360DigitalInfluence

Earlier this week I had the chance to present at one of the largest annual meetings of customer care professionals in the world, the SOCAP International Symposium. SOCAP stands for the Society of Customer Care Professionals, and among other things, its members include the folks in charge of running call centers, managing customer response teams and sometimes branching into running loyalty programs as well. If marketing is all about the outward appearance of a brand and perception, then customer care (more than any other group) is focused on the reality of what your brand actually is.

This battle between perception and reality, interestingly, is where the divide between customer care and marketing usually arises. The larger the company, the more divorced these two disciplines seem to be - often only meeting at the last stages of planning a marketing campaign to finally discuss coordinating. Not surprisingly, a key theme I quickly saw during the SOCAP event was that the communication between marketing and customer care needs to get stronger across the board. In particular, there were 5 themes that emerged for me (as a marketer) that define what customer care people would love to see from us more frequently (continue after the jump to read): continue reading

Last week I had the opportunity to travel to Bangalore for a Brand Summit event that featured many marketers, communicators and even a Bollywood star talking about the future of marketing in India as country goes through what the conference termed as the “era of discontinuity.” With a ballooning population, growing Internet penetration, arguably the largest mobile phone market on earth and an entrepreneurial culture - India is at once a bewildering and maturing market for all things social. On the streets of India, word of mouth marketing and old school lessons are actively driving commerce. In businesses, the hot topics are similar to what they are in the US or elsewhere … how can your brand reach consumers who are increasingly placing their attention elsewhere and getting progressively better at ignoring you.

On answer that has risen to some level of prominence in India is the use of celebrities in marketing. You could argue that celebrities are popular everywhere in the world, but in a country that release more films in an average week than most countries do in an entire year, the rules are slightly different. In India it is not uncommon to see a Bollywood star’s face on everything from facial tissues to pens. Celebrity is used to connote trust, and in a culture with many different socio-economic classes (they even have names), the only way that marketers can often reach across these levels is with celebrities that many people recognize.

In an illuminating panel filled with journalists, filmmakers, marketers, creative directors and one celebrity (Bollywood Actor Vivek Oberoi) the conversation turned to a in-depth discussion of the role of celebrity in marketing in India and whether it was indeed a necessity, or whether it has become a “crutch” for the lazy marketer who doesn’t want to do any real work so they just hire a celebrity and consider their marketing efforts complete. Here were some of the biggest takeaways that the conversation raised for me:

1. Understand the difference between talent and celebrity. When you hire an actor to play a part in an ad, you are hiring them as “talent.” When you get a celebrity, you are hiring them to bring their personal brand to your product or service and serve as a spokesperson of sorts. The first key is to know the difference and not confuse the two.

2. Start with an idea, not a celebrity. Often a marketing strategy starts by selecting the celebrity the team will work with and then an idea is built around that choice. This method is backwards and results in marketing that lacks strategic vision and often fails to resonate. To do better, you need to have a strong creative idea … then find the celebrity that best fits that idea.

3. Build on the personal brand of a celebrity. Vivek Oberoi raised many intelligent points about the celebrity point of view when it comes to marketing (something we don’t often hear). He understands his personal brand and what resonates positively or negatively with it. As a result, he chooses personally not to do tobacco or alcohol related advertising. Many other celebrities lack those same principles and simply go where the biggest dollars tempt them. The best marketing will be something builds on the personal brand that a celebrity has built, instead of ignoring or countering it.

4. Use real people too. Thankfully, the point did emerge from the panel that there may be times where you don’t NEED a celebrity. There is a power of real people to connect with one another that can be missing with celebrity focused campaigns and for a growing number of brands in India taking this real approach is working well and shouldn’t be discounted.

This weekend saw the New York Knicks host what they billed as the first ever fan #tweetup, at their home court, the legendary Madison Square Garden here in New York City. They put together a very impressive panel to chat social media and catch a game, and really pulled out all the stops: three big screens broadcasting tweets, official #tweetup t-shirts and those cute little tweetup nametag stickers.  The event was sponsored by Discount Tire: definitely a little different than your run of the mill ‘few folks in a bar’ #tweetup.

The panel featured Amy Jo Martin, head honcho of @digitalroyalty (the folks who did, among other things Random Acts of Shaqness),  Peter Robert Casey ( the first ever media accredited micro-blogger, he covers St John’s basketball here: @Peter_R_Casey), Jim DeLorenzo (a VP at Octagon, the guys who have developed Twackle, a sports tweet aggregator), and Jack Dorsey* (founder of Twitter and Square).  Three sports/marketing folks, and one guy who hand in inventing (or popularizing, depending on how you look at it) micro-blogging. A serious panel indeed.

