brand marketers

In Brands We Trust – Why Brands Must Treat Trust Like Gold

Back in January of this year I wrote a piece which spoke to the need for every marketer to remember a certain nine-letter word: Relevance. And while I firmly stand by what I penned then I am here to tell not just every marketer, but every advertiser and brand under the sun as well that there’s a five-letter word that must be treated like gold for when it is achieved, wondrous things can occur.

The word is trust.

Now the word “trust” in it of itself has many different connotations and in the context of advertising, marketing and branding it comes in different shapes, size and meanings, too.

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For Brands There’s A Fine Line Between Capitalism And Capitalization – At Least There Should Be

I realized in penning this particular article that there are some brands who simply will not care. They will not care about crossing any lines – fine or otherwise. They will do whatever it takes, regardless of such minor details as ethics and morals, to move their product, whatever said product may be.

They will go right on doing what they’ve always done which is to essentially use any medium necessary – email, print, direct marketing, TV, radio, mobile and on and on to drive their message home to as many consumers they possibly can.

For these brands there is no line between capitalism and capitalization.

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What Brands And Marketers Can Learn From A Flight Attendant

The word “transparency” has become quite popular over the last few years. It is most often used in the social media world and anything related to anything in the online space for that matter.

The need for brands, marketers – truthfully all of us, to be completely transparent is paramount in today’s world.

What Brands And Marketers Can Learn From A Flight Attendant image 300px Pan Am 1970s flight attendant14This past July I wrote an article A Transparent, Live Case Study Of A Company Going Social which told the story of a company called Domo, its CEO Josh James and his very forward-thinking ideas on the use of social media among his employees.

So that’s one example of the use of the word “transparent.”What Brands And Marketers Can Learn From A Flight Attendant image trans

Back in 2010 I wrote a piece entitled About that whole transparency in social media thing…

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What Will Become Of The Lance Armstrong Brand?

The sordid tale of Lance Armstrong is unfolding right before our eyes across the web, social media and of course TV in addition to pretty much every other channel known to man.

AUSTIN, TX - JANUARY 14: In this handout phot...

Back in August of this year I wrote an article about Penn State and if their brand had received the death penalty. While obviously different on many fronts, there are some similarities between Penn State and Lance Armstrong when it comes to branding and there’s a lesson for all marketers and advertisers.

The opening two paragraphs of the aforementioned Penn State article fit like a glove when overlaid onto the Lance Armstrong saga:

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Do Brands Have A Responsibility When It Comes To Packaging?

Last year I wrote a story about The Most Misleading Packaging Design I Have Ever Seen. The inspiration for my article came from a text message my wife had sent me while at our kids’ school.

The text message include a picture and, as I wrote originally “What I thought was one thing turned out to be something completely different entirely and made me want to openly question the motives behind brand packaging design.”

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Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat But…

Curiosity May Have Killed The Cat But Complacency Will Kill The Marketer

Not long ago I told you of the One Quarter Of American Consumers (who) Are Brand Loyal. That indeed is a very telling statistic which came from a survey conducted by Ernst & Young. Today comes the results of another survey, this one done jointly by Acxiom and Loyalty360, which sheds some light on why so few consumers are brand loyal. And it all comes to down one word.
com·pla·cen·cy – a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger
I give you exhibit A…
That’s right boys and girls, 60% of all the respondents – who were comprised of executives in both B2B and B2C companies from a cross section of industries, dedicate less than 20% of their marketing budget to customer retention.

Bah Humbug – Lack Of Mobile Integration Means Not So Happy Holidays For Brands

You know, there are some things in life that never cease to amaze. For instance, how is it after all these years of marriage (we’re approaching 20) I still somehow manage to do exactly the opposite of what my wife really wants me to do? You would think during the course of my marriage I would do onething the way she intended it to be done, yes?

Um, no.

Another thing that never ceases to me amaze me, as we approach the holiday season in the year 2012 is the fact that so many brands, still are not integrating their offline with their online marketing strategies.

“A report from global interactive marketing provider ExactTarget found more than half of America’s fastest growing retailers have yet to fully connect online and offline shopping experience, leaving shoppers unsatisfied with their shopping experience.”

Two phones with mobile internet capability dis...The live above is from a press release I received recently. The headline of the release was even more ominous: Research Finds a ‘Mobile Chasm’ Between Retailers, Consumers Heading into Holiday Shopping Season. 

Wow. Anytime you throw the word “chasm” into a conversation and use it to describe any type of gap or hole, you know instantly that said gap or hole is as Mike Myers might say, friggin huge!

Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget’s vice president of marketing research and education says as they gear up for the holidays, marketers need to “consider how consumers use their mobile phones while shopping,” adding “shoppers are turning to their phones for coupons, promotions and discounts, and marketers have a never-before-seen opportunity to transform these interactions into ongoing conversations that drive sales and repeat purchases.”

