Marketing: Fun and Useful – try now!

As a marketing professional I am a fervent believer in the importance and power of brand names. Yet I have also found myself, at an instinctive level, being somewhat dismissive of job titles – the words that describe a role, and, in turn, the person in the role. Why dismissive? Well, I figured that many titles were static, formal window-dressing, and that people in organizations could decode what was really meant. Lately, I have changed my mind on this. Brands should stand for something and be clear in their communication to their audiences. It is easy, but lazy to label people with generic, commoditized job titles. But then this risks mis-understanding, or places a higher burden on the audience to decode. So, perhaps everyone should write their own job title, or at least a description – tagline if you like – of what they do that is important and different. This could be difficult, controversial and even risky. But it would force people to think about what they really do. What would this mean for me? My official job title is “Instructor” or worse, “Lecturer.” I dislike both of these terms. They are cold, mechanical and imply one-way communication. Whenever I am talking to someone and explaining what I do, I find myself saying, “but I don’t lecture….instead I do xyz.”  What is this “xyz?” What should be on my business card?

My conclusion: NICC.

N = Navigator   I = Interpretor  C = Coach   C = Cheerleader.

There! Feeling better, feeling proud, and communicating clearly about what I do as we march into 2012.

I am involved in several situations at the moment where I see the disconnect between strategy and implementation of the intended strategy. Firstly, let me say that “strategy” is one of the most over-used, abused, diluted words in business. It seems that every job title is framed as “strategic” and many people are happier to “strategize” than to actually make things happen. There is no doubt that strategy is important, but tactics and the simple hard work, effort, sweat and hours of implementing the agreed upon strategy should not be overlooked or under appreciated. What I see is a culture of meetings, e-mails and pushing around of data and responsibility – putting off the apparently hard work of getting things done. Elapse time on projects becomes far greater than actual time required, and procrastination and inefficiency lose the day. So, hear is a shout out for those that “do” – those that are pro-active, get away from their laptops and from meetings and do some of the less glamorous work that actually makes a difference, and makes strategy itself meaningful as implementation steps are taken. So, before you go back to e-mails and meetings – think about what part of your day involved tangible progress on making something happen.

Marketers still struggle as they seek to Better Measure Social Media Success reports eMarketer. Despite marketers focus on engagement goals, measures are still on topline numbers – the ROI challenge has not gone away. The desire for easy metrics remains elusive. Required: thoughtful design of multi-tier metrics that link to meaningful goals.

I got to spend some time browsing Radian6 reports recently. This was in an organization with multiple units looking at different campaigns and goals. I was excited to see the possibilities. However, it was also sobering to see that in practice, the easy reporting remains with topline numbers: mentions, follows, reposts etc. The rich work on sentiment, influence and engagement is resource intensive – skilled people are needed to do the interpretation of the monitoring. They can then use these insights to design responses and pro-active campaigns. This means allocating significant human resources to match the software licence commitment. There is still a long way to go for most organizations to make the most of social media. Expect pressure to come on budgets as Finance VPs press marketers to give more account of ROI on existing investment, and as Marketing VPs press for more funding to hire people to make sense of and take action on the data being gathered. This is not easy or new – I wrote on the topic in Aug 2009 and Jeremiah Owyang wrote a very good post Dec 2010. A teaser graphic from his post shows below – hopefully, this tempts you to read the whole article. In conclusion, this is not a new topic and it is not going away. However, there is some good guidance and you do not have to re-invent the wheel. However, marketers need to provide leadership within their organizations, to educate peers and to make the case for increased investment in people to allow for a meaningful program that connects to an ROI plan that makes sense at multiple levels of goals and measurement. If you have read this far then consider also reading the latest post on metrics from Avinash Kaushik. I don’t read many blog posts that are long-form. But I do read posts by Avinash in full, despite their length. He challenges the nonsense of measuring the wrong things and provides some very real food for thought on how you should design your measurement program. It is not easy, but it is important.

Wow: 1971 must have been quite the year to be in Vancouver.

Greenpeace was founded right here in Vancouver in September 1971. Happy Birthday! More on you, below.

But first, back  to 1971. MEC was also founded that year in Vancouver – see my earlier post. 

I followed-up with a search to find various riots and protests, Led Zep, Gay Rights as the metro population topped one million.

I had a chuckle watching Greenpeace’s low key, online video celebration: “40 years of victories.” Not too dramatic or intense – wry humour that caused the viewer to think about the effects resulting from their campaigns. Marketing efforts should trigger a change in attitude and behaviour. To do this, they first have to get noticed. Greenpeace has mastered guerilla marketing – making  a big impact on a small budget. They did this increasingly well offline, but in digital, and especially social media, they have found their voice and medium. They get that social media is word-of-mouth on steroids, and provides the potential to enable communities of passionate fans to take action. Enjoy the ad.

I’ve been following the Google + versus Facebook developments this summer. The fast rise of G+ users has been much reported, and there is a lot of observation and speculation in many much followed sites – Mashable is a good place to read a collection of reposted views with some commentary.  Why do I like Google+? It is the simple and transparent way in which I can put a contact in one or more circles – just as I would in an offline world. A colleague at work who I know runs – I also add them to my running circle.