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Along with a group of 11 diverse consumer tech influencers, Ogilvy PR worked with our client Intel recently to host a day-long visit to the company’s Santa Clara headquarters that included conversations about the digital divide, the latest in mobile technology, eco-computing, and more. The “Upgrade Your Life” event participants, who are prolific gadget and performance content creators, talked with Intel’s executive leadership about ways that technology is improving the lives of women and girls globally.

Photo by Intel’s Ken Kaplan.

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Updated with slight correction from Chris Pan at Facebook.

More from The Word of Mouth Marketing Association University (WOMMA-U, Twitter #WOMMA).

Day 2 kicks off with a panel that is very much top-of-mind for many social media marketers … MySpace vs. Facebook (or both).  Empowered by a healthy dose of morning caffeine I will attempt to live-blog the panel (as such, please pardon my grammar).

The panelists are Heidi Browning, SVP, Insight & Planning, MySpace and Chris Pan, Head of Brand Solutions, Faceboook.  The panel is moderated by David Berkowitz, 360i.

Audiences:

• MySpace: 18-34 is sweet-spot.  125 million worldwide users
• Facebook: 60 million active users in US; 200 million (thanks, Chris Pan of Facebook for the correction) 100 active globally (active = have logged in the past 3 days)

Best practices for working with MySpace and Facebook:

• Know your audience.  Bring your challenge to MySpace and Facebook and they will help you understand your audience’s behavior on the network and how to reach them.
• Brands should strive to be entertaining, engaging or offer some kind of utility.
• Convenience is key.  Users are busy -  make it easy for them to find, consume and share your content.
• Make your profile picture interesting and captivating (see Aflac or Cheetos for good examples).
• Beta mentality … your page doesn’t have to be perfect at launch.  It’s a continuous process, not a one-time event.
• Use their resources:  MySpace created their ad platform to give musicians and small businesses a self-promotion tool.  It’s simple to use, but MySpace also has service representatives to help monitor a brand’s presence on MySpace if the brand doesn’t have the bandwidth.  Facebook also has a sales team that can help brands plus-up their presence with different products and consultation on best practices.
• Yes, marketers should look at social networks as a continuum, but shouldn’t get too caught up in the semantics of campaign vs. conversation.  Use the community tools to create dialogue in between key announcements and product releases.

Measurement

• MySpace looks at the momentum effect …  the value of WOM.  Using a combination of behavioral and survey technology to measure the effect.
• Facebook provides a lot of tools to track engagement - comments on posts, page ratings, etc.

Mistakes marketers make working with Social networks

• Thinking of a your page/presence as something static
• Too consumed with making it perfect right off the bat - be in perpetual beta
• Using canned ads in social networks when these communities offer such rich user targeting data

Other panel notes:

• Vitamin Water distributed 24 million bottles of water with caps that drove to MySpace for access to music and other musical content.  This promotion is being supported by above-the-line tactics.  Music is a big driver of MySpace activity.
• Chris showed Vitamin Water’s presence on Facebook.  The brand used a Kobe vs. Lebron theme, which Chris says was very well received.  Currently 334,000 fans (Facebook estimates that about half those fans would be on Facebook on any given day).
• Chris pointed out that when social data is added to ad content on Facebook (e.g. Your friend Bob likes this video) it’s more well received.
• Chris compared a microsite to a “farm” (a place you visit occasionally); a Facebook page as a “convenience store;” and Facebooks ads as the “delivery service.”
• Jack Bauer has more Facebook fans than “24.” “Gossip Girl” more than the CW.
• Social networks can be used for B2B marketing.  You can target by industry, geography, function, etc.
• Marketers can go here and here to see what other marketers are doing on these networks
• Both MySpace and Facebook will collaborate with brands to maximize their presence.

This week, John Bell and I delivered Facebook Bootcamp for PR, a one-hour training webinar for public relations and marketing professionals hosted by the Bulldog Reporter’s PR University. During the workshop, we shared
key strategies and best practices on how brands can build a successful Facebook strategy, engage with fans through Facebook, and add scale and impact to your Facebook presence through additions like applications and targeted advertising.

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On a recent trip to London I had the chance to speak with Gavin Lennon, Head of Web Services for WPP - the parent company for Ogilvy PR and many other agencies around the world. He shared some insights about creating a global web presence for a group as large as WPP (2000+ offices in 106 countries around the world) and offers an inside look at some new features on the site, including the WPP Reading Room.