Eye Contact

MadI opened the June 2009 issue of Fast Company (yes I like the feel of a magazine in my hands, on a plane, on the throne, on a chaise) and saw the following – “Eye contact. Your most imderated skill set.” It got me thinking how very true that is today. Phone calls, email, webinars, all manner if social media has, unfortunatley overrun the face-to-face meeting. There are time in business, hell in everyday day interactions, where a good look in the eye will do more to engender trust than any number of words, pictures or actions can ever express.

In our world of bringi g consumer insights and engagements to life for the brands our clients entrust to our expertise, getting off our collective asses and making eye contact with the consumer has been lost. We hide behind syndicated data and reports. We look for analytics to tell us the whole story. We do our best “Mad Men”

impressions and use our gut or Malcolm Gladwell ourselves to Blink our way to insights. There is no better way to understand the consumer than to go toe-to-toe with them, walk a mile in their shoes and really understand why they trust some brands and not others with an in-home, Intimate relationship. I heard Roy Spence speak a couple of years ago at the Mirren New Business conference in NYC and he talked about how they came up with the “Don’t Mess With Texas” line for an anti-litter campaign. It can to their Creative Director or an Art Director who got outnuf their office and walked, looking at the trash, the mess all over the highways and thy’s where inspiration struck.

I sat in a retailer that sells one of our client’s products not long ago. I went through the whole consumer experience, they didn’t know I was anything more than a consumer and I learned a lot. I talked with other consumers, found out what brand they chose, why and what they expected. They I made my choice,our client’s brand of course, and experienced the sales process. It was filled with questions about my related  habits and other bits of information and it endedbwith a hard push to another brand. I knew that meant the salesman was receiving an incentive to push that brandnovwr my client’s but I was undeterred even though I could have saved some $. Instead I endurred the “are you sure?” question, the “I’ll have to get that from another store comment” and finally a huff as the salesman bent to my will. Let’s not forget I’m the customer. The bottom line, knowing the consumer means looking them and their buying situation right in the eye. That’s the best way to know what’s really what. Go out and make some eye contact.

What possible harm can it do?

I opened the June 2009 issue of Fast Company (yes I like the feel of a magazine in my hands, on a plane, on the throne, on a chaise) and saw the following – “Eye contact. Your most underrated skill set.” This was a headline for an ad, none-the-less. It got me thinking how very true that is today. Phone calls, email, webinars, all manner of social media has, unfortunately overrun the face-to-face meeting. There are times in business, hell in everyday day personal interactions, where a good look in the eye will do more to engender trust than any number of words, pictures or actions can ever express.

In our world, bringing consumer insights and engagements to life for the brands our clients entrust to our expertise is one of the reasons we get paid. As a whole we need to do more to get off our collective asses and start making more eye contact with the consumer. Marketers and agencies can hide behind syndicated data and reports. We look for analytics to tell us the whole story.

We do our best “Mad Men” impressions and use our gut to tell/sell a story about the consumer, sometimes based on our own biases. Often times after only a couple of conversations with people in the demographic profile.

I am not at all opposed to research, it’s critical to validating the gut and providing insights that may otherwise be unavailable. It can provide the “real” numbers that get a client off the dime. But, there is no better way to understand the consumer than to go toe-to-toe with them, walk a mile in their shoes and really understand why they trust some brands and not others with an in-home, intimate relationship. I heard Roy Spence from GSD&M Idea City speak a couple of years ago at the Mirren New Business conference in NYC and he talked about how they came up with the “Don’t Mess With Texas” line for an anti-litter campaign.  It came to one of their creative people who got out of the office and walked, looking at the trash, the mess all over the highways and that’s where inspiration struck.

Not long ago, I sat in a retailer that sells one of our client’s products and went through the whole consumer experience, they didn’t know I was anything more than a consumer and I learned a lot. I talked with other consumers, found out what brand they chose, why and what they expected. They I made my choice,our client’s brand of course, and experienced the sales process. It was filled with questions about my related  habits and other bits of information and it ended with a hard push to another brand. I knew that meant the salesman was receiving an incentive to push that brand over my client’s but I was undeterred even though I could have saved some $. Instead I endurred the “are you sure?” question; the “I’ll have to get that from another store comment” and finally a huff as the salesman bent to my will. Let’s not forget I’m the customer.

What did it mean for the client – recommendations on POS, in-store personnel training programs and online elements that helped arm the consumer with information to know what they want before they go to the store.

The bottom line, knowing the consumer means looking them right in the eye and understanding what is driving their behavior and buying signals. That’s the best way to know what’s really what. Go out and make some eye contact.

What possible harm can it do?

Digital Killed The Analog Star?

The first video on MTV was the Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star.”  This song celebrates the “golden age of radio” and a singer whose career is cut short by television. The proclamation that the radio was dead and that all things musical would migrate to the small screen was profound if not exactly true.

