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Twitter for Local Businesses

by Ron on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

When I speak with local merchants about Social Media, I find that they have surprisingly similar levels of awareness, interest and understanding: Almost everyone is familiar with Facebook and YouTube, although they don’t always see the business opportunities, and very few seem to have even heard of LinkedIn. In between is Twitter, which many merchants seem to have heard of but not that many seem to be interested in. The comment I’ve gotten from more than one local merchant is, “I don’t have time for everything and I have to draw the line somewhere.”

The Greater Delray Beach (FL) Chamber of Commerce has been kind enough to ask me to speak about how businesses can use Twitter – and why they should. My presentation, which is part of a “Tech Talk and Coffee” about Social Media for Business, is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18 at 7:30am. Other speakers will cover Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. The session is open to the public as well as to Chamber members and every local business should find it useful, even businesses that haven’t considered adding Social Media to their marketing mix.

By now most people have heard of Twitter. Oprah uses it. So does the White House. It’s a free micro-blogging service that lets users publish short notes (called “tweets”) of up to 140 characters in real time. There are smartphone applications for Twitter, so it is a fully mobile service. Users can “follow” other users and see their tweets in their Twitter stream. Following and being followed is how users build a community on Twitter. Users also can search by keywords or topics to find relevant tweets. Users can reply to tweets, forward (“retweet”) them, and include links to web sites or other media. Engaging in these conversations is a good way to attract followers.

Broadly speaking, there are at least four ways businesses can use Twitter.

Listening Post. Twitter’s most significant benefit to business is its immediacy. When US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in January 2009 there were posts, including photos, on Twitter within minutes. If you want to know what your customers, competitors, vendors, etc. are thinking right now, Twitter is a great way to find out. Listening on Twitter is also a great source of ideas and information. Using Twitter’s search functions can widen any business’ horizons.

Brand Builder. Tweeting regularly with timely, relevant information creates interest in you and your brand. This works best when most of the tweets are on a subject that relates to your business but does not overtly promote the business itself. For example, if your restaurant wants to be known for its fresh produce, you could tweet about sustainable farming, its local purveyors, and even the weather. You will attract followers on Twitter who might become customers themselves or retweet your posts to others. Media outlets have become big Twitter users and you could find your restaurant covered in the newspaper just by using Twitter adeptly.

Lead Generator. Twitter lets users form, and join, communities. Twitter’s search functions make it easy to identify other users with similar interests or in similar businesses. Mutual following puts a business’ tweets in its followers’ streams and vice versa. You can get leads from Twitter communities built on common interests both by reading relevant tweets and simply by asking for help.

Help Desk. Twitter is an outstanding platform for providing customer service. Responding in near real time to a tweet that asks for assistance – or jumping in to solve a problem you see on a tweet from a customer even if it isn’t directed to you – not only helps your customer, it helps cement (or improve) your reputation as a business that cares about its customers. One of the earliest business adopters of Twitter was Comcast, a company not known for the quality of its customer service. Comcast now has a full-time staff that monitors Twitter for customer complaints and responds almost immediately. When you ask your customers to follow you on Twitter you are not just gaining access to them, you are providing access to yourself. Since all of your followers will see these interactions the potential benefits of using Twitter to help your customers quickly are huge.

At Zavee we try to use Twitter for all of these functions, and we continue to learn as we go. Here are a few suggestions for getting started with Twitter:

  • If you don’t feel comfortable putting your business name out there right away, start with a personal Twitter account.
  • Listen first, then start asking questions, make suggestions, and in no time you will be part of the action.
  • Pass along stuff, including links and retweets, that’s timely, relevant and interesting, but don’t overdo it. Original material is more useful and will result in more followers.
  • Most important of all, be yourself.

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The Positive Side of Negative Reviews

by Ron on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Actor, author, shortstop or chef, no one likes a negative review. But when we were developing the Zavee business model we decided early on that we would have to include negative as well as positive reviews. The goal we set for ourselves was to create a framework for reviews that were accurate, timely and fair – and that meant including negative reviews.

