The devil’s in the details

It must be that I’m talking to more brand consultants these days because I’m starting to hear the same gripe: that marketers are often clueless that branding needs to occur across all customer interactions.

It may sound like a really simple concept but one which apparently eludes most marketers, why? It might just be that ensuring consistent branding isn’t easy considering all the minute details you have to pay attention to, or just a perception that certain functions are only meant to achieve the ‘functionality’ objective. I was talking to a brand consultant earlier today and he mentioned in passing that it was odd how many companies fork out huge sums of money to release a polished and sleek commercial which makes them look really good to customers. But when customers call into the company’s call centre or dial in to complete a telephone banking transaction, their idea and expectation of the brand (no doubt brought on by that nice commercial), and the reality of what they discover on the other end of the line can provoke a huge disappointment. “And that’s where the disconnect happens,” says the brand consultant. “What’s the use of spending so much money on the TV commercial then?”

The brand consultant also said marketers need to be cognisant of the changing environment around them, and to change with it. A phone banking system that’s five-years-old isn’t going to cut it with customers anymore -- many marketers probably only have the time to make sure that they have a system, but then don’t do anything to it or forget about it after some time. Is that still the right way of interacting with customers, can you ‘update’ the voice on the other end, put in some new music perhaps? Simplify and make the technology easier? Maybe marketers need to get out of the thinking mode where they think a function, like the company delivery guys, merely serve as a functionality when in fact, they’re are at the ‘frontline’ of your brand and have a strong influence on the image projected to customers. It’s a difficult situation: marketers are sometimes placed in a situation where they just have to get in there and do it, while these branding improvements take time to carry out and more often than not, is a long term effort. When there is space and time to take care of these areas though, I’ll bet it’ll pay off putting in place training programs for staff and ensuring all other consumer interactions are consistent with the overall branding, because having a keen eye for detail in your branding can be the key to what makes you stand out from your next competitor.

Death by blogging or eternal fame?

The way bloggers want to be reached is only if what you have to share or tell is something that interests us on a personal level. So companies which want to pitch a ‘story’ to us have to plant electronic bugging devices in our homes to find out what actually tickles our fancy.

I’m kidding.

But seriously, Edelman hosted a very nice, cosy drinks session for a bunch of Singapore bloggers on Wednesday evening and it was quite insightful hearing the different perspectives on what kinds of pitches will bloggers tolerate.

By pitches, I mean that some marketers today view blogs as marketing tools through which they can get their brand messages across. Some lucky companies today have gained an enormous amount of publicity from their products/services getting reviewed on blogs and the news spreading like wildfire. Others have had to deal with the opposite kind of publicity.

Anyway, the aim of the session was for the PR company to get a better idea of how bloggers in Singapore think and operate and I’m going to try by best to give you my idea of a summary here.

Some of the attendees:

Richard Edelman and his team, Mr Brown, Joe Augustin, Adrian Lee, Bjorn Lee, Justin Lee,
Adrianna Tan, Jennifer Lewis from STOMP, The mediaslut.

So you’re a marketer and you want to get your new whatever famous overnight.

Here’s what to do:

1. Find a well-respected blogger such as Mr Brown and check out every single link he has on other people’s blogs. Birds of a feather flock together and bloggers worth their salt will link to other heavyweights they admire.
2. Read as many of their posts as you can to gain an idea of what they like or dislike.
3. Decide if what you’re pitching will interest each one. I don’t need to say this but if your product is crap there is no faster way to die than through blogs.
4. Find an innovative way to tell them about your ‘thing’. For example, Nokia gave Adrianna a phone with no strings attached except to say, “try it out”. She did, was blown away, and Nokia walked away with excellent PR value. But it was a risky move considering Adrianna was a Sony Ericsson fan.
5. The key is being innovative, and hard sell is NOT innovative. Remember, bloggers will only write what they have a strong opinion on, and their only opinion of your hard sell ways will be negative. Duh.
6. If the blogger writes positively about your ‘thing’, good. If your plan backfires, make sure you do not panic and sue the blogger’s pants off. Try to respond to backlash in a calm and measured manner and do not fan the fire with repeated, pronounced denials of wrongdoing. You may make things worse. Some situations do not even warrant a response from you.
7. If you want to invite a blogger to your press conference, he’ll go only if he’s interested in the topic/product, and you need to decide whether or not to categorise him as a Blogger or as Media. 8. Whatever you decide, please be decent to both types. (This point is for Mr Brown)
9. Joe Augustin (or was it Mr Brown) said it is important to remember that bloggers cannot be approached with the mindset that you’re ‘using’ them for commercial gain. Bloggers are people too you know, just like you and I.