The press release also makes mention of a Forrester report from earlier this year which, among others, reported that:

  • Twice as many consumers compared to last year are researching products for purchase using their mobile device
  • More U.S. mobile phone owners are downloading applications and receiving SMS/text alerts compared to last year

Should any of this surprise or amaze you? If it does, it’s time to think about a career change if you’re currently in a marketing or advertising related position. Seriously, if you don’t already know of the impact of Mobile Marketing, I would like you to draw me a picture of the rock you clearly have been living under.

It should also come as no surprise that the lack of online and offline integration is “leaving shoppers unsatisfied with their shopping experience.”

Last July I wrote an article titled Shoppers Want Integration, Retailers And Marketers Not Delivering It in which I made reference to two separate reports/surveys which revealed that integration, along with convenience and service are what consumers want most but find most retailers and retail marketers don’t deliver.

From the reports/surveys:

Integration (consistency) – What Consumers Want

  • 85% want an integrated shopping experience
  • 72% want an integrated marketing approach

Integration (consistency) – What Consumers Currently Get

  • 50% get an integrated shopping experience
  • 39% get an integrated marketing approach

Looking at the gap in percentages between what consumers want vs. what they actually get may or may not qualify as being “chasm-worthy” but make no mistake about it, there is a major disconnect for sure. And it’s not as if marketers don’t want to deliver an integrated approach, either.

From another article, this one titled aptly enough Marketing Integration: What Every Marketer Wants For Christmas:

The article was written last December and the above is a from survey conducted by Webmarketing123. You’ll notice that marketing integration outscored search engine marketing, PPC, even social media when it comes to what marketers want to learn. Yes Virginia, it even outscored social media.

So why then does integration continue to be The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers?

Can’t we find a couch and Chuck Woolery and make a love connection between offline and online marketing strategies? Can it be that difficult?

This past May I made a trip back to the future of sorts, looking at Integrated Marketing Communications – Then And Now. I made reference to something that was written all the way back in the year 1999 in the The Journal of Marketing Communications: “The need to strive for greater integration is considered inevitable by many, although the means by which such integration may be achieved is uncertain.”

Seems the inevitability has come to fruition where the means is still something many are still seeking.

Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski is a freelance copywriter/blogger looking for full-time work. He has worked on some of the biggest brands in the world and has more than 20 years experience in advertising and marketing. He lives in Philly and can be reached via email,Twitter, LinkedIn, or his website.

 

When Taglines Go Bad – The Best Buy Saga

So there I was minding my own business when I came across an article on Fast Company entitled What Every CEO Can Learn From Best Buy’s (Continued) Branding Mistakes. Written by David Brier, who I know to be not only a great writer but also a branding expert, the article made reference to the new tagline the much-maligned Best Buy recently trotted out after what was surely an exhaustive 18-month odyssey. Truth be told the 18 months was spent “working to reframe the retailer’s brand proposition” and the new tagline was one item that came out of said reframing.

The new tagline for Best Buy is, wait for it “Making technology work for you.”

In his article Brier refers to the tagline as “not only tired, it is a death sentence that is bland, old, worn, uninspired and not reflective of a single strand of your customer’s aspirations.” He also, quite correctly I might add, says the tagline “reeks of “marketing speak” and “committee-itis.”

He goes on to talk about branding in general but I want to focus squarely on this horrifically bad tagline.

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Did The Penn State Brand Get The Death Penalty?

There are no shortage of definitions for the term “brand equity.” You probably have your favorite. This is one of mine, especially in the context of the Penn State brand: “A brand’s power derived from the goodwill and name recognition that it has earned over time, which translates into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands.”

The reason I like this particular definition when it is applied to the brand of Penn State is because of words like “goodwill” and “name recognition” and “earned over time.”

Clearly the Penn State brand, with Joe Paterno at the helm for over 45 years, wielded the power that came from goodwill while garnering name recognition, which in turn lead to higher sales and higher profit margins – that in the university world translates to an increasing level of enrollment and an increasing level of monetary donations from alumni. All of which makes the competing brands green with envy for sure.

At its peak, which for all intents and purposes was anytime right up until the world found out about Jerry Sandusky – the Penn State brand possessed a tremendous amount of brand equity.

Yet as we now know, this once seemingly invincible and impenetrable brand, has been reduced to a mere shell of its former self.

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Are brands wielding more influence in Social Media than we thought?

As one who has read, dissected and written about many a study regarding social media, brands and consumers, I can tell you I for one was quite surprised to see read the findings of a survey recently conducted by Market Force – a worldwide leader in customer intelligence solutions.

In querying more than 12,000 consumers in the US and UK, they wanted to see how consumers engaged with varying industries – retail, restaurant, travel, entertainment and financial businesses to be specific, via the big dogs of social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

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