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.

Are You Marketing For The Next 3 Months Or The Next 3 Years?

Everybody is marketing short term – is there a reason to market long term?

Whether most organizations will admit it, most of them are marketing quarter to quarter. Even with the promise of a better economy, even private companies are nervous about looking beyond a quarter or two. Unfortunately when we market for quarterly results – long-term thinking suffers.

But here’s the question – is that okay?

We may just be shifting our thinking into more short term mindset – and one that we just have to adapt to.

But we can’t lose long-term marketing strategy. Short term marketing may give us results – but they will be short term results – and not long-term value.

Consider what Nike has done with its World Cup campaign. Look at the epic commercial called “Write the Future”. It’s an amazing piece of filmmaking directed by Alejandro Inarritu. It features cameos by Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer and even Homer Simpson. And, the campaign features the opportunity for a lucky fan to get an invitation to Nike soccer camp where they will be scouted by professionals.

That’s not a marketing campaign that was created for results in the next quarter. That’s a campaign that, itself took years to execute, and is squarely focused on building long-term brand value.

We have to make room for both the short term results – and the long-term strategy. The planning and strategy development processes are critical.

The consulting firm McKinsey & Company conducted a study a few years ago looking at large corporations that had successfully balanced both a long-term and short-term strategy. What they found was that the majority of companies didn’t have the financial assets to do both – but instead engaged the leaders in the company to make smart (but sometimes difficult) tradeoffs to emphasize the priorities of both.

They found that these companies revised strategies frequently on an ongoing basis, to ensure they could enable management to be nimble. In this way they could decide to expand, change, or even delete short term objectives against long-term strategies.

At Boyd we are constantly working with clients to revisit long-term objectives. It’s always helpful to have periodic “check-ins” to review what we’re doing – and how it’s reaching the overall long-term goals.

It’s important that we reach those quarterly goals – but we’ve got to make sure that while we get there, we don’t lose ground in building long-term value.

Healthcare Companies - Is Your Online Brand A Bully?

Many healthcare companies are missing out on a unique opportunity to engage new users and change the perception of their brand. If you look at most healthcare Web sites – from drug manufacturers, insurance companies to even hospitals you typically see a monolithic wall of corporate-speak and unfriendly content.

But according to research, 30% of Americans use some form of healthcare related Web content and online connection. These may be live chat sessions, message boards, user-generated communities, video sharing sites or even informational Web sites.

And most are looking for some level of emotional support and connection. Patients that are looking for that connection are typically unaccustomed to being “normal” one day and a “patient” the next. They want to connect to other patients to see what they’re saying about prevention, medication or treatment.

In short – if you’re a healthcare company – and your web site is nothing more than About Us, Management Team and Press Releases – you’re missing a unique opportunity to connect to your customers.

So. What can you do about it?

Listen Before You Leap

Understand what your brand’s patients are doing online. Understand where these people are going to find the information. What are the most reputable web sites pertaining to these conditions? What outreach and affiliations can you or do you want to have with them? How can you start to employ more of this content on your own Web site? You’ll be surprised at how much “free” market research is available to you through this exercise.

Participate

Start participating in the conversation. It may or may not be through Social Media channels such as a Blog, or Facebook. And even if it’s just through your own Web site, and you’re making topical information available with a feedback mechanism (e.g. asking “is this content relevant to you”) you’re taking an important first step in the conversation. And, you’ll be learning from your patients what they care about most.

Develop Content And Interaction
What can your organization do to become more conversational and friendly to patients looking for more information? What about an iPhone or iPad application? What if patients could interact with your brand AS they take their medication? What if they could communicate through a mobile community? That’s being approachable. That’s being a true caregiver.

As always, if you’re looking to approach your online brand from a different angle, we’re here to help. Let us know.

Facebook & Privacy? Should Marketers Be Concerned?

There is a great quote from privacy guru Danah Boyd talking about privacy online. She says “just because something is publicly accessible does not mean that people want it to be publicized.”

