Keeping Promises: How Companies Disrupt Branding Efforts

In many quarters, branding has almost become synonymous with advertising, marketing, and/or public relations. But as presented a few days ago, branding is a cross-departmental or disciplinary communication and operational function.

Specifically, it relies on the ability to effectively communicate a promise, deliver on that promise, and prove the promise was delivered. This is how companies develop relationships with customers and consumers.

Communicating A Promise.

A brand promise can be easily summed up as a unique position or unique product statement (or contrast point), with advertising usually charged with making sure that promise earns attention, especially when it is placed in front of the intended audience (or a maximum amount of people, which seems to be the general focus nowadays).

The challenge for advertising agencies is to make that promise as clear as possible, as interesting as possible to intended audience, and as confined as possible without overreaching on the company's ability to deliver. When there is no strategic thought behind a campaign, these three points aren't always in alignment.

• Some agencies produce ads that promise nothing. Diesel Shoes.
• Some agencies produce ads that bore us. Infotapes.
• Some agencies produce ads that promise too much. United.

Delivering On A Promise.

Not all companies mean to break their promises. Some of them do. A few even lie so often that we accept lies but do not elevate our expectations (e.g., fast food product shots, airline on-time arrival boasts, up front car salesmen). But for these purposes, it makes more sense to focus on those that are more clear cut.

Simply put, companies destroy their own brands when they don't measure up to the brand promise. Nobody gets upset when their phone camera doesn't measure up to a dedicated camera. But most people get upset when they are asked how they would like a burger cooked, and it comes out rare instead of medium (they don't say as much if they are never asked). And then, of course, there are other ways to undermine a brand promise.

• Promises that are lies. BP.
• Promises that overreach. Sprint.
• Promises that change. American.
• Promises that aren't scalable. Toyota.

As a side note, it might be interesting to consider that with every "improvement" a social network makes, it is changing its original promises. Is it any wonder why every change gets questioned? Or that there have been consequences since Digg launched its makeover? Or that most discounts are bribes, because people who receive them tend to complain less? Or that sometimes people become upset when they find out there are hidden costs (such as damage to the environment)?

Proving That The Promise Is Delivered.

For some companies, delivering proof can be the hardest task of all. Some companies struggle because they attempt to hide or stomp out any evidence of broken promises. They can accomplish this any number of ways.

• They can attempt to appease distractors.
• They can attempt to discredit distractors.
• They can attempt to drown out distractors.

This function used to rest squarely on the shoulders of public relations. The original idea was that public relations could be company cheerleaders who targeted influential people within certain publics (including the media). But now, of course, part of this tactic has fallen over into social media with some companies trying to leverage the number of followers as validation that they can deliver on a promise (even if they cannot).

What concerns me about social media sometimes is that the entire intent becomes to build an army of minions who talk louder, more frequently, and to more people than any number of other distractors. This isn't much different than the model employed in the 1980s. Except, instead of topical boundaries, there used to be geographical ones. It seems more worthwhile to keep promises.

The point here is twofold. For good companies, it's not enough to make good on the right promises. Other people have to find out. And second, the post-sale communication can be just as important as the presale communication, especially when you consider that a happy customer relationship can quickly turn bad if another consumer shows them something of better value.

A Quick Summation.

Every piece of the communication counts. And when companies begin to understand that social media is an online environment, they'll begin to understand that every communication component belongs online, not just one or two of three.

Broadcasting Promises: The Pursuit Of Viral Exposure

Many companies adopting social media have at least one or two executives and managers who dream of one thing: super exposure from social media. They couldn't care less if you like them, their company, or their products.

They might not even care if you make a purchase, because many of them are playing a numbers game. The numbers game was largely born out of direct marketing and, sadly, adopted by many advertising agencies in order to remain competitive. (They thought they had to, in order to prove ROI.)

