Category: Brand

  • Banking on data

    There was an article recently at PSFK, which, in addition to the impending data explosion, also talks of the need for brands to invest in technology to mine, analyse and identify changing consumer needs and opportunities. Though probably, at a later stage, the automatic ‘sensors’ mentioned in the article would beat the self-expression media services as the largest data source, at this stage, the latter seem to be the biggest contributors.

    So what is the data that’s getting generated? As social networks evolve, the role that they play in the individual’s life is also evolving. While flow of information, and communication seem to find social networks as natural conduits, the networks are also now sources of entertainment for many. (study by Edelman) What does this entail for brands, their communication and the content they generate?

    Amidst the social network revolution, brands have been trying hard to eke out a place for themselves – to slide in easily into the conversations, and lives of individual users. Some have been successful, and some have not, the latter mostly when they try to use these as distribution channels for other media content alone. I read a few days back that the two official sponsors for the World Cup – Adidas and Coke, had been trumped by their competitors – Nike, and Pepsi, as far as WOM goes. Not surprising, both tell excellent stories. It makes us feel.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQmu48sZohc

    There’s this excellent presentation by Rory Sutherland about intangible, and perceived value that brands create. A bit dated, but I happened to see it recently. It made me think about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and the tangibility of various levels.

    As civilisation advances and scarcities and abundance are rapidly traded, and as brands progress, don’t the lower levels of Maslow’s needs hierarchy become hygiene? So, would users prefer brands that help them in the esteem and self actualisation areas? It perhaps might be an example of ‘seeing the subtext you want to see’, but the Nike ad – ‘Write the Future’ seemed to be all about self actualisation and the Pepsi’s ‘Oh Africa’ seemed to be all about an ever-changing crowd that seems to be impossible to keep pace with. To quote Clay Shirky, “The category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity.”

    Which brings me back to the data explosion. The challenge, I guess, is an old one. Finding motivations, sensing patterns out of all the data to understand why we ‘Like’, why we ‘share’, and so on, and then give us a value proposition. With rapidly evolving technologies, even the value needs to adapt much faster than before, because if the brand is late, there’ll be another that delivers. But then again, at higher need levels, when the individuality/uniqueness quotient increases, will the manifestation of needs show a collective pattern? Or will the individual’s behaviour pattern become more important for brands? Multiple data sets, multiple patterns, multiple challenges. Interesting times indeed 🙂

    Meanwhile, here’s one closer home. (via Gaurav) A very interesting project by Tithiya Sharma – The 100 Heroes Project. I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful story and if I were an airline brand or even a MakeMyTrip/Cleartrip or anything to do with travel, I’d take a look at the project.

    until next time, tripping on data

  • PR – Public Relationship

    The control a brand has, or rather the lack of it, was evident in two examples I saw recently. Both became viral, one at a very small level, and the other, a huge global one. You must’ve guessed the second one easily enough. Meanwhile, the first was ‘Bros Icing Bros‘ and linked to the Smirnoff brand, unofficially. You can read the details here. The way the game worked – “a person presents a friend (err, “bro”) with a Smirnoff Ice which they must then and there – regardless of time, location or context – take on bended knee and chug the entire bottle. The exception is if that friend himself (or herself) is carrying a Smirnoff Ice – in that case, the original presenter must chug both “Ices””  A case of user generated brand buzz, which perhaps did good for the product and was relatively non-detrimental to the brand.

    And there’s the first example, which is easily becoming THE example now, for bad PR. BP – if the spill wasn’t bad enough, there was the spillage – the fake PR account – advice on what/why BP should or should not do with it, the tweet billboards, an old (fake) ad, the ironic sign, the ghastly, ghastly images, the user created logos, a coffee parody, and the post from the man who created BPGlobalPR. BP’s losses as a brand (intangible?) is much more than the real $costs that have been speculated. Meanwhile, it has finally reached out to the @BPGlobalPR account. (While on the topic, do check out Rob Cottingham’s excellent take on the subject)

    The only commonality I’m looking at is the user generated content (or discontent). I don’t think this is an area which can be gamed easily. Sure, you can try to manipulate events and people, and search engines, try some good old PR, but there are no guarantees that it won’t boomerang. And I think it holds true across the spectrum – the two cases are polar opposites in terms of magnitude of the event, what the crowd did to it, and what the brand tried to do.

    Deviating a bit. I read “Arundhati Roy on ‘War of People‘”, where she took the scope of the Naxal issue into corporate boardrooms, and was immediately reminded of Umair Haque’s latest post titled “Ethical Capital is Capitalism’s new cornerstone“. He defines Ethical capital as “the stock of techniques, tools, and practices not just for creating value, but for defining and refining values, that an economy possesses”, and CSR, social investment, social entrepreneurship etc as the baby steps towards building it. But the corporate world still doesn’t understand the rewiring, as he himself notes. And here’s where we loop back, I don’t think this building of ethical capital can be gamed either.

