Get Shouty

A post I wrote a while ago explored that over used term “relationship” in relation to brands:

Take Aristotle’s concept of friendship. He proposed three models: friendship based on utility (a friend who provides something useful to us); friendship based on pleasure (we enjoy a friend’s company); and friendship based on virtue or mutual admiration (we find a friend who shares our values).

At the time I was constructing my thoughts on brand utility, and so much of what I could see was about a ‘five minute fling’ philosophy- sometimes with out even a ‘thank you ma’am’.

I’ve never been a fan of romantic love being used as a metaphor to describe the attraction between people and brand stories. I’m not a believer that ‘brand engagement’ should be a passive thing, a spectacle, and I agree with Gavin that at it’s best engagement is a mile stone, a stepping stone to something deeper.

 I’m loving Matt Moore’s thoughts (and this is my response to Sean’s question Is anyone giving birth anymore?  ) about brands being attractors in chaotic systems  :

an attractor is where a system tends to end up. The attractor does not exist independently but as an aspect and an actor within the system.

I believe that what’s being said here is that an organisation can input energy and behaviour into a system (‘the brand’) – but that input is only one element. For the system/ brand to be alive (chaotic) control must be given up. 

Like Sean I’m pretty captivated by Matt’s thinking :
1. I don’t want brands to transform by experiences, I want them to allow me to transform my own.
2. I want brands in the background not the foreground of the conversation I have with or about an organisation.
3. I don’t want their spectacle, I want my own

If this whole notion of chaotic systems holds then the brand is not in the foreground, rather it is a map of the center of gravity of the attraction. Matt might say this is the character of the brand.

Be a champion of consumer journeys and aware that a brand is only a reflection of the behaviour of all of the actors within it’s system. Celebrate both the chaotic and the development of great character. Build brands with insights, bravery and smarts. People will build experiences themselves.

This is one way to get through a firewall…..

Route THIS!!!!

I’ve got a brief I’m very excited about- it’s for an well established environmental group here in Australia and they’re trying to prompt people to write 50,000 letters to Members of Parliament before the next election- which will be in the next few months.

They, of course only have a tiny amount of cashola- but heaps of cred and a compelling message.

I’m a big fan of online activism, but in our click through age it’s easier to get friends on a MySpace page than to get a younger and passionate audience to put something in the post.

So how can I prompt a postage stamp? It’s letters in the mail that is political currency here.

If I had the dosh I’d do something like the Take Note campaign which allows you to write your message online, which then gets sent by mail- but I can’t afford to pay for the stamps or the envelopes.

Care’s ‘I am Powerful’ creates an incredible emotional reaction and I love the Power Circle as a mind map of support- but I need letters…..

Any ideas?

Yesterday I was in Melbourne, a city I just love, part of a team presenting to a group of really smart marketers. I showed a collection, not of case studies per se, but of thought starters on how to create digital connections between brands and their consumers.

The philosophy can be described by my digital planning diagram, but is best summed up by the following:

• Insights (Research)- you must have them about what your brand truth is and about your audience.
• Bravery (Design)- it’s easy to have a ‘look, don’t touch’ philosophy for your communication, but the rewards of conversation and the merits of authenticity reap long term results
• Smarts (Evaluation)- have an understanding of what you want to get out of your online efforts. Reach? Sales push to a specific channel? A consumer panel for insights? Map and measure your goals.

It brought home to me how powerful storytelling is in generating understanding and inspiration. It was a joy to see what these guys created at the end of the day in their team workshops.

Of course there was a call for hard numbers, particularly around how much do you need/ can you get away with shifting online to get results. We had a scenario on hand that highlighted:

• if you took 5% away from the ATL TVC media  budget
• what would you need to spend online to make it up?

We were able to evidence:

• that we could gain almost 3 times the exact target audience we needed to reach to make up the budget shift
• with less than half the budget
• delivering 4 times the time with brand
• and articulate the product benefit in a way the would also increase packaging recognition in channel.
• Hurray!