What will be interesting to see over the coming months is people’s willingness to run FB and G+ in parallel. Will some people keep both for different purposes? Will the switching costs be a deterrent, or will the opportunity to “start over” be appealing for some?

One of the big advantages that FB has currently is the number and ease of ways in which people can publish to FB at the click of a button. G+ still needs to overcome this – for example, Hootsuite is chomping at the bit to be able to add G+ publishing functionality – indeed, it is the most requested new G+ feature in Google’s own user forums. Here’s hoping! Meanwhile, jump in and play and compare: G+ and FB, for both personal and brand use. Experiment and take a point of view!

Some of you will have noticed that I’ve been playing with paper.li – a simple, free tool that allows aggregation and daily publishing, newspaper style, of the content from those that you follow. But it shows them in longer form than the tweets, “unpacking” from the bit.ly and other links, including video and photos. This makes it quicker and easier to get an overview of content in a usable way without opening links from Twitter directly. I’m hooked. I’ve been looking for examples of organizations using it well. I like what Visit Florida is doing. They showcase their members and partners by following their tweets. It might become problematic if there is a high volume of following, but, so far, this seems like a positive development.

By June 20th (Mon afternoon), Tourism BC did not have any overt reference to the riots on its home page – but had created a separate micro site, http://thisisourvancouver.com/

I’m not sure what to make of this initiative – there are already popular blogs and community sites about what makes Vancouver special, such as http://vancouverisawesome.com/ So, if the new “apology” site is to have much of a life then the community of users will need to shape it into something more long-term that is different from what already exists. Meanwhile, for the rest of the world looking in, read on, below the screenshot…….

So, what about potential visitors considering whether to book and come to Vancouver, or possibly to cancel their summer plans? Over-turned police cars burning in the street…..people might be understandably unsure. So, where do travellers go to get an update on information and advice that they can trust? To the #1 travel website community that they probably used in their initial planning – TripAdvisor. Now, I’m not sure if Tourism  BC and Vancouver Tourism have ignored this by accident, or if they have their finger on the pulse and realize that when the community supports itself then it is better to let members speak, authentically, rather than to jump in with official and formal messaging. Check out the Trip Advisor general questions about Vancouver (June 20th).  One of the two most active question threads are from a potential visitor from Baltimore concerned to know if she should change her plans because of the June 15th riot. See screenshot below, and read on……

Lots of positive comments including from non-Vancouverites, although, unfortunately, it goes a bit sideways on a “hockey is violent” rant.  The second thread is set up by a Vancouverite, but clearly has positive influence on some potential American travellers who read it. Individual operators can sometimes feel the need to jump in and respond quickly to all posts in Trip Advisor, BUT….IF….you have an active, concerned community that is also informed, then you can monitor and stand back.

The shocking, violent, destructive aftermath of the Game 7 loss on June 15th has been sen and heard around the world. Quite the contrast to the first 6 games where large crowds partied happily – and of course the Olympics. If anyone can remember the pre-Olympic criticism of Vancouver was that it was a “no fun city.” Threats of an end to the summer fireworks and other festivals as sponsorship dwindled fuelled a real debate about what sort of city we want. Not a closed down, stay at home, watch on your TV city (see Boston) – but a vibrant, livable, social happening city. After a year of vibrancy and energy Wednesday night saw this vision challenged.

Citizens are rightfully concerned. Those in tourism will be squirming at the thought of the damage done to reputation. We still have to wait and see if visitors cancel planned trips. But, as a minimum, I would expect to see bold statements in the media – and yes, in social media – from a range of people.

Who have we heard from? Mayor Gregor Robertson. Tick. Active in all channels including Twitter on night of troubles.

The Vancouver Canucks or NHL – not yet.

Tourism BC – not yet.

Tourism Vancouver – public apology. See below. Good marks for intent and speed. Saying SORRY – acknowledging wrong-doing is a start.

Google’s custom icons are quirky and keep its personality vibrant. To-day would have been Les Paul’s 96th birthday. In celebration of this guitar great the interactive, musical icon is particularly fitting. Screenshot below, and then short video to show you what your mouse could have done if you missed it on the day. Go Google!

There are certain words that are heavily used in marketing – they risk becoming buzzwords and attracting skepticism, and possibly, in the longer term, losing meaning. This is a shame, as the origins of  a word and the concept it underpins are typically rich and relevant for the initially selected purpose. So, it is important for marketers to re-inject meaning into their chosen language so that it communicates as intended, and resonates with the audience – engaging and inspiring rather than confusing or diffusing interest.

So, what is community, and specifically, what is a brand community? Earlier this month, the BCAMA’s Marketline Magazine’s feature topic was “community.” There are several interesting perspectives that I encourage you to explore – full text available by clicking through on the link in this paragraph. I authored the piece on p15-16. Indeed, if you read the article (it’s only 2 pages!) – you’ll see that I interviewed two local marketers on their view of community within their roles. I talked with marketers at VanCity and Whitecaps FC and they were generous in sharing their thinking. Brands cannot own communities, but they can help to inspire them, support them, and harness them. This is part of the broader trend to user generated content, pull and permission as opposed to push and interrupt, and earned vs. paid marketing. Take a read and think through your approach to community in brand marketing – and how you will use language in your marketing role.