatically generated by your current Twitter account, and thus includes your regular icon, Twitter address, account description, and the three most recent tweets. The results-tracking interface is basic but effective, showing the number of impressions, which sites they appeared on, and information on clicks (who clicked, when, and from which site).

My going-in assumption was that I would get something like a 2% click rate, or 20 clicks. This is far higher than the industry average for banners, which is about .1% and falling, and the rate on Facebook ads, which I have found to be as low as .02%. My rationale for believing in better results was that: (1) the ad placement is front and center; (2) Twitter users tend to be very interested in finding new people to follow (and getting followers in return); (3) this type of ad unit is novel, which means people haven’t learned to fully tune it out of their visual fields yet; and (4) I felt that there would be some “karma power” as people felt compelled to pay attention to sponsors for this free service. I believed that my Twitter account description, above, was fairly interesting. While my guess was higher than most ad units, I also went in believing that the results could be a lot worse. As a marketing investment, $10 for 20 new followers, or $.50 each, “felt” like a pretty good result.

The Results

My 1,000 ad impressions were exhausted within about 24 hours. This is the first lesson: It takes a while to burn through a very modest media buy. This suggests that the traffic on these affiliate app sites is fairly low. According to Featured Users, I received 6 total clicks on my ad. That’s a click rate of .60%, which falls below the service’s total average of .87%. That means the cost to me is $1.67 per click. That’s far less than my gut opinion.

Now, what I don’t know for sure is how many of these clicks resulted in followers. But if I look at my email account for messages about new followers, and compare them to the time on the clock that people clicked on my ad, then it looks as though I recorded zero new followers among my 6 clicks. Again, I might be wrong, but the evidence I have does not look good.

There are many reasons why results are so poor. First and foremost is the fact that people are just not interested in clicking ads—period. They are on the sites for a very direct purpose, and cruising off to a sponsor’s page is not on the agenda. Second, the ad units are completely untargeted. My marketing-related Twitter ad goes out to every single user, and I am guessing that click results would be better if I could, say, choose to show it only to people who have “marketing” or “social media” in their profiles. This would actually be simple for Featured Users to do, but it would mean far fewer opportunities to show my ad. This, in a nutshell, is the main reason we don’t see much hyper-targeting on the Web.

Now, there are probably a few things I could have done to improve my results slightly, of course. Featured Users suggested a few things such as “include the words ‘if you follow me, I’ll follow you’” and “original and odd bios tend to fare better.” Yes, yes—this might help a little bit, but these “tips” are fairly gimmicky, and a slight improvement in the click rate would not have helped my total results much.

My Take

Featured Users is difficult to justify as a marketing investment. I love the fact that I can see clearly the cost of each new click at $1.67, but I likely gained zero new followers for my money. And even if I picked up a few followers, it is difficult to put a dollar value on the type of person Featured Users sent my way. We all still have a difficult time estimating the benefit of a subscriber. For me, the goal is to attract people who may be interested in buying the services of my company (Fortune 500 marketing employees), or those who buy my book when it comes out in October. It is certainly possible that new followers will somehow drive revenue, but it’s not clear enough to keep investing confidently.

The best way to attract Twitter followers is to create great content and work with your social network to spread the word, and this is a microcosmic example of what’s going on in the marketing world today. I attract dozens of followers on Twitter, for free, when I share a thought-provoking comment that my existing followers choose to “re-tweet” to their own networks. I received 18 new followers yesterday alone because people discovered my blog (more content) or found me through other search and recommendation services. People don’t see, want, or trust traditional “telling and selling” ads, but they will heap attention on those that provide valuable content—in other words, Marketing with Meaning.

Finally, I believe Featured Users is not a big idea as a business model for Twitter, either. On paper it’s a great way to bring a service to marketers and a business model to many app developers. Like Google AdWords or Amazon affiliate programs, it attracts some money for sites that have zero today, but the traffic isn’t high enough and results are not strong enough to attract a critical mass of opportunity.

So we’ll keep our Skunk Works R&D project on a meaningful business model for Twitter going—and I’ll keep creating content here and on Twitter to earn your attention and word of mouth.

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Monday 04.20.09

Social Media for Auto Sales

Bob Gilbreath

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.

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