Some more studies on the effectiveness of moving budget to online:

• IAB Cross Media studies on Colgate, and Kleenex  (thanks Sean!)
• some hot presentations from the Adelaide Now “introduction to online advertising seminar”
• and a great little story on the effectiveness and emotional pull of blogs in Australia

Thanks guys- I hope to see you all again soon.

Here I was thinking that I was being a little naff in asking questions, lots of questions.

In my trawl for FMCG/CPG case studies I came across a cool bit on the Linked in site that I hadn’t found before-LinkedIn Answers.

There’s heaps of good stuff:

• What have been the most successful programs for advertising successfully online?
• What are your favorite big brand blog case studies?
• What is the best way to measure marketing ROI?

And this: Guy Kawasaki askes a simple question: What should I write my next book about?

Finding all this it made me feel alot better- and not because I have more to draw on but because it really brought home to me that it doesn’t matter who you are, asking questions and listening to all the answers makes you a better marketer.

And if no one wants to share? Then give, give, give!

iMedia report that Consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing online ad spending will rise to $470 million in 2006, up from $390 million predicted in 2005, according to a report from eMarketer.

So it must be working…that wool is coming off from marketer’s eyes…

As ever, we need stories that bring this to life- not only to tell our clients, but to remind ourselves that a measure of success is also a campaign’s ability to be remembered, be re-told.

Marketers in Australia need these tales of online success- we’re in a bit of a drought right now.

 I’m trying to get a collection together of CPG (or FMCG) case studies as a resource for online effectiveness- please contribute!

This is traditional:

MSN Jell-o case Study

CPG brands succeed because they differentiate in the consumer’s mind—driving sales is not enough to guarantee long-term success. For Kraft it was important to measure the branding impact of online advertising, as well as the immediate sales lift. The study shows that online advertising produced these measurable results:

• • Online advertising increased Jell-O offline sales: +7.5 percent increase.
  • Key branding metrics lift: +7 increase in purchase intent (top 2 box score).
  • Both sales and branding improve when online is increased considerably above current levels.

I kinda like this Ninja-style one:

This is the seriously edited version of an amazing Aussie style online campaign, not for FMCG- but an $70,000 return in eight weeks with an active community sounds like a great idea:

Background: We ran out of cash to hand feed our sheep and ran out of grass.
So, faced with sending the entire flock of 2600 to slaughter and lose 7 years of breeding for superfine wool (which no bastard wanted to pay for anyway), we went public and appealed to people to adopt our sheep for $35 a head, the amount required to feed them for 100 days (the planning horizon during a drought).

Action: Bodgied up a blogsite with PayPal to take donations.

Got the Press involved:  I sent press releases to 2 Sydney dailies – SMH & Tele – and waited. Two days, 3, 4, and a call from Tele asking for pix. Sent what we had. No, need a sad pic of farmer and wife. We took one, hard not to laugh. Kabloom! 5000 hits on blogspot

Got advocates:Louisa and Daniel, no training, giving interviews on air to listeners all over the eastern states. Orders pouring in. 10000 hits by start of week 2. Recruit local business centre for help. Disaster. Customer complaints. Recruit sister-in-law. Great

What’s that rumbling? The rising drone of the online conversations about us. StatCounter lets me see where hits coming from. Follow hits backwards to source to find links. Turns out people are posting stories and links on their personal blogsites, discussion groups arguing about the rights and wrongs of farming in Australia, quilters and knitters and spinners and crafty ladies telling each other they adopted, highschool girls (lonelygirl15) adopting a lamb for company in their adolescent cocoons.

Results: Our target $87000. Total Week 8: $70000. (We had spent $60,000 up to when the appeal started.)

Customer is always right. No, not “customer” in our case. New friends? No. We are now family. This farm is their farm. These sheep are their sheep.

Promotional Budget: Media $0. Website: $0. PR: $0. Reason for Outcome: 1. Novelty.

Next steps: Expand the relationship. Expand the family.

What’s your favourite?