Category Archives: Blog Posts

What Denny’s Can Teach About Branding

I love Denny’s. A hearty bacon and egg breakfast is one of my all-time favourite meals. A Grand Slamwich tastes phenomenal – especially if after a night of drinking. (I’m glad Denny’s is opening up to the fact that being open 24/7 means that many of their late night patrons may be intoxicated).

With that being said, some of the reasoning behind some of their recent communications campaigns makes perfect sense: when I go to Denny’s, I generally pick between the same two menu items, every single time. Grand Slam or Grand Slamwich. Grand Slam or Grandslamwich. I don’t always browse the menu.

I had seen a couple of the Always Open videos before and I love the concept behind them. Similar in concept to Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld, producing viral videos such as these are quite an effective way to connect with the younger audiences and reinforce the Denny’s brand in a subtle way. People love the comedians and actors that are being featured in Always Open, so it wouldn’t be surprising to one day wake up and see a video branded with Denny’s on the front page of Reddit or being shared on my Facebook newsfeed.

Here are a few key takeaways from Jeff Beer’s article about Denny’s content marketing:

A brand is a feeling, first and foremost – If people aren’t feeling connected to the brand, much of the content you create or communications you release can be meaningless. Understanding how you play a role in the lives of your customers and, thus, how they genuinely feel about you can help dictate the way you communicate with them.
Social media is used to remind people you’re there, and it needs to be transparent and true. – The worst kind of social media is the type that simply spits out and broadcasts press releases and promotions on the daily. Sure, people love promotions. But promotions won’t explicitly help customers connect with the brand itself. If a brand can release relevant and interesting content, be up to date with pop culture and world events, and actually have a personality, they are generally far more likely to connect with audiences and reach mass appeal. Using Denny’s as an example again: most people probably don’t set up their Twitter accounts with the intentions of following the American chain – but when they release content such as the iPhone mock or responses to major news items, people notice, it gets shared, and their following increases. All of a sudden, Denny’s has an online personality behind it, the brand name is infused in people’s daily digestion of their online social media feeds, and people follow along. Social media can be very powerful when interactive, honest, and full of personality and charm (even if it’s quirky – as long as it’s true and honest). Some more examples of strong brand Tweets can be found here.
“Read, react, and refine.” Test and monitor very closely. – It’s okay to experiment and take calculated risks with your brand. That was a key takeaway from Beer’s article. What’s important, though, is that these risks are monitored very closely. If something doesn’t seem to be working, the brand needs to react and refine their approach. There’s no sense carrying on with a campaign or a message that doesn’t resonate with an audience. With digital and internet communications being able to be updated almost instantaneously these days, and content scheduled or released hour by hour, a brand cannot wait for month-end reports to roll in before evaluating if a message or approach is resonating. Those working behind a brand need to constantly have their finger on the button and their eyes on the dialogue surrounding what they’ve released. The good news about the internet: feedback can be almost instantaneous.

Building Beloved Brands

Lever 2000 has been around for years. It’s also backed by one of the biggest CPG companies in the world, Unilever. It makes you wonder, then – why does the brand suck so much? How often do you encounter people who have an emotional attachment to Lever 2000? You probably don’t.

What stuck out to me first in Graham Roberton’s slide deck on Building Beloved Brands was his breakdown of focus and strategic choices dependent on a brand’s position on his “Brand Love Curve” (slides 15 & 16). I feel as if early level marketing conversations, especially in university, tend to centre on how you drive out more people to buy your product (or as Robertson labels it, “The Feet”). More customers is obviously important for any brand, but it was interesting to see Robertson visually placing “The Mind” first. It’s tough to really drive out large quantities of shoppers if they don’t think about your brand, if they can’t differentiate who you are, and if they don’t recall your brand. Thus, if you’re a brand which consumers are, by and large, indifferent to, then you need to focus on tapping into “The Mind” and “get consumers to think differently about [the] brand.” In order to do this, a company could do something such as launching something new to gain attention or driving a new position in order to shift consumer thought about the brand.

A few other key points stood out to me from his slide set:

“Build a big idea you can shout from a mountain.” (slide 35)

Why does the idea have to be big? Is Coca-Cola a big idea? Sure, it’s a major brand – but I don’t necessarily see the correlation behind a “big idea” and making a brand beloved. People love Dove Soap, but Dove Soap is not necessarily a big idea. They communicate their brand idea exceptionally well, this is why consumers have connected with them so well. With that being said, crafting a feel good campaign that touches on inner beauty and personal strength isn’t necessarily a “big idea” – but it’s an emotional one that people can relate to.

