Will the Middle East Democratization Spread to Your Brand?

With the waves of protests and upheaval spreading throughout the Middle East, getting on the bandwagon of democracy has been as visible as during the late 1700’s with the American and French Revolutions.  If we look closer at some of the reasons for this rapid democratization, we can ascertain a number of factors which lay the groundwork for this movement, including perceived abuse of power, education, and organizational capacity.

Rather than turn this into a political diatribe, however, I thought I’d take a look at each of these factors as it relates to the well publicized ‘democratization of brands’ – you know, how every brand is ceding control of their brand over to consumers – and ask if the potential exists within a brand for ‘violent upheaval’.  ‘Violent upheaval’ in a brand context probably does not involve lynching the brand manager, or storming corporate HQ with an angry mob.  More likely it means nasty tweets and Facebook postings, unpleasant blogs, pressure on partners or distributors to disassociate, lots of negative PR, and/or, probably worst of all, declining sales.

So is your brand susceptible to violent upheaval?  Let’s see if any of the political/sociological factors apply:

1.  Perceived abuse of power – In most of the cases of the Middle East where democratic protests or revolutions are occurring, the ruler is often perceived as ‘out of touch’, abusive, tyrannical.  This ‘rallying cry’ against an established power who is seen as abusive often acts as the catalyst for violent overthrow.  Witness the Iranian Revolution in the 1970’s to overthrow the Shah.  Witness the French and American Revolutions in the 1700’s to over throw ruling autocracies or foreign nations.  The parallel to brands is also true – the potential for ‘violent upheaval’ as defined earlier is greater in situations where a brand or company is perceived to be either abusive or overly dominant.  Witness the banks during the recent financial crisis, and the hammering they took in the news and through views expressed in books, blogs, tweets, and postings.  Witness the questions raised of monolithic, powerful brands like Microsoft and Intel in the 1990’s, or Google, Apple, and Facebook in the 2000’s.  Witness the continued criticism of health insurance providers, big pharma, cable, mobile phone service providers, or utilities who enjoy a huge market share in their respective markets, but who are more susceptible to social media ‘action’ by their constituency.  When these markets open up to more competition, or where monolithic brands falter and fail to keep up with market changes, the response from consumers can be swift and merciless.  

 

2.  Education – The more educated the nation, especially in ‘Western’ values, the more likely democratic principles will take hold.  More educated nations tend to have more liberal policies and encourage various human rights such as freedom of assembly or speech.  More illiterate nations tend to support populist rulers, allowing for dictatorships or authoritarian regimes to gain a foothold of power.  In the case of brands, it’s clear that the better educated its consumers are on the policies of that brand, the greater the likelihood for democratization.  Protests such as the Nestle baby milk protest or Nike foreign working practices would undoubtedly not have happened thirty or forty years ago, as such policies and practices would not have been readily publicized, leaving the consumer in the dark.  With more transparency, and 24/7 coverage of companies, together with more established mores on socially responsible corporate practices, it’s clear that the consumer today is better educated on many of the issues than in previous generations.  So yes, brand democracy is more likely to happen with an educated (defined as knowledgeable, not degree-holding) consumer base.  It is likely to continue to grow, as subsequent generations learn more about brands, companies, and what is/is not socially acceptable. 

3.  Organizational capacity – In the case of nations moving towards democracy, having the means to organize – such as unions, pressure groups, or political parties – is essential to broaden a democratic movement.  It has been well publicized regarding the role of Facebook in supporting the Egyptian revolution.  The power of such organizing vehicles cannot be underestimated where brands are concerned.  In fact, probably the largest single driver of brand democratization has been the ease and speed in which consumers can voice their views and opinions about a brand to others.  This genie will not go back in the bottle.  Brands which lack a coherent social media strategy, who choose to ignore or dismiss it, run the risk of ‘violent upheaval’ should information leak out about a misdeed or service failure. 

Elementary My Dear Watson

Many of you will have heard about WATSON – the result of seven years of IBM development to create a new ‘supercomputer’ capable of interpreting the challenges of the English language and playing Jeopardy.  It’s intriguing to watch, a classic man against machine pitting two of the top Jeopardy players against an Avatar from IBM backed with gazillions of MBs and countless propensity models.  

Clearly it’s a huge PR and awareness coup by IBM, although seven years of development for a small army of programmers and analysts and hardware to die for probably means the short term payback in marketing terms isn’t great.  But what is exciting is the potential for the ‘next generation’ of computer capabilities when applied to marketing challenges.  WATSON truly heralds the dawn of what Harris and Davenport’s upcoming book  calls the ‘Age of Analytics’ in marketing.

