The Brand Experience

Brand experience. What does it mean when you say you’ve had a positive or negative brand experience? What is a brand experience? Well, I’m here to answer that question. A brand experience is about a brand’s engagement with its fans, simply put. A Jim Joseph article breaks it down into two categories in particular, totality and tonality http://bit.ly/119d3Dp. Joseph insists that you need both of these to create a complete experience. Totality and tonality are two halves of a whole, the yin and the yang, in other words both are essential to creating a complete brand experience.

Totality is defined by Joseph as the “completeness and consistency across your various marketing elements.” This means you need to engage with them at various points within the way they live their life.  For example, on social media it’s important to have a presence that spans a few channels and connects all of those channels together. In other words, you’re reaching out to fans every place they are at and linking them to other ways to connect with you as well. Building these interconnections forms a brand relationship and a brand relationship leads to brand loyalty. The more customized the relationship the better, and that’s where tonality comes in. Joseph describes tonality as the “spirit of the experience” or the “emotional connection,” “brand personality or voice.” Totality and tonality individually draw fans into the mix but it’s their combination that keeps the connection strong.

I stumbled across two ways in which brands are putting these concepts to work in new and interesting ways. One of them is Domino’s, who has realized the importance of online ordering and has pioneered a tracker that is now being expanded into a live experience test http://onforb.es/10efYsz. When you order online from Domino’s their Domino’s Tracker shows what’s happening in real-time and names the person who’s creating your pizza. It’s a way to connect you to the process from start to finish, and it also offers up transparency, which is a priceless ingredient to a brand relationship. Recently Domino’s decided to take its “Tracker” to the next level and offer a live experience. Hence, a one store test at a Salt Lake City Domino’s through the end of May. The live test uses five cameras to capture the live, uncut making of your pizza in real-time. Building connection to the brand as a whole and not just the end result, this experience connects the dots and is sure to build brand loyalty by doing what no other pizza shop has done before.

Taco Bell is also breaking new ground, inviting it’s Twitter friends to Snapchat, a photo messaging application that allows you to add text and drawings to customize photos you can send directly to your friends http://tcrn.ch/18or0gF. Thus far they’ve used it to announce their new Beefy Crunch Burrito. Billy Gallagher’s article shows a picture of the dish at the bottom that was sent by Taco Bell to its Snapchat friends. The picture has a message drawn on it that reads “hi friend” and at the bottom the launch date 5/23/13 is written. It’s kind of a take off on the success of Pinterest in a way, except it’s sharing personal photos and enhancing them, then sending them directly to friends. Socializing the photo sharing process in a new way, this is sure to add personality that bonds fans to the brand through building a relatable identity.

Now that you have examples of both, I’m sure you are thinking of all the ways these can be utilized and combined to create a complete experience. If you’re not, you should be. Providing a complete brand experience makes you more than just another product, it humanizes your brand and makes it a trusted friend. When your brand takes on qualities that make it more than an inanimate object it becomes harder to ignore and easier to connect to. This is the ultimate goal of a brand relationship, and it’s the kind of thing that builds brand loyalty for life.

PR Fail to Communicate

You’ve seen it happen before. A tragic event occurs, someone thinks they’re trying to be relevant connecting themselves to it in some way (i.e. Groupon’s Tibet commercial from a few years ago). Then there are issues you just never parody, and yet there are people out there who find humor in something no one else does and do it anyways. It comes off as insensitive self promotion. It’s untimely, it’s inappropriate and it reflects poorly. Basically, it’s what is known in today’s Twitter-verse as a #prfail. One of the worst examples ocurred in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Food website Epicurious had this to say on Twitter http://bit.ly/13IzO17: “In honor of Boston and New England, may we suggest whole-grain cranberry scones!” It followed that tweet up with “Boston, our hearts are with you. Here’s a bowl of breakfast energy we could all use to start today.” These tweets hardly acknowledged what was going on in an appropriate manner. It’s kind of like when your parents tell you, “if you don’t have something nice to say don’t say anything at all.” Epicurious would have been better off playing the silence card, after all, silence is golden. Instead they didn’t, and people called them on their poor communication. Epicurious then offered up the same apology repeatedly “We truly regret that our earlier food tweets seemed insensitive. Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Boston.” Seemed insensitive, seemed insensitive? You think? That statement took no ownership of the situation and did more harm than good. Then they tried to issue a correction “Our food tweets this morning were, frankly, insensitive. Our deepest, sincere apologies.” Epicurious should’ve offered this up in the first place, instead it was too late to fix the damage that had already been done. It’s the perfect case study of “what not to do.”

