How To Market To A Dissatisfied Crowd or Why Satisfying The Dissatisfied Is Satisfying

Well, if you haven’t noticed, the mood of Americans has grown sour and is getting crankier by the minute. In fact a recent Gallup poll found that “satisfaction with the way things are going” has fallen to a 35 year low – with just 11% of Americans feeling good about the way things are generally going. And if we look back 35+ years we can find that it’s a different type of dissatisfaction now than during the mid 70’s. When the economy went bad in 1974, there was definitely an anger out there but it was much more about inflation, than unemployment.

This mood certainly creates difficult times for coming up with new, creative and persuasive creative marketing. So, what does “dissatisfaction” mean to a branding and marketing strategy? At Boyd we believe there are keys to maintaining an effective strategy during sour times.

An upset audience is different – fundamentally different - and are on a completely different value curve than your normal audience. So, you’ve got to adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.
Don’t make the mistake that many marketers make of thinking that trying to “close” an dissatisfied person will make them happy. It won’t – it just makes them angry. Instead, start adapting your communication to acknowledge their dissatisfaction – and work to make it go away. Then, and only then can you move to convert them. It’s time to be empathetic and “feel their pain”.

Whether customers are mad at you – or just mad in general – now is the time for “flexibility” to be the mantra for all marketing and communications. But now, especially when people are sensitive to the ineffectiveness of their institutions – anything that is not directed toward immediate satisfaction of the customer should be avoided. One solution is to give employees the ability to use sound judgments to make smart decisions. This will almost always leads to the opportunity for better and relevant communications.

One of the keys to remember when dealing with people is that dissatisfaction, unlike sadness, is an emotion that tells us we need fast, immediate action. When we get upset we tend to use mental shortcuts to tell us when to move to the next step (positive or negative). This is why it’s always good advice to NOT make an important decision while you’re upset.
When people make those shortcuts any misstep you make here will be amplified tenfold. Additionally, your company may be “lumped in” stereotypically with others in your industry.

Thus, from an satisfaction perspective it’s a good idea to be aware of what’s going on in your industry and with your customers as you get ready to roll out new marketing and communications. If you have an amazing idea for a new campaign – but your competitor has just made consumers frothing-at-the-mouth angry – you may want to quickly review how your new communication may be received.

Like all emotions, this dissatisfaction will ultimately pass. Ultimately, the country will vent, the economy will improve and we will become happy again. Working on our techniques for communicating with dissatisfied people is a great skill – and can be a great differentiator. So many times when things are “bad”, marketing and communications budgets tend to be cut – and we crawl inside our boxes waiting for things to blow over. But if we can differentiate ourselves by communicating and solving problems for people, we can take advantage of this bad mood and transform them into loyal, happy customers.

All Roads Lead Back To Art Center For Doug

Founder and president Doug Boyd was recently appointed to the Art Center Board of Trustees. Watch the interview as Doug explains the path that lead him to opening the integrated marketing firm Boyd Communications.

See the entire interview here:

http://www2.artcenter.edu/designoffice/bulletin/1110/

When Customers Love To Hate Your Brand

In reality TV, everybody loves the “villain”. Whether it’s Omarosa from The Apprentice, or Spencer from The Hills or even Gordon Ramsey on Hell’s Kitchen – we tune in each week to see what and how they will make everybody’s life miserable. They succeed because we love to hate these characters. We talk about them at the water cooler, we share it on social media – and the show becomes ever more popular.

And now, with the ease with which consumers can publish, share and communicate their feelings about brands, the same thing is happening to businesses. Major companies are surviving, while casually infuriating millions of their customers like some villain in a reality TV show.

Some are pouring millions of dollars into advertising to try to hide it. Others benefit because they are monopolies (or near monopolies) in their industry – and most of them seem (for the most part) to be wholly uninterested in really changing consumer perception.

The American Customer Service Index rates companies based on customer satisfaction surveys and the group of companies that consistently rank the worst include companies that won’t surprise you; airlines, telecommunications companies, banks and healthcare companies.

