Handling the truth: Authentic marketing.

 

In my view all marketing is authentic marketing, or at least should be. If your brand’s marketing is not authentic, than what’s left? It’s just plain one time shady selling.

Why real stories?
Not because it’s a consumer trend, or it sells out stock, but just because otherwise you’re just making stuff up. And in the end it will backfire, because people stop believing you, and therefore stop buying your products. Imagine your friend making up a cool story about him kitesurfing. Once you find out it’s not true, how does that make you feel about that person?

Real Storytelling
The reason I got into marketing communication trade is because I wanted to learn how to best tell a brand story, not to make one make up. Call me naïve, but I truly think most brands have a real story, worth telling and spreading through communication, interaction and media. Maybe less consumers will listen to it the first time around, but the word will spread. If the story isn’t true, you can be sure the crowd will get smaller and smaller as time goes by.

Better, Easier, More Fun
I have come to the conclusion it actually makes your work better, easier and more fun when you focus on the real stuff. Better, because it’s true and stuff that’s true, usually lasts longer and comes across more solid for consumers; easier because there’ll not be any tangled webs you’ll weave, plus a real story makes consumer interaction a lot easier; more fun, because it’s more gratifying to tell a true story than something that was made up.

And yes it’s our job to pick out the real things that resonate best with the specific target audience; I do not have a problem with that. When you’re at a party, you usually try to tell stories, people actually like, right? (but you don’t just make stuff up!).

So, find out the real story behind your brands and let’s start spreading the truth. I am sure more people you think can handle it.

Old School Media Principles ≠ New School Media

Lots of companies like to work with marketing, media and communication principles. It simplifies things and makes it easier for marketers to do their job. But there’s a risk.

The Tale wagging the Dog
The problem with principles is they can become the desired outcome in stead being a means to an end. Whilst actually one should not hesitate to go against them when they’re just not right.

Media vs. Production Principle
A principle quite some companies work with is the media vs. production split (example: 70% of the communication budget should go against media, 30% against production). Its goal is to make sure marketers don’t burn too much budget making pretty content but also think about how to scalify it once they’ve done that. This goal used to be sensible in the old days: when you needed to make sure the production cost of the TV commercial – shot on a beach in the Bahamas – needed to be worth the shoot, i.e. a number of consumers would actually see it.

Ham Sandwich
But how in the ham sandwich (thanks Kimmy!) does that work when you’re talking about influencer marketing for example? Is the influencer who creates content for you part of media or part of production? Production right? What about when he or she has 100.000 followers and 1 mio reach? You can definitely argue the influencer is part of the media. As social, content and influencer marketing is becoming more important the difference between media and production becomes more vague and therefore less useful.

So update your (old) media principles to this day & age and lead by example by challenging them yourself once in a while.

Here’s 5 to help you out a bit:

1. RENAME – Rename Principles into Guidelines, because they should give you guidance, not make you stop thinking.
2. DE-RIGIDIZE – Make your Guidelines less rigid. Create a broad enough bandwidth your people can operate within. Make sure your people think about the right balance between media and production for each specific piece of communication, fact based and well argumented.
3. OWNERSHIP – Create true brand owners; ownership is a two way street: it means the owner needs to have real power to do things (including being able to fail), and it means the manager needs to give him/her the space to act independently. It does not relieve the owner from learning from his/her mistakes of course.
4. CHALLENGER – Create a culture of challenging the principles. It’s key to make sure you don’t create a company of Yes (Wo)men. Make sure people do understand it’s about challenging when it’s functional, not because it’s fun.
5. INCENTIVIZE – Give your people an incentive when they challenge the principles, especially when there is success as a consequence. Make sure you don’t punish people who challenge the principles. A company or agency needs people who think outside them.

Influencer marketing is about letting go.

Lots of brands are embracing influencer marketing. It can be very valuable to get cut through with consumers who will trust a person they follow, rather than a brand. Of course there’s a range of ways to use this type of marketing wisely. Here’s some top tips to get the most out of it.

Let (it) go vs. control.
When you have identified your key influencer and they write something about your brand – either because you have paid them or because they intrinsically love your brand – don’t try to control and secure everything you can. To get the most the most out of your influencers you should be able to let the influencing take its course. Of course I am not saying you shouldn’t do something about it when you don’t get anything out of them. But just sit back and watch what happens first before you start throwing paid media at it.