Another poorly executed piece of communication is a McDonald’s ad that mocks mental illness http://usat.ly/ZexnA3. I’m sure you’ve seen those ads on TV. The ones where a single person sits with their hands crossed over their eyes holding their head in sadness. McDonald’s chose this familiar image that is associated with only one thing for their ad. Perhaps if McDonald’s had tweaked some elements or changed the background it could have changed the interpretation. However, they simply borrowed the image and used it to say “You’re not alone. Millions of people love the Big Mac.” Granted McDonald’s has now pulled this ad, but that was not smart. It’s kind of like using the universal sign for choking in an ad to communicate the person’s had too much spicy food and their throat’s on fire. Yeah, kind of like that. Situations like these aren’t funny and relating to them inappropriately doesn’t have the intended effect. It simply doesn’t sell. What it does do is create a crisis management situation that could have easily been avoided if they’d just used common sense.

The same goes for Epicurious. That whole “think before you speak/act” statement? It applies to these kind of situations. The quickest way to tank your reputation is to pull a move like these companies did here. In the case of Epicurious unless you’re someone like Red Cross tweeting about your response to these situations, or Google tweeting about how their People Finder can help, you do not have any relevancy to speak of here. Either you stay silent out of respect or you offer a simple heartfelt condolence. In the McDonald’s case, use creativity before you borrow an image. Originality is much more respected than careless borrowing. In any case, you don’t want to be the one everyone’s talking about as a #prfail.

Catering to the Outliers

Every brand is after them, those untapped markets that no one else is catering to yet. Known as outliers, they represent groups that have a need no one is currently meeting. Their voices are not being heard, and listening is always the best policy. Securing these outliers as loyal brand followers can pay off in spades, while ignoring them can be your worst nightmare.

Take the recent debate over whether the ADA’s “public accommodations” apply to technology http://on.wsj.com/10lp9Cb. As it stands, the ADA requires equal access to “public accommodations,” including restaurants, movie theaters, retail stores, recreational facilities and other physical places spelled out by law. It makes no mention of technology…yet. The current argument is that this was meant to adapt to technology and anything that is a gateway to a public place, including retail websites, falls under its jurisdiction. Americans with disabilities are a group the web has not catered to yet. There are several lawsuits being brought against stores like Target. In fact, a 2008 Target case marked the first time a federal district judge ruled that the law applies to websites when they are a gateway to a physical store. Think of all the money that brands are losing by not making the online experience as accessible as the store experience. What if you could capture that audience by doing something that no one else is doing or going beyond what someone else is doing…all in the name of providing a service directly targeting that group? Would it be worth it? I think so.

The example of Maxwell Coffee and its popular Seder Haggadah explains why it’s important to focus on underserved groups http://bit.ly/YJea8z. As far back as 1923, Maxwell Coffee noticed that there was no brand producing kosher coffee for Passover. They seized the opportunity and beat everyone else to it by being the first to put one on the market. In addition to building their Maxwell Coffee kosher brand as a go-to for Passover, they took it a step further and developed a Haggadah to include with it. A Haggadah recounts the Exodus from Egypt, and is made up of prayers, songs and stories that guide the Passover Seder. Theirs is a piece of branded content where only the cover and illustrations reference Maxwell Coffee, leaving the purpose it was developed for largely unspoiled. Perhaps that’s why it’s the most popular Haggadah today. Maxwell Coffee single-handedly beat out the competition before it even started. It saw a need, no kosher coffee, and it filled it. Furthermore it capitalized on that success in also making its Haggadah a go-to version by including it with its go-to Passover beverage. That was smart marketing.

Basically, it comes down to this. The ADA website example is what happens when you don’t listen or pay attention to outliers, the Maxwell Coffee example is what happens when you do. Figure out where your outliers are and what makes them tick, look at what their needs are and how your brand can serve that need and find common ground to bond them with your brand. It’s a win-win situation, but only if you know what to look for…and only if you see it first.

