Last night I was watching a episode of Frasier (I had recorded it using SmartTV – StarHub’s Intelligent DVR)
This is the program ident that comes up between ad breaks (which I can now skip – invaluable!)
After watching this I turned over to Ch 5 the English language channel by Singapore’s free to air broadcaster (Mediacorp – used to be Singapore Broadcasting Corp)
They were showing After Hours – their new sitcom.
Then an adbreak came up – with it the AfterHours program ident.
What do you make of it?
Full article here
As firms in the UK begin to embrace Word of Mouth Marketing a report by the BBC reviews it’s impact and cites positive WoM as “the advertisers’ Holy Grail”.
The shift of power from Brand to Consumer and the revolution in communication are cited as key drivers forcing marketers to go back to basics. The article also probes the impact on trust when one friend recommends a product to another.
On this latter point the comments posted by various readers of the article send a clear message to marketers everywhere – “if ‘you’ don’t truly believe your product is the best out there don’t expect people to recommend it to their friends”.
Finally, failing to be transparent when building a WoM campaign is a sure fire way of generating WoM, unfortunately it will all be negative!
Another reason to be careful where you spend your advertising dollars: between 10 – 15% of adults aged 15-35 are actually ‘ad avoiders,’ either actively or passively taking steps to avoid advertisements which they find ‘annoying.’
With the gigantic proliferation of advertisements, we’ve all turned the channel on TV to avoid commercials. But finding out that a significant percentage of consumers do this on a regular basis makes word-of-mouth an even more essential avenue to integrate with your marketing budget.
Source: WOM Research 2.27 WOMMA.ORG
I love Marketing magazine’s Debbie Cai’s article about Pauls presentation revealing AG Lafleys’ long running program to change the directio of his own marketers. Original article here
Marketers today need to “let go”, quoted Contagious magazine’s Paul Kemp-Robertson at the final morning session of the 10th Asia Pacific Advertising Festival in Pattaya.
Kemp-Robertson was referring to P&G’s chief telling his staff to release control of the brand’s marketing messages to consumers and not take a top-down approach to communication. He says big clients are diverting their marketing budgets from TV to other mediums such as sponsorships, branded content and so on, but “labels are so 20th Century”.
He says benevolence is a good brand strategy to take, and suggests the different ways marketers can use it.
- The Patron: Brands which are tired of entertaining or informing consumers now can let consumers entertain or inform the brand. The idea is, “we may not understand you but here’s a platform for you to do what you want with”. For example, Adidas launched a campaign for Adicolor, where people could buy expensive kits with white Adidas shoes and some paints to colour their own shoes. It put up a blank billboard in the middle of a city and obviously kids came to spray-paint or ‘tag’ the space with graffiti art within the week. Adidas then covered the art with a picture of a shoe but allowed the graffiti to show through as the design of the shoe.
- The Emperor: Brands can hand over key elements of decision making to consumers, such as Burger King creating the Subservient Chicken campaign where people could input instructions to a website which causes a man in a chicken costume to do whatever consumers want it to.
- The Philanthropist: Brands can also select specific target groups to give away freebies or perks to such as invites to events or concerts.
- The Entertainer: “The Holy Grail for many marketers is to be able to cross from marketing to entertainment”, Kemp-Robertson says. For example, Audi and Budweiser both have their own TV channels, and they act as curators of fresh, entertaining and exciting content.
As a parting shot, Kemp Robertson says, “Bet on benevolence, provide services not messages. Ask not what’s in it for your but what’s in it for them”.
The mind numbing complexity of the T&Cs that accompanied a promotional offer I saw recently prompted me to re-read some research I came across a while ago*.
The study examined interpersonal bonds (trust, care, rapport, and familiarity) and found that when customers gained trust in an employee, positive word of mouth about the organization increased.
Easier said than done!
To earn the trust of others you must demonstrate your trust in them.
Examine what stops your organization earning your customers’ trust and you’ll probably find that the terms and conditions you expect employees to enforce when fulfilling your promotional offers can be a pivotal issue.
So the next time you’re writing T&Cs ask yourself, ‘Do these make it look like we trust our customers? If the answer is ‘no’ then you need better offers, not more T&Cs!.
*"Generating Positive Word of Mouth Communications Through Customer-Employee Relationships” International Journal of Service Industry Management (January 2001)