    I can spot an increasing number of efforts – Pepsi’s Refresh Project, their efforts for production sustainability, Nokia’s eco profile for new products, their bicycle charger kit, to name a few. While the cynic in me sometimes disses official CSR, I realise its perhaps a level that has to be crossed before we reach out for bigger things. I also see efforts from the consumer side  –  CarrotMob (via Surekha)

    I see all of this as a trend where users are linking the brands they use, and their consumption, to the larger context of their lives and the even larger context of the world they inhabit, and the culture they consume and create. The ‘badges’ have changed, they’d like to associate themselves with brands that accommodate or at least work towards these badges.  In the foreseeable future, I think that brands which understand this will not only align more people on their side, but also have inherent features and processes which would allow them to be transparent, reduce these costly mistakes, and admit to their mistakes without the PR approaches that are drawing flak now.

    until next time, PR pressure?

  • On location.. and beyond

    A few weeks back, @gkjohn and I were  invited to Chandu’s Military hotel in Malleswaram by the inimitable @parthajha . After an amazing meal, we walked back to where I’d parked my vehicle – Mantri Square, the new mall that had sprung up in the locality. It was new enough to be regarded as a shrine/tourist spot by many, and was already creating many traffic hassles. Both my companions had seen/lived in Bangalore much longer than I have, and shared interesting stories on Bangalore’s evolution. The new mall, and the changes in Malleswaram (which happens to be one of Bangalore’s oldest  residential localities) made me think aloud that soon, a locality’s culture (as expressed by stories about the place, people, historical locations as well as relatively unknown joints like Chandu’s) would begin to get packaged, as people  – both the city’s inhabitants as well as tourists, might want to look beyond the ‘sterile’ mall-multiplex-pubs-eateries jungle, and have more diverse experiences.

    And then, a few days back, i saw this article in PSFK titled ‘The Birth of the Microhood‘, which talks about an organisation called The Bold Italic initiating “a celebration of pocket microhoods through block parties and featured cross-sections across the city, introducing and promoting the social net worth of the people and businesses that inhabit them”. You can check out the details of the last event here, and the comments on Facebook here. Note the different establishments taking part.

    Those familiar to Bangalore might know of BangaloreWalks, which undertakes themed walks. With new services and technologies popping up and developing at a rapid pace, I wondered about the possibilities. On Foursquare, Chicago was a pioneer, allowing users to earn badges while exploring the city. Now Pennsylvania has followed suit. (via Mashable) There’s more. Check out the Augmented Reality iPhone app from the Museum of London. (via Gizmodo). The way it works – hold the iPhone up to a present day London street scene, the app shows the same location as it looked in the olden days. Tap a button and you get historical facts about the place. Meanwhile, QR codes have been around for quite a while now, also noticed Microsoft’s “tag” a few days back. While on the subject, also check out stickybits, a ‘fun and social way to attach digital content to real world objects’, through barcodes (existing ones, or new ones you print), and an app.

    Imagine a Coke/Pepsi/Kingfisher using this to tell us the origins of various iconic retail establishments they tie up with? Imagine augmented reality apps that allow an establishment to show us consumer reviews of the food it serves, or some content from the chef, say, how he’s made the dish. Relatively unimaginative, yes, but we haven’t even got there yet. 🙂 With the new version of location becoming increasingly important for brands, its perhaps time to check out the potential of using these services. A new way of aggregating content – videos, photos, literature – basis the location a person is in. More than anything else, i feel they offer splendid new means of storytelling, a way of making a brand go beyond the transactional relationship with its consumers, and the constraints of real time/space. It links the brand and its consumers through culture and shared experiences.

    until next time, vocal locals 🙂

    PS: To-do – check out my, ahem, interview at the newly launched www.foursquaretalk.com 😉

  • Go-to-social media

    A few weeks back, I’d mentioned Tac Anderson’s ‘3 types of social media strategy‘ . To quickly summarise, the first is the ‘toe-in-the-water’ approach (not really a strategy), the second is ‘optimising social media for business’ and the third is ‘optimising business for social media’. That happens to be the decreasing order in terms of current practices, probably because its also the increasing order, in terms of thought, effort and time required.

    I am quite a fan of the third approach and saw this excellent presentation by David Cushman, a few days back, which showed why ‘optimising business for social media’ is perhaps the best way in the long run. In fact, it does it in such a way that it almost seems like an afterthought. On the way, it addresses the much maligned combination of words – ‘social’ and ‘media’, and the subject of ROI.

    Using + social media = fail (smib)

    Like I said, I don’t require any convincing on the third approach too, but the more I interact with clients, I begin to understand that with all the hype, the expectations of social media are akin to the other forms of media, and the stereotyped Facebook page and Twitter account are much sought after in the strategy presentation. And that forces me to think whether we can start with approach 2, and move towards approach 3.  The feedback from open social channels slowly creating a change within the organisation and making it view everything with a different perspective. That’s quite a change from asking for perfect products and services which could ‘withstand’ social media. 🙂

    Meanwhile, I looked at it from another perspective when I chanced upon the new IndiGo Airlines ad, thanks to a post by L.Bhat. The spunky ad, which you can view here, is shot extremely well and showcases IndiGo’s dedication to being on time. Bhat raised a valid point that this punctuality might actually be beyond their control, in some cases. I completely agree, but like I commented, I’ve used IndiGo several times, and have never had a reason to complain. All the people who’ve commented on YouTube seem to agree.