3 Traits for Viral Content

Our communications world is driven by content. It’s at the heart of all connections and it’s the driving force for new ones. Connections are what build a social network and help it reach more people. When you have the right content, the right connections and the right timing? That’s when content goes viral. Viral content is a force all on its own, and content producers are always in search of that magic formula that will make something go viral. Since it involves having all of the right elements present, and it’s not the same for each group or brand, there is no one right formula…there are many. Yet, smart content producers all have a few things in common.

1) Their content is relevant and timely: Smart content producers pay attention to what’s going on in the world and connect themselves and their group’s purpose to that in whatever way they can. The other day I saw an animal adoption facility on Twitter that had a cat named Pope up for adoption. They used the announcement of the new Pope and connected it to their purpose. That’s one example of how this is done. This concept also involves looking at trending hashtags on Twitter and thinking about events that are coming up. Chances are that if you’re thinking about it coming up soon, others are too (especially if it’s a significant holiday or season). My point is that there are always connections to be made and ways to integrate what you’re about into relevant and timely content. It’s how you make people pay attention and it’s part of what will help your content spread.

2) They know their audience and they have great connections: Knowing your audience is almost as key as producing the right content, and can help your content take off. Do you know who your audience is? Do you know what your audience cares about?  Learning this can help you connect to influential people who have a lot of clout amongst their peers. If they are the trendsetters, or the ones everyone looks to, connecting with them will open your content up to a lot more people. Spreading your content to more people means that your message is getting out there and you are earning new followers. It all comes full circle, and it all starts with knowing your audience and building great connections. Once you do that, it’s about keeping the lines of communication open.

3) They generate conversations: Whether it’s through people retweeting your content, you retweeting theirs in return (on Twitter) or you liking their comment and fueling new ones with your responses (on Facebook), generating conversations is essential. If you can get people talking, and keep people talking, your content will continually be in front of other people’s eyes. Fresh eyes lead to more people joining the conversation, and that’s what you want to see happen. Conversations are the glue that holds it all together, if you’re not running the conversation then other people are running it for you. If other people are running it for you, it’s probably not the conversation you want happening. The best method is to get involved and stay involved. This will fuel conversations that can ultimately see your content going viral.

Putting these methods to work, by applying them to your content, your audience and its conversations are what will help give your content the best chance for going viral. Your content going viral means that your message is getting out there and reaching more people. Your message reaching more people will bring more attention to you and your purpose, and that is the overall goal.

American Made: An Old Standard Returns

Monday is Presidents Day, a day we celebrate the great leaders of this country. All of which are American born, much like our growing love of American-made products. Yet, it really isn’t anything new. There was a time when everything was made in America. As outsourcing has become more popular, and profitable because it’s usually cheaper, problems have arisen. Lead in toys is just one example. Add to that the recent economy and decline in jobs and you stir up a nostalgia and passion that has been forgotten. During my approximately three years in retail I got an earful, although I don’t think they realized or cared that they were talking to someone who had no say in what products we carried.  Nonetheless it proves a point, that transition and demand for American-made is once again at the forefront. Marketers and advertisers are just starting to capitalize on it.

Mark Wilson cites a recent redesign for American Airlines http://bit.ly/XkBRlQ. The eagle with talons in predator form has been replaced by a red and blue eagle crossed with a wing, situated in an upward flight position near the front of the plane. An abstract American flag, focusing on the stripes adorns the new plane tails. Focusing on the stripes keeps it from being too 4th of July and makes it more forward-thinking and forward-focused. Wal-Mart has also joined in, albeit amid worker protests and foreign bribery investigations. According to Oliver St. John, Wal-Mart recently pledged to source $50 billion of products in the U.S. over the next 10 years http://usat.ly/YgZ99t. He also cites Margarita Mendoza, founder of the Made in America Movement, a lobbying organization for small manufacturers. Mendoza notes that both 3M and Caterpillar are also making more efforts to source more in the U.S.

