For years, classic brand strategy has always been about the creation of a single message that can be used with all of your constituents; investors, employees, senior management and customers about who you are and what value your company provides. Brand managers tend to write it up and paste it on every wall and train every new recruit in it. It’s a classic approach to command and control brand messaging which then gets deployed via all the traditional media and used in every communications channel.
But these days you hear a lot of discussions about the explosion of new media types and formats like RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, video, communities, micro-blogging and other emerging forms of social media. And it is causing plenty of concern that this disruption of media is eroding the traditional command and control branding that has become such common place for marketers.
Well, I say hallelujah and good riddance!
I believe that there is a very compelling argument that media doesn’t have to be fragmented while at the same time the message need not be command and control anymore. It is only a matter of knowing how to orchestrate it.
This is why a recent BusinessWeek article on Ford surprised me so much. Ford hired a very talented marketer away from Toyota named James Farley (FYI – cousin of the late Chris Farley). Farley has been doing a masterful job on several levels: he has built/is building a dream team of marketers, making product managers be wholly accountable for individual product launches (like the new Flex) and then building the kind of consensus around a new brand message that some of us can only dream of, bringing in key dealership owners to help with the final message selection. But in the end he came away with a new brand message of — Ford: Drive One.
Nice but – It’s a one way message, like Nike: Just do it. There is no conversation in there. How can I have a conversation with a brand that is ordering me to drive one of their vehicles?
In agonizing about our new brand message …. New Thinking for a Changing World. I knew I could build content and harness the power of the organization around it. I never would have felt comfortable going to the market with a message like BearingPoint: Just do it!
So here is the secret.
First, the brand manager needs to architect a single theme that can be used across all media traditional or otherwise. Notice here I didn’t say command and control at all …. just to create a theme that is broad enough to use across every aspect of your media plan and “invite” customers and prospects to “engage” with it.
Next, you need to give your customers and prospects the digital tools to comment, to interact, and to add to the conversation. Then you add in more traditional elements of a media plan that all point to the online conversation and you will end up supercharging your media plan!
The bottom line is your customers and prospects are perhaps the most savvy engaged technology users of any buyer in any industry. You can’t expect to reach them with just traditional media only anymore, you need to deliver your message in a way that is targeted to their exact interests. So why not get out there where they talking about your product or service, and give them a conversation starter along with the permission to start a dialog with your brand!
Related posts:
- The End of Command & Control Branding
- Branding Is Dead …. Long Live Branding!
- Is Traditional Advertising Dead?
- The Great BIG Branding Lie
- ABCs of Branding: 8 Branding Lessons Through Michael Jackson Song Titles
Tags: Advertising, Branding, Buzz Marketing, Conversational Marketing
First, I completely agree with the latter part of your post. It is how most companies should be doing things.
Today, though, these C&C messages seem more about helping shape the conversation instead of preventing it. Ford knows that the best way to sell a car is for the prospect to drive one. Then it helps shape the online discussion (ideally) by suggesting that to be a part of the Ford community you have to drive one first. It doesn’t limit the conversation but it does help disqualify threads that are not based on current models.
Example:
Poster: My ‘92 Ford Tempo was terrible and so is Ford.
Admin: Have you tried the new XXXX at this dealer near you to compare the quality then and now?
Poster: No.
Admin: I’ll set up a test drive. Come back and let me know what you think of the new model and quality.
I would be surprised if Ford is actually doing this properly but it certainly gives them the opportunity to start a conversation based on their premise: You’ve driven one? Tell us about it.
Paul, this post made me think. Although I agree that large companies should be engaging in two-way conversations with existing and prospective customers, doesn’t it depend on who the target market segments are – whether all eggs should be placed in the electronic basket?
I don’t have the stats, but most people I know personally are not online other than to write e-mails and pay bills – and that’s IF they trust paying for anything on the Internet. These people come from many different backgrounds and age groups. They represent target demographics to some companies, I’m sure. But they aren’t going to be engaged through blogs, feeds, podcasts or videos.
Just curious… are you suggesting that a tagline or key message be crafted specifically for customer interaction? I don’t intend to be flippant here, but how would Ford’s tag sound if it were: “Do you drive one?” or “Would you drive one?” To me, it doesn’t have the same cachet.
Dave
I like you perspective – perhaps this tagline could be positioned to “drive” prospects to the dealer where they can “drive one”.
Then after that discuss online what specifically they enjoyed the most.
Doesn’t seem that is the case but that could work for Ford (is anyone listening, Bhuler?)
Elaine
Great article on the technographics of our society just published by Forrester
check it out here
http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,46816,00.html
net net – (pun intended) – more and more people (even seniors) are going online
your point is well taken on the “purchasing” angle – meaning are they really buying stuff online, not really but who buys a car online (other than the guy who bought my Volvo from me on eBay)
What I was suggesting via the tagline was just something more open – out of the 3 choices that the Ford Execs had I felt – “Have you driven a Ford lately?” was more open and created more of a dialog while still inviting people to “drive one”
Yes it is a bit of a return to an old tagline – but hey if it works …
Paul, I agree it doesn’t seem to be the case.
I think that Ford: Drive one is a brilliant approach. Everyone in the company can do their part in their own way to get people to drive one. This ranges from the obvious to each person asking the question: If I did it this way would it help to encourage people to drive one?
We are in the era of short simple statements that guides the behaviours of the entire company, not just the marketing machine. For an example of where it has worked look at BMW The ultimate driving machine. Or even Tesco with Every little helps.
C&C has been replaced with setting an approach and letting each person use it as a touchstone for everything that they do. Get the same message to work externally and you have really cracked it. Well done Ford.
I work at a New Media Communications firm in Boston, 451 Marketing (www.451marketing.com) and we do a lot of work with branding. What you said about branding is great, I feel the same way.
I fully understand your point of view, but hope you are wrong in the assumption that ALL command and control is going away…I believe there is still a need for a company or industry organization to get a consistent “national” message out to their audience.
One reason I certainly hope this is true, even in today’s digital world, is that we have just launched a new product to make it possible! (oddly enough, named ENGAGE, an important word in your message)
OUR “Engage” makes it possible for an organization with a network of dealers, or members, or other affiliated sites to post online video or multi-media presentations on a network of sites. This makes it possible, for example, for a manufacturer to put a video about a new product on the website of every dealer who sells it, regardless of the domain name, who hosts the site, and where it is….and at the same time, allow each independent dealer to use that video or multi-media with their own local branding.
Whether its marketing or customer information or education, or a PR message, it is a means to place the same “engaging multi-media” message on thousands of sites at one time.
With this ability to use a national multi-media messages not only on ONE corporate site, but make it available on the websites of hundreds of dealers or otherwise affiliated websites, we certainly hope the concept of a brand message that is consistent throughout all customer communication is not dead, whether it is meant to sell, educate, inform, – or- even it is one that encourages more customer “engagement”.