BrandsEye Blog

Last week, Tuesday the 20^th of July, after years of being subjected to radio DJ pop psychology and callers phoning in to give a shout out to all 682 of their Facebook friends, I finally snapped. From that day on, I point blank refused to listen to the radio. It was only then that I realized the CD wallet in my car read more like a musical montage of numerous failed relationships, with mixed tape after mixed tape of artists and songs I pretended to like to get that second date. Being the tech savvy Renaissance man that I am, I quickly whipped out my iPhone, plugged in the FM transmitter and begun broadcasting music I really did like; sans annoying adverts, phone callers and Dr Phil insight. Alas the music was accompanied by the annoying whine of cell phone interference and I was only half way through my commute before my transmitters battery went flat.

The solution was obvious. I needed to connect my phone directly to my car’s sound system. Before even getting my morning coffee, I had logged onto the Peugeot website and submitted my question regarding how one would go about connecting one’s phone to the radio of one’s car. For good measure, I also logged on to Twitter and asked @PeugeotZA the same question. 30 minutes and a few more Tweets between myself and the Peugeot Twitter account manager and I had my answer. It didn’t look good for me, my radio model won’t connect to my phone, but Peugeot still got a #brandplus. Less than 30 minutes to get my answer on Twitter - what more could you ask for? Oh, and if you were wondering no reply to that email.

This got me thinking about how the lines of communication between customers and brands have evolved. Who in today’s society goes into a branch unless they absolutely have to, or braves a call centre as their first line of communication? Clearly email isn’t the way forward either.

I was recently asked how I believed companies and customers would live in harmony in the world of Social Media. The argument put forward to me was who wants to hear from their bank, car company or shower gel when they are really trying to stalk their ex on Facebook. And how are companies going to control the urge to sell you something while you are building your farm or cyber graffiting your name on your best friend’s wall. I argue that if the company is providing value, then social media is the most obvious place for companies and customers to meet.

It all comes down to adding value and thoughtfully engaging with consumers. I for one was happy that Peugeot was on Twitter. I got the answer I required virtually immediately, something we have come to expect these days.

Its positive experiences like this that have me turning to my closest social network when I want an answer from a company. Engage with consumers through mediums in which they feel comfortable,  provide value and the goodwill and positive online reputation will follow.

As any French or Italian Football fan will tell you predicted success on paper doesn’t guarantee results. Despite having two star studded sides both these European footballing super powers bailed out of the 2010 Football World Cup in the first round, because they simply couldn’t implement their competitive advantage. 

1. Have a clear objectives for your campaign.
   
   Having a clearly defined end goal and objectives ensures that your eye is kept on ball. Obama’s mission was to become President and his objective was to raise millions in donations and win the hearts and minds of the American population. 
   
   Monitoring of the online conversation can assist in informing key objectives as well as measuring the success in achieving them. 
    
2. Drive action
   
   Action is key to strategy implementation engaging with consumers is key to motivate them to take action on your behalf. Obama turned to the thought leaders with in his target community and engaged with them. These influencers were then motivated to act on his behalf, helping to implement his objective.
   
   Through ORM thought leaders are more easily identified, these key player can then be engaged through their social network of choice. Once equipped with the information required these early adopters can act as your brand ambassadors. However remember engaging is key, understanding their conversation and communicating as an equal will return greater results then simply pushing information.
    
3. Allow people to engage at all levels
   
   While thought leaders may be the most influential it is important to offer followers the opportunity to engage at all levels. Remember it is important to cater for various levels of engagement. Offer even the most casual of supporters an opportunity to engage. Through monitoring of the online conversation opportunities can be identified to drive up engagement through offering added value.
    
4. Fish where the fish are
   
   Online conversation tracking helps to identify where your brand is being spoken about. Understanding how and where your current target market communicates about your brand or about your industry is key. This will ensure that your brands communication isn’t filtered out, because the communication is sent through the wrong channel.
    
5. Be Relevant
   
   Ensure that the tone of voice and what your brand has to say is relevant to your target audience. Ensuring this will guarantee that your message resonates with your target audience. Relevant communication does not mean communicating what you want your consumers to know but rather offering them what they want to hear and in that way providing added value and increased goodwill for your brand.
   
   ORM can provide valuable qualitative insight into the tone of conversation required. A quantitative approach can also offer feedback into your brands success in communicating with consumers. Continuous tracking is required to ensure that your brands communication remains relevant.
    
6. Ensure your content can be found.
   
   With users becoming increasingly thirsty for information and impatient when looking for it, brands can ensure real added value if they facilitate the information search. Monitoring conversation and providing relevant information is a sure fire way to increase brand loyalty. SEO and online advertising can only go so far in making your information readily available, actively pursuing interested parties, an option available through ORM, will guarantee consumers are aware of your brand while conducting pre purchase research.
    
7. Measure everything.
   
    “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results” this Winston Churchill quote captures the importance of measuring to ensure efforts to date are in line with objectives and strategy is being effectively implemented. Measuring of one’s online reputation and the sentiment of consumers all aid in evaluating success and making timely course corrections to ensure the end goal is achieved.

Anyone with a poor sense of direction has experienced that overwhelming sense of relief when the dulcet, automated tone of the GPS steers you away from the dimly lit backstreets and towards your destination. This nifty tool, which assimilates information from the external world and uses it to direct you to where you want to go, is invaluable for anyone navigating a tricky or unknown environment.

So how do you navigate the loud, competitive minefield that is today’s marketing landscape?

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is fast becoming vital when it comes to understanding what people really think about your brand, responding quickly to opportunities and putting out the fires of brand crises. In the longer term, an effective ORM tool can add massive value to your strategy, filtering and analysing online conversation around your brand and providing strategic business direction.

