Month: January 2011

An interesting recent PR and marketing campaign has been that of BC Salmon Facts: an initiative intending to change the opinions of the BC public regarding the farmed salmon industry.

The TV, print, and online campaign is being funded by a conglomerate of companies within the industry. As ‘BC Salmon Facts’ (the moderator of the online forum) states, ‘The BC Salmon Facts campaign does not hide the fact that it is salmon farmers speaking up.’¹

You may view a few of the campaign’s commercials below.

This is an interesting example of a cognitive campaign looking to challenge negative connotations of the industry pervasive in the minds of many British-Columbians. The basic message is this, check your facts, and don’t listen to anti-industry opinions without gaining a proper understanding of the situation. In brief, “Many people are being fed a diet of misinformation and that’s exactly why our members have launched www.BCSalmonFacts.ca, a new web site where we will separate myths from fact and set the record straight.”²

From my limited exposure the campaign appears to be rather effective. The advertisements themselves are not particularly informative however they did succeed in directing me to their website where information, and debate, is abundant.

Moreover the campaign is successful in two separate means. Firstly, it does provide relevant (although potentially biased) information – via video, text, and hyperlinking to external sites. Secondly and perhaps more importantly the site’s forum allows for direct control of the conversation and immediate response to critics. In a very clear, direct, and thorough manner an industry spokesperson responds to individual comments made in a number of separate threads.

The primary and most prevalent critique of the campaign (keeping industry critique aside) is the use of the term FACTS. In fact, the majority of the site’s information is not fact. It is a point of view, often scientifically or economically founded; however these are areas of continued debate. As one member of the forum states, “the whole “facts” approach just further disengages me.”³ Yes a industry response is valid, and in this case does successfully dispel much misinformation. But, claiming that industry opinion is an exclusive source of facts may be misleading, and, importantly further antagonize critics.

For a full understanding of the issue please visit http://farmedanddangerous.org/ for additional information.

1)   http://www.bcsalmonfacts.ca/forum/#!/cd8cb50032
2)   ibid
3)   http://www.bcsalmonfacts.ca/forum/#!/33553ad6ea

I simply wanted to take the opportunity of this first blog post in order to apply concepts of value-based marketing in a business-to-business (B2B) environment. Although a number of the underlying tactics are similar regardless of weather the target audience is an individual or a business, the preferred means of diffusing information in a B2B environment is quite different. Information is more commonly destined for a small number of strategically important individuals as opposed to a widespread audience. Also targeted individuals are generally much more informed about their respective industries and product offerings that exist within them; in comes the increasingly important medium of choice for many firms (notably tech firms) in B2B environments: whitepapers and thought leadership marketing.



source: The Economist Intelligence Unit B2B marketing survey 2008

Strategies for the strategic use of thought leadership are numerous. Increasingly mere publication of articles, blogs posts, podcasts, etc. are not enough to guarantee returns on this form of investment. I synthesized a basic approach below.

The development of a strategy to engage and maintain dialogue with interested parties is also important. A traditional means of contact is simply having a sales agent follow up with interested parties; however, increasingly this is being viewed as ineffective. It is important to maintain dialogue so that when a firm is in a position to purchase services or product open channels of communication exist. Also allowing for direct contact with a company employee outside of the sales department may create an avenue to satiate increasing interest without being subject to sales pressure.



In brief by thinking of TLM in terms of value marketing and not being overly focused on one-time sales firms may create a community of interest and an intellectual discussion, which, to an extent, they control. Thus setting their company up to be an option of choice when interest transitions to purchase.

References

http://www.thoughtleadershipstrategy.net/2010/07/five-steps-to-excellence-for-thought-leadership-marketing/

http://www.wdfm.com/thought-leadership.php

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1292013