So, What Is Being Done?

Consider Comcast. This cable giant has become one of the poster-children for using the Internet and social media platforms like Twitter and their blog to try to stem their horrific customer service perception. But while they’re scoring big points with addressing some of the “communications” issues, they are still (apparently) struggling with the systemic problems of why the customers were complaining.

Then look at AT&T. The giant telecommunications brand has been battered and frayed over the last few years because of dropped calls, bad customer support and of course, their coverage. Their initial response was to flood the airwaves with ads that drew nothing but jeers. Most recently, the company has come out with a “social media initiative” to address their issues. But according to Ted Marzilli, senior vice president of brand research company, YouGov, a company that tracks an index of Brand Value, “the problem [with AT&T] is that people on the Web are starting to blog about their problems. It’s a bit of a snowball effect.”

Marzilli goes on to say “the real issue for AT&T is how quickly can they alleviate the problem. It's interesting news that they're investing billions of dollars, but what does that mean for me as an AT&T customer over the next month, three months, six months?"

Actions Speak Louder Than Tweets

This is the real challenge for these companies. The internet brings with it, not only a flattened communications field for companies, but a flattened one for consumers as well. Giant brands no longer have the ability to solely shape their messages through huge media budgets and monolithic messages. They must engage. They must converse – and they must communicate the actions of what they’re doing much more clearly than they ever have before.

From a brand perception perspective, big brands that give lip service to a social media strategy, and engagement through the internet won’t (in the long run) fare any better than those that do nothing at all on the internet. And, some may in fact fare worse. But all will ultimately live or die by the actions they take.

The Internet and other digital platforms are fundamentally changing the way we communicate with customers. And, that’s the real lesson here. Similar to reality show villains, many of these brands will continue to be protected by their own “editors and producers”. Whether it’s a government monopoly, regulations or just some other unfair advantage – some brands just don’t need to care as much.

But what about your brand? Are you protected in a similar way? Do you need to care? You probably do. At Boyd, we’re big believers in creating holistic brand strategies that leverage the Internet to facilitate real communications and real relationships with customers in a measurable way.

It’s much easier to be a villain than a hero. Being the one people love to hate really doesn’t require much more then not caring. But in the long run, when it comes to brand villains, consumers stop caring too. That’s when the brand dies. So, instead of creating a brand that customers love to hate, we’d rather work on creating a brand that you’d hate to live without.

Buick, And The Brand Revival

My first car was a 1982 Buick Regal. It seems odd to people when I tell them now, but at the time, the Buick brand was a monster. In 1981, GM introduced the new Regal with a cool flared front grill that actually got NASCAR drivers excited.

That’s right, in 1981, Darrell Waltrip won the NASCAR championship in a Buick, posting 12 wins and 21 Top-5 finishes. Now, let’s be clear, before the car geeks go nuts, it was a Buick on the outside, but all Chevrolet underneath.

In any event, it’s been a long time since Buick was at that level of popularity. In fact, when GM restructured last year, and killed off four brands, many thought Buick would be one of them. It wasn’t.

Over the last few years, Buick has undergone a complete brand transformation, and much like the Corvette and the Cadillac before it, has come out a completely revived brand. Today, in China, Buick is one of the most popular brands of cars. And, in July, numbers showed year over year Buick sales are up an incredible 137%.

At Boyd we often talk about the importance of keeping your brand healthy and in good condition. But sometimes, we need to think about what we can do to brands that are out of date or even dying. Can they be revived?

We certainly believe they can, and here are three quick ideas you can utilize when reviving old or tired brands.

1. Give the fans what they want – Many times companies will think they know more than the consumer about what he/she wants. This is a great way to take a brand from lost, to dead. With the Buick Regal, GM went back to the Buick of old by building a sedan that would be attractive to younger buyers. Instead of a “big boat” GM wanted people to think of Buick as they used to think of it.
   
