Our customers have always been driven and motivated by ‘human’ behaviours : emotionally driven to fulfil, needs, problems, desires and stimulation.
Today technology in media is becoming more ‘human’ in what it is capable of doing and learning
In this short section I am going to suggest that maybe the most successful way to navigate an increasingly digital world is via brands equally becoming more human in the way they build relationships with their customers through the opportunities digital media gives us
3. How we think How normal people think
NFC
Social
Gaming
A Tube card
Filling in
boredom on
the tube
Conversation
Platforms
Banter &
Bragging
Being more ‘human’ in a digital world’
4. 6 stages to being a human brand in a digital world
Our customers have always been driven and motivated by ‘human’ behaviours : emotionally driven to fulfil, needs, problems, desires and stimulation.
And we have already discussed today how technology in media is becoming more ‘human’ in what it is capable of doing and learning
In this short section we are going to suggest that maybe the most successful way to navigate an increasingly digital world is via brands equally becoming more human in the way they build relationships with their customers through the opportunities digital media gives us
The first thing about being more human in a digital world is to re-educate ourselves with regards to the terminology we use on a daily basis
We like to call things by their ‘brand name’
Consumers however tend to refer to things by how they help them fulfil a human desire / need or want
Every baby needs to crawl before it launches into a sprint
The same is applicable to any brand trying to grow up in a digital world
We need to make sure the fundamentals are in place as a foundation to everything which comes next
85% of digital journeys start with search
But only 3% of searches are for a brand name
Search is not just about words any more
Your ability to appear in natural search rankings are now influenced by video, images, links, comments and shares
It means social platforms which once upon a time used to be an option have become a necessity to help enable people to be able to find you when looking
And equally not any old content will do…Quality scores and interaction will further drive visibility of your brand in the digital sphere
Once upon a time social was about building a fan base – rewarding the loyal 2% of your consumers
But the potential of social channels lies in not just about ‘engaging’ with your fans
Rather it is about using your ‘fans’ as an incredibly efficient way of reaching a wider audience (a fan base of 500,000 can deliver you an exponential reach of 53million people who are friends of fans) and also feed into your brands ability to be found when being searched for
This means there is a change in the role of the brand in this space
It is no longer just about ‘engaging’ the loyal 2%
But about facilitating conversation from those people out to a wider and wider group of people
As long as you remember that your role in this space is to help facilitate the conversations between people
Fundamentally within the owned . Earnt and bought model it means that we are not investing huge sums of money to invite people to a party where no one is there
When Felix Baumgartner jumped out of his space balloon, Red Bull posted the video on YouTube, and hosted it on their website.
Then they posted a link to that story on Facebook, where around 40k people liked it, and another 4k shared it with their friends. This is pretty successful as Facebook posts go, but it’s nothing new for Red Bull – who had around 32 million fans at the time of the jump.
So about 1 in 1,000 fans liked it (what do they want, blood?)
But nearly 80k Facebook users clicked on the link and visited Red Bull’s site.
And from that point, a similar number of people spontaneously shared it back into Facebook so their friends could see it.
Of course, if it’s outside Facebook, bloggers and news journalists can link to it. More than 200 people linked to the story, which gave it so much link juice that it shot up the Google rankings.
And more than 2k people Tweeted the link. We’ll come to see that this does a lot to help search rankings – but obviously it drives traffic too – around 20k in this instance.
Admittedly one of the most annoying habits of a small child is there incessant asking Why?
But in order to behave more human in a digital world one of the best places to start is with the right question………………
If you start with a Marketing hammer every problems solution will look like an Ad
The Fiat 500L is the perfect car for the modern urban family
So let’s tell them!
The family car market is SO BORING!!!!
Functional, rational, sensible information a plenty
But our audience are not boring people – this time last year they were at Glastonbury!, they have attacked every phase in their life as if it was an adventure – having a family is just the next adventure to cross off
On-top of that new parents are so hard to reach efficiently
If they have the TV on they are probably asleep on the sofa
If the radio is on they can’t hear over the sound of a baby crying
Magazines & newspapers – don’t make me laugh!
The answer was a piece of content with its tongue firmly in its cheek
Delivered via the platforms which had become essential in this new daunting phase of life – social media
Enabling them to consume it when they wanted – even if this was at 3am in the morning!
The Sunshine Aquarium in Tokyo had a problem
Visitors were down
Footfall in the local area was still high but those feet did not make it to the aquarium
If you had a advertising hammer in your hand you might presume the nail was ‘make The Sunshine Aquarium the MUST SEE event this holiday’
Lots of people went to the local train station
Except it was a 1k walk from station to aquarium
In-between the station and aquarium were lots of other things
People were getting lost or distracted and never ending up at the venue
Today we all want to have conversations with our consumers….
But do you conversation feel a little more like this?
A offers engine – offers from retailers,
But rather than random offers
Barclaycard has proper relationships with retailers so can get good stuff
And because it understands your payment history it can provide offers perfectly tailored to you
1. Don’t just put an ad out there and hope it works.
2. Don’t just assume people will want to talk to you because you are in social media
In media we can tend to obsess over demographics and disseminating information down to the lowest common denominator
And rightly so we have a huge responsibility to invest your money in the best way possible
But making snap judgements can also mean that demographics get in the way of delivering creative and effective solutions
So social and you tube – best left to the young – right?
Some things they did well:
Used a well known celebrity who already had a large following to ‘jump-start’ their presence
Created reasons to create content via competitions
People became emotional invested in the content they were producing and that in turn encouraged them to visit more often and share more
They focused on the community content not just on the brand content
They Let it be:
When constructed it was a place to talk food and recipes, but women started talking to each other about personal issues and Philadelphia just let them without trying to steer the conversation back to product
Big data is essentially that
An ever increasing knowledge base of what people are doing….what games they are already playing
Using this to your advantage means you can start to stich your approach in communications to make sure you play the games people are already playing….
Historically what is happening on TV has driven conversation in Twitter
Trident wanted to know if they could turn that on its head and use what is happening on Twitter drive content on TV?
The biggest topic of conversation with Trident target audience was music
Content from the ½ hour programme was broken down into 2 min snippets which were distributed out via twitter
Those 2 min bits of content were bookended with 6” Vine clips
Challenged VINE celebrities to make better vines – those with the most interaction became TV spots (70,000) interactions
The term Pay you in Layers became a cultural term – they even paid their agency in layers (product)
So far the campaign has driven an increase in intent to purchase by 3% (previously it was a declining brand)