“Execute with passion. If you don’t love your work, how do you expect your consumer to love the brand?” (slide 44)

I think this is an idea that is becoming increasingly noticed amongst employers, companies, and brands each day. It is exceptionally difficult to communicate a brand passionately and honestly, in a way that consumers would be able to feel, if the brand is managed and pushed out by cold corporate environment where everyone is working for the next dollar, not necessarily because they love the brand. There are, of course, likely exceptions to this rule. However, it’s very important that the philosophies and ideals behind a brand are communicated, exemplified, and valued between the employees managing a brand and the company that employs them. For Dove Soap employees to genuinely craft brand messages related to strength and inner beauty, that must also be a philosophy that is widely recognized within the company as well. This will connect the employees to the brand who will in turn want to connect others with it as well a la WestJet where “everyone is an owner.”

“People don’t really want a quarter-inch drill. They just want a quarter-inch hole.” (slide 36)

This is exceptionally important to remember when managing a company, developing products, and generating a brand image. People aren’t typically buying products simply because they love an inanimate object. They’re buying a product because it suits their needs. People buy drills because they need to drill a hole. People buy toothpaste because they want their teeth to be clean and healthy. Although you can add many layers of personality and connection to a brand, you should never lose sight of the core issue that your product solves for the consumer.

The Start of (Another) New Era – COMM 462

So, if you look back past this post, you’ll see things related directly to internet and digital marketing. Look even further, and you’ll see my marketing education beginning from Intro to Marketing blog posts.

This post serves as a divider from those past courses and the upcoming posts for COMM 462: Integrated Marketing Communications.

It might be okay to be chatty on the internet now.

Source: http://performancing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Freelance-Writing-Jobs-For-Beginners.jpg

I’ve never been one for levity when it comes to my writing. This has always been an issue. Day to day, I don’t necessarily talk a lot, but when I write I want to be thorough. I want the piece of writing to be properly structured, properly introduced, the subject matter explored from multiple angles, perhaps some opinion or commentary fused in, followed by a conclusion. Of course, this changes depending on what I’m writing: I’ve taught myself how to get to the point in a press release. I’ve taught myself not to drone on in an e-mail. But I’ve always hated the fact that it’s consistently drilled into people that the most successful blog posts and internet writing are short, 300-500 word posts.

That might not be the case anymore.

Marketing Pilgrim recently summarized a report released by Searchmetrics, an SEO and research firm. In this, they found a few interesting conclusions that could be very important for online writers and marketers:

• Content:High quality, relevant content ranks better on average, and is identifiable by properties such as comprehensive wording in regard to the co-occurrence of related terms in the context, a higher word-count and media enrichment

•    Technology: A well optimized technical performance of a page contributes to a good ranking, such as, robust site architecture with an optimal internal linking structure, short loading times and presence of meta tags.
•    Backlinks: The quantity and quality of backlinks remains crucial as there are many new features introduced this year that have been revised to improve the quality of the results.
•     Social Signals: The correlation values regarding coefficients out of the social sector have slightly decreased. The growth of the average total number of signals per position was rather small.
•     User Signals: For the first time, user signals were measured and as expected there is a relation between rankings and higher click-through rates, lower bounce rates and a high time-on-site. (Credit: Searchmetrics)

Average Ranking vs. Length of Text Post Source: Searchmetrics Report

Most important to note in this situation is the idea that a higher word count could leader to better search rankings. This, of course, is still very much interdependent on strong content. Writing pages of nonsense will serve no purpose – but it appears that people on the Internet are open to reading more in 2014 than they were just one year ago. Perhaps this indicates why site like Medium have caught on.

Very important to note is that, although readers are open to reading more, the ease of reading must also be considerably high. The top sites on Google, as determined by Searchmetrics through using the classic Flesch-value scale, are those sites that could easily be read by a 13 to 15 year old.

Additionally, key words are of utmost importance. In terms of Google rankings, all of your text means nothing if your key words are not directly related. Google will not rank highly those pages that use random keywords in an attempt to pick up more readers.

So, if this information proves correct, more long-winded writers like myself have reasons to rejoice: as long as we keep our writing easy to read and our keywords on point, we might now have the opportunity to write more online!

Honda: Press “R”

Honda just released a brand new advertisement online, and it’s super interactive. Titled “The Other Side” and hosted on YouTube, the advertisement is two minutes and fifty-five seconds and brings the viewer through the day of a guy driving a Honda. Or, if you simply hit the “R” key on your keyboard, you can view his adventure-filled evening.

The interactive advertisement plays two concurrent short films, and it’s up to the viewer which they want to see and at what time.