The general theory is that if a marketer makes 1,000 solicitations, and 100 respond, then the marketer can say with confidence that the campaign led to a 10 percent direct response rate. If you are customer 101, it doesn't matter. If you do buy, then you're a bonus because the marketer can continue to repeat this process over and over again with new lists. The point is: it's anti-social.

Direct Response Advertising/Social Media Is Addictive.

Some people are still pretty excited by the Old Spice Guy campaign, enough to add it into their presentations. After initial reports showed some products dropped off, P&G claimed victory with record sales. Many social media experts that I know looked at this as proof that social media works, neglecting the huge direct response and magazine ad coupon campaign that accompanied the viral video. (The Old Spice Guy didn't play so well in print, by the way.)

"Who cares," some say. "Overall sales for Old Spice body wash rose 105 percent for that period!"

That's what makes the Old Spice Guy viral video campaign concept compelling and addictive. But let's be honest. It was especially clever, but it wasn't social. It might not even be sustainable.

After the newest installment on Facebook featuring Ray Lewis, fans aren't clamoring for Old Spice. They want more Isaiah Mustafa commercials, whether or not they buy the product. So who did that direct response campaign brand? Old Spice or Mustafa?

And, did it successfully change the lingering perception that Old Spice is for old people? I asked my son. He said some of his friends made fun of Old Spice just yesterday. But that's nothing compared to what some companies do. At least P&G is trying (and in come cases innovating) social media. Some companies just piss people off.

Delivering A Brand Promise Is Not Enough.

When companies adopt social media as a mere communication channel, the people behind the program fool themselves into thinking that numbers are everything. Ergo, the more people who hear the brand promise will mean more people will buy the product. But there is an inherent problem with this thinking.

Social media, on the whole, is an environment. And just like any environment, all three topics — promise, delivery, and proof — are fair game for discussion. Generally, after brand promise buzz dies down, customers and consumers stop talking about the brand promise and start talking about product delivery (and the consequence of delivery) and proof of delivery.

So, if the company delivers on the promise and provides proof it delivered, broadcast might be enough. But most companies don't deliver on the promise.* So instead, they play a different numbers game even if they don't know it.

Compounding Can Work Against Marketers Too.

If a marketer makes 1,000 solicitations, 100 are put off, and 100 respond (and 50 feel cheated), the marketer is contributing to a problem that won't materialize for months. But eventually, it will materialize. As the 100 who are put off and 50 who feel cheated (with every cycle) begin to share their stories, they will eventually outpace the company's broadcast efforts.

What does that mean? Sooner or later, the marketer will make 1,000 solicitations only to find 900 of those are wasted because those 900 already received an anti-brand promise message from 100 people put off and 50 who feel cheated (times the number of cycles). Of course, some companies are so arrogant that they will blame the messaging and not their own operations. So, it will go on and on until they eventually die or are bought up.

Delta is providing a great example of this right now. After a big splash to sell offsite and driving people to its Facebook page, it is painfully clear that Delta has adopted a broadcast-only tactic.

The Delta wall is riddled with unanswered complaints. The pace is eclipsing Delta broadcasts by more than 100-to-1. Delta obviously has a delivery challenge, which is compounded by a lack of social proof (they don't deliver and don't make good when they don't). As the numbers grow in the opposite direction, Delta will eventually find that no one will believe their brand promises anymore, except a few wing nuts who are heavily invested with millions of frequent flyer miles.

What Is The Solution?

The best solution is to adopt a social media program that can communicate the promise truthfully (advertising), engage with customer service (marketing), and provide proof (public relations) that something is being done. And, if the company is still unable to deliver, it could lower the expectation or improve the delivery.

Customers are very adaptable to lower expectations. People who buy a Yugo don't expect Porsche performance.

Airlines, for whatever reason, are prone to overpromise. They promise to get you to your destination safely and roughly on time, with your bags, after a reasonably comfortable flight, for the best possible price (sometimes lowest). And if they don't, they have passenger service agents who can help. The reality is that the only promise they can keep is price and lately (with all the add-on fees), they can't even do that.

