Tag Archives for Social media marketing

Starbuck’s answer to McCafe: messaging disaster?

Starbucks logo
Image via Wikipedia

In a New York Times article today,  Starbuck’s answer to McDonald’s McCafé $100 million dollar blitz is:

“If your coffee isn’t perfect, we’ll make it over. If it’s still not perfect, you must not be in a Starbucks.”

In the article Terry Davenport, chief marketing officer at Starbucks, is quoted as saying..

“[Competition] is trying to just commoditize coffee and take it down to a level where all coffee’s the same, and if coffee’s coffee, you might as well buy the cheap stuff. … We just don’t believe that to be true. That’s why we wanted to tell our stories.”

See more of what Starbuck’s is saying and the ads on their blog.

So, what is the story? At Starbuck’s, we make a mistake once but never twice?

I am disappointed that the message for the ads has to be driven by negative undertones. I understand they hope to drive social media to help by employing a Twitter promotion contest. And negative news is good news, but for an iconic brand who defined a category for so long to not see a positive message to push is concerning.

If you want a story, talk about heritage or the fair trade efforts that you have helped to implement for farmers or even the premium ingredients. This type of story is real and authentic vs. “just don’t buy the other guy’s stuff”.

Comments welcome!

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Developing your insight feed is critical to being relevant

This is the sixth in a series of short posts related to The CMO Agenda research. Informed by recent CMO conversations and CMG Partners‘ collective experience helping top marketers develop marketing strategy, we have compiled a list of seven ideas or jump starters for further conversation. These are meant to spark discussion, ideas, and action as we all enter a difficult 2009.

Whether developing new products or looking to increase loyalty, having a continuous stream of customer insight that draws on many different sources is important. This feed needs to be constant and plentiful. Technology is making it easier to find new ways to gather and make use of customer insight with limited resources.

Customer research and voice of the customer programs like councils and feedback meetings are the more traditional ones many marketers employ.  Marketing organizations should not forget the many simple everyday ways to accomplish this via tools like email, google alerts, RSS feeds, Twitter or talking with the services or sales representatives. The important thing is to make it an integral part of your day / week.

What can happen if you are not watching/listening?

Many should not forget the Motrin campaign that had so much twitter backlash over a weekend after the launch of a new “hip” mommy ad that the parent campaign pulled the ad. Don’t let this happen to you! Ensure your insight and listening post are capturing as much feedback as possible.

An example of a company doing this well is Dell with their IdeaStorm.com, where users generate ideas for new features or often irritating sales and marketing practices or service policies. The community can then vote on them which helps Dell focus and prioritize.

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Renewed definiton of brand

Skittles.
by photographer PiccoloNamek and
image via Wikipedia

This is the fourth in a series of short posts related to The CMO Agenda research. Informed by recent CMO conversations and CMG Partners‘ collective experience helping top marketers develop marketing strategy, we have compiled a list of seven ideas or jump starters for further conversation. These are meant to spark discussion, ideas, and action as we all enter a difficult 2009.

The transparency and accountability of brands is increasing as new uses of the Internet drive the democratization of voice — shifting knowledge and control from marketers to consumers. This trend is forcing marketers to adopt non-traditional methods of brand management to ensure the brand is consistent not only in communications but through all customer touch points. As one CMO put it, “everything we do communicates.”

If you beleive that the true definition of a brand lies with the perceptions of consumers not with the marketing leaders, then the extreme brand management practice would be for consumers to drive the expression of the brand. Well maybe not, but this is exactly what the maker of Skittles has done (knowingly or unknowingly).

In March, Skittles re-launched their website, which used social media tools for content: Twitter for “Chatter”, Facebook for “Friends”, Wikipedia for “product information” and YouTube for “Media”. This was heralded by some and refuted as a circus trick by others (see a previous post for my take).  Unfortunately, I have not been able to find information on the performance of the campaign.

This example, whether good or bad, does provide a new theory for brand managers and bring to reality the old phrase “a brand is what others say about you, not what you say about yourself.” How will you begin to renew your brand management practices to align with consumer voice?

Mirror post at cmgpartners.com/blog

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Skittles is turning over the brand to consumers

Skittles
Image by Special via Flickr

The maker of Skittles, Mars Snackfood, is turning over the brand to consumers. The new website design at skittles.com, designed by Agency.com, is linked to social media content as its website content. The site includes wikipedia for product information, twitter comments on the home page as news and “chatter”, YouTube channel for video and Facebook to see Skittle friends.