Our commitment to getting reviews right stemmed from our insight that reviews were another form of Social Media and, as such, were going to be a vital component of the Zavee experience and value proposition. We also learned, based on research with merchants, that many business owners who expressed concern about potential harm from fraudulent, malicious or even accurate negative reviews also intuitively understood the benefit of hearing about issues directly from the customer affected.

As marketers are learning, people will say whatever they want to whomever they want, and merchants don’t have the power to control their customers’ conversations. They can, however, do two important things.

First, they can listen, learn and respond. Thanks to Social Media, including reviews, merchants can make necessary adjustments to their business almost in real time. This is something that every business should be doing, all the time, through every available channel. Twitter and Facebook are great listening posts, but reviews are a channel that exists solely to provide feedback about the customer experience.

Second, merchants can participate in the conversation. By actively engaging with their customers merchants can address problems quickly and publicly; they can provide perspective that helps customers evaluate reviews; and they can favorably shape perceptions about the business.

  • Responding quickly is important because unresolved issues tend to fester. Responding publicly is important because it gives the merchant the chance to address at one time a concern that may be shared by many customers.
  • Actively participating is the only sure way to get the merchant’s perspective into the conversation. Both the manner and the substance of the merchant’s response can help customers determine how much weight to give a negative review, while the absence of a response does nothing but add credence to the reviewer’s complaints. A measured, factual response may not erase the impact of a negative review, but at a minimum the merchant will have extended the relationship with the customer and demonstrated both interest and respect.
  • Simply committing the time and effort to engage customers in conversation sends a positive message to all customers and can go a long way toward shaping perceptions of the customer experience. This can reinforce the positive experiences of current customers and build loyalty, but it also can lead non-customers to have a favorable impression of what it would be like to be a customer. In other words, an impressive response to a negative review can actually bring in new business.
Creative Commons 2.0

Reviews (via fengergold)

In benchmarking Zavee against other sites that feature reviews we observed a wide disparity in the treatment of key issues. Some sites filter reviews while others list them all chronologically. At least one site that uses filtering algorithms has had to defend itself against allegations that it improperly manipulated the placement of reviews. We decided not to filter or change the placement of reviews, because we believed that the less we intervened in the substance of reviews, the more confidence shoppers would have in them and, ultimately, in the Zavee brand.

We also observed that some sites permitted reviews (both positive and negative) that described experiences that had occurred long before the review was written. We thought reviews that were dated were so likely to be inaccurate that it would be unfair to both merchants and shoppers to have them on our site. We also were concerned, as many merchants seemed to be, that on some review sites there there were insufficient safeguards against fake reviews or even fake merchants.

We addressed these problems by requiring that any shopper who wanted to review a merchant had to have made a purchase from that merchant within the previous 30 days and by permitting only one review per purchase. Zavee solicits a review after every transaction, and the shopper’s My Zavee page lists recent transactions and the time remaining to submit a review. Zavee automatically rejects reviews that do not meet these rules.

We also were concerned about reviews that, while perhaps not fraudulent, seemed hostile or malicious. We initially considered moderating reviews, the way we moderate comments on Zavee Thinking, but we decided not to. There is nothing wrong with having editorial standards for reviews – we are, after all, responsible for the content on our site – but we thought the better way to deal with potential problems was to let shoppers and merchants have their say but remove reviews that violated our Terms of Use.

Because we passionately believe that reviews should be a dialogue, we also made it easy for merchants to post responses to shopper reviews. Merchants are automatically notified whenever they are reviewed and have 7 days to post a response. Responses appear with the original reviews and always show up together in a search. Shoppers can respond the the merchant’s response, and the entire conversation is threaded so it can be seen by everyone who sees the original review.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • You can’t control what your customers say, but you can listen, learn and respond to concerns – almost in real time.
  • Use negative reviews as a conversation-starter, not a relationship-ender.
  • How you handle unfavorable reviews can shape perceptions about your business, for future as well as current customers. Treat reviews as an opportunity to be impressive – you may be surprised by the results.

