Build Relationships and connect.

Image by kris247

Under the title “Say Goodbye To Experimental Spending In 2009″, Mediapost’s Mark Walsh writes about a panel at ad:tech new York on media planning and buying the digital era. He quotes Donna Speciale, Mediavest USA: “09 is not the year for testing. Brands want to stick with areas that are tried and true.”

The question is: What areas are tried and true? The diminishing value of advertising on TV? The increasing banner blindness of people? The continuous decline of newspaper advertising value? Or is it just Google? Donna Speciale might be talking about tried and true areas for her agency: Good commissions for big campaigns. Efficient delivery of mass messages. That might be in the best interest of her agency. But it’s not in the best interest of brands.

Just ask Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson or Henkel AG: The WSJ reports that all those CPG giants are seeing a consumer trend abandoning brand loyalty due to the economic crisis. Store brands are on the rise, 25% of consumers say they don’t really see a difference between national brands and store brand of paper products, sales of Gain rose by 10% while the pricier Tide has weaker results, 25% of upper-income consumers gave up favorite brands over six months in 2008 and private-label versions of soap and other bath products are up 23% in the last 12 months.

I guess those tried and true areas don’t work that well.

And, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. How can you communicate with people when you treated them like sheep and target audiences for the longest time? How can you hope to get your message across in the age of media snacking? Do you really believe anybody cares about your brand when they have bills to pay, mouths to feed and the constant barrage of bad news to digest? And how much less do they care about your advertising?

People are cutting back. People are trying to save each and every penny. You should cut back, too. Cut back on the mass approach. Cut back on the reach and frequency philosophy. Cut back on the tactics that lead people to negate your brand and go to private labels.

Instead, build relationships. Learn as much as you can about your customers. There are a gazillion tools out there that allow you to connect with people. It’s easy to break a brand bond when there’s no relationship between people and the brand. 

Rethink your CRM systems. Are they only beneficial to you? What benefits do people get out of them? How can you transform your current CRM system to facilitate a real, authentic relationship with people? 

Rethink your company structure. If you consider Conversational Marketing/Social Media as a tactic, an execution, a short-term band-aid: Please stick to the tried and true areas. But, if you see Social Media as a game-changer, as an opportunity to strategically revamp your business and open new markets – this might be the biggest opportunity to change your category and become/remain the biggest player on the block. 

To adjust Obama’s quote: (Building relationships) “alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.”

How to connect with people during a recession

Image by eecue.com

We’ve lived through a period where people constantly advanced: There was a unique sense of momentum, technology made amazing advances, new opportunities to communicate, be employed and make money seemed to pop up every day. There was no time looking back, just a constant rush to look ahead. We didn’t live in houses, we flipped them. We bought the BlackJack yesterday, just to replace it with the iPhone tomorrow. And the GPhone the day after. While we were living in the present, most of our attention was focused on the future.

Just like 9/11, the September 15 failure of Lehman Brothers came as a shock and each passing day made the world feel colder and the outlook on the world less optimistic: TED Spread, Libor, Layoffs, Bankruptcies, red numbers on CNBC and Bloomberg. People had to change from the advancing modality of the last 7 years to a retreat modality. People are not advancing anymore. Instead, they are focused on the here and now. Since most consumers are in a state of shock, they closed their wallets and started to treasure their current belongings. Their current job. Their current relationships. Their current home. In light of the onslaught of foreclosure news, your home has become the emotional center of your life. Home is where your family lives, home is where you have good times with friends, home is where you feel safe from red numbers and bad news.

For the foreseeable future, most people will be in the retreat mode. They will savor things, cherish relationships and use their home as the base camp for strategic advances into the outside world.

Pillsbury has understood this trend:

But they didn’t understand the real essence of retreat: Your home is not a magical place, it’s not the advertising world of Christmas where everybody smiles, the grandfather nods in agreement while smoking a pipe and the mother is knitting away. Home is a real place. It’s the place where you can be real. Where you can yawn out loud, where embarrassing things happen, where you can be yourself. That’s the essence of Ikea’s Home campaign:



The humanization of the retreat mode is where the real game is. Combine this with a social media/conversational marketing strategy that allows people to feel at home with their friends/family through easy connections and solid brand platforms, and you have a real winner at hand.
The retreat mode is a scary thought for economists because the US economy is based on growth and consumption. But it shouldn’t be scary for marketers because we always have to connect with people in their current state of mind. Authentic. Human. Real.

Recession – these are the best of times

These are tough times for many businesses. Sales are not as good as expected. Marketing costs are being scrutinized, just to be scrutinized again. We might be in the minority but these are the best of times.

Fat years tend to make us lazy. We spend our marketing budget without questioning if any of this is worth a damn. Recessionary times force us to go back to our roots. It makes us think about the value of our marketing efforts. Mediocrity is not acceptable anymore. The glossy brochure that collects dust might be a great value for your corporate meeting, another piece you can showcase and share with your fellow marketers. But, is it really what people want? Just like the banner ads you produce, the print ads, the commercials.

Recessionary times force us to be more creative. Is there a better way to communicate your product features to people than a glossy, expensive brochure? Can we replace the costly redesign of the product site with an innovative approach that shows people we understand what they need? Can we save a lot of money by cutting commercials and, instead of annoying people, offer them value?

Recessionary times make us focus on the basics of our offerings. And communicating them in new, innovative ways. And getting closer to people. By listening. And reacting. These are the best of times.