Discovery increases organic exposure.
The chance other real unpaid influencers will pick up after your (paid) core influencers have written something about your brand/product, is bigger if the mass crowd hasn’t seen it before. Consequently: if the mass has seen it, the chance other non paid influencers will pick it up is very small. None of these powerful online influencers want to come up with something that the mass has seen already. It’s all about discovery. Lots of companies still want the guarantee the influencing will start right away and becomes viral overnight. They still just want views, likes and shares. But that’s not how this type of marketing works; or at least works at its best.

6 Steps to influential success.
So what are the steps to take:

1. Find the right, relevant influencers. Ideally ones that already mentioned you in a positive way, combined with having a number of followers. Alternatively influencers that fit your brand and the target audience you’re aiming at.
2. Make sure they write about your brand, either naturally or by paying them (the first is quite rare nowadays, but still happens occasionally).
3. Let things happen – let other influencers, or followers pick things up themselves, don’t interfere too soon. Make sure you’re close on the ball, or have a team doing so.
4. Don’t be too afraid for negative comments. Usually if you have done Step 1 well, the amount of negative vs. positive is very limited and it makes your brand more believable. Think of it this way: when it comes to people, nobody is loved by everyone.
5. Once there is influential exposure, wait until it has reached the mainstream crowd; then put paid media behind it to get additional scale and increased contact frequency. In case nothing happens after a while, put paid media behind it at some point anyway, unless you don’t feel it was the right message in the first place.
6. If you’re happy with the way things went, continue the relationship with those influencers. The longer the relationship lasts, the more believable it comes across to your consumer (check my earlier blog for more on this).
7. Keep on building your relationship with the influencer to mutually make the most out of brand & influencer exposure.

To close off with Eddie Vedder Let it Go! (or was it Demi Lovato?)

IN-FLUENCERS WE TRUST! (believable ones that is)

Influencer marketing. What a fantastic buzz word of something that has been around for a very very long time. Not to say it is not a great moment for this type of marketing. Brands have effectively been using influencers, to ‘sell’ their products to consumers on behalf of them for a long time. Sometimes just as a celeb spokesperson in a commercial (I always liked Nicole Kidman for Channel); sometimes as far as co-creator of a product (Jordan).

Believably commercial.
Although both examples are of course very commercial, especially Jordan’s long time commitment with Nike makes them highly believable, which is essential when it comes to influencer marketing. Mr West’s switch to Adidas might become more believable in the future, but if you ask me, he still needs a bit of time to show he’s serious about the commitment with die Marke mit den Drei Streifen. Just imagine your best friend telling you all of sudden he loves BMW, when he always used to love a Mercedes. It takes time (probably after his 2nd or 3rd beamer) before you truly believe him.

Many a mickle makes a muckle.
But what does make the NOW more exciting – when it comes to influencer marketing – than let’s say when Jordan and Nike began in 1984? It’s the fact – as a brand – you can now digitally/socially identify your true ‘smaller’ non celebrity fans, who have been saying kind and true things about you for years. And when you’ve found them you can really let them work for and more importantly with your brand. In the old days brand managers could say “yeah, but this person is not really going to give us the required exposure is he?”. But today, by adding up many of these consumers, you can make sure your message is both believable AND scaleable. Combing mass media power and relevance. 

Two Way Reward.
Of course in return you need to reward them with something. Not necessarily a price off or a premium; rather something a bit more valuable for someone who really loves your brand: a meet and greet with some of their favorite people, related to the brand; a sneak preview experience when a new product comes out (before the rest of the world gets to know it) or co-creating something with the brand. Don’t worry, they will talk about it, share with friends both on and offline. Rewarding. For brand and consumer alike.

Santa and Numero Cinq. Iconic Storytelling.

I love brands and I love this most wonderful time of the year. Why? Because I love stories.

Christmas=story time

This is the time where stories reign supreme. The repetitive story of Christmas and Santa primarily. With various individual versions with the ones you love, sometimes sad, mostly merry I hope. One brand does its utmost to keep connected to this story with its ice cold hero product. Pretty impressive if you ask me in the coldest time of the year. But of course entire categories are trying to leverage this emotional connection. For example perfume.

Icons ignite stories

This year one of them is present in outdoor with something very simple and at the same time extremely powerful: their iconic bottle and their iconic bottle only: número cinq, number 5, Channel. I love this simplicity. Some people will say “this is just a product”, but see, that’s exactly the difference between normal products and icons such as the Coke and the Grolsch Swingtop bottle, the Nivea tin and the likes. They are so iconic that the simple appearance make stories springing to life. My Grolsch story for example includes my dads shed with those heavy crates where 16 beautiful swingtops sat. I couldn’t await until I could pop one open with him when I was of alcohol age.  With Nivea this has the do with that very simple but recognizable scent out of that classic blue tin that my mother used when I had a sore spot on my skin. Everyone has their own stories.