Update (4/14/10): MediaPost’s Marketing Daily reports that S.C. Johnson has been receiving substantial negative feedback, including reviews, about a new pet care product – and tells Marketing Daily that it is bringing the feedback to its product development team for consideration.

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The Boutique Mentality

by Ron on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

They aren’t always quick to see it, but local merchants have some built-in advantages over national chains and big-box retailers. There’s no denying that local merchants find it hard to compete on price. But consumers don’t care only about price: they care about service, too, and that’s a real opportunity for local merchants.

A recent survey found that women increasingly are shopping for clothing online. How does that news help local merchants? A whopping 84 percent of those who reported taking their business away from bricks and mortar stores did so because of poor customer service. And customer service is where local merchants have an advantage over larger competitors. Owners and managers of local businesses usually are closer to the customer, and are often the first to hear about issues or concerns. They have the ability to react to customer needs and even break (or change) the rules if circumstance dictate.

Chanel Boutique on Wicklow Street (via chacrebleu)

One thing local merchants can do to exploit their natural advantages is to adopt a “boutique” mentality. One big difference between boutiques and other stores is their focus on providing a unique, personalized experience, not just selling a product. Customers often respond favorably to that experience, not just by paying extra for it once, but by becoming loyal customers and by sharing their experiences with their social circle. The combination of premium pricing, repeat business and word of mouth is exactly what local businesses want to achieve.
The boutique mentality isn’t limited to retail. There are boutique hotels, boutique wineries, even boutique auto mechanics – a really good one services my race car. Most boutiques are small, but they are defined by service, not size. A small retailer that doesn’t provide a unique experience to every customer isn’t a boutique; it’s just small.

Part of the boutique experience is the sense that the relationship with the customer doesn’t end with the sale. Whether it’s as simple as a follow-up phone call or as elaborate as a series of surprise gifts, boutiques understand that continuing to engage after the sale helps create customers who are not just loyal, but vocal.

The best boutiques thrive on data. Knowing and catering to customer preferences is the hallmark of the successful boutique, especially boutique hotels. But hotels aren’t the only boutiques that have access to data about their customers. With tools like Zavee, almost any business can learn who their best customers are, how much they spend and how frequently.

It may take some effort to fit the boutique mentality into a business that doesn’t already have it. It certainly takes commitment to make it work, because it requires a focus on the customer that isn’t second nature for every merchant. And it sometimes requires some investment, especially for businesses that are new to managing customer data. But it may be just what a merchant needs to compete in difficult times.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • A business that wants to charge more, generate repeat business and earn referrals from vocally loyal customers should think and act like a boutique.
  • Boutiques are customer-focused before, during and after the sale, and rely on data to understand customer preferences.
  • The boutique mentality can be applied to businesses in virtually every category; it just takes commitment and creativity.

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Juliet Was Wrong

by Ron on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a frustrated, frightened and ultimately doomed Juliet wonders aloud, “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” Why, she pleads, must her beloved bear the one name – Montague – forbidden to any of her Capulet clan.

Juliet argues to her unseen Romeo that names themselves have no meaning:

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet ….

Romeo and Juliet via HL42

Romeo and Juliet (via HL42)

But Juliet was mistaken. Montague and Capulet are brands, as surely as if they were Coke and Pepsi. And like Coke and Pepsi they have brand equities, which are the attributes (values, personality, meaning, etc.) that are the essence of the brand, and brand promises, which is what the brand will do for its audience. (Part of the tragedy of the play is that both families have the same brand equities – pointless jealousy and excessive self-regard – and the same brand promise – the destruction of the other).

