The Value of Social Media

Twitter? LinkedIn? Facebook? MySpace?

Social networks remind us that between 83-87% of all goods and services are sold via the old fashioned method of social networking. Even if there were no Internet, what we do know is that the bulk of sales for any business happen because of a relationship or more importantly in the world of branding: a perceived relationship. 

Brand.Relationships are about emotion - that same warm and fuzzy feeling that happens when you have a valued friend. A well run branding campaign generates the same emotional feelings with the customer. A good brand should feel like a valued friend.

The advertising community is twittering about the fact that Ashton Kutcher was the first to reach  million friends on Twitter. They are filled with Twitter envy and are trying to grapple with one important thing. Aston did this entire stunt without paying an advertising agency. Ouch!

Social networking is at the heart of selling products and services - not advertising. Advertising is cold, impersonal, flashy and usually lack substance. Branding is about a relationships - in a very real sense Brand.Relationships are not about what the customer knows, but who the customer knows.

Do your customers know your brand?

What General Motors can learn from Jack Northrop

Many years ago I had the privilege of working with GM’s new interim chairman, Kent Kresa. Sure, I know the guy probably doesn’t remember me, but that won’t stop me from telling the world that both of us share a connection – we both worked at the company started by aviation pioneer, Jack Northrop.

General Motors has stumbled in many ways. However, since marketing brands is our business, we’ll stick to GMs use – or misuse – of advertising. GM has poured tens of millions of dollars into advertising; advertising that does nothing to sell cars and trucks. As we like to ask, “If advertising is so great, then why don’t advertising agencies advertise?”

GM has a great product. My father had GM cars, I had GM cars, my son had a GM car. They are solid and outlast any other brand. GM vehicles are a great value for the money. Yet, their advertising is failing to sell a great product. Therein is the problem: advertising rarely sells products.

One of Jack Northrop’s strengths was building a genuine atmosphere of family with his employees and customers. Funny, that is how most companies are built and sustained. When customers feel an authentic relationship with the product they tend to talk about the product to their friends. More than 87% of products are sold by word of mouth and relationships. I remember being at Northrop and the Division General Manager, Bruce James, knew just about all two thousand of us by name. That carried over into the relationship with the customer.

General Motors has lost the connection with the customer. The brand is dead, or soon will be if the management and marketing team does not dump traditional advertising and go back to the foundations that build brands – relationship marketing; they need to use the same methods of building authentic Brand.Relationships® we encourage our customers to use.

General Motors needs to build the team and family atmosphere internally. It is not just a job; it is a family affair. Jack Northrop knew that his employees from management to contracts to engineering to manufacturing were his strongest assets. The attitude must then naturally extend to the marketing. 

When you care about a product, you’ll likely go to bat for the product. You tell your friends. Basic stuff. GM needs to leverage their satisfied customers. Not in traditional, sappy TV spots and print ads, but in new and innovate ways. (You want to know how? That is why you hire us. I’m not going to give away the store.) Branding is, after all, managed word-of-mouth – and what we do better than anyone else. And, It gets results.

What the Advertising World Can Learn from Ansel Adams

Many years ago a friend of mine decided to take a photographic walking tour during her visit to Yosemite National Park. Armed with her instamatic camera she began snapping photos as the tour guide pointed out scenic photo opportunities. Not long after the tour began her camera jammed. An older gentleman stopped to help her and fixed her camera. Unfortunately, the tour group had gone on far ahead of them. So, the older gentleman spent the remaining portion of the day with her, showing her the sites and helping her take photos.

The following day, my friend decides to visit the one-hour photo shop at Yosemite to get her pictures developed. Meanwhile, she decided to check the gift shop and began looking at coffee table books of Yosemite. She picked up one amazing pictorial display book by Ansel Adams and thumbed through the pages. Then, finally turning the back page over it revealed a picture of the photographer. To her surprise the man in the photo was the same man that helped her on the trail; for one afternoon, she had been tutored in photography by the great Ansel Adams.

