Seems we’ve been up to our eyeballs in positioning and message strategy work at Outsource Marketing lately. Of course, positioning should be the cornerstone of all your marketing communications—without meaningful differentiation, you’ve got nothin’, after all.
But your positioning has to be more than simply unique and matter to your prospects. It has to be true, too.
If you are selling “the world’s toughest phone” that’s “virtually unbreakable,” perhaps it should be.
While Sonim XP1 CEO Bob Plaschke handled this with an amazing amount of grace, the fact is it would appear to some that this is nothing more than another hollow marketing claim.
Persuasion, good.
Puffery, bad.
Not just because you might get caught. It’s because it doesn’t respect the people that ultimately pay the bills—your customers.
Is Sonim guilty of the age-old marketer’s practice of marketing puffery? Considering their “unbreakable” phone broke, does it really matter?
I’ve owned dozens of cars, and like a lot of people, most have been Japanese or German. So when I turned in my leased Honda and started the hunt for a new hybrid, I drove the Toyota Prius, Camry and Highlander Hybrids, the new Honda Insight and a Lexus RX 400h.
The Prius felt underpowered
The Camry was nice, but felt too much like the Accord I’d just turned in
The Insight was loud and somewhat disappointing
And the Highlander Hybrid was so close in price to the Lexus, I chose the latter of the two
But the events of the last week have me second-guessing myself, and I have Ford’s social media marketing team (and a great product) to blame for it.
Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, Ford contacted me “looking for fresh perspectives and feedback, something a little more engaging and authentic” from “non-traditional approach for bloggers and other content creators” and asked if I’d be interested in test driving the new Fusion Hybrid for a few days.
I agreed, and last Thursday, they delivered a shiny new one to my office, with the Michigan “Manufacturer” plate and all.
Here are few pictures I snapped with my iPhone:
I drove the car to work, to the beach, to Costco, to a Mariners game. Basically everywhere.
The fit and finish were good and the ride was really quiet. In fact, it put my both my high-energy kids to sleep on the ride back from their grandma’s house. Sounds like a cliche, but it’s true.
I got a lot of comments from neighbors “That’s really a nice car,” co-workers “I’d buy that” and was even given a special parking spot by a parking lot attendant after he said “Is that the new Fusion Hybrid—cool!”
What I liked most was the fact I nearly forgot it was a hybrid. The transfer from electric to gas is less obvious than it is with my Lexus, a fact that the press hasn’t missed, with USA Today calling it the best gas-electric hybrid yet.
Oh, and while I didn’t get the 81.5 miles per gallon achieved in a recent hypermiling stunt, I did get a respectable 39.5 MPG in a mid-size car.
All-in-all, an eye-opening experience.
Ford’s social media team is firing on all cylinders
You might have heard the buzz about the Fiesta Movement, Ford’s social campaign that put 100 “agents” (selected from over 4,000 applicants) behind the wheel of a 2011 Ford Fiesta for six months and how they’re sharing the results of their “missions” on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.
Ford is winning on the social web due to the aggressive approach that Scott Monty and Ford’s social media team have been taking to engage customers and build authentic conversations around their products and brands.
While Ford’s branding and social media campaigns are good, I’ve become brand loyal to other manufacturers and it will take a lot to break that hold.
Ford’s dealers still publish absurdly noisy ads with prices the average buyer will seldom get (loyalty discounts, military discounts, first-time buyer discounts, etc)— and you’ll always have to haggle with the salesperson and expect them to bring in the manager when they can’t close the sale.
Still, that happens with most dealers and Ford’s product is good and worth a look.
People like me have been saying “Once American manufacturers catch up with Japanese and Germans, I’ll start buying American cars again.”
Well folks, has that time come? Ford’s product quality and the way they’re communicating with customers has me reconsidering their offerings.
Skittles, the chewy, fruit-flavored candy from Mars, Inc. has jumped into social media in an innovative new way: They have coded their website so their navigation now floats over three of the most popular social media websites.
Skittles.com is now nothing more than a navigation box floating over the Twitter search results for the term “skittles.” Essentially, this is capturing all the Twitter conversations regarding their brand (and their new marketing tactic) right on their homepage. Click the the Friends button, and the nav will float over their Facebook Fan Page. The Media button floats their nav over their YouTube channel.
“Skittles” has been the number one search topic on Twitter and in social media since Sunday, and as you might expect, most commentators love it. It’s bold, innovative and its helping drive word of mouth regarding the Skittles brand with people who love to share ideas.
Whether the failure to filter was intentional or not, I don’t know, but by not filtering visitors get to see the authentic conversations regarding the brand. Still, all tweets aren’t suitable for children.
So, do you think Skittles new social media play is responsible or not?
Roughly, it’s when formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seek to create the impression of spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.*
On Friday, The Daily Background Blog revealed that a Belkin employee was doing just that: Paying 65 cents for perfect reviews on Buy.com, NewEgg.com and Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk, where people can receive micropayments for small technical tasks computers can’t do.
