Conversation and Your Brand

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Developing, growing and strengthening your brand has always been about the conversation that surrounds it

What your customers are saying What your employees are saying What influencers are saying What the competition is saying What the investment community is saying

Conversation and Your Brand

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And until recently we’ve controlled that conversation by carefully assigning how we communicate

Marketing and Advertising - broadcast the message Public Relations - steer the message HR - explain the message internally Internal Communications - sell the message Sales/Business Development - carry the message to each customer

What’s Changed?

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Conversation is no longer between just two people

In December 1998, 23 known blogs and in April 1999 the term

“blog” was born

In 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary listed “blog” as both a

noun and a verb and the worldwide blog count was at 1 million

Today (April 2008) Forrester Research reports the numbers to be 18% of on-line users have published a blog or web page, uploaded

a video or music, or posted articles or stories on line and 56% of all

online consumers had participated in some sort of social applicationin the last month

What’s Changed?

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And communicating with the customer is no longereasily assigned

Kryptonite Bike LocksPR Dept. Response

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Kryptonite’s response:

“We understand there are concerns regarding tubular cylinders used in some Kryptonite locks. The tubular cylinder, a standard industry-wide design, has been successfully used for more than 30 years in our products and other security applications without significant issues.

The current Kryptonite locks based on a tubular cylinder design continue to present an effective deterrent to theft. As part of our continuing commitment to produce performance and improved security, Kryptonite has been developing a disc-style cylinder for some years. In 2000, Kryptonite introduced the disc-style cylinder in its premier line of products, the New York series. In 2002, Kryptonite began development of a new disc cylinder system for both its Evolution and KryptoLok product lines, which currently use the tubular cylinder design. These products are scheduled to be introduced in the next few weeks.

We are accelerating the delivery of the new disc cylinder locks and we will communicate directly with our distributors, dealers and consumers within the coming days. The world just got tougher and so did our locks.”

What’s Changed?

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Conversation is happening 24/7, all over the world,in a matter of minutes

Amazon Goes Down (approx. 4:30-6:00 am on June 6, 2008)June 6, 2008 | 10:34 AM PDT — Amazon suffers U.S. outage on FridayJune 6, 2008 | 1:36:47 — Amazon Back Up After OutageJune 6, 2008 | 3:42 — Amazon loses $1.8-million due to outage: AdAge

Close of Day: NASDAQ (Amazon)Last Price 80.67 ( 3:00 PM EDT)Change (%) -3.59 (-4.26%)Day High 83.46Day Low 80.61

What’s Changed?

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Customers will not limit their conversations about your business, your product or your service to your sales or customer service people

Buyers prefer to be educated, not sold and want to pursue this education anonymously until they’ve reached a purchasing decision

Peer opinions/reviews on product, service, company and brand

are becoming more and more relevant to the buyer’s decision

Can I ignore it?

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It isn’t hard to talk ourselves out of adding conversationto the mix

Business has been operating the same way for a long time and it’s

proven effective Only the young kids are into the whole conversation thing My customers are all over 40 and aren’t into all that new stuff Our 5-year strategic plan doesn’t take into account social networking

Conversations of this type are really just relevant to B2C and isn’t

really affecting the B2B marketplace My budget’s already stretched so thin

No - Employees will demand it

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Web conversation isn’t going away

Personal communication needs and wants will quickly become professional communication needs and wants

Blair Christie, Cisco – “Web 2.0 brings work and personal lifestyles closer together

with potential benefits to the business world. It’s a mash-up of your world at home

and our world in business.”

Nancy DeLapp, VP, IBM – “The corporate workforce is going to change dramatically

with the socially networked employee population coming into our companies very soon.”

Clara Shih, The AppExchange Blog – “The Facebook generation will grow up andcomprise an increasing portion of the workforce and company leadership.”

Boomers are getting there or getting out X-generationers are there and demanding change in the workplace

Y-generationers (millenianers) will accept nothing else and will only work with

those keeping pace with them

And customers will demand it

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Your customers expect to have conversations withyou on their terms

Target loses its “cool.”

And customers will demand it

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The Viral Garden post:“It all started when Amy Jussel from ShapingYouth.org spotted the Target billboard to the right, and saw something other than a woman making a snow Angel. Amy felt that the billboard 'targetted' the wrong message for young girls, and emailed her complaint to Target. The company would later email her the following response:

‘Good Morning Amy,

Thank you for contacting Target; unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with non-traditional media outlets. This practice is in place to allow us to focus on publications that reach our core guest.

Once again thank you for your interest, and have a nice day.’”

Plus, the media is listening and participating

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Hot news stories for major media outlets are starting with conversations on the web and reporters are ensuring those conversations/stories reach a much wider audience

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The New York Times Contacts Target(as reported in the Viral Garden post)

“The New York Times also contacted Target, who replied that ‘We do not work with bloggers currently,’ said a company spokeswoman, Amy von Walter. As the NYTimes points out, Target won't talk to bloggers, but WILL talk to a MSM source that's writing a story about how they won't talk to bloggers.

But none of this excuses the fact that it is absolutely unforgivable for a major corporation, in 2008, to have a policy in place that states that it ignores bloggers. To go a step further and basically imply that bloggers don't represent Target's 'core guests', is the height of ignorance. Amy might be a blogger, but she was also a Target customer that contacted the company with a complaint. And she was all but ignored.

