The Power of Influence

Lied to ...again

Ogilvy and Mather has earned many a plaudit for the thinking behind Dove ‘s Campaign for real Beauty.   

And kudos too to the brand owners Unilever for going with the contrarian position.

BUT now it seems that the whole thing lacked true authenticity. And consumers have been lied to again.

Those images of supposedly real women had been extensively retouched to make them “poster ready”  attractive. 

Advertising Age  reports that Pascal Dangin, master retoucher (I think poseur speak for DI artist) in an interview with the New Yorker , spills the beans that they had been heavily “improved”

"I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual 'real women' in their undergarments," wrote Lauren Collins in the New Yorker article. "It turned out that it was a Dangin job. 'Do you know how much retouching was on that?' he asked. 'But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.'"

What a pity the brand could not truly embrace the position and that O&M actually simply did more of the same by serving up retouched unreal images to sell a product.

Just watch for the backlash from duped consumers who feel let down by a brand that did not walk the talk.

Marketer can not live by reach alone

Look at it this way

Conversion = reach x trust x some constant factor you cant change ie:

No reach – no one know about you, no sales
No trust – no one believes in your product/brand, no sales

Reach is expensive – and getting more so every year
Trust is free, always has been, always will be ...... (but you have to earn it rather than buy it)

With fixed marketing budgets the only way to make the reach you can afford work harder, and the most durable thing to invest in, is trust.

Look at these figures – trust comes from “other people like us” – so getting them to recommend your brand can be the best thing you can do to lift the results (ROI) of your ATL

New Mums talk a lot ... recommend a lot & not just about baby stuff

When it comes to word-of-mouth (WOM) buzz about products--and specific brands--across a wide range of categories, expectant and new mothers are the champs, according to a new study from online resource BabyCenter and WOM-focused market research firm the Keller Fay Group.

Overall, pregnant women and new moms engage in one-third more WOM conversations per day than women in general or consumers as a whole, and almost two-thirds of their conversations include brand recommendations, the study found.

The studied group reported an average of 109 WOM conversations per week about products, services and brands, versus 83 among total women and 82 among the general public. These include about 70 brand-specific mentions per week, compared to 59 for women as a whole and 55 for the general public.

Furthermore, most of the conversations are positive, and considered highly credible by other moms ... and most of them are driven by information on the Internet, as opposed to other media.

In January, Keller Fay asked 1,721 pregnant women and new mothers (those with children five years old or younger) to fill out an online survey probing specifics about their conversations during the previous 24 hours about products and brands across 14 categories. Respondents were asked to report on any form of conversation, whether it occurred face-to-face, over the phone, or through the Internet.

The women were recruited through BabyCenter's "21st Century Mom Panel," its Web site (estimated to reach over 78% of online expectant/new mothers worldwide), and an external panel. Comparisons to the total public and total women were drawn from TalkTrack, Keller Fay's ongoing, nationwide WOM study.

What are new/soon-to-be mothers talking about, exactly?

As might be guessed, 64% have at least one conversation per day about children's products (versus 33% for total women and 25% for total public).

But discussions go far beyond kid-oriented products/brands. For example, the percentages of new/expectant moms who have at least one chat per day about key categories:

* Food and dining: 76% (versus 62% total women and 57% total public)

* Media and entertainment: 69% (versus 56% and 55%)

* Health/health care: 67% (versus 50% and 38%)

* Financial services: 60% (versus 38% and 32%)

* Beverages: 55% (versus 47% and 46%)

* Shopping, retail and apparel: 54% (versus 44% and 40%)

* The home: 52% (versus 34% and 28%)

* Technology: 48% (versus 36% and 40%)

* Telecommunications: 45% (versus 41% and 42%)

* Household products: 41% (versus 29% and 22%)

* Automotive: 39% (versus 35% and 36%)

* Personal care and beauty: 37% (versus 31% and 27%) and

* Travel services: 32% (versus 28% and 23%).

Perhaps the best news of all these and other marketers being discussed is that 60% of the WOM carries with it a recommendation to buy, try or consider the product/brand.