A split screen still from Honda’s new “Type R” advertisement. Image source: Marketing Land (linked in text)

Obviously, an advertisement that’s interactive can’t be played on traditional mediums, such as television. This is unfortunate due to the sheer amount of production and detail that went into it.

Still, the ad is featured on one of the most popular websites in the world and it’s gaining a lot of attention. AdWeek called the spot “mind-bendingly brilliant” and Marketing Land called it “amazing.” People are also buzzing about the advertisement on social media and online communities. Take, for example, this thread on Reddit where people are fawning over the interactivity and cinematography. This coming from an online community that prides itself on being adfree and has a collection of people constantly on the watch for subliminal advertising.

Honda hit it out of the park with advertisements. We’ve heard all of it before: people don’t trust advertisements, and people are getting tired of television advertisements. This work by Honda and Wieden + Kennedy London simply proves that people will still pay close attention to advertisements – if they’re well made and interesting. (Interactive is a big help too).

Ads such as “Type R” set a good example for businesses as more and more people make the transition to viewing the majority of their content online. If people are adapting to the digital world, so too should companies’ advertisements.

Ello and (probably) goodbye.

If you follow the internet, which you probably do, you’ve now heard of Ello.

Ello is all the rage, especially amongst the defenders of the free, advertising-liberated internet. Even Tom from MySpace is kickin’ around, repeatedly poking fun at his former default popularity on MySpace. (And the fact that MySpace is now, essentially, irrelevant).

Even Tom from MySpace is on Ello.
Screenshot from https://ello.co/myspacetom.

So what’s the scoop with this bare-bones social media network? Deemed by some as the “hipster” social network, Ello has branded itself as the antithesis to Facebook. According to its manifesto, Ello will have be completely ad-free, will never charge a dime for access (but will be “freemium” by charging for additional services), and will never sell user information to third parties.

Recently, Ello has exploded. There have been reports that the site is getting between 4,000 and 30,000 account requests per day. A staggering number for a social media site essentially in Beta. If reviews are positive from initial users, Ello could be on the cusp of becoming the next big thing.

But will it be?

As Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols noted on ZDNet, there’s a lot of people who have been quite unhappy with Facebook. Some of it has to do with the mood-experimentation that it completed on users without permission. Some of it has to do with their “real name” rule that has affected numerous members of the LGBT community. But is this really enough to convince 1 billion users of Facebook (or even a sizeable fraction) to leave for something new?

Admittedly, I have not yet received my invitation to Ello, although I requested it multiple days ago. I was initially quite intrigued but have now lost a lot of my interest. The whole idea of a completely ad-free social media platform is definitely attractive. But Ello really offers nothing new. It’s been online since March and it still has a number of basic features which are listed only as “coming soon,” including: user blocking and a notification centre. These two features have become almost integral on social platforms. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see much of a point in developing or sharing any content if I’m not even going to be notified when someone interacts with it. What motivation do I have to actually make my profile interesting?

I feel like the strongest argument on generating content on Ello is to be individualistic. To have an online profile that defines “me.” A utopian profile free of advertising and without Big Brother tracking my keywords. But with such a minimalistic theme and a platform driven by, seemingly, visual content – what’s the difference between Ello and Tumblr besides a few visual tweaks? What feature would cause me to actually interrupt my natural time spent on Facebook (where thousands of people in my network are) for a brand new site. I don’t think Ello is there yet – but with the added attention it’s been getting, they better start figuring it out or people will say goodbye as quickly as they’ve said Ello.

Ello logo from ello.co

Sound Off: What are your thoughts on Ello? Are you a fan? Do you think it will survive? Comment below, or tweet me @aclavers.

Is there a backlash against social media?

A recent article published on Forbes asked a couple of key questions regarding social media and digital marketing efforts within corporations:

Are companies bored with social media?
Is there a backlash against social media within many companies?

Photo from http://terezalitsa.blogspot.ca/2013/09/is-it-time-to-unplug-from-social-media.html. Original artwork credit unknown.

Depending on how you look at things, author David Amerland says that it could be true. There is some evidence that many companies across America are laying off some social media employees. A key motivator behind skepticism of social media marketing, citing a McKinsey study in the article, is the difficulty in which the ROI of digital efforts can be measured. Simply put, the effectiveness of a Tweet cannot be translated as easily into dollars and cents as a traditional advertising campaign or a traditional direct sales push.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people in sales roles in 2012 was virtually unchanged with that compared to a pre-Web 1992. And that’s without even taking into account the trend for changing traditional titles into “Associates” or “Service Directors.” -Forbes, Amerland