Like all great movements, there needs to be a PR campaign connected to this as well. In Oliver St. John’s article, people like Kyle Rancourt of American-made shoe company Rancourt & Co. worry it’s a passing fad. It’s not an unfounded fear. We’ve been through the cycle before. The difference between something becoming a fad and something sticking is in the marketing. Making a permanent change is going to involve a big push in purpose marketing, something Panera Bread, Bumble Bee Foods and Kashi (by Kellogg) know all about. Stuart Elliott defines purpose marketing as “pro-social marketing” and marketing that is ”advertising for good and conscious capitalism” and “woos consumers with information about the values, behavior and beliefs of the companies that sell the products” http://nyti.ms/VYTg6E . It’s about stirring up a more emotional and loyal connection that’s based on the practices and social consciousness of the brand.

“Made in the USA” is also a brand, and it needs a movement like this to continue to spur its growth. Customers buying more products made in the U.S. will make sure there are more products made in the U.S., but for that to happen the sentiment needs to be built. Marketers and advertisers need to be behind this and committed to it 100%. As marketers and advertisers we have a great responsibility as communicators. We know how to leverage channels to make things happen. So often it’s about selling a brand, but there are important messages that need to be pushed as well. The world of tomorrow is decided by the world of today, so the time is now. The question is, are you ready?

Marketing Lessons: Super Bowls Past and Present

Super Bowl may be about ads, but for marketers there are underlying factors and opportunities there that last beyond game time. What works in the Super Bowl is a takeaway lesson for practices the rest of the year and beyond. Sometimes it’s static, as its relevancy maintains. Other times, it evolves. Most Super Bowls are a mixture of the two, capitalizing on past successes while bringing about new ones. This one was no different. The power outage created a unique situation and what happened there extended to the game’s ads as well. Most people in any spot of the game where they become disinterested turn to conversations, food and the Internet. In fact, most turn to the Internet. Specifically, social media. Whether they had TV ads or not, social media became the second ad arena for brands in this year’s game. Everyone was drawing connections to their brands in an attempt to claim a slice of the pie for themselves.

Forbes’ Jennifer Rooney notes the various examples in her article http://onforb.es/YknR9F. A few of them are mentioned here. During the power outage, Walgreens tweeted “We do carry candles. We also sell lights.” Oreo tweeted “Power out? No problem” along with an ad that ended with “You can still dunk in the dark. Tide tweeted “We can’t get your #blackout but we can get your stains out.” A clever capitalization on a popular hashtag to draw attention. All of these brands capitalized on the situation to draw an audience, others took it a step further and involved their competition. Audi tweeted “Sending some LED’s to the @mbusa Superdome right now,” drawing Mercedes-Benz into the mix. Others commented on other advertisers and drew connections between them and their brand. Right after Mio ran its spot, SodaStream tweeted “@makeitmio is delicious in SodaStream! Try it sometime.” This new trend of real-time marketing shined in this year’s Super Bowl and is one of the this year’s takeaway lessons.

Bloomberg Businessweek’s Steve McKee notes 10 others to keep in mind http://buswk.co/YPDlEE. My interpretations and applications of his points are below.

1) Put strategy first: Think about what you’re putting out there, its placement (before the game, during the game, etc.) and how it represents you. Good creativity is nothing without strategy.

2) Be relevant: For example, draw connections between your brand and what’s going on in the world. However, do it tastefully and not like that 2011 Groupon ad that tried to connect itself to Tibet.

3) Keep it simple: I’d say this year’s example of that is Dodge Ram’s ”So God Made a Farmer” combination, Paul Harvey and a series of still frames featuring pictures of farmers. A powerful but simple combination. It’s what some of the best ads are made of.

4) Show don’t tell: Actions speak louder than words, and that statement applies to ads too.

5) Invest in production values: ‘Go big or go home’ and ‘anything worth doing is worth doing right’ come to mind here. If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to do it well.

6) Provoke thought: It’s a unique angle and it stands out and engages customers. An example being the classic Apple “1984″ ad.

7) Strike an emotional chord: This year’s example of that was Budweiser’s Clydesdale ad. It tugged at heartstrings and won fans. These kinds of ads get remembered.