    I have to confess, there’s a style to Indigo that I’m quite a fan of. Right from the way they have communicated this data  below (do note the revenues, number of flights, market share, and compare)  inside the flight, to the menu items to their stickers and even their barf bag, they are quite unique, they have an attitude and are not afraid to show it.Check this out. (thanks @gkjohn)

    Clipboard01

    (Source: Outlook)

    DSC03160 DSC03161

    (Can’t remember other airlines, I know Spicejet has quite plain stuff, anyway I liked these enough to keep a copy 😀 )

    No, i wasn’t digressing. From what I read, IndiGo is hardly a major player in the social media space. But I think the TVC is a good way of approaching what would have been ‘strategy 2’, with a conscious design of reaching strategy 3. All that, without social media. A purely communication  (internal and external)+ organisational culture based approach to  creating a social business. That may not be Indigo’s strategic intent, but it does make me think. Is it possible? 🙂

    What can be done to this with social media, is a different discussion altogether.

    until next time, thoughts in the air

    Bonus: “Culture eats strategy for lunch” via Gautam Ghosh.

     

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiFMJfrCO_0

  • Online Segmenting and segregating

    We’ll start the thought from the easiest place. Facebook. 🙂 From industry leaders quitting Facebook to TC stating that media attacks on FB are getting out of hand, to Facebook deciding to launch ‘simplistic’ privacy options, there’s a ton of reading material out there. (I liked Danah Boyd’s ‘rant‘ quite a bit) But let’s get to the scope of the post, before i digress way out.

    I think it might be safe to assume  that we are different persons to different people. To the large set of siblings, friends, relatives, acquaintances and the various people we interact with, we share different aspects and versions of our personality, depending on the nature, time, depth, even expectations of our interactions and relationships. So, in a Facebook context too, we would like to retain different levels of sharing and communicating too, in spite of Mark Zuckerberg thinking that having two identities shows a lack of integrity. I think this might be the core of the current tussle – a failure to understand the need to segregate connections, and therefore the content that gets distributed to them.

    When i read Adam Singer’s take on Chris Brogan’s post, I was completely in agreement, because I think HE has nailed a universal truth about normalisation. The last part of the post also mentions how we write basis the kind of audience we’d like. That is a kind of content segregation too, and it is necessary now more than ever, because of content abundance.

    It’s not just to do with publishing, it is also to do with the kind of communities we become a part of. The net provides tools which allows us to aggregate  people like ourselves – basis interests, attitudes, beliefs, and if everything else fails, even location 😀  My point, there’s segregation all around.

    Which brings me to the usual suspect – brands. I started on this last week, and found myself thinking of it during the recent UTV Bindass scuffle. Now, if we go by UTV’s brand communication, its clearly a youth brand. I’ve realised that ‘Youth’ is a very flexible segmentation, and people my age might argue that its all in the mind etc, but it was interesting to see that the average age of opinion sharers was on the erm, riper side of 30. I wonder if the brand would want this audience segment as its viewers.

    It reminds me of the Facebook user’s need for segregation choices. While the net gives the brand tools to find users in a desired segment/demographic, and the brand can limit itself to engaging them specifically, there really is no way to prevent interactions coming from/happening outside the segment. In an earlier era, it was easy, because it was mostly one way communication. Now, what does a brand do if its dragged into a conversation? The non-open options (protected tweets, invite-only community etc) are not really great. Now some would say that this thought approach is close to advocating control for brands – which is a strict no-no as per the tenets of social media 🙂 – but I can’t help but think of the choice that the brand might want in terms of the discussions they want to be part of.  In a case like Bindass, will “Thank you for the feedback, but we all know that different audience sets have different needs and likes. Hope to have some programming that you’ll like, soon.” really cut it?

    In Facebook’s case, while i can perhaps understand Zuckerberg’s version of how radical transparency will make us all better, I’ll still make a case for it to be a user’s choice, unhindered by beguiling ToS and changes to it. Similarly, in a scenario in which mobs and brand-baiting are rapidly on the rise, I’d say there should be a freedom of choice for brands too. How brands use it is a different discussion altogether.

    until next time, the answer, my friend, is flowin in the stream 🙂

    PS: Noted that Hippo, which is doing some excellent work on Twitter, replied to Tony’s Hippo-crates wordplay, (reply) but ignored the (same) one which i’d tweeted a couple of days earlier. (btw, he usually beats me to most wordplay stuff and more importantly, gives credit to original tweets when he doesn’t) Anyway, smart segmentation, Hippo knows i almost never snack.

    PPS: Its got nothing to do with the fact that Tony is almost a decade younger, okay? 😉