This is particularly apropos for marketing and advertising – because our whole aim is to make things as public as possible.

So, as marketers, what are we to make of the furor over Facebook’s announcement to expand the availability of consumer data with advertisers. Certainly Forrester has some thoughts about this (http://blogs.forrester.com/augie_ray/10-04-29-facebook_privacy_lawmakers_what_should_marketers_do). But the real question is should marketers be concerned?

At its surface it would seem that Facebook is honestly trying to do its best to alleviate customer concerns over making information public. But, they have really gone about this in a ham-fisted way.

Earlier last week the New York Times had this infographic (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/12/business/facebook-privacy.html) discussing how complex the privacy settings really are in Facebook. This certainly didn’t do the company any good from a PR perspective.

Some interesting facts:

• There are more than 50 settings with almost 200 options in order to set your privacy. That’s more settings than almost in any application we have installed in our company.

• Facebook’s privacy policy has more than 5,800 words in it—that’s 10 pages of fine print for the average consumer to go through.

So, at Boyd Communications, we are recommending our clients watch this closely.

It will be interesting to see if Facebook can move past this crisis – or if this is the beginning of the end for the giant social network. There are already talks of “open source” social networks starting up. One of them called Diaspora is being funded by donations and is claiming that it will be extraordinarily private. It’s oddly ironic that an “open source” social network will actually be created to be “tighter” on privacy and security – but these are the shifting sands of social media that we are in.

There is also a movement among many to “Quit Facebook”. A formal group has even announced a D-Day (of sorts) for it. It will be interesting to see on May 31^st (the Quit Facebook day)– if the social network will even notice the decrease however. Facebook is currently growing by more than 250,000 users per day. It’s quite possible that more people will join Facebook on “Quit Facebook Day” than will quit.

If you’re interested in how the new focus on privacy and publically available information might affect your own digital marketing efforts, as always please feel free to ask. We’re here to help.

Digital Branding Experiences – Why Say, When You Can Do?

The New York Times ran an article last week (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/business/media/10adco.html) that discussed how JetBlue is trying a new tactic. Instead of enticing customers with lower fares, or free luggage carriage, they are promising to “entertain” their customers.

In this new campaign, “fans of the airline” are presented in video clips. They tell stories of their wonderful “experiences” on JetBlue.

Marketing the “experience with the product”, rather than the product itself is certainly not new. But what’s making it more interesting is how the digital experience is becoming such an important piece of that overall strategy.

And, in fact, in today’s socially connected world – EVERY brand has a digital brand experience. The conversation about the brand is happening regardless of whether the company wants it. The real question for marketers today is – how will you influence the digital experience of your brand to best reflect its core values?

So, how do you get started?

First step – look in the mirror

The brands we all look up to (Apple, Nike) are not selling the “what” – they are selling the “why”. They sell the experience of their products and use that to differentiate against all the others. This is key for marketers – look in the mirror and understand what is the “why” of what we do.

Understand your customer - digitally

It’s something that we all think we know inherently. But plenty of marketers still fail to understand how their customers will behave online. Just because the hottest new social network hits the mainstream media – doesn’t necessarily mean your target customers are there. And, just because they are “there” it doesn’t mean they want to engage with your brand there.

Become a digital listener

One of the key first steps in developing a more digitally engaging experience is an understanding how the brand is being perceived in the first place. Engage both manual and technology based processes to help you “listen” online. Where are your customers congregating online? What are the influencers saying? What kinds of experience are they not getting that you could provide?

Explore small experiences – and get feedback

As you start to understand, you can start to explore small, testable experiences to see how they resonate with your customers. Find out how they resonate. Get feedback from those experiences and start to engage the users in a conversation.

Creating new and compelling digital experiences for your brand goes well beyond just making a promise to “entertain”, “inform” or “educate” your customer. In today’s digital environment, it’s a much more real-time and engaging set of conversations that have to take place.

If you’re looking for assistance in this, as always, let us know. As you might expect, at Boyd Communications we’re here to make your marketing experience that much more profitable.