   
2. Change it up a bit. – You’ve got to keep the essence of what you had but modernize it and change it up. The new Buick Regal was engineered in Germany and was a modified version of the Opel. Buick did the right thing by stating that right up front in the new marketing. They advertised the new Buick as “the first German engineered Buick”. This let us know that it wasn’t our “Grandpa’s Buick” and led us to believe that it would be like a European performance car.
   
   
3. Leverage inaccurate memories: Consumers have notoriously inaccurate memories when it comes to brand. Many times by just doing some research consumers will surprise you about their brand attitudes. For example, “Fill it to the rim with Brim” was a classic campaign that stood for “full-bodied coffee”. In fact, as far as many consumers are concerned it stands for only that. However, in recent surveys, according to a new group working on reviving that brand, no one seemed to remember Brim offered only decaffeinated coffee.

The real key to a complete brand revival of course is the team ensures that the new brand story is effectively and consistently executed. The new experience of the brand must hold together especially if a new audience is being developed to interact with it.

At Boyd we’re here not only to build new brands, but to help maintain and revive old ones. We sincerely believe you’ve got to have the right story to tell to establish an emotional connection with the people who will actually care about that story. Then, and only then will great creative execution hold it all together.

Understanding Women

There’s an old joke about understanding women that goes something like this: There are two times when a man doesn’t understand a woman. The first is before marriage. And, the second is after marriage.

In many cases you could probably tell this joke about brand marketers as well. For example, when Dell launched their “Della” brand last year, with a campaign and special Web site, many women ridiculed them for being out of touch and condescending. The Dutch beer company Heineken failed with they launched their “Fembot” campaign which AdAge called “possibly the most sexist ad campaign ever”. And, finally, the Docker’s “Wear The Pants” campaign featured content that seemed to depict some apocalyptic world where a “genderless society” was responsible for bad kids and the destruction of cities.

A New Study Focusing on Women’s Relationship To Brands

In a new study conducted by Yahoo! and market research company, Added Value, there are some interesting new conclusions regarding how women relate to brands online. The results found that women react more positively to online content published by a third-party rather than connections through social networks.

The key, according to the study, was the “anonymity” that content Web sites offered. The women studied said that content sites offered the ability to feel like they were connecting to “like-minded women” and solutions to problems without any risk of judgment from the people they know in real life.

But, what was truly surprising about the research results, was that social media, or connections through social networks, were deemed to be “less relevant” when it was put into the context of brand and purchase decisions. In fact, content-oriented Web sites were found to have up to 3 times the impact on a woman’s purchasing decision, as compared to every other online channel.

Maybe just as surprising, the study also concluded even despite “demographic differences”, most women share very similar needs with regard to personal growth.

This suggests there may be value in brand marketers re-prioritizing their audience segmentation strategies. That is, Instead of looking at women as Generation X vs. Millienials vs. Baby Boomers, marketers may be better served by trying to understand these shared “needs” and “motivations” as it relates to the product or service they are offering.

New Opportunities For Brand Marketers

This new information provides a significant opportunity for brand marketers that target women by beginning to build relevant relationships with them through the creation of content driven Web properties, as compared to building social media or community-oriented channels. In fact, the study found women are most receptive to marketing messages on lifestyle, specialty and review-oriented Web sites.

At Boyd, we’re big believers in using content to build relationships with target consumers. In the end, this is what engages the consumer, and ultimately builds trust and loyalty.

Managing Strategically Vs. Tactically – What’s the Information Gap?

Are you getting the best out of your marketing team?

One of the biggest challenges within marketing teams is the information and expectation gap between strategic and tactical thinking.

Usually both sides (the senior manager and the team or agency) are at fault. The reason is that while the team wants to think they’re providing “strategic” guidance – the reality is that before the ink has dried on the dry erase board, everyone wants to jump right into projects, hours, account management, deliverables and deadlines. All too often projects are started from the tail instead of the head.