I’d like to write more but I’ve got a press conference to attend.

In closing, I had a great time sharing thoughts with the group after the session and it was very refreshing meeting them face-to-face. I was also very honoured to be invited as a blogger as The Pitch has only been up for a few short months.

Thanks to the Edelman team for setting it up and it really shows how you guys are at the forefront of the digital communication wave and are willing to hear the views from the ground.

CSR=Cynical Scepticism Reaction?

I had a chat a while back with Al Golin about CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility, while he was in Singapore to celebrate his firm’s 50th anniversary.

Al’s the chairman and founder of GolinHarris and also the man who developed the concept of corporations having a ‘TrustBank’ – in a nutshell, this involves corporations doing ‘good work’ (and being seen to have done it) on a regular basis so that if ever the company gets involved in a sticky situation and the s*** hits the fan, you can mitigate the crisis by drawing from the bank of ‘good work’ you’ve done before.

I mean the philanthropy you see Bill Gates doing all the time seems well and good, but during my conversation with Al, I couldn’t resist asking him that really, aren’t these corporations carrying out CSR activities to contribute to a fatter bottom line, and not because they genuinely want to do it or sincerely think it’s good? In short, isn’t CSR for corporations a means to an end? Besides, even Al said CSR can act as a ‘tie breaker’ of sorts for companies – if they project an image of being trustworthy and reliable, more people would do business with them as they would rather deal with companies that they know, trust and admire than one that’s unknown.

Al didn’t miss a beat in his reply. He said, “Well, maybe it’s a bit of both, maybe it’s not all bad. Even if their motives are not as pure as it should be and they’re thinking of it from a business point of view, at least they’re doing something about it and getting it done. When you see Bill Gates and Warren Buffet give all this money to philanthropy, a cynic would say, well they’ve got all the money in the world, of course they’re going to give some of it away. Ok, it’s true, but at least they’re doing something about it, and something good is happening as a result of it. If they’re getting a good rub-off to their companies then why not? So I don’t think it’s a negative thing. If society is benefiting from it then it’s good.”

What do you think? Is CSR just a hypocritical myth for a shot at smiling for the cameras, or is there good underneath it all?

Trade messages on mainstream media… what the?

We’ve discussed how ad agencies don’t prefer advertising themselves but what about award shows advertising on mainstream media… I wonder why that happens.

An example is tonight’s Hall of Fame Awards which was advertised as a banner ad on soccernet.com, and on two walls at Raffles Link – our most celebrated creatives pose for the camera, representing the newly introduced creative director’s award for the HOF 2006.


Another example was the Singapore Media Awards which was advertised on radio and more.

The only people who are interested in award shows are agencies, who then rope in their clients for a “great night at a great table, with great company”, according to one of our blog watchers, thc. Thanks for your comments by the way.

Which is fair. I think award shows are great opportunities to reward creativity and having all your peers gathered together for a few evenings in a year is great. I, for one, love the atmosphere.

So why then, would running an ad on Class 95FM, for example, be of any use? Surely organisers can simply send an email to all the agencies in Singapore. There are only 300 plus of them and if that’s too many, then the usual suspects who are active at award shows are easy enough to identify and target.

One obvious reason why such ads appear on mainstream media is because parties such as SMRT Media are supporters of the award shows and it’s part of their partnership agreement to offer up some free ad space.

But I’m thinking, SMRT Media is a commercial organisation and it can make good money out of the space it’s giving away. I’m all for showing support of a worthy cause, but the support has to mean something.

I think it’s great SMRT Media is providing a platform for people our industry respect, such as Tay Guan Hin, Rob Gax, Ng Tian It etc., to come out from behind the scenes to be acknowledged for the work they do. But I don’t believe these names mean anything to the average MRT commuter, and he/she definitely won’t buy a table at the next award show.

My point is, trade messages in mainstream media does not make sense and there our media planners should know this much better than me.

I’m happy to be corrected on this.

High5: spot the difference?

Let’s play a game of spot the difference -- High5 has moved to clear things up following the accusations of unsanitary and non-Halal bread practices. I've got the low down on this complete with images. Let the game begin.

IMSG has kindly provided me with the 'real' images of the High5 plant in Malaysia. I've also included the 'fake' images, so you guys can comment on what you think is real and what you think is fake or is it all fake?

Here we go...













One last picture for you guys, its a certificate stating High5 bread to be Halal.



Enough said from me, now its your turn to do the talking.