And since nearly 70% deem what they hear from their fellow moms to be very credible, 51% are likely to pass the information/recommendation along to others, and the same percentage indicate intent to purchase based on the information.

Not surprisingly, marketing/media advertising help drive much of the WOM: 38% of brand mentions also involve one or more references to some kind of marketing activity.

More notable is that 12% of brand mentions among this relatively young group of women result from information or mentions seen on the Internet, versus 11% for TV and just 2% to 5% for media such as magazines/newspapers, product packaging, in-store displays, and coupon circulars.

But as the researchers point out, given that broader studies show that 76% of all U.S. moms say that they use the Net for support and guidance and 70% participate in online communities, it's natural that the Web would tie in closely with their WOM, including offline conversations.

Recommendations from the study include encouraging WOM within a marketing objective; identifying ways to "create contagion" (make it easy for consumers to share with one another); using "artful storytelling" to create differentiation in the consumer's mind; and encouraging participation, collaboration and contribution.

Coming soon - Advertising damages your brand

Lets have some fun with a little logic bomb ... step through these steps with me and lets see where we end up...

Starting with the simplest definition I could come up with of the difference.

Traditional advertising is when the brand tells you how great they are, Word of Mouth is when a friend tells you.

Advertising is expensive, so if you accept the above definition then, the natural, logical conclusion will become

Brands that need to use traditional advertising are not getting (enough) personal recommendation to succeed.

From which there will be only one logical assumption for the market to learn (which will become more and more true with time)

Brands that have to rely on traditional advertising are not as good as ones that succeed through word of mouth.

When we get to this stage it people perceive advertised products as inferior ie ...

Advertising will actually damage a brand’s reputation

Now wont that be a weired?

By the way - I think we are already "in this place" for a number of categories. 

Films are one, the studios test the final product heavily before releasing it- if it gets poor recommendation (ie it stinks) they know that box office takings will fall off a cliff after the 4th day as enough people come out and recommend their freinds NOT to see it. So they pre-market the film through ATL to make sure that in the 4 days every seat is filled to maximise the returns.

Restaurants are another - when was the last time you saw an advert for a really really good restaurant?

I'm going to make a guess at another Divorce Lawyers - if you lived in the US where they can advertise, and it came to it, how would YOU find a good divorce lawyer - would you pick one that had to advertise or would you pick one that was getting enough work through being so good they got the recommendation

Shall we start a list - tell me what others should be in it

Films, restaurants, lawyers, doctors, dentists ....

Tom Fishburne Rocks

For more - and to sign up to receive one a week go here - well worth it

ZenithOptimeda says Word of Mouth leads the pack

Word-of-mouth--especially from family and friends--leads the pack in terms of influence on brand choice, but marketers still face a major challenge making it scalable, according to new data from media network ZenithOptimedia. As powerful as it may be, "we as an industry are not doing as good a job as we could do in generating it," says Bruce Goerlich, ZenithOptimedia's president of strategic resources, North America.

Consumer touchpoints were each given a "contact clout factor"--a number on a scale of 1 to 100 that indicates relative influence on purchasing. Recommendations from family and friends led the pack with an average score of 84. TV ads and Internet search were next, with an average score of 69 and 67, followed by magazine ads at 60, newspaper ads at 55, outdoor ads at 45, radio ads at 42, and Internet banner ads at 41.

The ROI tracker also measures brand association, or the percentage of consumers who say they have seen or heard of a brand though a touchpoint in recent months. TV is still king in this category with 22% of consumers recalling an ad. Story here

Spend Online to overtake TV in UK next year

LONDON (Reuters) - The Internet will usurp television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, according to a report published on Monday.

Britain has the most developed online advertising market in the world which the report by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre said was worth 2.8 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) in 2007.

It said last year's 38 percent online ad growth was driven by the rising number of people online, the introduction of cheap laptops and the growing popularity of catch-up TV on the Internet through services such as Channel 4's 4oD.