8) Don’t rush the sale: Continue it by expanding it to online, social media and additional spots. Tackling it from all angles is necessary. You can’t close all deals in 30 seconds. Or, even in a minute. Good things take time.

9) Reward engagement: Customers are always going to be asking “what’s in it for me if I support you?” Bring some closure to that question with contest rewards or other perks.

10) Take risks: Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you fail. You never know if you don’t try.

Some people might see this and think to next year. The smart ones will think about this year as well. These marketing lessons are not just for next year’s Super Bowl, they have applications throughout this year too. How you apply them to your brand, is up to you.

Best and Worst Super Bowl XLVII Ads

This year’s Super Bowl was an interesting one. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a power outage during a Super Bowl. In fact, I’m willing to bet that’s a rare occurrence as far as Super Bowls go. A power outage is forgivable, what I can’t forgive were all of the lackluster ads this year. Usually it’s hard to choose my favorites. This year it was hard to choose my worst because there were just that many of them. Thankfully, there were some that redeemed all of the rest. Without further adieu, my third annual best and worst ads of the Super Bowl: version XLVII.

Top Two Worst Super Bowl XLVII Ads:

 2) Samsung: My second worst pick was the Samsung Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd ad. How is it creative to mirror something that goes on everyday in real life? An ad about pitching ads? This whole ad was a snooze fest. Even if it did end up with them finding out that neither of them would be in the ad and LeBron James would be. They spent the whole ad sitting at a table talking. Boring. It failed on so many levels. Also, don’t even get me started on the lame joke about being there to meet someone named Sam Sung. After this ad, I’m ashamed to admit that I own a Samsung cell phone currently.

1) GoDaddy.com: The Samsung ad may have been bad, but it’s no match for my top worst ad. Every year GoDaddy.com fails worse than the year before. This year was no exception. There are more creative and funny ways to symbolize how you merge smart and sexy as a brand. There just are. Instead, GoDaddy choses to go with an over-the-top disgusting kiss between a nerd and Bar Rafaeli. Which lasted forever. The only positive I saw, and this is a small positive, is that they didn’t go so racy that they had to cut it short and direct you online to see the rest. That got old fast and who really wants to see something worse than they already saw anyways?

Top Two Best Superbowl XLVII Ads:

2) Budweiser: It’s Clydesdale ads never fail to deliver and are a Super Bowl standard. This one was also a great example of using storytelling and emotion to connect with consumers. A Clydesdale is raised by its owner, goes off to be a Budweiser Clydesdale, represents Budweiser in a parade, sees and remembers it’s owner who’s standing on the sidelines, and even goes after him down the street? Priceless. Another cinematic gem of an ad. It even connects to all ages. Perhaps more ads should take a clue from this tried and true format (adapted to their brand of course).

1) Doritos-Eating Goat: I know I just wrote an entire post about how everyone’s out for their 15 seconds of Superbowl fame. Usually these don’t beat the regular ads for me. Yet, again, there were so many horrible ads this year that sadly this became one of the frontrunners. It was clever, it told a story, and it kept my attention. It’s one of the best fan ads I’ve seen. Yet I have to wonder. What does it say about creatives when normal people make better and more entertaining ads? I think it should always be the other way around. Perhaps people are getting lazy. This seems to be the easy way out of creating an ad, having someone else do the work. By no means am I glorifying this type of ad, but perhaps the ad world needs more people like the person who created this one. With this year’s showing, I’d have to say it couldn’t hurt.

There you have it, my top two worst and best ads of Super Bowl XLVII. Additionally, honorable mention for worst goes out to the VW Jamaican accent ad, because that was pretty racist. Honorable mention for best goes out to the Dodge Ram’s Paul Harvey God Made a Farmer ad. Perhaps I’m biased because it relates to my current job, but this one gave credit where credit was due and in the best way possible. In the same way, I’ve done that here. I hope you enjoyed this year’s selections. Be sure to join me next year for more!

Fast Food? Not So Fast…

As 2013 emerges into its 3rd week there are lots of trends emerging. Even in the world of fast food. Barney Wolf touches on 10 trends for fast food in 2013 http://bit.ly/VYzgfE. Going local, healthy kids’ meals, economic struggles, snacks as a meal, more fruits and veggies, gluten-free options, trickle-up trends (fast-casual), ethnic foods, innovative beverages and evolving around healthcare. Ok, so nothing that we haven’t heard of before with restaurants or food trends in general. However, there’s one trend he forgot to mention, and that’s celebrities running fast food chains. In my opinion, celebrities have no business running fast food chains because they don’t know what they’re doing.