We believe the challenge for marketers (and corporate executives in all areas, from procurement to operations to HR) is discovering new uses for advanced analytics.  From a marketing perspective, here’s a few initial ideas:

1.  Content Targeting. Better synergy between a ‘social media’ database and customer database, with real time ability to respond to content preferences, CS issues, attitude shifts.  Let’s face it – if WATSON can know how to respond with questions to various ‘puns’ in Jeopardy answers, the potential to analyze sentiment far beyond what we can do today and instantly trigger responses raises huge potential for customer engagement.  And huge issues over transparency of data collection and use.

2.  Customer Acquisition.  Targeting new customers, by ‘listening’ to conversations and targeting based on sophisticated algorithms.  If a computer can work out what a potential customer ‘sounds like’ by analysis of masses of information collected across disparate data points, imagine the potential to target more precisely those who exhibit characteristics which, with sufficient confidence, could be new customers.  Beats dinosaur methods such as geodemographics.

3.  Internal confidence and sentiment.  Imagine the potential if this ‘Age of Analytics’ power is turned towards assessing internal employee feelings towards their employer.  By analysis of email, social media, IM, web interactions of employees, an employer could not only quickly view ‘macro’ indices of how energized a business is, but also spot potential ‘pests’ or disruptors.  Again, issues of personal data vs. company data access and transparency will need addressing.  I can already hear the employment lawyers licking their chops!

Oh, and one more …

4.  Destruction of Mankind.  Yes the machines will rise, man will be forced into a war.  Well Arnold Schwarzenegger IS coming back! 

Social Myths

Social media companies and marketers are obsessed with numbers.  Gross numbers.  Facebook with 500m+ users.  LinkedIn about to do an IPO with 90m users, $10m in profits, and a valuation of ‘whoa’.  And brands are getting obsessed with numbers too:  how many ‘like’ them.  Running promotions to get lots of ‘likes’.  The more the merrier.  As if having 1000’s of followers makes them some sort of guru.  Looks good when you talk to the CEO and discuss the ‘legions of fans we have’.  Even if many were ‘bought’ with a short term promotion.  And even if their plan for engagement is a series of push promotions, deals, specials … and not much else.

So we think it’s time to have a gut check on what seems to be happening in this space.  Here are a few myths that need imploding:

Myth #1:  Having lots of followers is a ‘good thing’.

Fact is having lots of followers who genuinely sought you out, and were not induced to become a fan, is better.  Work we used to do in the UK for a major cable operator is an interesting parallel:  customers who called the ‘inbound’ hotline to sign up stayed a lot longer (i.e. lower churn) than those who were cold called or nabbed on the doorstep by an aggressive salesperson.  Frankly hitting the ‘like’ button is such a low barrier to action that can you really call them ‘fans’? Certainly not in any active sense. Also, whilst you might be happy to like Starbucks or Skittles who’s really going to like Clorox?

Myth #2:  Followers need to have a big voice in marketing strategy

We know that many brands are ‘listening’ and responding to their ‘fans’.  But surely the ones you’re trying to influence and acquire are unlikely to be fans.  While understanding the motivations and beliefs of brand ‘lovers’ is important, so equally is gaining insights on those who don’t choose your brand.  Don’t ignore this group – invariably they’re the ones who your outbound marketing is targeting, the ones who you are trying to convince to sign up, or give you higher share of wallet, or whatever you’re pushing.  And guess what:  they’re not on your fan page, they don’t ‘like’ you.

Myth #3:  Positive comments outweigh negative comments = all is good

Most marketers tend to follow the old song by Johnny Mercer:  “Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative”.  But sometimes listening to what you don’t want to hear can teach you more about where you need to improve.  And sometimes listening to detractors is vital … especially if they have lots of followers themselves!  The old adage of a negative customer experience will result in 6-8 other people hearing the story is completely blown out of the water in the ‘social age’:  try 600-8000 other people, depending on the influence of the person.  Identify your biggest detractors, the true ‘pests’ of your brand, and DEAL WITH THEM.  You might be surprised at the positive benefits.  A good example:  United Breaks Guitars – guy whose guitar United Airlines wrecked who posted it on YouTube with a song. Over a million people saw it.  So instead of responding with a replacement guitar (perhaps in exchange for a positive song), they allow it to fester and more people to hear about the story.