Brands communicate their equities and promises in many ways, from their logo to their tag line. Their names can have branding value, too. Many brands have names that describe their business. This naming strategy has several advantages, not least that it makes it easy for consumers to understand what the brand is and does. It also frees up marketing resources to communicate brand messages rather than focus on the basics of the business.

The problem with descriptive names, however, is that similar businesses can use similarly descriptive names. At best descriptive names risk diluting a brand’s uniqueness (unless it has a unique description) and at worst they can lead to consumer confusion. Also, descriptive names tend not to be memorable and, inherently, they do not do much to convey brand messages. We should not forget, however, that many of the world’s strongest and best-known brand names, from IBM to UPS, are (or began as) descriptive.

The other end of the naming spectrum is often referred to as “evocative” names. As the term suggests, these names are meant to evoke a response that relates to the brand’s positioning. There are many ways to do this, which makes naming something of a black art. Names can consist of real or invented words, with real or invented spelling; words from modern or classical languages; single or compound words; and so on. Some names try to embody the entire brand while others focus on one key aspect of the positioning, such as the consumer experience. In addition to their messaging component, names have to be easy to read and say and have a look and sound that is appropriate to the brand.

Evocative names are the flip side of descriptive names: they are unique and can be memorable, but it takes more resources to communicate what the brand is and does as well as the essential brand messages. However, once that is accomplished the name is more likely to remain in the audience’s consciousness and be associated with the desired brand positioning. Many newer brands, from Amazon to Google to Yahoo, have evocative names, but this naming strategy is far from an online-only phenomenon. Several companies have used evocative names as part of a re-branding strategy, such as Altria (ex-Phillip Morris), Tenet (ex-National Medical Enterprises) and Accenture (ex-Andersen Consulting).

Why did we choose an evocative rather than a descriptive naming strategy? And how did we come up with Zavee? Our company was originally called Charge Rewards, which is still the name of our holding company. That name accurately describes one important element of our business – a rewards program that uses registered credit/debit cards – but was unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, it says nothing about social shopping, online marketing or social giving, all of which are elements of our business that are both very significant and highly differentiating. Second, it might be difficult to protect against another registered-card loyalty program that wanted to use a similar name. Third, it simply isn’t very memorable or exciting.

We wanted our new name to be unusual and memorable, and suggest in some way what we were trying to accomplish. We weren’t convinced that any descriptive name could easily encompass our business, and we didn’t want our name either to limit us (like Charge Rewards did) or confuse our audiences. We worked with two agencies to develop a new name, briefing their teams with both a description of our business and a statement of our brand positioning. They came up with literally scores of possibilities, which we discussed and analyzed before coming up with three finalists. We ultimately decided on Zavee. One of the things that sold us on the name was the way it embodies a key brand promise. Our platform helps merchants market smarter; helps consumers shop smarter; and helps causes raise funds smarter. That focus on making communities smarter led one of our agencies to the notion of “savvy”, which they transformed into the more unique, interesting and memorable “Zavee”.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Juliet’s wrong. Names matter.
  • Descriptive names are generally more intuitive for the consumer and less expensive to market, but less memorable, harder to protect and less valuable to the brand.
  • Evocative names are generally less intuitive for the consumer and more expensive to market, but more memorable, easier to protect and more valuable to the brand.

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Zavee Teamwork

by Ron on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Yesterday most of the Zavee team attended the Get Motivated seminar at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, FL. The all-day event included talks by Rudy Giuliani, Robert Schuller, Zig Ziglar and Colin Powell, among others.

Gen. Colin Powell

Gen. Colin Powell (via Charles Haynes)

Several of the speakers, including General Powell, shared their insights into leadership. General Powell said that he had brought the same style of leadership to teams of every size, whether 40 people or 3 million. The hallmarks of leadership that he described – recognizing and rewarding performance; making sure the team has the resources they need; and requiring accountability – certainly apply to teams of any size. But not all teams are the same, and different situations sometimes call for different leadership styles.