At first it was Patrick Dempsey and his bid for Tully’s http://bit.ly/Ui03nu. I thought it was a joke or a publicity stunt. What does Patrick Dempsey know about the fast food industry? Even his comments sounded as though he were just touching on general knowledge, especially when he mentioned his “vision for quality customer service and building the brand”. Everyone knows it takes quality customer service, that’s not new, and building the brand is a given. What I’m concerned about is that celebrities like Patrick Dempsey don’t realize that it takes more than a general knowledge of these to advance a brand. Now I’m sure you’re saying Dempsey will just oversee it and hire other people to do the work. If he’s going to hire other people to do the work, then he has no business being involved in the first place. That just confirms my claim that celebrities don’t know what they’re doing and shouldn’t be involved. While I’m all for celebrities branching into other entrepreneurial avenues, something like fashion makes much more sense than fast food. Dempsey’s an actor, not a brand strategist or PR professional. In his case, sticking to acting makes much more sense to me.  

If anyone should be taking over, it’s Starbucks. Starbucks and Tully’s franchisee AgriNurture are arguing that the Seattle U.S. bankruptcy court should reconsider http://bit.ly/10t2CcF. Yet, what I don’t get about their proposal is that they’d still leave Dempsey’s group in charge of Tully’s branding. Starbucks wants to buy 25 of the 47 Tully’s locations and rebrand them as Starbucks. AgriNurture would buy the rest. In a case like this, why wouldn’t Starbucks be in charge of branding? Surely they are more qualified than Dempsey. It also makes more sense for them to be in charge of it since they know coffee. It’s also much more believable for them to incorporate Tully’s into their brand than it is for Dempsey to take control of something he knows nothing about. I suppose higher-ups are probably banking on the name alone to serve as more publicity and lift brand and franchise efforts. It may do that, but is it really worth leaving your brand in the hands of a celebrity when there are plenty of other qualified, experienced people out there who can actually afford to devote more time and needed attention to these endeavors? Celebrities are no substitute for people who make it their living to know what brands need to have to have any kind of edge or success in this business. Use celebrities in a commercial if you must tie them to a brand, but leave the branding to the professionals. The success of brands depends upon this.

And A Social New Year

Two years ago, location-based apps ruled the night. Foursquare teamed up with Bravo for its Watch What Happens Live: Andy’s New Year’s Eve Party with Andy Cohen http://on.mash.to/TGHCfF. Facebook Places joined with Times Square Alliance using a One Times Square billboard, urging people to check in using the service. Meanwhile, SCVNGR formed a partnership with American Eagle promising a $10 donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters for every social challenge consumers completed. Flash forward two years and social has stolen all the thunder. Social media is 2010′s location-based apps. This year’s New Year’s Eve has officially become a social New Year’s Eve.

Even the Times Square ball is getting in on the act. Waterford’s final release in the “World of Celebrations” series is peace. Each year they introduce a new signature cut crystal pattern to become part of the current series of crystal sentiments. This year’s features a dove surrounded by a burst of sunlight. In honor of all this, Waterford and Times Square New Year’s Eve are inviting people worldwide to share what peace means to them http://bit.ly/W8pt5h. Select sentiments will be included in a Waterford toast given during the live ceremony in Times Square on-site and online via the official webcast. Even Yoko Ono’s getting in on it with her IMAGINE PEACE message, which will be featured nightly during the three minutes leading up to midnight during the month of December http://bit.ly/W8pt5h. Yoko’s effort is part of the Times Square Moment: A digital gallery, a presentation of the Times Square Advertising Coalition and Times Square Arts. On the 21st, the song Imagine was played on billboards. All part of the social domination.

