by Nathan Lane
I spent Friday speaking at an event for Foreign Direct Investment bodies organised by Red Hot Locations . The audience came from across the UK, Europe and North America.
The range of speakers covered topics from branding to design and the current seminar darling – social media. All the speakers covered similar themes, albeit coming from different areas of the marketing spectrum.
Three key themes from the day:
1. Authenticity
2. Engagement
3. Narrative
These themes should come as no surprise. I recently re-read the marketing classic “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins. It was written in 1923 and is still relevant today. In 1923 it was important to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes and address their needs. Listen to your customers and analyse advertising activity to target more effectively and generate better results.
Authenticity was important in 1923 and it still is today. Promoting a product or service on its essential truth will ensure that the customer experience is reinforced at the point of purchase. The impact of product or service not living up to its marketing promise is even greater today. In 1923 you may have told ten people about how unhappy you are but in 2009 you can tell 1,000s, and they can tell 1,000s, and they can tell 1,000s.
Brand news can go global in a day and this provides great opportunities for the marketing professional. The threat comes if you have a crap product or service.
Engagement used to come at a number of touch points from the newspaper ad to the purchase in store. The list has got longer but the problem isn’t more complicated. It remains the case today that the best brands provide a consistent voice across all areas where it interacts with its customers.
Social media presents greater opportunities to listen and interact with customers in real time. This is a huge asset to any business where you can grow relationships with customers before they even come in store. Post purchase the relationship is maintained and without having the costs associated with a print based CRM plan.
The best brands have a narrative, a story to tell, that will stick in the minds of customers. These brands become iconic with a raft of legends around them. Virgin, Ford, Apple, Ben and Jerry’s, Glasses Direct, Innocent – we can all recall a story about the brand that allows us to engage with them on a deeper level.
Buyology by Martin Lindstrom makes the point that in a world where we are subjected to so many messages, most brands become white noise. It is the brands with a story that stick.
I was asked on Friday “how will social media change my business”? There is no answer to that – it depends on what you want it to do. You can find stats that will tell you social media is the biggest thing since the industrial revolution or a total waste of money. More than the technology the biggest impact on the effectiveness of social media is the talent of the people running the campaigns, the resources applied and the goals that are set.
My view is that social media is another tool in marketers box and a bloody useful one that, if used in the right way, will drive out cost while getting you closer to your customers. We are now able to listen, engage and respond to our customers in a way that was impossible (other than face to face) five years ago.
From a PR perspective it is the stories that generate the media interest (print, broadcast, digital, social media) and get talked about. It is talkability that sits at the heart of any successful PR campaign – and it did in 1923.