What makes an icon?

1-They have to have been around for a while first of all. Of course marketers sometimes literally make statements such as “a new icon had arrived” but that’s actually something consumers decide over time.
2-Just being around is not enough though. Of course icons are sometimes more and sometimes a little less popular over time, but within a certain group of consumers there needs to be some form of constant likebility.
3-Don’t touch (too much). An icon doesn’t and more importantly shouldn’t change with every new brand manager that enters the team. Its design or format is so strong it doesn’t need change to get attention. Read this for the way hiphop icon Jay-Z does this?

How to keep an icon?

a. By not touching it (too much)

b. Evolve communication but don’t drastically change it. You’ll puzzle the people who love the icon and it’s a question mark if the new consumers you want to impress will be so loyal as the old ones

c. Tap into new consumer pools, but make sure they are not too far off from your current crowd, in line with the just said.

d. Smartly use media to get the iconic message to your target audience in a clever and innovative way, using the unparalleled and smart formats digital can provide nowadays with interactiveness, voice power, automatic video play using on the go functionality through mobile and tablet formats. The possibilities are endless and the you’ll boost the innovativeness of your brand, without ruining you icon.

So, let’s cherish our icons. Not because brands want to, but because they spark stories, our own stories. Merry Christmas!

Brands have a moral obligation to be active on social media & digital

Forward to the Past?
Recently there’s been lots of discussion on whether or not (and often how much) brands should be active on digital and social media environments. The discussion of course is good, but there seems to be a tendency to more and more go for the safe and traditional route: TV. The key words in this last sentence being “more and more” .

Those words are actually pretty strange, because we know from research – and from our own personal experience – we’re watching television less and less in the dedicated way of bygone times.

TV back from the dead? (as per Everlast)

We still watch TV – people who say TV is dead are dead wrong – it’s just different: we use all kinds of devices and medium types in parallel (and of course on demand is booming). To look things up we just saw on the box, to surf the net because we thought about stuff, to chat to friends. Plus outside multi screening while watching TV we’re online almost all day as well: to kill time (waiting for the underground for example), save time (using an app to get a better connection), to read Blendle or an e-book, for gaming and entertainment, emailing, work, chatting, etc.

Now the question is: if we know all this, how come we are still hearing and seeing leading brands going on TV more in stead of less? Of course going for what is well established is the logical answer. We think things we have done for a long time are more proven than newer developments. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. Ask Gailileo.

To thrive meaningful relationships need growth

Brands often say they want meaningful relationships with their consumers, a way of thinking I support. But how can you have a meaningful relationship with your consumers if you only reach them in one directional media they are only using a limited period of time and during that time decreasingly dedicated? It’s like being that guy who still wants to keep going to the same bar with you and get thrashed while the other person actually moved on in his life and wants to have a proper dinner with you and talk. Yes you will spend time with him, but you’ll never get to really know him any longer, let alone engage with him/her.

I would like to call upon brands to keep developing their digital and social engagement activity. Both based on the numbers that show consumers are increasingly using these and confirmed by our own changing behavior. But most importantly: because it’s their moral responsibility towards their consumers and the brand itself. You have to move forward the relationship or separation at some point will inevitable.

 

There is no ATL nor BTL. Only CTL.

Lots of us have been educated with ATL (Above The Line) and BTL (Below The Line). So it’s no surprise we still have discussions using those terms: “What about the ATL campaign?” and “How does this work BTL?”.

Efficient but not in line with reality
In my view we have to stop to think that way. The consumer – just think about you yourself for a moment – and the consumer journey is way more complex. Using ATL and BTL used to be an efficient (and maybe not even effective) way to distinguish mass media and all the rest; a way where by the tv commercial was leading for all the other communication to create brand messaging consistency. And when campaigns do both, generically we use TTL (Through The Line). But all the above in fact it never reflected the real consumer journey.

The Never Ending Consumer Journey
The consumer journey in my view only can be called a journey if we consider it to be a never ending one. We could call it the continuous consumer journey. It’s a constant follow up and intertwining of (sub)conscious orientation, experience, consideration, occasional buying; after that reflecting, evaluating and continuing of the process. And to make it even more complex, the consumer will encounter multiple touch points on this journey: social, bannering, search, television, blogs, print, radio, outdoor, etc. Sometimes we love a brand so much that we become loyal to it or maybe advocate it ourselves, becoming part of the journey as a medium. But even then the journey never stops.

For marcom and media this means we need to stop thinking in ATL and BTL and even TTL.
I suggest from now on we only talk about CTL: Continuously Through the Line.