Our team at Zavee is a case in point. As a startup, in a rapidly evolving space, Zavee is not following a well-established path to growth. On the contrary, we are to a large extent inventing our path as we go along. Zavee is a business built on great ideas as well as great execution, and we don’t think anyone at Zavee has a monopoly on great ideas. We think it is vital to listen to every member of the Zavee team, and to consider their perspectives seriously before committing to any course of action. This means that our leadership style is unusually collegial, rather than top-down, and requires an environment of mutual trust and respect.

Of course, once a decision is made we expect everyone to do their best to implement it, even if they had proposed a different course of action. One of the many rewards of working at Zavee is seeing our colleagues overcome their disparate viewpoints and work together as a team to build our business. Whatever their point of view on any given issue, everyone at Zavee is totally committed to our mission of supporting local shoppers, merchants and causes.

One of our business goals at Zavee is scale: dramatically increasing revenues without proportionately increasing costs. One of our strategies is to avoid a conventional, hierarchical management structure. Although unavoidable in some organizations, we believe that this kind of structure tends to hamper creativity and impair innovation. However big Zavee gets – and we hope it gets really, really big – we will strive to maintain a small, close-knit senior management team like we have today.

As a small business that isn’t planning to stay small, we have given a lot of thought to our management and organizational structure. Have you done the same with your business?

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Social Giving Meets Social Shopping

by Ron on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

We have written about social shopping, which is the heart of the Zavee platform, but are you familiar with “social giving”? Social giving is Social Media used for philanthropic or other non-profit purposes. Social giving wasn’t widely discussed even a year ago, but two events – the disputed elections in Iran and the earthquake in Haiti – gave rise to a tremendous amount of Social Media activity, which in turn got people thinking about the role of Social Media in the non-profit sector.

According author Geoff Livingston, who follows social giving closely, social giving can be a source of both new donations and newly engaged donors and activists. Social giving also can engage consumers in corporate philanthropy campaigns.

  • In the wake of the elections individual Iranians used Social Media to get news out of the country after the government had restricted conventional media access.
  • A post on Philanthropy Potluck discussed campaigns the author called “social giving contests”, in which consumers determine how companies distribute funds as charitable contributions. The post cites campaigns by Target and Tom’s of Maine, in which the public got to “vote” for potential recipients of donations.
  • Immediately after the quake in Haiti, the American Red Cross and other organizations launched texting campaigns that raised over $30 million from individuals who sent a text message that automatically added a donation to their wireless bill. More than $20 million was raised by the American Red Cross alone, a sum unlikely to be raised as quickly, if at all, by conventional solicitation methods. The Red Cross using the same text2give program to raise funds for victims of the earthquake in Chile.

Zavee’s social giving feature combines several social giving concepts. Like the social giving contests, Zavee shoppers control the distribution of the 20% of our fees that we have committed to donate to civic and charitable causes that have joined Zavee. The mechanism for directing Zavee contributions is called Care Shares(tm). In addition to their cash back rewards, Zavee shoppers earn points called Care Shares based on the amount of each purchase from a Zavee merchant. Zavee shoppers periodically select which causes will receive their Care Shares. Zavee contributes cash to those causes based on the Care Shares allocated to each cause, which means that shoppers who purchase more control a larger slice of the contribution pie. (Yet another reason for shoppers to purchase from Zavee merchants.)