This is a very innovative idea and I give a lot of credit to the courage of the brand managers at Mars Snackfood. Not many corporations would try something like this and I think this point is lost in the blog and twitter chatter of pros and cons.

More importantly, this is a great experiment on turning the keys over on your brand. I would say that Skittles is a fairly one-dimensional product that makes it easier to experiment than say a company like IBM.

The Bottom Line:

Short-term this is a stunt that has and will continue to get a lot of press, giving a renewed voice to one small brand in a crowded category. Success.

Long-term, less sure how this will play out, but I value the experimentation and courage displayed by the marketing team and agencies. Transparency and control are very sensitive topics for marketers and corporations to address head on and Skittles (a little brand that could) is leading here. The lesson for marketers is to watch, listen, and learn from this live experiment happening before us.

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Sponsorship done right: Fiat and 9th World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates

Address by Aung San Suu Kyi at the NGO Forum o...
Image via Wikipedia

With a little help from The Wall Street Journal article, I happened to stumble upon the video below in support of the 9th World Summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Paris, France. Aung San Suu Kyi, a democracy activist, has spent about over a decade under house arrest in Myanmar. She is now the star of a public-service announcement that doubles as an ad for Fiat‘s Lancia Delta car.

Why is this a good sponsorship?

  • It is organic in its execution of the creative – arriving laureates have to be in cars)
  • It is “good” – who could argue with the position of freedom?
  • Activated in a social way through the interactive website sendyourpeacemessage.org that allows people to send along this message and  build a virtual map of support
  • This message has longevity, unlike sponsorships over other 1 time events, this message and advocacy can continue on long passed the event – until the release of Aung San Suu Kyi

Could they have done more… Yes, but we always can — right!

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Apology, clarification on how to get started with social media marketing

I am eating crow this morning for my last post. A good friend, Meghan, made it clear that my last post How to get started with social media marketing was condescending as she read it. Specifically, the opening line, “The best social media marketing strategy is to have a brand, product or service worth talking about. Let me stop there and let that sink in…”, was her complaint. I apologize to all my readers. The first sentence was the point I wanted to make and went to far with the “let me stop there and let that sink in.”

—–

Meghan also had some confusion and questions about why I identified bloggers as the place to start with social media marketing. This was purely a mis-communication on my part. The first step is to identify your most engaged customers. In this group or through treating this group, you can get the word-of-mouth that you are looking for. This strategy is in contrast to how many companies today approach online influencers that have very little engagement with the company’s products or services.

I hope this helps clarify.

How to get started with social media marketing

The social landscape from gregverdino.com

The best social media marketing strategy is to have a brand, product or service worth talking about. Let me stop there and let that sink in…

Lots of marketers and agencies are trying to crack the code to social media marketing. Take for example, Wendy’s Smart character (a.k.a the square hamburger) on Myspace.com with almost 40,000 friends or the folks from Kleenex and their Let it Out (TM) campaign and online community that has users submitting their own video stories filled with emotion. These are two very different approaches from Wendy’s use of exiting networks with very little campaign integration to Kleenex’s  approach with an integrated campaign and building their own community separate from more mainstream options like Facebook, YouTube, or MySpace.

So, who is doing this well? Dell has been touted as using the web and social media to turn their image around. Apple and Google have so many blog hits that they probably can stop advertising online… well if Google actually did advertise.

So what if you are not Dell, Apple or Google… what can you do to get started? Besides focusing on building the best brand, product or service, bloggers are probably the best place to start because they are the power influencers. Here are four steps:

  1. Identify your top 5% of customers that are power users or your highest engaged segment (if you can, identify if there are bloggers in this group, but do not single them out)
  2. Prepare for transparency and the need to take quick action including: changing your strategies, changing products, or apologizing if you find your company has done something this group does not agree with
  3. Now that you are prepped and know which segment to reach out to, treat this segment like the #1 media outlet that you would love to cover your business. This means giving them behind the scenes access, exclusive experiences, etc.
  4. LISTEN to them!

Finally, there is no guarantee that this approach will get you top billing on your blog of choice. You have first focused on building something worth talking about and now began to treat your most enaged customers in a special way. This has benefits well beyond social media exposure and if you are lucky you will get the exposure you are looking for.