BTW when the NYTimes contacted Target and they claimed that they don't work with bloggers currently, the company clarified that statement by adding “But we have made exceptions. And we are reviewing the policy and may adjust it.” IOW, the company may change their policy if the story you are writing causes a big enough stink.”

The most important reason to rethink

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Faster, smarter business is all about embracing conversations in a Web 2.0 world

It’s increasing your sales force by thousands It’s increasing your PR department by thousands - IBM

You get feedback on your product/service directly from your customers instantly allowing you to adjust to changing market conditions faster Messaging can be adjusted quickly and with better insight

Quicker connections with audiences before, during and after events like trade shows, symposiums, seminars, meetings, etc.

Additional benefits

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With buyers in control you can facilitate demand instead of generating it Closer connection between marketing and sales messaging/tools Ability to nurture relationship that already exists offline Quicker lead generation Adds peer to the mix for a quicker sale Better customer segmentation Achieves brand qualities that traditional marketing struggles to achieve

Credibility Understanding Sustainability

Quicker/stronger brand alignment

Ok, I’m rethinking

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Where do I begin???

Understand who’s in charge?

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No one and everyone

Traditional departments - advertising, PR, marketing, communications, customer service, IT (yes, IT), but free of silos and internal politics Leadership Team and business units - proving business value to the CEO CEO - champion the principles, values and behaviors

Employees - the best companies will let go of their message and control

of the gate and trust it with their employees to carry forward. Your customer

Bea Fields (author of Millennial Leaders): “Customers have always

been a force in the evolution of brands. What is happening is simply

that the part customers play in brand evolution is becoming more

visible and is therefore taking on a more important role.”

Understand the rules of the road

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Understand push vs. pull and when to use one or the other Think dialogue vs. monologue Make each conversation relevant to each audience

McDonald’s Brand Journalism St. Norbert IM addresses

Achieve and maintain brand alignment Creating an environment that is conducive and accepting of conversation Think less about technology and more about sociology Participating in the message instead of controlling it

Dell Hell

Rules of the road

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Dell Hell

Rules of the road

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The Manifesto for Monday Morning(By Peter Hirshberg, Technorati and Steven Hyden, Ogilvy)

“Live brands participate in conversations in a manner that is:” Real Constant Genuinely interested Intent on learning Humble Attentive Personal

Rules of the road

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Wal-Mart

Be brave

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B2C is already there. B2B is blazing a trail.

Audiences recognize innovation in communications.

Great conversations going on now

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Enterprise St. Norbert College Dell (click on Dell Community) McDonalds Huggies Lexus Starbucks Miller Electric Scotland

Get started

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Get comfortable

Make sure your brand and your business are ready for each step Break down conversation/department silos Align your brand Hire a community manager to listen to conversations about your brand Get key influencers comfortable with the tools of conversation

Get started

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Test the waters

Add an online response mechanism to a product description,

white paper or case study Add broadcast conversation to your careers/employment page

Figure out a way to connect customers with the people they

really want to talk to inside your company Figure out a way to connect your customers with each other Start an Intranet blog or sales force blog

Get started

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SelectMinds, which works mainly with B2B companies to create internal social networks, cites the following results for their clients:

Productivity increased on average 10.33% New business increased on average 11.65% Retention increased on average 5%

Get started

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When you’re ready to charge ahead - STOP!Ask yourself

1. How will we benefit from initiating or participating in a conversation?

2. With whom do we want to have the conversation?

3. Where are the conversations currently taking place?

Don’t forget

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Sell it!

Define objectives and measurements Determine value

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“A brand is an emotional relationship between the user and the product, Web 2.0 allows us to build that relationship one to one, to measure things and get an immediate reaction. But people talk about your brand in ways you can’t control, whether positive or negative, be a part of that discussion so you understand it.”

Lou Aversano

Managing Partner, Ogilivy Worldwide

Today’s conversation was brought you by:•Thomas Petziner, Jr. The Wall Street Journal – Forward, The Cluetrain Manifesto•Susan Solomon, the ClickZ Network – Brand Journalism •Peter Hirshberg, Technorati and Steven Hyden, Ogilvy – The Manifesto for Monday Morning.•Brian Solis, principal at FutureWorks – PR 2.0 blog entry•Nilofer Merchant, CEO of Rubison Consulting – Segmentation in a Web 2.0 World, MarketingProfs April 10, 2007.•Bea Fields, author of Millennial Leaders•Ellis Booker, BtoB On-line, Leads: Finding, tracking, nurturing, converting, May 27, 2008•Karen Breen Vogel, CEO of ClearGuage, BtoB Online Post 5.27.08•Doc Searlys – The Cluetrain Manifesto•Tim Riesterer – Customer Message Management, Marketing Profs Virtual Seminar, June 7, 2007•Web 2.0 and the Corporation, Roundtable at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

•Toby Hoden, CMO, ING•Lou Aversano, Managing Partner Ogilvy Worldwide•Blair Christie, VP, Cisco•Jon Iwata, Senior VP, IBM•Frank Boncimino, Senior VP, Time Warner Cable•Nancy DeLapp, Global VP, IBM

•Clara Shih, The AppExchange Blog, Salesforce.com, posted January 30, 2008•Mack Collier, The Viral Garden Blog, posted January 29, 2008•Phillip Torrone, engadget, posted Sep 16th 2004 at 12:20PM

Conversation

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