Santas Race for Charity

Santas Race for Charity (via Lincolnian)

Shoppers make their own decisions about how to allocate their Care Shares, but the networking features of Zavee encourage shoppers to discuss the various causes in our program. We take networking a step further by putting the causes themselves in the network. That means that they can engage directly with shoppers to provide information, answer questions, announce events and otherwise enrich shoppers’ understanding of the value they provide to the community. The benefit to causes of communicating effectively is clear: greater awareness and understanding by shoppers can lead to greater allocations of Care Shares, which means greater contributions by Zavee. Causes also can encourage their own members to join Zavee, who presumably will be inclined to allocate their Care Shares to the cause to which they belong.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Causes may not be as far up the curve as companies (to say nothing of individuals) when it comes to Social Media, but events like the Iran elections and the Haiti quake response demonstrate the potential impact Social Media can have for non-profits.
  • The non-profit sector is likely to develop uses for Social Media that are both creative and effective. Businesses should be watching.
  • Programs like Zavee, which combine the consumer-business integration of the social giving contest with the active participation of the causes themselves on the network, will be one way to for causes to gain a great deal of value from Social Media.

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Customer Service – For the Recession and Beyond

by Ron on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Here at Zavee we spend a lot of time thinking about what smaller businesses can learn from larger ones. We also think a lot about customer service. The current recession seems to us an excellent time for businesses to focus on customer service. Commentators seem to agree. Their reasons may be obvious, but they make sense nevertheless:

  • Retaining existing customers costs far less than acquiring new ones
  • When competing for customers, businesses often have to choose between offering more value (e.g., by improving service) or cutting prices
  • A good customer experience makes future purchases more likely, while a bad experience does the opposite

These posts focused mainly on larger companies, many of which have downsized their customer service staffs. There are anecdotal indications, if nothing else, that customer service has suffered as a result.

City Light customer account operators, 1945

City Light customer account operators, 1945

On the other hand, some larger companies are maintaining or even improving customer service. We think that these companies will be well positioned after the economy recovers because they will have generated loyalty and improved the value of their brand at a time when some of their competitors were cutting service or hiding from customers. Some are using technology: Comcast and Best Buy are by now well known as pioneers in the use of Twitter to learn about and respond to customer care issues. Other companies, such as Southwest Airlines, maintain high levels of customer satisfaction by making service part of the organization’s DNA (although no one is perfect). And I have had at least one potentially negative experience with a rental car company turn positive simply because a well-trained senior manager was on the scene and jumped in with the right approach and a fair solution.

Smaller companies have both a harder and an easier time maintaining customer service in a recession. Harder, because increasing expenses during a time of weak revenues may be difficult to swallow. Easier, because the cost-benefit analysis is much clearer. Some large companies may believe they can afford to exchange so much in sales for so much in customer service expense, but most small companies don’t think that way. Although there certainly are exceptions, most small companies realize that they can’t afford to give up sales to save money. They also realize that good service builds repeat business and long-term loyalty. Finally, they should also realize that customers talk – which means that good customer service can generate referrals: the least expensive but most reliable way to acquire new customers. The good news for small companies is that maintaining and improving customer service doesn’t have to be expensive. Here are some low-cost approaches to customer service that businesses can start now and keep in place even after the economy improves:

  • Listen to your customers. There are many ways to listen: you can use applications like Facebook and Twitter; you can send surveys to customers by email; you can call them on the phone; and you can chat with them at the point of sale. As long as you are sincere and open you will learn a lot about what you are doing right and how you might improve.
  • Empower your associates. Your customer-facing employees should be encouraged to engage with customers at every point of contact and empowered to offer solutions to at least some concerns or complaints. Anything that can’t be handled at their level should be referred to the appropriate person and dealt with promptly.
  • Use technology wisely. At Zavee, we use a third-party application called Zendesk to help us manage customer service. Clicking on a “Help” link from anywhere on the Zavee site opens our Member Services page, from which anyone (even non-members) can read our content, engage with others in a forum or contact us with a question, comment or complaint. This system creates a numbered “ticket” for every interaction, which is automatically flagged for followup by Zavee but also gives the user a way to follow up with us. It turns everyone in our organization into a customer service agent, because we never know in advance who will be the best person to handle the next ticket that comes in.
  • Don’t go it alone. In addition to blogs and other online resources, local chambers of commerce are a great source of information from businesses like yours in your own market. If you are located in South Florida, we invite you to join Zavee. Our marketing tools help merchants understand their customers better and our networking tools improve their ability to communicate with and learn from customers.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • If you think the recession is time to double down on customer service, you’re right. If you think it’s time to cut back, think again.
  • It may be easier for you to provide excellent service than a larger competitor, because you are closer to the customer. That’s a key point of differentiation – make the most of it.
  • Customers talk. Make sure they have only good things to say about you.
  • Don’t stop once the economy improves.