There is another solution, of course. The broadcast-only model works if you stay away from the numbers game and target the right people. Inevitably, some people will like a specific product no matter what. In the 1970s, people bought pet rocks.

Some people think that the pet rock product was a numbers game. It wasn't. The initial campaign was targeted to people who would find it so stupid that it was a novelty. Its popularity among a certain segment pushed it toward mainstream popularity for about six months. Of course, this product wasn't sustainable. Most companies want to be sustainable.

*I don't believe most companies intentionally break promises or try to cheat people. There are dozens of reasons they break brand promises, but that will have to wait for another day. It's a complex subject, especially among bigger companies.

Reinventing Brands: Does Social Media Change Companies?

Jonathan Salem Baskin has an interesting theory about social media. He thinks tools like Twitter aren't some dream of customer empowerment, but rather the nightmare reality of the broken relationships between consumers and brands.

"Responding to online complaints is a tax that companies pay because of the chronic mismatch between what consumers expect from brands and what they ultimately get," he wrote for Ad Age. "An individualized response might momentarily bridge the gap, but it won't fix it. Never will."

His overall theory is that social media is similar to a penalty levied by consumers. It might be partly true, but it depends on the company. It depends on the relationship. It depends on the intent of the communication.

A Quick Brush-Up On Branding And Communication.

The secret of branding isn't found in advertising, marketing, or public relations. It's found in a promise and the ability to effectively communicate a promise, deliver on that promise, and prove the promise was delivered.

This is what all customers base their relationships upon, with all of it being underpinned by communication. Consumers do too, except they base their beliefs on nothing more than their perception.

Communication is powerful for companies in its ability to present the brand promise (advertising), establish transaction guidelines (marketing), and reinforce that the promise was met (public relations). It was that simple, multiplied out by how many people the company could reach.

And then came social media. Consumers could suddenly reach as many people as companies (often more) in a space where the companies weren't communicating (leaving unanswered untruths looking like truths). That presented a problem for some companies because those companies could no longer contain distractors like they did the media* (in some cases) and the Internet provided a wealth of new alternative products and services.

*Side note: media tended to be much more limited in its scope, preferring to promote promises, report on broken promises, and occasionally undertake investigative assignments that revealed delivery flaws or uncovered consequences associated with delivering on a promise (e.g., sweat shops in foreign countries). Most, but not all, tried to remain true.

Social Media Doesn't Change All Brands; Just A Lucky Few.

When many companies adopt social media, they generally focus only on one or two communication areas: promise (advertising), customer service (marketing), and proof (public relations). Few focus on all three.

The net result is a flawed strategy much like Baskin says. Many companies act like they are paying a penalty.

However, some companies are different. When they can broadcast the right promise, deliver on the promise, and provide proof that they delivered, social media becomes an opportunity and not an obligation. The opportunity is that social media provides another environment where companies can adjust the promise, adjust the delivery (or expectation), and share the proof.

In such cases, social media can provide the environment to change the brand, but it's still the people (inside and outside) who shape it. Of course, this only works if the company is open to change (unless they already meet this criteria).

Most companies don't. Many just want you to buy the product and shut up, unless you're convincing other people to buy too.

And that's why I think this topic merits further discussion. So, over the next couple of days, I'll share some insights on what happens when companies only employ advertising, marketing, or public relations in their social media programs as opposed to those companies with a much more integrated approach. I hope you enjoy and join in.

Moving The Cheese: How Post Frames Fail Over Time

When we chose Chris Brogan's post — How To Use A Writing Frame — as a daily fresh content pick (an experiment of sorts), I anticipated having to qualify it in a future weekly recap. Before having the chance, Ike Pigott had already questioned the framing concept.

"I understand WHY Brogan has a recipe for blogging. But it's not really for me. (My purpose is different.) — Pigott

Indeed. Writing frames are not for advanced writers, meaning roughly the top two percent of all writers. Pigott is an advanced writer. He doesn't adhere well to rules. A few of us don't.