We’ve all seen the example of ORM tools being used to drive marketing strategy is that of Barack Obama in the most recent US presidential elections. Obama’s team analysed online usage and population statistics to define his target audience as a younger one, which makes frequent use of social media to stay connected. Responses to other political campaigns (measured online) cried for a leader who was involved and who engaged with the public in a personal, positive and informative way. The result was a message of hope, driven by community involvement and placing the emphasis on the voter (“YOU”). After profiling the needs and wants of the online voter, Obama’s campaign focused on creating grassroots strategies and making integration with social networks such as Facebook easier. Obama wished to become part of the community and respond on the same level, placing the power in the hands of the people.  While competitor McCain ignored online conversation around his shallow online strategy, Obama looked at engagement opportunities such as an activity index that monitored voter activity and gave them a mark out of ten for their participation levels. ORM also allowed for the identification of social influencers and ideal brand affiliations. A combination of good ideas combined with effective ORM led to history’s most successful political campaign.

A recent study by Digital Brand Expressions showed that 52% of social media marketers within large companies are operating without a game plan – which explains the proliferation of inactive company blogs and un-followed Twitter pages. ORM tools are the biggest step in formulating the plan and making sure your efforts, both online and offline, are channeled successfully.

Strategic insights provided by effectively managing your reputation online include:

• Spotting the opportunities in your offering or in the market category by picking up on frequent consumer demands
• Monitoring and measuring competitor activity to provide benchmarking insights
• Demonstrating the benefits of internal adjustments, such as service channel restructuring, based on consumer and media feedback online
• Measuring the response to both online and offline marketing efforts, to determine if these should be adjusted or repeated
• Measuring ROI for online marketing efforts, which will assist in guiding future efforts
  

Not only can ORM tools assist in setting specific, measurable objectives, they also afford a business the opportunity to monitor the response as the strategy is implemented and adjust accordingly.

Nicholas Anelka and the French football team, the Jabulani ball and Kaka’s red card have all been at the center of controversy during the 2010 Football World Cup, but none of these come close to the controversy that surrounds the instrument that has come to represent that spirit of this year’s event: the Vuvuzela.

As South Africans everywhere celebrate playing host to the “beautiful game”, loud blasts from vuvuzelas convey the country’s excitement. However, complaints from those watching the game live at the stadiums and international audiences hoping to enjoy the game on TV focus on the vuvuzela’s invasiveness.

After tracking the mentions of Vuvuzelas online, it appears these plastic horns are making a noise in the online space as well with 5066 mentions reaching an audience of 15 491 185 in 24 hours. Vuvuzela.com, the self-proclaimed inventors of the horn, have effectively secured themselves R3 525 581 worth of online advertising.

Love them or hate them, Vuvuzelas have become a global phenomenon and with the World Cup broadcast to 213 countries it’s little wonder that mentions of our favourite new national instrument are found around the globe. The United States accounts for 46% of Vuvuzela mentions and the rest of the conversation is shared between:

•  The United Kingdom 9%
• South Africa 3%
• Germany 8%
• Brazil 6%
• Canada 4%
• Netherlands, Italy, India and Australia 2% each

The BrandsEye team isn’t sure how the word Vuvuzela translates, but with mentions being divided up over a number of languages it does appear the term transcends the language barrier.

Vuvuzela mentions were picked up in the following languages:

• English 73%
• Portuguese 8%
• Spanish 5%
• German 4%
• Dutch 3 %
• Italian 2%

Football fans have led the conversation with 90% of all mentions, the press accounted for the other 10%, and once again Twitter is the medium of choice with 64% of all the conversation.

The World Cup has made this R19 plastic horn a global household name – let’s hope it does the same for our incredible country and the call of the vuvuzela brings even more visitors to our shores.

On the 20^th of April, BP’s semi-submersible drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, burst into flames 41 miles offshore in the Gulf Of Mexico. This event has had catastrophic consequences on marine life in the Gulf, resulting in many rare species becoming perilously close to extinction. Cleaning up the oil spill to date has cost BP US$2 billion, and BP has set aside a further US$20 billion for future expenses. Here at BrandsEye, we were interested at seeing the less tangible cost incurred by BP as a result of this environmental nightmare. We opted to spend some time examining the effect on their online reputation.

After 24 hours, the results are alarming. In one day, the environmental disaster caused by BP was mentioned online 12 426 times. These mentions reached an audience of 52 730 040 people, equating to R11 962 374 worth of negative PR for the BP brand.

The attack on the BP brand has been consumer driven, with consumers being responsible for 85% of all negative mentions.

BP is a true multinational; therefore it is hardly surprising that criticism is being leveled at the brand from every corner of the globe. The biggest brand terrorists are based in America with 69% of all mentions originating from there. 

 Below is a breakdown of the other countries generating negative press for BP.

• United Kingdom 6%
• Canada 4%
• Mexico 3%
• Germany and India 2%
• Netherlands, Italy, France and Australia 1%
   

BP’s pressroom translators will need to steel themselves for abuse being hurled in a number of languages. English speakers demand the most attention with 94% of mentions, followed by German at 2% and Dutch, Portuguese, French and Spanish each accounting for 1% of mentions.

Interestingly, the attack on BP is predominately being driven through Twitter, with 55% of all mentions originating on the social networking site.

 BP is facing an astronomically high cleanup bill, a plummeting share price and a ever-growing negative online sentiment against the company. The stress of it all must be taking its toll on Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO. I’m sure he felt like he needed to take some time out. And what better way to do that than taking a leisurely cruise in your £182,000 Farr 52 racing yacht around Isle of Wight, off the coast of southern England. I suppose he had to choose England. After all, it’s not like he could set sail in the Gulf of Mexico, not with all that oil around.