Update (2/18/10): “Poor Customer Service Costs Companies $83 Billion Annually” provides a useful summary of an impressive global research report (pdf) on the high cost of poor customer service.

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The Other Super Bowl

by Ron on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

How did you like the big game? No, not the one with the Saints and Colts – the one with the Snickers and Doritos. The phenomenon probably began during the first dot com boom of the late 90s, but in recent years the commercials that air during the Super Bowl have attracted almost as much attention as the game itself.

Drew Brees, Jan 7, 2010

It’s fun for those of us whose marketing budgets don’t include the $2-3 million it takes to buy a spot or even the mid-six figures it costs for production.  It’s like going to the marina to gawk at the hundred foot yachts.  Still, there are some things small business people can learn from the big game.

One thing is the value of leverage, getting extra value out of your marketing dollars.  Long before the game is played and the commercials run, there are stories in the media about different marketers’ strategies and even teaser clips of upcoming spots. Using public relations to generate interest ahead of the air date makes sense because it’s a low-cost, effective strategy for increasing awareness and impact.  This year the story lines included Pepsi’s decision not to advertise on the Super Bowl, Budweiser’s decision not to feature its iconic Clydesdale horses (a decision that was ultimately reversed) and CBS’s decision to air a “pro-family” spot featuring Florida QB Tim Tebow.

According to most commentators, this wasn’t a vintage year for Super Bowl ads. “There were no standouts,” according this post on AdRants that summarized industry and consumer reactions to the ads. Seth Stephenson of Slate agreed. Bob Garfield of Advertising Age liked Audi’s “Green Police” ad, the “men’s liberation” themed spots from Dodge and FloTV, and not much else. Barbara Lippert of AdWeek and Slate’s Stephenson liked Google’s simple, effective execution that combined narrative with product demonstration – and cost next to nothing to produce. But just about everyone seemed to like the Snickers spot in which young athletes played like Betty White and Abe Vigoda until they ate a Snickers bar.

As always, advertising insiders took their shots at USA Today’s Ad Meter, which records the real time reactions of a panel of consumers to each of the spots as they run during the game. The Ad Meter can drive professionals nuts – especially since 2007, when CareerBuilder fired its agency after a poor Ad Meter showing. The Ad Meter doesn’t measure strategic insight or clarity of message – it’s the People’s Choice Awards of advertising, and it was won this year by the Snickers ad.  Lippert observed that “[t]he spots that do well on the Ad Meter are the ones that feature the kind of tricks viewers have been trained to expect, like man-on-man violence and/or cute animals. It’s like teaching to the test.”  Garfield called the consumers on the panel “AdMeter-ocrities.”

Another takeaway of interest to small business is the increasing impact of Social Media on conventional media.  While insiders might not like it, Social Media makes consumer reaction to advertising easier to track, and agencies are starting to see the value in doing so. In addition to the Ad Meter and Ad Bowl (another panel-based ranking), Social Media provided a way to gain insight into consumer reactions to the ads. Ad agency Mullen and Social Media monitoring firm Radian6 tracked Twitter feeds to determine the top brands coming out of the Super Bowl (Doritos, Google and Focus on the Family took the top three spots). Several other firms had similar strategies.

As for me, my Super Bowl Sunday was made by Google, Snickers and E-Trade (I know, but imagine another category that has room for both trash-talking babies and Sam Waterston).  And the Saints. Definitely the Saints.

