Brand Love Hate

Starbucks on TV

John Moore has a great post with also-great comments regarding Starbucks' new TV advertising for the holidays. I am a huge Starbucks fan pretty much across the board (brand, experience, product, Web site), but to me, any advertising not focused on the Starbucks customer experience is off-brand. Starbucks has always been the prime example of how the user experience defines the brand relationship, not advertising. However, I think it's wrong to say that because SBUX built its brand on great experiences and word-of-mouth advertising (WOM), it should never run a TV advertising campaign. But the cartoon angle just seems fluffy for a brand as strong and experience-based as Starbucks. How about a 5-second spot using just the red cups?

Client Service is Branding

Every interaction with a customer or potential customer is a brand experience. Regardless of what your advertisements say - if you even have any - it's via real interactions with you and your company that people's opinions of the organization will be shaped. My current clients range from major job boards and Fortune 100 employers to small staffing firms and individual recruiters, so when I hear, "Thanks for taking the time to work with someone like me," I know that I've done my job and made the most of that branding opportunity.

Conversely, every missed connection, every neglected e-mail, every customer blown off as "not important enough" is a ding in that person's perception of not just me but my entire company. Working with the "impossible" client - while often hard as hell - is not a joke. It's an opportunity to break through with a detractor and even convert a negative brand perception to the positive.

Word-of-mouth marketing (big surprise) is not exclusively positive. At a recent trade show, I watched two recruiters from a huge company walk away from a vendor's booth shaking their heads and essentially laughing at the presenter. What do you think they told their team upon returning to the office? No matter how great that company's product may be, or how slick its sell sheets are, it took a brand hit that day. Those two ladies cared about how they were treated for those three minutes - that was the brand experience - and nothing else.

Quote: Word of Mouth Marketing

Some people discount the value and impact of word of mouth marketing, and think that seeing an advertisement or TV spot about a company or product inherently makes the brand "known." That bugs me, so I was happy to see this quote recently:

"Create something cool, and people will distribute your brand for you. And content will become the new forum for advertising.

Users will tell you if you’re doing it right."

– Sanaz Ahari, Lead Program Manager, Microsoft
Fast Company 114

Amen.

Yahoo Brand Universes

Beginning with the Nintendo Wii, Yahoo is developing mini-portals for 100 "passion brands" with large fan bases. The sites will combine content from different Yahoo properties, including Flickr, del.icio.us, MyWeb, Yahoo Answers, Video and Shopping. I really like the concept because the sites have the potential to be really fun, with future portals to be focused on Harry Potter, Lost, The Office and Transformers. The brand-focused sites should also provide great opportunities for advertisers to reach targeted, captive audiences.

Satellite Radio – Tried It, Want It

During my recent road trip from Chicago to Seattle, my brother and I had a pile of CDs ready for the long haul. We knew we would need tunes without the annoyance of radio ads during the four days of driving. Well, we had just hit Chicago traffic when we both noticed that our rental van had Sirius satellite radio on board. We did not open a CD jewel case for a few days.

Satellite radio is one of those things you have to experience to truly appreciate it and warrant a purchase. It's a great pitch - digital sound, no commercials, no need to change channels during interstate travel, tons of options - but it's still just radio, right? This made me think of a concept called "experience before the brand" - no matter what the ads and marketing say, it's the customer interaction with the company or product that shapes the brand experience. It's why Starbucks doesn't need advertising and McDonald's does. And it's why I became a huge fan of satellite radio.

The millions of dollars spent on advertising Sirius didn't make me ever consider buying satellite radio, but trying it did. Not even considering reaching for a CD for days without a repeated song on ThePulse made me think it's a worthwhile investment, not a great Web site or ad campaign. The same thing happened for me with Netflix - the concept sounds great, but is it worth my $10 per month?  In that case it was neither trial nor advertising, but rather the huge collection of customer interactions with Netflix that influenced my decision to buy - friends, family and bloggers who shared their positive experiences with me and sealed the deal.

My Life as a BzzAgent

I signed up to be a BzzAgent recently and am really digging the process. My first effort was a BzzBlast for Take 5 candy bars, which was great because they rock. And the BzzBlast gave me the WOM ammunition (in the form of many small Take 5 bars) to spread the word with friends and co-workers, who were more than happy to oblige and eat them. Being a BzzAgent is cool because I can choose when to participate and when to opt out, and only need to help on campaigns for products that I actually like. However, when searching Google and Technorati for some others' thoughts on BzzAgent, it seems that some folks have issues with the company and service, from its VC financing to accusations of "secret" buzz blogging and comments, even though they're against the BzzAgent code of conduct. So far I like being part of BzzAgent and also see how it could work as part of a marketing campaign. Anyone else like or dislike?

Buzz-o-phone Podcasts Customer Rants and Raves

Via Micro Persuasion, I can't stop listening to Buzz-o-phone. It allows consumers to call a phone number and share their brand love and/or hate. Nothing special? Well, it then publishes those messages as MP3 files via an online player and RSS feed. You can hear a woman rant about her Sears experience then a guy rave about his favorite coffee. Some even reference one another. Via trackback, AdRants predicts that companies will take advantage to promote their brands via the site. I wonder, are they even listening? My initial thought was that crank calls would be a problem, and although there are some, they are so dopey as compared to the real customer feedback that they just make the callers look stupid rather than ruin this great site.

IBM WOM

The IBM server group received some nice word of mouth marketing in today's episode of Rocketboom, which is now hosted on dual IBM eServers.