The first is this seemingly simple, but excellent post at HBR titled 'A Logo is Not a Brand' which (to really summarise) explains how the brand is its strategy, the stories that its products tell, its calls to action, its customer service, its tone, attitude, its people, communication tools and its logo and visuals are all part of the brand. And he asks a very pertinent question in the end

Whether you know it or not, whether you have a swanky logo or not, you do have a brand. The question is whether or not it's the brand you really want.

With social platforms and user voices that become more effective than the brand's own, the likelihood of different perceptions is indeed high, but the good news is these very same tools also offer brands the opportunity to bridge the chasm.

The second post titled 'Brand Building: Is Function the new Emotion' builds on the view (that I also subscribe to) that the best advertisement for a brand is its product. But the twist in the end is that “the functional integration into a consumer's life creates an emotional bond” and sustaining it requires “superior performance and meaningful, empathetic innovation”. Completely agree, because it does tie into the idea of social business and identifying a workforce and processes that will help build and sustain it.

Car Leasing Kit And Guide

ads/2011/06/LB.jpg”>A brand's purpose is something I have written about many times earlier on this blog. I found a very elegant brand framework – part of Leo Burnett's Human Brands concept – in one of the Cannes 2011 decks. According to Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer, “Brands which have a purpose, but don't act dreamy, while brands which act without a purpose are noisy. And, for brands which lack both, they are lazy.” (via) The top right quadrant belongs to  'HumanKind', and that's where successful brands are.

So what prevents other brands from occupying it? One interesting answer I read was 'Fear'. As the post says, to build a leading brand, “organizational thinking must be on the creative plane (possibility and potential) not the competitive plane (hard bargains and discount pricing)”, and marketers are frightened of what this entails. The post even outlines a six step transformational cycle. Metrics are mentioned as a strong deterrent.

I have always felt that most advertising have not been measurable from an actual sales perspective. Parameters like TOM, salience in brand advertising are a no-brainer, but even in 'performance' advertising, there are so many factors that remain unaccounted for and unmeasured. But most brands go through the loops. We come back to the first reference about brands being a collection of various parts, a sentiment that is echoed in the last reference too, as the author defines leadership as “the quality of one’s presence in every aspect of life”. When organisations learn to do that, brand utopia will be nearer.

until next time, contrabrand

While the social media enthusiasts believed that the medium required a change of mindset on the part of the marketers, the latter believed the medium needed more metrics and case studies to highlight that it was RoI driven.

Here’s another post that captured the entire discussion. My earlier post on Maggi and the social media opportunity compelled me to write this.  Let’s start with the disclaimers – the following are IMHO, as a brand manager and a reasonably zealous social media user. I have linked to a few earlier posts because these points have been made before,  no sense detailing them again.