Case in point, Valeria Maltoni, also an advanced writer, added a quip after I filled her in on my brief exchange with Pigott.

"PPT has templates... ;)" — Maltoni

Her quip made me chuckle. So I offered to pen a post about a Tweet template. And then, in rethinking it, decided that a Tweet template might work better in 140 characters. So, I offered the following..

"The best tweets have a beginning, middle, end, call to action, link, and plea for RTs."

Some people liked it, even though it was really meant to be a parody of the Brogan post (and advice I read about all the time). Hmmm ... maybe we need to start over.

Why Writing Frames Work.

When we chose the Brogan post, there was a specific intent on a light content day (not many people published, and the value was thin.) The Brogan post stood out because while he was really a conversational reframing of the ADIA (or ADICA) structure, but it is still helpful for novice writers, causal writers, lazy writers, and business writers (people who have to write posts, but don't necessarily have a love for writing).

Basically, a post framework is nothing more than a template. It's your story's outline, pure and simple. And I use similar models in classes because it helps people who will have to write establish a context of what it is they will write. As they get better, we focus on the exact opposite — breaking the rules.

Why Writing Frames Don't Work.

Coincidently, Sean Williams wrote a post yesterday that brushes up against why frameworks don't really work. For people who originally set out to break the rules of communication, social media pros are notorious for creating them. So many posts burn with the promise of ten things that will do this and five things that will do that, it sometimes makes my head hurt (I've added to the madness myself).

But all of us do it sometimes because people are hungry for frameworks. Or, like Williams points out, they want someone to tell them the easiest way to get the cheese. And once someone does get the cheese, they fall into a routine. That's all fine and good, until someone moves the cheese. Then, all those step-by-step experts start to panic. Google Instant is a good example. It sent shock waves through the SEO community, people who have been trying to perfect their routines for years.

And that is why frameworks don't work. When everybody is doing it, it gets boring. And for writers, when every post follows a framework, it becomes monotonous. It could also be the reason, I suppose, few Brogan posts are fresh picks. And Seth Godin has yet to offer up anything better than everybody else.

The Post I Could Have Written.

There is no formula to great writing other than time and sacrifice. By sacrifice, I mean that three-quarters of the way through this post, I thought of a different approach. It could have been a great post, using a Lego analogy. Summed in one sentence, Brogan offered up instructions on how to build what is on the box whereas Pigott and Maltoni are too busy erecting original works that are on display at Legoland.

Of course, in order to write that post, I would have had to sacrifice everything written and start over. But then again, I like this post in that it shares how social media is supposed to work. Brogan presented something, we thought it was valid, Pigott and Maltoni questioned it, I offered clarification, and brought Williams' thoughts into the mix.

Best of all, it also serves up how disagreement nurtures better ideas (for all those who shy away from it) without any drama. Huh. You can't make a framework for that. At least not one that will you get the cheese for any length of time.

Surveying The Public: When People Don't Know

If reality was the same as public perception, we would live in a much scarier world. I might even give up driving all together.

Traffic Perception.

• According to AAA, 52 percent of all surveyed drivers said they feel less safe on the roads now than they did five years ago. The leading reason cited by American drivers was distracted driving, with 88 percent of motorists rating drivers who text and email as a very serious threat to their safety.

• According to State Farm, teens ages 14 to 17 think the chances of getting into an accident are higher when you drink and drive as opposed to text and drive. Sixty- three percent strongly agree they could get into an accident if they text and drive.

• According another AAA announcement, texting by Golden State drivers has nearly doubled since the introduction of a state law 19 months ago. It was designed to prevent distracted driving, but the study said it doubled. It was based on combining three studies.

Traffic Reality.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently released an updated 2009 fatality and injury data report showing that highway deaths fell to the lowest number since 1950 (a 9 percent decline from the year before). The record-breaking decline in traffic fatalities occurred even while estimated vehicle miles increased. Fatalities declined in all categories of vehicles including motorcycles.

