Tag Archives: brand
Party on Twitter. No Hangovers.
Any term with the word party in it has to be good. And, indeed, Twitter parties are emerging as a tool for brands to engage their customers. Companies throwing Twitter parties include the high-altitude set, like the Harvard Business Review, IBM and Gevalia, and baser needs like Huggies Diapers, Crest toothpaste, barbeque sauce, and even some ad agency grumble fests.
So what exactly is a Twitter Party? It’s an online free-for-all that draws information hungry, brand evangelist types – like your customers. They share interests as diverse as camping, computing, barbeque or interior design. To join the discussion, Tweeters follow the event’s with hashtags, which you have heavily promoted. The leader or host of the party introduces subjects and guides the discussion.
The opportunity for a brand is to field experts, a guest host, or a celebrity. Just like guests at a real party expect their hosts to cough up some clean paper cups and peanuts, your Twitter guests will expect contests and brand swag. No, not iPads! Whip up giveaways that relate to your brand, even if it’s just a cool T-shirt.
A Twitter party is also an event you can weave through all of your other marketing: blog posts, Facebook, Print ads, and a landing page to capture social information and leads on your website.
The potential ROI from these online events is enormous. Companies report from 1,500 to more than 1,000,000 mentions. And remember, these count as interactions with potential customers, not just ad impressions. Compared to most other tactical options, a Twitter party is downright cheap.
Next steps? Follow some Twitter parties on your own to see how they work, and learn more about Ideopia’s ssocial media capabilities.
Democracy: The Enemy of Marketing
One man, one vote works brilliantly in democracy, which moves slowly and mitigates risk at every corner. But it’s a tepid way to run a brand. Instead of focusing on results, marketing democracies seek to placate their constituencies, employees, boards, spouses, and sometimes ex-wives. It poisons everything in your marketing, from strategy and creative to research and advertising execution. Not to mention the traction you lose by plodding along.
What’s a marketing director to do? Dictate, we say. Take counsel, but don’t follow advice if it doesn’t resonate with your plan. Be aggressive and succeed wildly. If you fail, blame the agency. Either way is a better move than a career of mediocre results.
- Determine who in your organization is required for approvals, i.e. the smallest group possible.
- State goals, objectives and timelines that are realistic, but light a fire under your colleagues.
- Develop a strategy that’s understandable by anybody in your company. Make your approval group sign it in blood. Solicit and assimilate feedback.
- Explain that the creative work that you present will meet the strategy.
- Present the work by restating the strategy and objectives.
- Gain agreement that the work will deliver the strategy.
- Sell like crazy.
- Unless you welcome copy changes from spouses, don’t let anyone leave the room with the work.
- Maintain focus. Don’t dilute your plan and budget with last minute add-ons.
- Execute with a vengeance.
- Plan your celebratory extra week of vacation.
Don’t vote on it. Do it!
How to murder an established brand in 10 easy steps.
- Protect your brand from change like a religious zealot. Your marketing mojo has worked for 100 years, and by golly it’ll work for another 100. Convince yourself that all good change is evolutionary; that anything progressing faster than a teradactyl is downright dangerous.
- Democracy rules. Vote on everything, especially creative work. And vote often. Phil in accounting. Lisa in customer service. Your mom. And, of course, legal. Your marketing will be stripped of anything that could possibly make it work, but an ass covered is an ass saved.
- Believe your sacred brand lives in a vacuum where it is immune to cultural, technological and demographic changes. Like Women’s Suffrage and the internet, they’re all fads anyway.
- Worry about losing your job. That fear will protect from taking any action that could positively move your business forward, while you may get lucky and ride the flat growth line into retirement.
- Wear Teflon by Armani. Let the little guys take the fall. Make your subordinates more afraid of losing their job than you are of losing yours. Afterall, it’s your job to cultivate talent internally.
- Talk a good game. Drop buzzwords. Maybe Tweet once or twice. Reference articles about social media and forward them to higher ups. Everyone will know you’re on top of this new fangled stuff, but don’t do anything about it.
- Congratulate yourself for being at the top of your industry without wondering if your industry will be there in 5 years.
- Ignore criticism or even the hint of negative karma. Consumers are idiots or difficult cases. Research lies. And your agency’s job is to suck up and take orders.
- Never benchmark or evaluate your program against other industries much less competitors. Those guys are clueless and their ideas have no relevance to an aged and revered brand like yours.
- Consumers are idiots (see No. 8). Listening to what they think or feel about your brand, or how it could better meet their needs is just stupid. What could possibly come from it? New product ideas. More share. Why bother? Your brand had this nailed 100 years ago.
Discover brand tone, don’t dictate it.
There’s nothing like the term “Tone of Voice” statement in a creative brief to set off a bullsh*t detector. Why? Because most tone statements are written by account executives aiming to placate a client, top managers, and frequently family members. That doesn’t mean it’s not useful. Just like your mom screaming at you after painting your face in peanut butter, the sound of your brand can speak volumes about your brand if managed correctly.
For example, a computer company may show how easy its products are to use through minimalistic designs, humanistic typography, and friendly TV characters that don’t use scary technical terms. The tone created by these elements could only be Apple. The secret, we believe, is creating a feel, a look and a tone of voice after a creative exploration of a strategy. Tone is something to be discovered not dictated.