Myth #4:  22 Year Old Graduates are Geniuses at Social Media

Marketers are enamored with the culture of youth where it comes to newer tools, and social media is no exception.  Countless brands seem to think the solution to make up for their internal lack of experience and understanding is to plug into Gen Y.  After all, a Gen Y invented some of these social media tools.  Now I’m not going to pooh pooh an entire generation, and I’m sure there are a load of twenty-somethings with plenty of knowledge to share.  But the point is, ageism doesn’t belong in a strategy discussion – any more than a marketer would insist on hiring a fifty something for doing ‘old media’ like newspaper or TV ads.  Fact is anyone can learn, grow, and increase in their effectiveness in working in the social media space.  Experience, trial and error, content obsession:  all are the true sources for developing social media competence.  Hiring someone who is a ‘digital native’, who grew up ‘speaking the language’, will almost certainly find it harder to understand why others (i.e. their bosses) who are having to learn this new language might see things differently.  And the other fact is, despite the number of self-proclaimed experts, the true experts understand that this is a rapidly evolving and changing beast, with something new or different coming out daily (or hourly!).  In short, there are no experts – just some people with new or different experiences to share.  Find those, and forget how old they need to be!

Myth #5 Lots of people will talk about your brand on social media

If you’re the Yankees, Inception or Justin Bieber you will get talked about. If you’re a destination brand like Starbucks or Ikea you might get talked about. But for the other 99% of brands, people generally have more pressing topics of conversation. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be in social media, just that most brands need to reframe their objectives (and their metrics!). For example, check out the Pepsi Facebook wall. They have over 3 million fans and try very hard to post stuff that starts conversations. Most of the threads have less than 100 comments. The recent exception is one with more than 2000 comments. And guess what:  it’s about the Super Bowl and all the comments are pro- or anti- Steelers and Packers.

What myths do you think need tackling?

Socially Integrated or Sociopath-etic?

 

With VCs and IPOs on the horizon for a number of social media sites, it’s clear we’re either at or rapidly approaching the apex of social media infatuation.  With Facebook having over 500m users, LinkedIn boasting 90m according to their preliminary IPO documents, and Twitter users tweeting 65m times a day, it’s clear that in gross numbers we’re all ‘into’ social media in some way, shape or form.  No doubt, what 2011 will also see are exotic multiples for valuations of these companies, as the founders monetize and capitalize on their ideas and popularity.  Of course, it still remains to be seen if these businesses are capable of producing steadily increasing revenues, and if their business models are robust.  But you’ve got to admire them for tapping into the latent need of human beings to connect:  connect to news and information, insights, each other, or our past.

As we’d expect, the number of marketers claiming to invest in social media has been climbing rapidly - 63% as of last October, with more than half the remaining 37% planning to do so this year, putting the total in excess of 80%.  How they are investing remains to be seen – having a company page on Facebook technically is “investing”, even if it isn’t actively leveraged.  As we see it, there are probably four core categories of marketers when it comes to social media and social marketing investment:

1.  Social Insecurity:  Probably the preserve of more regulated industries, such as pharma (and who can blame them, with the impending FDA guidelines coming).  This group definitely sees more risk than reward in investing in social media tools.  Unlikely to have an ‘external’ social media presence, they may dip their toes in the water on their company intranet, or have an employee on-line suggestion box, but not much else.

2.  Sociopath-etic:  This group believes in talking about social media as purely marketing or communication investments.  They tend to put ‘like’ buttons all over the place, without much idea of what they plan to do with their fans and few plans for keeping their fans engaged over time.  They also can’t understand why the entire world doesn’t love their brand like they do, and hence have a relatively small number of followers (mostly their employees and suppliers) compared to their true customer base.

3.  Social Workers:  Companies who have started seeing the integration options of social media outside of purely marketing/corporate communications.  Maybe they are starting to use for internal/external creative problem solving or leverage the potential across departments like finance or HR.  Maybe they’ve moved beyond seeing social media as purely Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube and have started to explore the vast array of specialist services, tools, and means of connecting.  Bottom line is they’re working to see how and where social media can be leveraged, although often in isolation to the overall business strategy.

4.  Socially Integrated:  Few are at this level, but basically these are experienced “Social Workers” who view social technologies and channels as implicit in any strategic business and marketing strategies they construct.  They’ve worked out how to integrate sales, marketing and social activities and tools to get a 360 degree picture of customers and prospects, and have worked out how to populate a ‘single view’ of customers across both normal datapoints and social datapoints.

Who is socially integrated?  A matter of opinion, but we feel there aren’t many.  There's certainly an argument to put Starbucks, Southwest Airlines on the list, and maybe IBM, Ford, GE, and Coke.  

But what’s your view?