Much of the music world quickly jumped on the video bandwagon as a way of extending audience interest and sales. And that changed the paradigm for the music industry. The same can be said for the on-line world and the future of branding. Maybe. In a recent article in Adweek by visionary Bob Greenberg, the CEO of R/GA,  pointed out that the old rules of branding that served iconic brands like IBM, UPS and AT&T won’t work in today’s ever wired world. http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/bob-greenberg/e3id9a975e26c8545c537eabf30e962eed8 That consumers tune out with ever increasing frequency “traditional” marketing tools -the monologue brand’s typically have with consumers. No argument that the game has changed and that many consumers get information differently today than they did 15 or 20 years ago (let’s get out of the way the fact that much of the radio and television programming is being delivered digitally – we live in a digital world – that’s a fact). I don’t argue with the notion that brands have to give consumers a reason to have a relationship. I wouldn’t be in this business if I didn’t believe that consumer/brand relationships weren’t the linchpin to loyalty and advocacy. I contend that a blended approach to relationship and engagement with a consumer or community of consumers is the right approach. Consumers gather information from so many places – family and friends, editorial, the digital realm as well as traditional media that the development of a relationship is not the function of one medium or another. They work best when they work together. There is no doubt that technology has allowed consumers to connect with brands on their terms. It has also allowed brands, if they are so inclined, to create higher levels on attention for themselves and their products and thereby injecting themselves into the consumer consciousness more easily than before. Traditional media however still has the power to reinforce messages and reach large numbers of consumers which is of particular importance to brands and products with broad and deep consumer appeal.

By now, it might appear that I am “Anti-New Media” which couldn’t be further from the truth, case in point is this blog and the fact that I’ve helped develop both experiential marketing and digital marketing skill sets within two traditional ad agencies.  What I am is against saying any one thing is dead and that technology and the new media are the apes taking over the humans like in Planet Of The Apes. There has got to be a balance in the application of all marketing communication tools – old and new media, direct, public relations, experiential.  The ratios come from understanding the consumer community with which a brand is trying to create relationships.

This leads to tremendous complexity for brands, CMOs and their partner agencies.  To Mr. Greenberg’s point, consumers are on a path to pulling information rather than having it pushed upon them and brands must change the way the create engagements or interfaces in order to have success. This means much more than repurposedcreative for multiple channels. Mr. Greenberg is right in the assessment that brands cannot take a top-down approach as has been done for decades.  I believe it must be a 360-degree approach from all sides to help the consumer with awareness, acceptance, trial, loyalty and advocacy.

Let’s not do the death march for “traditional” advertising just yet.  Maybe Gloria Gaynor’s “I will survive” is a more approriate anthem to describe the evolution of advertising.

Tweet About My Brand, Please

Does the Twitter phenomenon have any application for brands? Well that depends on the brand in my estimation. There is no doubt that a company can be more personal, more approachable by using Twitter to tweet about what’s going with them. But does it impact sales? And isn’t that the end-game for brands, building sales? Maybe if you have a really deep understanding of your audience and their engagement with Twitter you can create connections that lead to sales. It takes time, you cannot just go out and tweet a desperate plea for people to buy your product. Doing a series of features and benefits tweets probably won’t work either. And if you’ve been sold on doing it just because it’s one of the latest and greatest do yourself a favor and think long and hard about it. If you aren’t responsive, fast to get news out or not stimulating dialogue you won’t get very far. And the last time I looked the most valuable asset most brands have is time and wasting it is never a good investment.

Jeremiah Owyang has a great post on the Evolution of Brands On Twitter http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/08/18/web-strategy-the-evolution-of-brands-on-twitter/

I think most brands are still moving in the slow lane and should probably stay right there. This should not be part of your web strategy. Think about it, a brand creates a presence on Twitter and is fairly prolific, responsive and relevant. Then a consumer goes to their site or calls customer service and gets a totally different experience. Bam! The brand is dead to that consumer and probably 1,000s more that he or she connects with in the various social spaces and places they frequent. Ouch. Most brands should stay on the sidelines if they aren’t going to make the commitment because the ROI is as tough to quantify as any social media or traditional public relations program. Get your house in order first. For these brands, time and money should be spent on first SEO and customer service. Then on SEM where they can really measure their web strategy and efforts all the while creating a dashboard to share results with the guys in the corner office. There is a post from Adverblog that parallels my POV on this subject.  http://www.adverblog.com/archives/003542.htm

If you do decide that Twitter is going to be one of your engagement tools, it can be really powerful for making connections with a community.  You can use it to promote something new, dispel a rumor and create a conversation.  It may just be momentum changing for your brand.  Joe Jaffe had some interesting thoughts on Twitter Chatter as he called it http://www.jaffejuice.com/2007/05/twitter_while_y.html