There was also a 5 percent decline among people injured. There was a 5.3 percent decline among all accidents, including those with property damage but no injuries.

More recently, the adminstration also released data that suggested distraction-related fatalities represented 16 percent of overall traffic fatalities (the same as 2008). However, there is a bit of a numbers game in play-- 16 percent of less is still less.

The Perceptional Gap.

Traffic safety is important and no one can dispute that distracted driving (especially texting, but also eating or putting on makeup) is stupid and nothing about this post is meant to distract from striving to reduce accidents, and fatalities, even more. To anyone who loses a loved one, numbers don't matter even if the reality is we will never achieve a zero year.

However, the takeaway is that sometimes our perception and reality are different. Specifically, traffic safety is getting better even while the public believes it is getting worse. (While writing this, I recall Ike Pigott made this observation in July.)

There are a number of factors contributing to the perceptional gap. Traffic safety concerns receive two to three times as much coverage as improvements. Local news stations frequently lead with accident recaps. Millions of dollars are spent on fear campaigns every year. And even the administration that announced the "good news" had announced a $13 million ad campaign to target 20 percent of drivers who they say admit to having driven after drinking (just days before).

For communicators, it's always something to keep in mind. Crowd sourcing and surveys are great, but it's the work done after the data has been compiled that makes a real difference. Sometimes statistics lie, but sometimes people who contribute to those statistics lie too. Even if they don't know it.

Engaging Strategic: Fresh Content Project

If I had to pick a percentage out of a hat, I might say 98 percent. Right. As hard as it is to imagine, most communicators (advertisers, marketers, public relations professionals) have no concept of strategic communication or how to differentiate strategies and tactics. Many of them resort to treating strategies as objectives (which is very accurate).

As a fresh pick recap post, I won't bore you with the definitions today. What I will do is share five posts that demonstrate strategic thinking as opposed to the typical tactical execution where most people place their focus. Take a look and enjoy.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of September 6

• Case Study: Tyson Foods Hunger Relief.
Geoff Livingston shares some insights and observations on the Tyson Hunger Relief program, which began in 2007. It was among the first corporate programs to expand using social media with a Wordpress blog, which was later augmented by social networks, including Twitter and Facebook. The program stands out for its sense of purpose as each phase was built out over the course of three years. Tyson also took the campaign offline, engaging people at social media events. Smart stuff.

• Crowd Sourcing Means More Work for You, Not Less.
In a guest post by Len Kendall, the Spin Sucks blog establishes some checks and balances to crowd sourcing, including a content calendar (timeline for engagement), visibility, editing submissions, promoting good work (beyond the winners), and establishing a definite end to the program. All of his points are valid and mindful, taking the crowd sourced content of the tactical box and into the strategic box.

• The ROI of Rotary.
In his first guest post on the Social Media Explorer, Ike Pigott tackles the history of social media ROI by using a Rotary analogy and reminding professionals that not every measurement needs to be marked off with a click, like, follow, or even sale. Social media tends to be more fluid, with an understanding that not all measurements are quantifiable. Often, it's the benefits we don't measure that have the most value.

• The Three Dimensions Of Internal Branding.
Another guest post on Social Media Explorer, this time by Heather Rast, hits all the right notes on the topic of internal branding (which is also one of my favorite subjects). Right out of the box, Rast suggests that employers have a tendency to talk in terms of "they" (employees) and "we" (employers), which further diminishes the power of "we" inside every company. After all, if everyone — customers, prospects, and employees — is assigned to the "they" column, it doesn't leave many people on your side. You can read her other great points by reading the post.

• Hope for Better Conversations.
Geoff Livingston and Beth Harte cowrote ten topics they would like to see more discussion about as opposed to the written-to-death social media memes that tend to take up everyone's time (and unfortunately still drive traffic). Among the hot topics that are under covered, they stay, are citizen journalism, government data usage, and culture shifts. They have some solid ideas in what they propose, but as someone who has written about most of their suggestions, I can promise few people will read them. But then again, that is the point, isn't it?