"With broadband speeds on the up and consumers spending more time on more sites, the outlook for online advertising is rosy -- in fact we expect it to overtake TV in 2009 when it will become the UK's biggest medium," IAB chief executive Guy Phillipson said in a statement.

The report said the Internet was the biggest driver of overall advertising growth in 2007, with the entire sector in Britain experiencing 4.3 percent growth to 18.4 billion pounds.

Online ad spend had a market share of 15.3 percent, up from 11.4 percent in 2006, but behind display press advertising at 19.9 percent and TV at 21.8 percent.

Blogg yourself to death

Full-time bloggers, who are often given incentives based on the number of page views they generate or the number of stories they write, put their health at risk due to the 24-hour demands of the profession. Being first to a story can generate a page view boon. Hence, bloggers rarely sleep, are addicted to coffee, are constantly connected to their computers.

It uses the examples of tech bloggers Russell Shaw, who died of a heart attack two weeks ago, Marc Orchant, who died of a massive coronary, Om Malik, who nearly died of a heart attack in December, and TechCrunch creator Michael Arrington, who says: "At some point, I'll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen. This is not sustainable."

See full story

Get permission stupid - dont interrupt

Is it that it is just easier to thrown marketing at a wall and see what sticks or is there another reason that marketers are so stuck on interruption advertising.

It might work – but what’s the cost?

Although this is a US perspective – I am sure to a greater degree it is equally true in most countries.

Not so long ago telemarketing was the “hot new thing” …. Marketers discovered that you could fine tune the process just enough to make it worthwhile to have armies of people ringing their way through a list, interrupting them to make a sales pitch.

Technologies like predictive diallers appeared – which dialed the next number on the list BEFORE there was an agent ready to speak to someone. Their algorithms gambled that by the time you answered the phone there would be an agent ready.  This shaved seconds off the process and boosted ROI.

Except that they forgot about the customer on the other end, who not only got interrupted but then often had to wait on hold till the agent was ready to pitch to them.

Because the negative impact of the experience to the customer was not costed in – the ROI looked positive.

Clearly that was not the accurate picture – because the customers lobbied and had a D0-NOT-CALL registry enacted into law.

 
A similar thing happened with eMail with the US CAN-SPAM legislation with most countries following with similar initiatives – Singapore passed theirs in 07.

Now marketers are doing again with Direct Mail – in the US - advertising circulars, catalogues, fundraising appeals --actually grew to 104 billion pieces in 2007 from 101 billion in 2005 as first -class volume dropped. The explosion has not gone unnoticed by consumers. Many are asking lawmakers for a national "do not mail" registry similar to the telemarketing Do Not Call phone registry, where advertisers would have to stop mailing catalogs and other unwanted mail to anyone on the list.  19 states in the US have this legislation pending.(see here)

So to all those brand managers who defend using “mass direct” tactics with the argument “it works” – my response is ...  you are measuring the wrong thing.

If what you do causes your customers to get a law passed to stop you – HOW CAN IT BE THE RIGHT THING FOR YOUR BRAND?

"The World Has Changed" says Motorola

The New Your Times carries a story “Hoping to Make Phone Buyers Flip” which leads on the hyper competitive cell phone handset market, the quickening pace of innovation and the capricious nature of the market.

At stake are millions of dollars in profits and the fortunes of entire companies. Like fashion or entertainment, the cellphone industry is increasingly hit-driven, and new models that do not fly off the shelves within weeks of their debut are considered duds. The most gadget-conscious shoppers buy new phones every nine months, twice as fast as they did a few years ago. And teenagers, one of the fastest-growing markets, are especially quick to dump a brand if it loses popular appeal.

In it are some note-worthy quotes about how handset manufacturers are also changing in the their attitude to the marketing process.

The world has changed,” said Jeremy Dale, who is in charge of marketing for mobile devices at Motorola, where fortunes tumbled with the decline of its once popular Razr. “There is more relevance in what other consumers say than what the company is saying.”

“The strongest marketing tool is the first 20,000 people who buy the device,” Mr. Dale of Motorola said. “If they like it, they will tell their friends.”

Yep Dale .. could not agree more!