Revisit: Are Brands Becoming Badges On Social Media?

Courtesy of Flickr - zero g

Originally posted February 6, 2009…

Brand Discrimination is the new Racial Discrimination!

Seth Godin’s, Tribes

In yesterday’s interview with Wired, Seth Godin’s new book Tribes was described as arguing “lasting and substantive change can be best effected by a group of people connected to each other, to a leader and to an idea.”

He then went on to discuss the use of social media by saying, “the one that I think is really available to a large number of people now without a lot of resources, is this idea of finding and connecting like-minded people and leading them to a place they want to go.”

Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

My question becomes what if brands became the “leaders?” If a brand could integrate its message so deeply into the lifestyle of the consumer and create a passionate, emotional attachment, that consumer would become an evangelist for that brand. They could proudly display their love and passion for that brand publicly. The use of certain social networking sites would allow just that. So, in a sense, that brand becomes a Badge that individual uses to define who they are. As this idea proliferates through different brands, these multiple Badges will become a way to characterize and identify a particular individual.

So, in theory, in the future, I could be viewed as “Adidas-Jaguar-Apple-Miller-Home Depot-Quiksilver” person which could then be used to define me as an individual; each badge, describing a little more about me as a person. Does that offend you? Are you a “Nike-Mercedes-PC-Budweiser-Lowe’s-Hurley?”

What do you think?

Could stereotypes be created from this theory? Will “brand discrimination” become the new “racial discrimination?” What are your thoughts?

Don’t Reinvent Your Brand for Social Media, Enhance it.

Courtesy of Flickr - dcmaster

We, as marketers, have become experts in building our brand. We have spent years on defining what our brand is and how we communicate it through colors, images, wording, emotions, etc. We have built some strong emotional and relational contacts with our customers that have created some of the strongest loyalty we have ever seen.

All this was created through understanding our customer base and communicating our brand message effectively and efficiently. Isn’t this what social media is? Effectively and efficiently communicating?

The influx and hype of social media has knocked many of us on our ass and made us start questioning our brand. We have all run back to the drawing boards, trying to reinvent our brands for the social world. This is the opposite of what we should do. We have a powerful brand; we have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars creating it. Don’t go running back to the drawing board. Instead of thinking what is our new “social brand” think about how would our brand communicate in the social sphere.

Don’t reinvent…Enhance.

Marketing Ecosystem: Gather Information

Photo Courtesy of Flickr - typedown

Last time we learned about the importance of goal setting as it pertains to developing an all encompassing marketing ecosystem to create fully integrated brands within our customer’s lifestyles. The next step in creating this marketing ecosystem is to gather as much useful information as possible to fully understand our global environment as we sit right now, identify possible opportunities, and begin to build personas around our best “niche” target segments (personas will be discussed next time). To gather all this information, we need to take a global, holistic approach to interviews, research, surveys, etc.

information = power

In today’s overly communicated, high speed society, information and the speed at which you send and receive is, in itself, becoming a competitive advantage for many companies. This trend is likely to continue as more social strategies are integrated throughout our lives as marketers and consumers. With this said the gathering of this information is not only important…it’s a necessity.

gathering berries.

Some of the information that we will be gathering will help us:

• identify communication paths
• understand effectiveness
• identify needs in environment
• create brand competitiveness
• identify best customer segments
• identify key entry points
• understand communication pods

To help us fulfill these obligations, there are four aspects of our business we need to fully understand, inside and out. They are listed below along with some strategies to help you begin gathering this important information.

Our Company/Brand: How can we communicate our strengths without fully understanding our company/brand/products. First things first, we need to become intimate partners with what our brand is, what it stands for, where it’s been, and where it’s going. To do this we need to conduct:

• Stakeholder Interviews
• Employee Interviews
• Customer Interviews
• Vendor Communications
• Company History Analysis

Our Competition (Known and Unknown): Understanding our competition and their communication strategies, allows us to fully understand, not only our current position, but also opportunities for position transition for different markets. Some strategies to better understand our competition are:

• Interview competition customers
• Research Industry Information
• Interview our current customers

The Brand Climate: Knowing where we’ve been and forecasting where we’re going is a powerful tool. By identifying the climate in which our brand occupies is a vital part to goal setting and communication strategies.

The Different Consumer Segments: By fully understanding your consumer base, you can begin to segment the entire base down to highly defined niche segments, if not down to the individual. Each of these segments will have specific communication, brand, and interactive needs. Understanding is the first step in fulfilling these needs and, once filled, will move toward complete lifestyle brand integration. Some strategies to get to know your customers a little better:

• Usability Testing – How the different customers use your brand/product
• Contextual Interviews – Face to face, individual interviews in their environment documenting behaviors, surroundings, self-reported experiences, attitudes, etc.
• General Surveys – gather general demographic/psychographic information
• Focus Groups – Understand similarities within groups and niche segments, identify the group communication aspects, and document interactions between members

information overload.

