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Resolution Inspiration from Maker’s Mark

Resolution Inspiration from Maker’s Mark

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Last month, I met Bill Samuels, Jr. in the flesh. That name may not ring a bell for you, but for me and thousands of Maker’s Mark ambassadors, meeting the master distiller, current company president, and son of the founder of a truly beloved brand is a very big deal. Perhaps more importantly to me, this company’s philosophy and deep respect for their customers was one of the first to get me excited about the power of Word of Mouth Marketing when I heard Jackie Huba tell their ambassador story (check out her podcast interview with Bill Samuels, Jr here) almost 5 years ago.

Bill was in attendance at the December 16 WOM Supergenius conference in Chicago where I along with some other old WOMMA friends including Jake McKee, Spike Jones, and John Moore was speaking at the invitation of Andy Sernovitz and his team from Gaspedal.  While all the sessions were great, Bill’s was the only one where I broke out a pen and started trying to capture what was being said word for word.

What better way to kick off 2010 than remembering why we care about WOM in the first place from a brand that is most certainly worthy of a weekend (or a 6 year ambassadorship)?   Thus, enjoy the paraphrased quotes from Bill Samuels, Jr  – some of which originated with from his dad.  I hope they can inspire us all to a 2010 of meaningful marketing resolutions…

bill samuels jr<our target audience is…> Anyone with an above average interest in taste and taste distinctiveness that we would enjoy having home for dinner.

<how will we reach them?> We will not enter the airspace of anyone who has not invited us to enter it.

We will talk to the people who want to talk to us.

Wherever we travel, we blow the whistle at 5 and they all come running.

We send Ambassadors text emails from Bill, because your friends don’t send you Flash emails.

Surprise and delight is more powerful than a reward triggered by taking an action.

Every gift we send is a tool to help you introduce your friends to your brand, Maker’s Mark.

Thanks for the reminders, Bill.  And for the reminder to specify brands when ordering a bourbon & ginger.

Eating our Digital Vegetables

Eating our Digital Vegetables

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vegetables for blogI’m pretty sure my name has been passed around on a “parents of young children = sucker for personalized gifts” list. This Christmas, my home and inbox have been deluged with offers for personalized stationery, christmas cards, coasters, ornaments, dog bowls, you name it – anything that will hold still long enough to be emblazoned with my child’s image. While the targeting is great and I’ve found most quite enticing, when its come time to actually order, I’ve discovered that many of these companies have forgotten to take care of the core of their online customer experience – their web sites. Have videos, fan pages, and Twitter strategies become the dessert that we can’t wait to eat first? Did we skip the marcom meat and potatoes this year?

The reason for the marketing/site hiccup is is probably pretty simple – in most organizations, the team that controls the experience and the team driving people to that site are usually different. However, they have to be in sync for the company to realize value from either group’s efforts. Here are a few quick best practices to make sure your marketing team is maximizing holiday joy and minimizing abandoned carts:

1) Stable sites – having a 1-day sale or special until midnight? Ignore the Twitter playbook and go for zero downtime during the holiday.
2) Tell me I’m in the right place – Whatever marketing used to get me to the site should be front and center
3) Make my “work” as easy as possible – There is definitely “some assembly required” on those personalized gifts. I tried ordering photo ornaments on 5 different sites before I found an option that was attractive, functional (allowing the upload/editing), and where the cart actually worked when it was time for the credit card. It’s all about the basics.
4) Transparent promotions – This one will be unpopular, but the ability to search online makes the fact that some channels or sub-groups are getting a better deal than others readily apparent. Experiment with earning loyalty by serving up the most relevant promotions.
5) Message Integration Cross-Channel – If this week’s theme is outerwear or helicopters, carry it through. During such a cluttered time of year, the shopper won’t be able to absorb different messages through different channels at the same time (e.g. Old Navy’s weekly messages + their Facebook conversation calendar).
5) Make it easy to get help or advice – Livechat, email that actually gets answered, FAQ, or a link to your Facebook wall – whatever it may be, give me some help options.

And with that, I’m off to knock the last few items off my list…

Tools to Spread Compassion

Tools to Spread Compassion

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This morning I was lucky enough to attend the unveiling of the words of the Charter for Compassion here in DC. The Charter for Compassion is the culmination of Karen Armstrong’s TED Prize 2008 wish, which I have discussed on the Ogilvy blog. We have been lucky enough to work with TED, Karen and the host of other players involved in putting this important document into the world in enough ways for it to reach around the world in a way that inspires action – not another Cumbaya moment.