Personally, I have to admit my skepticism of social media as a career. Without a doubt, I think social media is a very important aspect of marketing and customer service these days. However, year after year, more and more young people are entering into the workforce with an almost natural ability to understand social media trends and learn social media marketing at a fast rate. I think this raises the question of whether or not we’re going to need specific people within our marketing departments to handle the execution of our social media, or if any marketing/communications generalist will be able to handle social media within a few years time? Why would companies continue to create more salaried positions if the duties could be merged with the work of another new hire? Combined with this, the difficulty of measuring ROI is a very important pitfall of social media marketing endeavours. Without a doubt, many individuals in corporate executive roles are still of the older generation. This is a generation that learned to measure much of business success on dollar figures. More efforts will likely need to be made in order to make social media an obviously profitable marketing stream. The link to ROI is not as clear with social media as it is with direct sales. In order to measure this, much attention will need to be paid to tying in business goals with social media efforts, as well as assigning proper analytics in order to track the progress. HootSuite (an obvious advocate of social media) presented a short blog post on a handful of ways businesses can measure the ROI of social media.

Sound Off: Do you think social media jobs will continue to remain prevalent in the coming years? How should firms measure the ROI of social media? Tweet me at @aclavers.

THE START OF COMM 464

Any posts below this divider were originally created for COMM 296 – An Introduction to Marketing. I originally intended on archiving all of the prior posts but I then thought it might be interesting to show any evolution of thought (if there has been any) in my views on marketing and the world.

A Reflection

As a member of Team 10 (whaddup!), we decided to focus our marketing attention and energy onto global retail brand Zara, a member of the Inditex Group and famous for its “fast-fashion model.”

The company has already been thoroughly analyzed numerous times, as evidenced by reports on the internet. Through our own personal experience and research, we were able to quickly decipher who Zara’s typical consumer segments are and the image they are attempting to achieve in their Promotion (albeit, little promotion) and Place.

What I was surprised to find out during research for Part A, however, is that Zara’s main direct competitor is considered to be The Gap. It’s no wonder that The Gap is a major force to be reckoned with in the retail world, but their image is completely different. The Gap screams traditional America (slightly more East Coast after Mickey Drexler stepped in and saved them, sort of like the revolutions to J. Crew) with “khakis, khakis, khakis.” Zara, on the other hand, is much more fashion-forward and cutting edge. While they do have some relatively staple items, their stock changes as often as bi-weekly and they model some of their pieces off of global runways, not a New England soccer mom.

Picking a target segment was not difficult. We feel that Zara could do a lot more for men, ages 18-24 who are low income, in school, and hope to remain in fashion. Zara is already cost effective with its low pricing, but it could offer more in its product line for men and we made the bold suggestion of adding an in-store tailor or at least training sales staff how to measure. Their suiting is affordable, but is not generally the best fit off the rack. Having this added convenience could go a long way in building loyalty to a brand, for a big item such as suiting.

The video was an interesting venture. Luckily, we had someone on our team with a little bit of experience in production. I can’t imagine how many extra hours some teams probably put in to get it complete for only 10%. In the end, we were happy with our product and our recommendations and I am happy to never say “fast-fashion model” again.

Utilizing Social Media

Having had a small amount of experience utilizing social media in a business setting, I am always curious to see how various companies manipulate social media networks to their advantage. Be it Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, etc. etc., companies have a huge opportunity to reach vast amounts of people at the click of a button.

Social media marketing blog Convince and Convert recently posted about JetBlue and how they utilized Facebook on April Fool’s Day. The idea was highly unique:

Proclaiming that, “April’s No Fool,” JetBlue gave back to those most impacted by the day – people named April. JetBlue offered people with the first name April who were flying the airline on April 1 a JetBlue credit equal to the value of their flight.

An interesting promotional move — a very directed sales promotion, and a funny public relations stunt. And it seems to have paid off: close to 500 people interacted with the post, it was shared over 3,600 times, and moderately made its way around the internet as the antithesis to most online April Fool’s pranks (see: G-Mail Blue).

Fellow COMM 296er Cody Malloy also discussed social media marketing in a recent post on his own blog:

Convince & Convert reports that posts to users’ “fan pages” can reach anywhere between 2% and 47% of the fans subscribed to the page. That is quite the difference. It really just goes to show you that you really don’t know how effective or worthwhile a fan page Facebook post will be.

Cody then goes on to state:

Social media posting are all about posting at the right time, so you have to take into account various factors (age, geographic location) of your fans/followers.

I couldn’t agree more. Social media can also be a huge burden for companies: a free forum for consumers to post their thoughts both negative and positive (as Nestle once found out). Additionally, some companies make the mistake of neglecting their social media, using them as avenues for automated updates rather than communication, or for constant spam. However, sometimes companies come along like JetBlue and use it in an innovative way — and it works.