Brand Interactivism

Building Online Community Builds Your Brand

As an example of Brand Interactivism at its best, Daily Candy CEO Peter Sheinbaum told an audience at the Direct Marketing Assocation (DMA) Email Evolution conference that building community is the path to brand loyalty. Online Media Daily reports:

Companies that want to build brand loyalty should focus not only on communicating with their customers, but helping their customers communicate with each other, a wildly successful email newsletter targeting young women with fashion and lifestyle content.   

In fact, Sheinbaum, speaking at the Direct Marketing Association's Email Evolution conference, said he thinks of Daily Candy as a community, although it might look like a broadcast medium....

Predicting that online populations will increasingly group themselves into "communities of interest," Sheinbaum advised the audience of marketers and publishers to mine their databases of subscribers and customers to discover commonalities, whatever they may be. Once these segments and subsegments are identified, he went on, the company should equip members of these groups to communicate with each other and form communities--all, of course, under the aegis of the company or brand.

Sheinbaum's advice seems to jibe with two studies from the United States and Britain which found that, respectively, 64% and 70% of online shoppers in those countries want consumer ratings and reviews on commercial Web sites. Respondents said these reviews would help inform both online and offline purchase decisions. The UK study was conducted by Jupiter Research and Bazaarvoice; the U.S. study by Forrester.

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Social Networking Silliness

Chris Thilk writes at AdJab about the proliferation of corporate attempts to create online social networking sites. I am in complete agreement with him - this is just silly. People are using MySpace and YouTube because they are easy to use, do what they want, and everyone else they know is using them. Why in the world would anybody decide to go to Wal-Mart's social networking website? I just can't see this working.

Joseph Jaffe also wrote on this topic in the last week and provides 10 reasons why all the YouTube imitators will fail.

Brand Interactivism in a Nutshell

Nick Dynice boils down New Marketing (or Brand Interactivism) concepts into a simple formula. While not complete, the simplicity is nice.

Advertising in Virtual Worlds

Second Life is a virtual world where people can purchase land, and then create any kind of avatar and community they want. Want to be a gorgeous model? A doctor? A drug dealer? You can be anything you want to be. People actually purchase (with real money) land on which to build a house. There is an entire virtual economy taking place here. And, with nearly 275,000 "residents" as of today, it seems to be thriving.

People spend large amounts of time in this environment, which is sort of a SimCity on steroids. So what opportunities might there be for marketers? Harvard Business Review recently published an article entitled "Avatar-Based Marketing" that explores the potential.

When marketing online, “you want sustained engagement with the brand rather than just a click-through” to a purchase or product information, says Bonita Stewart, responsible for interactive marketing for DaimlerChrysler’s Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge brands. “Avatars create an opportunity for just this type of engagement.”

How the Internet Fundamentally Changes Communications

Many traditional marketing and advertising agencies (even ones that claim to be "online experts") treat the Internet as just another medium to broadcast a marketing message (the way the SuperBowl was handled certainly proves that!) These agencies see email blasts as a cheaper form of direct mail or banner ads as a somewhat more efficient type of television advertising. And while others recognize that the Internet can help support sophisticated one-to-one relationships with customers through online CRM programs, such efforts are only a good first step. While such programs can certainly be of benefit, the best opportunities on the Internet are fundamentally different from those in traditional media. The traditional worldview limits the possibilities of what can be accomplished.

By its very nature, the Internet is a highly complex system. Extremely small actions can have major consequences online. A single comment on somebody’s blog can spread via syndication technologies like RSS to millions of people within seconds of being posted. This dynamic has helped to make marketers feel unsure in this brave new world. How does a company market itself in a medium where the customers are in control -- where they can easily exchange information about pricing, customer service, or product quality? And where a single negative comment is archived forever to be found by the masses on Google?

Issues like these don’t just apply to corporations. For example, how important is it for a politician to make sure that empowered constituents stay “on message”? How can a not-for-profit organization leverage the Internet in ways to give it influence, visibility and a reach that would have been impossible just a few short years ago?

Emergent online communities form and grow every day, and it is in helping to nurture and empower these communities where opportunities lie for marketers.

An important question for any online marketer is, who controls your message? Success online is rooted in relinquishing control of your message to those you are trying to reach – your customers. Allowing them to speak, rather than speaking down to them, is the first step. Marketers must remember that the Internet is made up of empowered individuals who do not want to be treated as a mass consumer or a demographic. The ease and immediacy of communications from anyone to anyone is what makes the Internet so different from traditional media. Broadcast and narrowcast marketing each implies that the source of the message is in control, but this is not how the Internet works. The organic power of online entities like message boards, chat rooms, blogs, podcasts, RSS, grassroots communities, expert opinion sites, mobile smart mobs, and viral emails change the equation dramatically.

While marketers cannot hope to control the Internet, successful companies work to empower their natural communities to sit up, interact, get involved, take action and tell others.

Individuals respond well to organizations that are perceived as being encouraging and supportive of their communities, and brand loyalty is what results. The desired effect is the exponential power of positive word-of-mouth.

Inside-Out Communications

Richard Edelman (the CEO of the world's largest independent PR firm) writes about what he calls the "Me2 Revolution". His argument, in a nutshell, is that since people trust their friends, families and peers a heck of a lot more than they trust corporate or government communications, it's critically important to allow employees to speak directly with the marketplace through technologies like blogs and podcasts.

It's amazing how it's only now, after all these years, that the Cluetrain Manifesto is starting to take hold in corporate America. We still have a long way to go.

 

Online Community is Important

Refuting some old assumptions about the limits of virtual relationships, a paper published by Pew Internet & American Life Project submits that online communities actually enhance real-life relationships, rather than detract. This is very important, because it implies that organizations that help facilitate online communities are more likely to garner loyalty and customer evangelists.