Here are 3 of my favorite communications pieces:

1) The widget below allows you to read the charter in English, Arabic, Spanish, and Hebrew and affirm it directly in the widget.  If you are inspired by this project, please click “share” and consider embedding on your own site or blog.

2) The second is a video of people from all walks of life reading the words of the charter itself.  This was debuted at the event this morning and created some heartswell.

3) The final is a piece that our team in Australia (under the leadership of DC ex-pat Brian Giesen) put together with an amazing lineup of Australian bloggers and personalities.

Australians on Compassion from TED Prize on Vimeo.

Social media has been a hero in this project – called out by all the religious dignitaries involved as helping to facilitate collaboration on definitions of compassion and crafting the charter itself.  If this good news can then spread the word of this collaborative and inspirational document, it will truly be the first, instead of the last chapter of something special.

Enthusiast vs Influencer Event Best Practices

Enthusiast vs Influencer Event Best Practices

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For a few years at this point, I’ve written about Brands Worth of a Weekend – where the weekend in question is a one for enthusiasts to come together and bond with the people behind their passion brands.  Meanwhile, Influencer Events – where influentual bloggers/tweeters and the like are invited to spend a day or two having a brand experience – have exploded in frequency.  While each may be classified as events for content creators and there are some best practice similarities (make personal connections, send a thank you, be clear about where and how content can be tagged), I would argue that there are even more differences.

The below table is a consolidation of lessons shared in an internal discussion of 360 DI strategists across the network for best practices before during and after an event.

Enthusiast Events

Influencer Events
Before
  • Co-Create the event agenda.  They already know a lot about the brand and will be able to offer a lot of instruction on what they want to see.
  • This is also an opportunity to build excitement – send something for them to wear to arrive or a special assignment.
  • Provide opportunities to experience the brand prior to the event so that they will get the most out of the time on the ground.
  • Also, ask them what would be helpful – many bloggers have had multiple of these experiences and can tell you what they do and don’t want.
During
  • You don’t need to “sell” this group on the brand, but the bar on what constitutes “exclusive” experiences or information will be very high as they already know so much.
  • The opportunity is for time for people to connect – enthusiasts to one another and to brand teams.
  • Give a thorough “background” (origin, invention or founding story) to level set on knowledge
  • Air out your agenda to allow lots of time for liveblogging & tweeting
  • Design photo ops or “moments” worthy of documenting.  Shoot video footage, photos, or audio as appropriate.
After
  • Provide ongoing ways to stay in touch with the people assembled (Facebook group, brand community, etc)
  • Channel your enthusiasts’ energy!  Provide suggestions for ways they can help you – product testing, house parties, store visits – see how they might want to help.
  • Follow up with edits of the media you created and any appropriate tagging instructions for media uploads
  • Keep this group at the top of your list for other outreach opportunities

An additional follow up consideration for all, especially for complex programs, is Social Influencer Relationship Management.

If you have some experience designing or participating in these brand events, please throw in your $.02.  I think it could benefit all parties to avoid the pitfalls in mistaking participants invited due to their audience and influence for people who are already passionate about everything your brand does.

Addressing Social Media Ageism

Addressing Social Media Ageism

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ABA graphWhat you see above is are the top reasons that marketers within the American Bankers Association have not yet added social media marketing to their current mix (taken from a longer survey on the state of SMMarketing in Banking).  While the options listed are all important, the top reason for reluctance that came out in discussions in a learning lab I hosted at the ABA Marketing conference last week is not listed.  That reason is some combination of the following: “I am/my marketing manager is/my customers are TOO OLD for this stuff.”

How do you handle this statement? In the past, I have chosen to fight it with a mountain of demographic data (or the handy Forrester technographics tool), but demographic data can easily be dismissed as too generic or inflated.  This is as much a state of mind issue as state of the reality issue anyway. Here are some other options to address:
• Train and encourage personal social media adoption in the workplace. Once it becomes a part of your life, it is much easier to understand the benefits, relevance to your customers, and how your might marry the two. This is  harder than it seems – it is very easy to help someone set up a Facebook account, but an uphill battle to get them to use it.
• Get specific data on your customers’ social media usage. This could be done through primary methods like polls or through secondary research such as looking for mentions in social media (free tools include Summize Twitter search, searching on Facebook, or Google Blogsearch). While demographic data may not hold water with your peers, demonstrating that  your customers are looking for you is extremely compelling.
• Run a pilot in your “Sweet Spot” to show results. When all else fails, ask forgiveness.  (note: this could be risky, but sometimes very successful).

What have YOU done in your workplace, your agency, or around your dinner table to respond when you hear that social media is just for kids?