She later explained to me that, “Those were the best pictures my instamatic camera ever took.” --- Cameras do not take pictures. Photographers take pictures. The camera is just the tool. An instamatic camera in the hands of a great master can create great works of art. An expensive camera in the hands of another less able person can create really bad pictures.

The buzz in the advertising industry seems to be about different platforms. What about cel phone delivered advertising? How should we handle advertising over the Internet? Angst over what should be done with all emerging platforms is rampant. What should we do?

Their concern should be more about content and message --- less about platform. The ad business continues to crank out advertising with messages that do not attract attention. The message about that brand does not have a hook that engages the viewer and leave them remembering the value proposition that ultimately leads to a sale.

Ansel Adams just needed an opportunity – an instamatic camera – to take a picture. His message was solid, regardless of the tools he used: a lesson to be learned. Keep it simple, with a message that grabs the customer and leaves them remembering why that message is critical to them and leads them to a purchase.

Message 101 - Why Should We Care About a Product?

So what? 

Does anybody have the guts to ask that question during any advertising agency meeting? 

Do they even know to ask the question?

Why should the consumer care about your product?

What's your value proposition?

We'll, this week two brothers walked away with a cool $1 million dollars for creating a advertisement for Doritos that ran during the Super Bowl. --- Great! Exciting! Wahoo! --- Why is this exciting? Simple. These two men did exactly the same thing for Doritos as an advertising agency would do for Doritos. Nothing. Two unknown filmmakers got really creative and made a spot that did nothing to sell Doritos --- just like the advertising agencies of today.

Brand.Hooks are one of the tools our company GC Brandginnering, uses when developing a message about a product. A simple description of a Brand.Hook is that one important thing the consumer takes with them after contact with a message about that product.

So, what did America take way when they watched the Doritos commercial?

Carl Hartman

www.brandgineering.org

Springsteen Sold Records @ Super Bowl?

Once again, the music industry, and more specifically Bruce Springsteen, stole the marketing show during the 2008/9 Super Bowl. Why, you ask? Because the entertainment industry understands marketing their brands better than any other industry. Bruce is probably the only brand that got paid some big bucks to advertise and not the other way around. Plus, he took advantage of the opportunity to make a personal connection with his customer. Smart guy.

Once again the mega-advertising-agencies stumbled on the most important thing - selling products. The same story plays out each year: huge brands hired overpriced advertising agencies to create some very nice television ads --- and I can't remember what they were advertising. Sure, it could be my ADHD --- OR --- it could be that they've forgotten how to sell.

It seems that, for years, the advertising has attracted "creatives" that think up really cute ideas. Those ideas are supposed to sell products and they often fall short of that goal. Years ago, one of my clients related this story to me as he sat there crying (literally) about the huge amount of money he spent (wasted) on an advertising campaign. It was very creative --- part of it featured a video filled with very sexy camera moves, lit very well, great performances by the on-screen talent, fabulous musical score --- it, however, did nothing to sell his product. The advertising business has almost become the outlet for aspiring artists, musicians, and filmmakers to milk clients for money to live out their creative dreams without regard to their primary job - selling products and marketing brands.

Right off the bat, Springsteen told the audience to "put the chicken fingers down and turn the television way up!" Then, he hooked the audience with standard Springsteen energy and four songs - one of which was new. During that time he reached out to his audience in the stadium and the screens at home and left them wanting more. Without any wardrobe malfunctions he sucked in the audience and, aside from bad officiating, was the most memorable part of the 3 plus hour-long event.

My wager is that overall, Springsteen will sell more units and get more hits on his MySpace this week than any other product that had a commercial during the Super Bowl. I'd love to explain why, but that will be in my new book "Brand.gineering" and the subject of future blogs.

Rock On! --- Carl Hartman, CEO brandgineering.org