The Zavee takeaway:

  • Make your marketing part of your company’s story – it will make your marketing budget do more and go farther.
  • You can do it inexpensively – conventional PR is one way, Social Media is another.
  • The most distinctive and creative way to tell your story doesn’t have to be the most expensive.

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NBC, NYT and Loyalty

by Ron on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

In the course of an entertaining post about NBC’s current “two hosts, one spot” late-night nightmare, Dean Bairaktaris asks, “Where is everyone’s Brand Loyalty? Is it with NBC, Leno or Conan?” This is an insightful question, because the expensive and embarrassing contretemps has been presented largely as Jay vs. Conan, Old Guard vs. Young Turk, homespun vs. hip.

via mashable.com

via mashable.com

The potential impact on NBC as a major media channel has largely been ignored, except in posts like Dean’s, as Conan is widely presumed to be able to shift his audience, more or less intact, to Fox or another media outlet. But it’s fair to ask whether the broadcast networks actually have brand equity apart from the shows they carry. Is there an “NBC-ness” to the Tonight Show (or any other NBC program) that would not carry over to another network? That arbiter of absurdity, The Onion, would certainly say no.

The soon-to-be-announced decision by The New York Times to put some or all of its content behind a pay wall also involved a debate over the brand equity of the Times versus that of its content (in this case, the paper’s prominent columnists). An outstanding article in New York Magazine details some columnists’ concerns that in its pursuit of subscription revenue the Times would be sacrificing its position as a leading online news brand, giving up both traffic and influence (as well as premium advertising rates, apparently).

I think the two situations have a lot in common. In both cases, the underlying question was whether the locus of customer loyalty is the channel (NBC and NYT) or its content (shows and columnists). I’m not sure the answer is the same in every case. I don’t think broadcast TV networks are differentiated enough to generate brand loyalty, but I’m not sure that’s equally true of newspapers (I grew up reading the New York Times so I might be biased – or just conditioned).

For small businesses, the lesson is to think about what aspect of your brand your customers are loyal to, and not to assume that all customers are loyal to the same thing or for the same reason. You want the locus of loyalty to be your overall brand so that customers will stay with you as your business changes, whether those changes involve staffing, product assortment, location or even store closings. However, until you have the conversation with your customers, you can’t be sure that they are loyal to your brand or to your personable store manager, convenient location or frequent sales.

As a smaller business, you have the ability to engage with customers directly and provide an overall customer experience that embodies your brand’s unique promises and values. Larger brands often (but not always) provide a product experience that is not as closely connected to the brand. This is an advantage for smaller businesses which, unlike large brands, should never need to market brands and products separately. To leverage the direct connection with customers, treat loyalty as a two-way street. There are many ways to demonstrate your loyalty to customers, but the easiest is to listen to what they have to say.

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The Count of Social Media

by Ron on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Imagine having that on your business card! In a world of Brogans, Vaynerchuks and Mashables there is no shortage of candidates worthy of the title, but this post isn’t about any of them.

Anyone who has kids, or who was one fairly recently, will remember Sesame Street’s Lugosi-eque math whiz, Count von Count. The Count would count anything, anytime, anywhere. And he was much better at it than, say, The Spanish Inquisition:

Imagine, then, what the Count – let alone the Inquisition – would have to say about this: a Flash-based application that provides a real-time count of Social Media activity. Courtesy of Gary Hayes’ Personalize Media blog, here is Gary’s Social Media counter:

Visit Gary’s blog if you want to know about his sources, but the details are almost beside the point. Spend even a minute watching the numbers cascade and you are sure to be convinced – if you weren’t already – that Social Media is a communications channel (or group of channels) that marketers cannot afford to ignore. If you are marketer with a small company and a small budget, Social Media is perfect for you. If you are just starting out, take the simple advice that you’ll get from everyone: listen first.

And if you would like to learn about a Social Media marketing program exclusively for local merchants, feel free to get in touch with us here at Zavee.

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