Much of this can be chalked up to a lack of experience. It’s very easy for those that are focused on delivery to quickly jump into “what do I need to deliver”. But more attention needs to be paid to the “why” rather than the “how”.

One of the most pronounced places you can see this actually happening is how businesses deal with their marketing agencies. Studies have shown that less than 15% of agency fees go into strategy work – while 80%-90% of fees go to tactical execution. Is it any wonder that clients want “ready-made” solutions and agencies are more than willing to provide them?

So, how do we close that gap?

You’ve got to devote resources and focus for strategic work. Similarly, your agency should be challenged to focus on, and should charge you for strategy work. There should be no reason for a “b” team from your agency – because you recognize the value in the “A” team. Recognize that the teams have a common goal – and that goal is the success of your account. You hire an agency for the same reasons you hire key members of your team – for experience and the relationship that will give you the best, strategic, chance for success.

At Boyd one of the practices we commonly employ is to schedule regular meetings to review strategy and see how we apply the tactical projects to that strategy. We want to set and review the strategy with the key stakeholders and management team members. The goal is to see if we’re both reaching the objectives we jointly set. And at the end of the day, that’s what we want – for you to see us as a partner in strategy.

We strive to make sure that the strategic thinking we bring to bear is truly original to your business – and not a ready-made solution that is working its way to an efficient, but mediocre conclusion. You want and deserve breakthrough thinking – and in order to do that – we both need to invest the best people and thinking. This, will not only help you succeed – but it will also ultimately save both time and money in the execution.

So, as you look at your next marketing initiatives, let’s increase the percentage of time and resources to be more weighted toward the strategic thinking. Let’s spend our real effort on strategy - and on breakthrough creative that sells. Then, jointly figure out the best way to tactically execute that strategy – whether it’s with internal team members or Agency personnel. With your internal team, that’s how you develop the strategic thinkers that will ultimately lead the organization. And, that’s how an agency goes from being an outsourced body shop – executing tactically (and efficiently) to a strategic partner that can help you succeed.

The Next Chapter Of Branding – Immersive Engagement

So, if Branding 2.0 was engaging in a conversation with our audiences – how do we now deliver creative messages to these audiences. In today’s world, Web-Savvy consumers sniff out advertising fast.

Enter Immersive Engagement

Just over a month ago, Lexus launched a new online campaign for their newest model – the Lexus CT 200h Hybrid. If you haven’t seen it (it’s definitely worth it) the site contains technology that integrates the user experience. Webcams will take a picture of your face. Microphone integration will record your voice. And, Facebook integrations will pull information about you. All of this is to build a personalized, and immersive experience into a compelling and exciting storyline featuring the new car.

The whole idea is to start to attract a younger, hipper and more stylish audience to a new hybrid automobile – provided by Lexus; a brand noted for it’s older demographic.

Will it work? The answer is yet to be determined – but it’s definitely the sign of things to come. The next chapter of branding may be pulling consumers into the storyline – and immersing them in the brand promise.

Now, of course, not every brand can afford to hire actors and to create interactive entertainment at that kind of scale. Large, consumer brands are the ones exploring this new technology. But this immersive content is coming to brands of all sizes – and beginning to look at it now is key.

One thing is certain, the biggest obstacle in rolling out an immersive campaign is not the cost of production – but a commitment to content, interactivity and a singular brand promise that the organization can immerse their audience in.

It’s time to rethink our static Web presence as a digital brochure and start to think of it as a place where we can immerse our consumers in our brand promise. Now, regardless of whether that’s just interactive video, audio – or just quite simply great textual and photographic content - the key is that it provides our consumers with an amazing experience.

At Boyd – that’s where we focus our branding efforts. We help brands to bridge this experience. How can we create an experience for your audience that fulfills and immerses them in your brand’s promise? Maya Angelou once said “people won’t remember what you say. They won’t remember what you do. They will remember how you make them feel.”

If your brand can make people feel you want them to feel – then you’ll be successful.