Then there’s Dunkin’ Donuts. Not as big West coast fixture but certainly big in the East where Times Square is, and does make, a big impression. Dunkin’ Donuts is offering its fans the chance to get their photo or video on the billboard http://on.mash.to/YSFenb. Launched at the beginning of this month, their campaign asks fans to send in their photos and/or videos wishing friends and relatives a happy new year. Winners will be chosen in video and photo categories. The top prize is that each winner gets a Times Square billboard placement and two round-trip travel certificates on Jet Blue. 10 top first prize winners from each category will also get $50 in Dunkin’ Donuts cards.

These may all be different ventures but they all have two things in common, they’re tapping into social and they’re all using billboards. Billboards being a form of traditional media and social being a form of new media brings about an interesting intersection between the two. One that recalls social media’s link back to traditional print media. In fact, you could say that most traditional media has links to and/or relies on new media and vice versa. Today, no media stands alone. All of it is one big intersection that supports and upholds the existence of the other forms. This year old media will meet new media as an old year meets a new one. If 2012 was indeed the year of mobile, 2013 is looking to be the year of social. Before, I wished you a Merry Christmas. Until next time, I bid you adieu and wish you a social new year.

Attachment Marketing: Brands Too Human?

For some it’s known as giving your brand a voice or humanizing your brand, now it’s called attachment marketing. For a while now the trend has gone towards turning your brand into something with human elements to better connect with customers through advertising and social media. Now it looks like there’s some truth to ’too much of a good thing’ and ‘be careful what you wish for, you just might get it’. Recent articles hint that this trend might be reaching its saturation point.

David Berkowitz defines attachment marketing through quoting author Sherry Turkle, who states “We seem determined to give human qualities to objects and content to treat each other as things” http://bit.ly/SAnbje. Marketers have made it easy for consumers to give their products human qualities and become more attached to brands. As an example, he relates how he and his wife treat their new Furby. Yes, Furby is back for Christmas 2012 but that’s beside the point. What’s important are the changes in the new Furby compared to the 1990′s Furby. Furby now has ‘digital, expressive eyes’ and ears that wiggle. It starts out speaking in Furbish, but gradually changes to English the more it interacts with people. A related iPhone app translates the Furbish to English and offers up food icons to feed to Furby. Disturbing but true, it’s personality is really shaped through human interaction. As a result, Berkowitz and his wife treat their Furbie like a human. This is a more literal example but others abound. Nike’s Fuelband is one, it has a digital mascot named Fuelie that appears on the app and website to cheer and push users towards their fitness goals and achievements.

At this, some people are starting to draw the line. Corey Mulley states that just because brands have access to the same status update boxes, and their updates appear in the same stream as human updates, doesn’t mean that brands should act like or create content similar to people http://bit.ly/RjFnJc. Mulley goes on to say that the two should not be one and the same, both human and brand. However, this isn’t just an opinion that some like Mulley hold, there are facts to back it up. A CEB survey states that 23% of people have brand relationships and are already fans of the brand, while the rest don’t want relationships whether or not they like the brand. The same study also finds that 70% put off brand decision until point of purchase and 20% continue to do product research after purchase. This he attributes to cognitive overload, too much information that inhibits decision-making.  While he doesn’t cite his source, Mulley also refers to a study of Facebook fans where 61% come for discounts and 55% come for offers. No one comes for relationships apparently. Although this research seems incomplete, percentages don’t always add up to 100% and there’s no explanation of the missing percentage or source, he makes his point. Brands trying to be human don’t seem to be making purchase decisions easier and people are already fans or don’t care about forming brand relationships.

The solution? Become more publisher than humanizer or follower. Alison Provost comes to this conclusion through two traits brands use, presence and accessibility http://bit.ly/T6wrpB. She states that these traits build engagement but fail to foster trust, something that can only be gained through deeper levels of engagement. This supposedly explains why brands are becoming less consumer and more publisher-oriented with their presence, at least online. Provost’s prediction is that informational video online will reign as a direct communication channel between brand and consumer. While online video is taking off, and could very well be the most important channel, I believe it shouldn’t be the only channel. If this brand switch from human to publisher is going to happen, that new image needs to be consistent across all channels. Whether brands are too human or people are placing human qualities on brands, attachment marketing seems to be going the way of the supersize option, the complete opposite. What goes up must come down, but what goes away might also come back around. The rest remains to be seen.