To their credit, Belkin’s CEO responded over the weekend, stating that “Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this.” The company went on to take responsibility, asked forgiveness and claimed Belkin will remove all the false reviews and posts on Mechanical Turk.
Hats off to Belkin for the quick response—this is exactly the way this should have been handled and they’ve surely avoided even more negative word of mouth.
But I ask you, Responsible Marketer, at what point do we hold a company accountable for the actions of its representatives? Is all forgiven with Belkin? Could this have been avoided?
Seems like a great argument for social media training to me, but what do you think?
I’d never heard of PeopleJam or Saveology before today. My bet is you never have, either.
Considering most viral videos attempts fail, attaching your brand to someone like Laipply is a wise move. Instead of spending big bank creating videos that aren’t funny, authentic or effective, why not seek out the people that have caught lightning and bottle and leverage their success?
With some fanfare, on December 23rd McDonald’s launched a new concept store in Japan called Quarter Pounder, a restaurant selling—you guessed it—only Quarter Pounders.
At a minimum, by seeding the crowd with paid fans, McDonald’s guaranteed the stores would appear to be a success. But the the buzz apparently helped and the results were phenomenal.
In an era where authenticity and transparency are expected, was McDonald’s deception responsible? Did the ends justify the means?
This week, tobacco companies were dealt a blow when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of allowing lawsuits to proceed under state law for deceptive advertising of “light” cigarettes.
Tobacco companies are now in what I call an irresponsible marketing death spiral:
The proliferation of traditional and social media have created millions of professional and private corporate watchdogs. Irresponsible marketers may be able to run, but they can’t hide.
When irresponsible marketers are caught, the U.S. legal system rewards companies, individuals and attorneys that prosecute said marketers for their actions.
Of course, controversy sells, so traditional and social media will document every step and misstep as the company attempts to respond.
Competitors gain traction as the distracted irresponsible marketing is forced to shift time, money and other resources to defending itself and/or working to mend it’s broken brand.
The company dies a slow, painful death.
Okay, not every marketing misstep will result in a class action lawsuit, boycott, movement or campaign against a company.
It’s usually more subtle than that, as customers and prospects respond with their pocketbooks—and their voices.
Truth, authenticity and transparency are no longer optional, folks.
Responsible Marketing is what the people want. One way or another they are going to get it.
Which other companies (or industries) are entering an irresponsible marketing death spiral now?
You might have heard about the recent uproar over a new Motrin ad targeting mothers. If you have already formed an opinion on the topic, skip the video below.
Otherwise, take a look, and try to be as objective as possible.
The way I see it, the purpose of the ad was to help the average mom who has back pain. If you don’t like it don’t buy it – why badmouth the product so viciously? No moms or babies were hurt in the making of the commercial.
What I don’t understand is where are all these caring, united voices are when talking about education, poverty, the economy and other topics that have far more impact and can truly make a difference for themselves and their children’s lives? And such outrage, as is it now expected for companies to have a 24-7 monitoring presence, even on weekends, for everything, and then get told “they’re not listening” when they’re probably taking care of their families on a Saturday or Sunday?
Ultimately, the power of social media can be good, bad, or in this case even ugly. Whichever way you dice it …everyone is talking about Motrin around the water cooler today.
I ask you this…what should we really be mobilizing for or against today?
The apology has been panned by many—most notably Seth Godin—for it’s formulaic and impersonal tone.
Lessons learned from the Motrin social media debacle
Know your audience. If this ad was tested among mothers in social media circles, something went awry.
You must be message responsible. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with the key message, but a few phrases in the script (“wearing your baby seems to be in fashion,” “supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience,” etc.) and the snarky delivery made for an ad that talked down to the target audience.
Get real or go home. To many, the ad and apology lacked authenticity—the attempt to create a personal tone felt forced, or worse, fake.
The discussion will happen, with our without you. For most companies, participation in social media is no longer optional.
Social media is 24/7/365. Conversations don’t just happen during business hours. This brouhaha exploded before Motrin had a chance to respond.
Blogs help humanize companies, improve authenticity, create valuable feedback loops and may help drive significant traffic to your company website.
So it’s no wonder one of questions I’m most often asked is, “should my company consider blogging?”
After asking a few questions, I’m able to give a definitive “yes” or “no” answer, but I’ve never created a decision tree to help people answer that question for themselves.
Thankfully, Matt Dickman of the Techno//Marketer blog has.
But unlike television, radio and print, this media is created by you, me, your co-workers—maybe even your mom.
It’s a conversation that brings you closer to the customer than ever before at a time when recent research has shown that 86% of consumers don’t believe brands, but 78% of consumers believe what their peers say about brands.
But check out this comparison of average media usage versus average media spend from Chris Schaumann’s excellent Digital Branding presentation.
The disconnect is immediately evident: If you aren’t marketing online, you’re looking for love in all the wrong places.
So, what about the customers you already have?
The Break Up is an award-winning viral video from Microsoft that shows the painful disconnect between what today’s consumer wants, and how advertisers are (or aren’t) responding:
So, what are you doing to engage your customer and prospects?
