Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

There is a great article over on the Conversation Agent blog about the with great stats from a Harris Interactive poll about what drives Customer Advocacy.

As the digital revolution continues to sweep across multinationals, the tools and frameworks required to create market-moving strategies continue to evolve.  We had the Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action model for a while, and while it is compelling for those with a braodcast mindset, it was finally shown to be inadequate to describe relationships that don’t end with a sale (perhaps only beginning with one).

CRM marketers have been hip to this for a while, and their tools and strategies took into account the need for  Acquisition, Retention and Winback frameworks - especially for longer-term engagements like credit card companies.  Adding Loyalty to the AIDA model gets us closer, but the missing element in this framework was advocacy.

With the advent of social media solutions for businesses, and the idea of markets as conversations, there are more fluid models required to keep communications between brands and consumers positive and helpful - enabling more fans of brands to act as ambassadors for their favorite brands.  These models have to consider customer service as a key element in any relationship-driving objective.

Ultimately, a great product is seemingly never enough, and a strong brand can help you weather attacks, but not necessarily cement a new one. Customers value human connections and feeling valued beyond a purchase - and this attention is what fuels customer advocacy in brands who “get it.”

The final level of loyalty, where you feel so strongly about a product that you not only buy it, but recommend it to others - that’s the zenith.  That’s where karma seems to come in - when how much you actively care for customers can start paying the brand back in terms of customer advocacy.

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Okay, it’s pretty hard to have gripes with a successful brand like Apple, and I don’t want this to be about product strategy or marketing in general. But there’s a really annoying thing Apple does in Germany that I find silly, unwarranted and possibly harming to what is otherwise an awesome brand.

The harmful thing is fake proximity where people do not want it, need it or expect it. In Germany, Apple uses the informal “Du” instead of the formal “Sie”  to address a person in all of their communications. Even when you walk into an Apple store.  When they talk to you, it’s like complete strangers you are trying to have a business transaction with addressing you like a potential drinking buddy you just met at some bar.

So, say you walk into an Apple store and buy an Apple product for 300 EUR (a risky investment you expect high rewards from) and, after 2 weeks, find out you have an issue with one of their products. Knowing that Apple, unlike other more faceless brands, allow you to walk into any Apple Store and deal with your issue, you do exactly that: you walk in and say: the battery on this ipod touch dies after 30 minutes. The response: “Hey Buddy, let’s see if we can get you an appointment”. Shocking. Culturally inept. Addressed like this, I do not feel taken seriously. In fact, I feel like I have to do yet another favor for the aloof brand Apple, the cool kid in the school yard I am not cool enough to be with.

A brand like Apple does not need to pretend to be best buddies with you. It needs to finally deal with the fact that it has become mainstream and act accordingly. Dear Apple, you are not selling to to just 3% of the PC market anymore, you have created a movement that has become a currency in the social fabric. Act like it! Especially when people have an issue with their investment in terms of time, money or attention to your brand. It’s part of growing up as a brand. Duh! People EXPECT things and want them to be FORMALLY fulfilled. People already come to you with a high level of perceived risk and do not want to be “buddied down” to a level where you feel like you are doing the brand a favor by reciprocating the informal mode of communications.

Grow the F up.

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Have no real time to make this a proper entry, as I have to get packing for 3 weeks of travelling, but I wanted to share this interesting article on the surge of corporations’ use Twitter as a customer service surveillance tool, as well as to boost brand perception in the favor of transparency, as reported by Businessweek.

via http://twitter.com/Armano

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