• The concept of internet itself wasn’t sold to marketers in a day, how old is social media? Just because social media is real-time now, does not mean the buy in has to be.
• With the single digit penetration that India has, at a basic internet connectivity level, there’s bound to be skepticism, especially when the concept does not adhere to the principles of RoI which have been followed religiously so far
• Its only with the kind of penetration that the US has, that it’s been able to provide the kind of social media examples it has – and that’s across multiple services – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
• As the cliche goes, India is a very different market. Case studies from the US can at best, offer us perspective. What works in that market quite likely will not find acceptance here, unless there is some basic commonality
• Perhaps the sellers should attempt to show Indian examples of how brands are being talked about in social media, with a context that the marketer can relate to – it may be the same category, same audience demographic, or if its possible, his own brand.
• The sellers should also realise that the internet is still being sold as a commodity with measurement criteria that the industry has agreed upon. Unfortunately, its difficult to separate social media and internet.
• Perhaps 0.0/1.0 to 2.0 cannot be a single leap, and has to have at least a 1.5 in the middle, since it might even shifts in organisational culture. (earlier post)
• Even social media enthusiasts are still grappling with the media. Besides, increasingly, all of social media is becoming a one-to-one, real time conversation mechanism. The contexts differ, and each conversation is unique. So, shouldn’t each marketer should have different metrics, basis his requirements rather than hope for  generic spoon fed criteria.
• The seller should monitor not just talks about the brand in social media, but what the brand is (and has been) doing across media, and figure out how social media can fit into these plans, then the measurement criteria might emerge more easily.
• Social media might be a revolution, but the ‘mindset’ that the enthusiasts speak of is an ‘evolution’. How many times has a marketer been encouraged to use/increase his usage of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc by the agency? For a ‘full contact sport’ medium whose understanding is usage based, isn’t that a must before a social media sales pitch happens?
• The social media sellers could try to work with not just the marketer but also the ad agencies, MR firms, PR firms, and any other entity associated with the brand
  • How about ad agencies being able to use social media and the precise demographics it offers to do pre  testing of campaigns, and have consumer feedback while presenting to the client – helps them make a better case
  • How about PR firms adding ‘conversations in social media’ as part of their targets?
  • How about brand tracks having an internet component? Online brand salience and equity? Or separate brand tracks online if the brand’s target demographics warrant it? After all, isn’t everyone claiming to be a youth brand now?
  • This also comes from my view that social media is a strategy, and not a campaign or one that fits into Brand/PR slots. It can fit into all parts of the product life cycle, and be used for various , if not all sub domains of marketing. Where, and to what degree is useful depends on the brand and its internal and external dynamics.

• Marketers, look closely at the metrics you follow in other media, and you can barely count those where you’re not just basing the entire spend on reach.  (my earlier rant on the subject)
• Social media might be a good way to test out the long tail of brand communication. (my post, and the  link to the original paper here)
• Social media works if it is an investment, not a spend. There is a difference, think about it. (an earlier related post) Once the difference is established, the perspective on returns might change
• While on the subject of spend, we all know how much it ‘costs” to make a FB/Twitter/YouTube account, a WP blog etc, the actual costs are for maintaining a lively interaction. So sellers, please bill accordingly.
• Finally, what is the value that a seller brings to the brand manager who handles these accounts perhaps with the help of other evangelists in the organisation?

until next time, keep the faith

PS. A good read – Social Media ROI.

Amidst all the hoopla surrounding Facebook’s new design, and Twitter’s integrated search, Paul Worthington wrote a very interesting post on Mashable reminding brands not to lose their focus. From the post

The initial challenge is not to better understand and respond to the customer. The challenge is to start with better understanding who you are, what you truly believe in, and what you can realistically offer to your customer.

Because if all you focus on are what customers are telling you, you risk losing sight of who you are, what you believe in and what drives you forwards.

A purpose that is first bought into by their employees, before being presented to the consumer in a way that brings a natural self-confidence to that conversation.

While crowdsourcing has many advantages, and now has various platforms including Facebook, Twitter and more focused services like Get Satisfaction, and consumers also benefit from having big brands on these platforms, I completely agree with the thoughts shared above. This is what I’d consider as the middle path between adhering strictly to brand manuals only and plunging into social media without a clear objective/strategy and trying to please everyone in the crowd.

So, perhaps what brands should do first is search themselves (yes, without Google), understand what’s the real value that they offer to their consumers – potential and current, figure out whether the entire organisation is in aligned on this, then consider how new media can play a part in sharing and collaborating with the users as well as communicating to them what the brand stands for and what value it can deliver, ensure that they continue providing this value, keep listening to users to find what more they expect from the brand, figure out the feasibility of these expectations, tweak it further by bringing in the internal factors, and continue this process. For many organisations, internal democracy as well as complete internal transparency would themselves be a significant steps. But these are a must before aiming to engage with consumers, because in social media brand custodians are not the only ‘broadcast’ source, every employee is a potential source.(a wonderful presentation on the micro sociology of networks)

In essence, its not just a brand strategy shift, its an organisational culture transformation. As a brand, and as an organisation, it is important to be clear about the levels of transparency you can work with. The challenge then becomes that of creating and maintaining a harmonized balance between user needs and brand deliverables.

until next time, drawing the line and walking it

PS: A great story on how two fans made Coke the second most popular fanpage on Facebook, and Coke’s reaction.

