6 of our best

Right, we've hidden our Polestar under a bushel for too long. A week on from our event, we wanted to share a few thoughts of our own on how to harness the power of advocacy:

• First of all it's NOT the ONLY answer; advertising, sampling, PR, content etc all still play a vital role....but only as part of a wider, integrated strategy for advocacy creation.

• We believe that doing the right thing must increasingly come before saying the right thing. This can take multiple guises and involve anything from relevant charity links and innovative promotions through to mobile apps, genuinely value add web services or a differentiated customer service experience.

• Driving advocacy is not an after-thought - it needs to be a fundamental part of your planning. Start the planning process from brand thinking & design. After all, the brand is the message and often the strategic development of the brand itself can create a platform for advocacy.

• After, and only after, this first stage turn your focus to how communications can amplify the 'advocacy advantages' created by your product or service.

• Yes the internet and other interactive media are playing an increasingly important role here, but there is no reason why traditional mass media can't also play their part. And just to be clear, this isn't consumers talking about the ads - an over-valued and in business terms often irrelevant measure - it's about how communications can better seed relevant brand stories into conversation.

• Innovate, innovate, innovate. Conventional and template thinking will only leave you way down the line behind a hundred more established brands in the sector. It's vital to 'start your own queue'.
  

P.S. If you're interested in hearing more about how we can help to activate advocacy for your brand, feel free to get in touch

Understanding the power of advocacy

Last night's event was hugely instructive, inspiring and rather good fun; great speakers, excellent company and a chance to taste the next big thing in global spirits, Pink Pigeon.

Emmanuel Rosen, author of 'The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited' treated us to highlights from his recent book around generating and managing customer conversations. Key thoughts that emerged included:

• Whilst online channels has certainly played a role in accelerating buzz, offline (person to person) buzz continues to outstrip online buzz 7 to 1.

• Advertising and mass media still have a role to play when generating buzz. On any given day in the US, for example, 55% of people will have at least one conversation related to media or entertainment (Source: Keller Fay group). Brands such as Vaseline Intensive Rescue have simulated buzz as an integral part of their campaign and have encouraged over 3 million 'prescriptions' in the last year.

• Make no mistake, the biggest driver of buzz is your product itself. It's the basis for a great story, and brands that have stories are more likely to be talked about. Witness Tom's Shoes.

• Marketers looking to create buzz should bear in mind that buzz isn’t communication between a brand and a consumer but it is the conversations between consumers. It is not enough to have a blog and to open up dialogue with consumers. Make it easy for consumers to pass the story on with visual cues, materials and opportunities for self-expression.

• Given the show of hands, last night’s audience were surprised (but heartened) to learn that there is more positive than negative buzz circulating. Negative buzz, whilst spreading faster also tends to peter out faster. It is however critical to have contingency plans in place to help present a balanced argument.

• Not all hubs (influencers) are equal. Whilst some hubs may be very vocal they are not necessarily connected to other hubs so you still need mass media to broaden your reach and increase the intensity of buzz. The use of barbers in Chicago to publicise the importance of prostate screening to an Afro-American community proved the power of thinking laterally about who these hubs might be.

• Association with certain hubs of consumers can amplify or accelerate your campaign however if you are seen to be associated with the ‘wrong’ hub too early on then your success among other hubs may be negatively affected. Equally, brand loyalists may not be your most vocal advocates as they may have already done their buzzing. To reinvigorate these hubs you will need to find a trigger to get people talking again.

• People drop in and out of hubs. It is important to keep listening to your audience and refreshing your contacts – someone who was once an expert on digital cameras may have changed hobbies or lost touch with the market now that they have bought their camera.

• Make more of your assets. Brands often have material that they don’t use to its full potential – don’t just hold an event, film it, ask for attendees to contribute images and footage, invite them to the screening – create a virtuous circle. So, to demonstrate we’ve been good listeners, the film is coming soon and we’d encourage you to leave your thoughts and comments below please!

David King, Marketing Director at Berry Brothers & Rudd Spirits, in sharing with us the story of Pink Pigeon, provided a top draw example of how to hard wire advocacy into your brand. By making it a focus of everything they have done - from the brand story and name through to the packaging - they’ve created a product that not only changes the way people think about rum, but created a brand capable of creating the requisite buzz to help them take on high spending competitors.

P.S. Given how well received the event was we've decided to make it a regular feature - watch this space.

Have you heard the news yet?

Advocacy.

Buzz.

Whatever your preferred term, it's become a critical aspect of any marketing strategy. Indeed we'd go as far as to suggest that it's never more important.

Why? Well clearly there are multiple factors at play, not least of which:

• The return on investment crunch -
  we seem to always either be in a period of media inflation (which always outstrips RPI) or there's restricted capital available to support marketing because we're in a recession. Either way, it's a fact that just delivering the same old, same old, will offer increasingly less good returns.
• The demise of mass communications coupled with the growth in commercial messaging - this alone means that the balance has had to change between what brands and organisations actually do in terms of products, services and value over and what they say.
• The explosion of brands -
  fuelled by the growth in cheap investment capital (during the peaks) and the forthcoming growth in takeovers (during the post recessionary era) relatively unsupported brands are being pushed to the fore
• Consumers changing views of brands - with consumers increasingly relishing their new found control, brands need to think, feel and act in different ways.
• A significant breakdown in trust between the public and big business....the reasons behind which are glaringly obvious!
• A genuine concern for the environment & real interest in corporate attitudes to CSR. Yes these factors may have taken a temporary step backwards for economic reasons but they are clearly on the rise.
• A greater degree of transparency and consumer vociferousness. Clearly this is not exclusively driven by technology but it's certainly been the catalyst and leant greater creativity to the consumer voice.
  

P.S. On Tuesday we've got one of the guru's of advocacy , Emanuel Rosen author of The Anatomy of Buzz and David King of Berry Brothers & Rudd Spirits talking to a select bunch of clients and agency partners at our Polestar launch event about best practice activation of buzz. A great opportunity to compare notes. More later.