This may look like a lot of information to gather, but once it’s done, it’s simple maintenance as we move forward. After all, we’re not looking for a quick band-aid fix, we’re looking to completely transform the way we communicate in the business environment and our loyal customers. We’re trying to create a marketing ecosystem that learns and grows on its own. Understanding the ins, outs and what-have-yous of our business environment will give us the competitive advantage to build personas (highly defined target niche segments) and devise communication strategies to fulfill the needs of those personas; completely integrating our brand into their own personal lifestyles. Pretty cool, huh?

your thoughts.

How do you gather information on your business environment? How has information helped you in a communication debacle?

IBD Brand - NBDA Independent Concept

This morning, waiting for me in my inbox, was the NBDA newsletter. The section about the NBDA Independent Concept Web Tools Store really caught my eye. I won’t go into detail, you can read the entire article here, but wanted to point out one comment that I found extremely interesting.

Yet the fact is that most successful bicycle retailers take a different path, carrying multiple brands representing a “best in category” focus, designed with the needs of customers first. These independent bicycle retailers are THE BRAND in their customers’ eyes. The products they carry are important, but secondary to strong local brand identity, personal relationships within a community, and the products and services that best serve their customers, their businesses and their values.

IBD vs OEM

The fact that the IBD is THE BRAND in the customers’ eyes is an essential argument in the battle of who owns the brand: The IBD or the OEM. I’ve discussed this in detail in the past during the Cycling Brand Relationship Series and have recently put it into presentation form for easier understanding.

CBRS: Independent Bike Dealers (IBD) – Social Branding Communication

Courtesy of Flickr - wallyg

Last Friday we discussed the Independent Bike Dealer (IBD) and what characteristics the different consumer segments use to define the IBD brand. As we’ve mentioned many times before in the CBRS, brands are now created in the mind of the consumer using a combination of the different brand characteristics. The IBD has the most characteristics that could be used to define its brand, which are:

Service
Culture/History
Racers/Racing Teams/Affiliations
Cyclist Generated Content
Bicycle Brands
Component/Partner Brands
Community Involvement
Cyclist Engagement
Mechanics

what they want.

The IBD has one of the hardest jobs in the cycling industry. Not only do they have to portray their own personal shop’s brand, but also need to portray the bicycle manufacturer brands and component and product brands they stock. The dynamic nature of this position creates a brand that is partially out of the hands of the IBD.

The communication strategy throughout the customer segments will still be very similar to the component manufacturer or bike manufacturer communication strategies. Throughout this strategy, IBD brands will need to communicate and discuss the different brand characteristics and allow the user to ‘pull’ the information needed to integrate the IBD brand into their own personal cycling lifestyle needs. To illustrate this type of communication strategy, let’s walk through the three identified customer segments for the IBD industry and how social strategies could facilitate this communication.

Cyclist:

The cyclist is the most important stakeholder in the IBD environment. However, cyclists will be the most dynamic segment to communicate with for the IBD. All aspects of the shop’s brand could be important to a different cyclist. However, the importance of each identified brand characteristic lies within the individual cyclist. Therefore each characteristic needs to be communicated in a way where the cyclist can pull information that is personally important to them as a cyclist.

Bicycle Manufacturer:

The IBD has a tremendous duty in the cycling industry. Being the contact with the end cyclist, bicycle manufacturers rely heavily on the cyclist feedback from the IBD for future innovation and product design. Having a solid, openly communicated relationship allows these partner companies to recognize this feedback and use accordingly. This level of communication will also identify how the brands work together and how they complement each other in the minds of these cyclists. The communication will show the benefits of the partnership and discuss how each brand will be affected in combination.

Component/Product Brands:

As with the bicycle manufacturer, the IBD plays a crucial role in innovation and product design by providing the component and product brands with valuable cyclist feedback. Having open communication between the IBD and the component/product brands would not only provide this valuable feedback, but also communicate the value of the partnership between brands and how they enhance the strength of the brands in the mind of the cyclist.

social media facilitation.

With the dynamic nature of the communication that surrounds the independent bike dealer environment; social media provides a powerful platform that creates the malleable brand needed to communicate with the individuals in the various customer segments. By educating cyclists on the brand characteristics that is important to them and empowering them to discuss and share within their social network, IBD brands would create the network of conversations needed to build the level of awareness, loyalty, advocacy, and evangelism needed to succeed in today’s environment. Identifying the perfect combination of blogs, wikis, social networking platforms, SEO, forums, etc., an IBD brand could build a foundation of support, evangelism, and communication that would ultimately create the passionate, cult-like following needed in the cycling industry. This trusting relationship would also give the cyclist the power to provide the feedback needed by the bicycling, component, and product manufacturers for future innovation and product design. With a open, social communication like this the IBD could easily disseminate this information to the appropriate brands.

In a previous series, The Orbea Chronicles, I identified and outlined an in depth strategy that illustrates this kind of social media facilitation. Feel free to revisit the communication strategy.

encouraged communication.

What are your thoughts? Why do you go to your favorite IBD? What could they do better to increase your level of engagement as a cyclist?