My reply consisted of several parts, and some of it got me thinking on the concept of ‘measurement’.  Among other things,  I felt that, relatively speaking, it is more convenient to measure buzz (a social media search or even a Google search) than the ‘below the surface’ versions. You really can’t track what I speak with someone else on GTalk. But more importantly I felt that this love for measurement stems from a need for control.

So I looked back at the brand campaigns around, the media used and the measurement. Following is a rant.(and is quite India specific) Though its extremely relevant, I shall, for now, ignore brands’ following a ‘campaign strategy’ at the cost of brand strategy. Generally, the campaign would consist of Outdoor (billboards), Print, Television, Radio and *new* Internet. So, lets see the measurement criteria for these. Outdoor – you can’t go wrong with one on Brigade Road- Residency Road (that’s Bangalore) junction, everyone goes there. Print – XYZ has circulation and readership of …. Television – XYZ channel and the TRPs it delivers. Radio – say RAM and listenership. While there are numbers and numbers, there is really no way to figure out exactly how many people saw/heard the ad and responded (not even if you put call centre numbers/email ids/call ins).  The sales spike that happens on the day the ad is released is the indicator of its success in print. If ‘people’ saw/heard it, TV/Outdoor/Radio has worked. Yes, I’m generalising, and I do know what value market research can offer. And so Internet. Now the internet obviously needs to match up to the awesome quantitative measurement options that the other media provide.

And so the brand guys waited for the net to show some real numbers. And it did, as it was bound to. Depending on who you ask, this number could now vary anywhere over 28 million users. ComScore puts India’s net population at 32 million, and within that, the social networking population at 19 million, Orkut firmly leading with 12.8 million. The figure reminded me of the leading English daily’s readership – as per IRS R2 2008, it was 13.3 million.

And while the numbers rose, the digital sellers walked in with the stats and taught the brand guys CTR, CPC, CPM (no, that’s not political)  and to use banners and site takeovers and microsites on the net. The measurement criteria was made up of numbers. So, the internet with the amazing CPT (cost per thousand) it provides, is no longer an afterthought in a media plan (Thanks to R, who gave me her valuable thoughts on media planning). Pay for Performance was the mantra and its pillars were leads and clicks.Is that a problem? Not by itself, but when you consider the potential the medium offers, and how it can be used for measurable branding, its not a problem, its an injustice. To quote from this wonderful article on the subject

In fact it is precisely this cult of accountability that is getting in the way of the digital community progressing from clever marketing handymen to the architects of brand success….So long as the digital community clings to its obsession with accountability over effectiveness it will remain in the unedifying position of creating engaging brand fluff on the one hand and highly measurable but largely pointless direct response advertising on the other.

All these are not unknown issues. WATBlog’s panel discussion in Delhi covered much of this. And with all this playing in the background, arrives social media. And it won’t make sense because brands only use media on a campaign to campaign basis, and social media is about the brand’s strategy and a consistent presence- building an audience, listening to them, asking their views, collecting insights, making better products, and so on. It is not about statistics and definitely not a get in-bombard with ads- collect leads-get out deal. Besides, measurements are more qualitative!! The criteria that mass media provides for measurement are almost irrelevant here, and rightly so!! Because in social media, the crowd responds, they talk to each other, and if you don’t participate, and attempt to treat it like a broadcast medium (the way the measurement based web is being treated), someone is likely to have fun, most likely at your expense. And in social media, what a brand says is less important than what the brand’s consumers say.

Like the general web before it, it is only a matter of time  before the social web  reaches a scale which forces brands to use it. I hope they don’t use it like broadcast media, and instead learn to use it – not as a templated solution, but as a subjective, evolving mechanism.

until next time, cast away

Note: i have nothing against mass media. It has its uses. I have a problem with this social media measurement obsession, without the correct metrices and by involving it only from a communication perspective and not the other parts of the brand’s life cycle, and finally stating that it’s just fun and doesn’t work for brands.