Teenagers wants fun. They want storytelling. It´s not happening on Facebook. And they are in an age where they absolutely are not craving that the whole wolrd knows what they do, who they are, and with whom they are playing with.
They are moving to messaging services, which are becoming social networks on their own.
Read more here:
http://aresonance.posthaven.com/facebook-vs-advertising
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/teenagers-messenger-apps-facebook-exodus
99% of brands have an anti-social offering on Facebook - a social platform.
Promoted posts: Users are looking for user based content and interactions - not a brand post = negative views of the brand. And the image ad units - not much room for storytelling.
What can be done to improve? Understand that storytelling is not about capturing likes but to influence and create advocates who use your story to tell something important about themselves. That´s how you become part of the stories between people.
The problem is that 99% of brands are not doing storytelling. They are talking about their attributes. Not very social...
According to Kris Hoet a MCKINSEY Study show that
It´s like saying you´re going to make a viral video. Forget about tactics. It´s more important to first of all do the right things rather than doing the things right.
To achieve marketshare growth it´s important to place the brand in the hearts and minds of as many people as possible. Here´s a few cents on how to do it:
1. Know who you as brand are and what you stand for. This answer - one sentence - should act as your Marketing 101 for everything you do. I.e Pedigree who´s not in this world to feed dogs. But to aspire to loving dogs. That´s their 101 that guides all their marketing initiative decisions.
2. Observe culture/the brands target group 365 days a year - their interests,what people do - and identify how the brand can lead and add value. I.e Red Bull with everything they do (Helping people to be passionate about their interest for high energy lifestyle activities through content/events etc), Home Depot with their different marketing initiatives(Helping people to create homes), Intel IQ (Helping nerds to show of and facilitating a forum for exchanging ideas, NIKE Fuelband (Helping people succeed in sports - or as a minimum helping people pretending they take care of their health and are suitable mating prospect, a signal shown by wearing the band on their wrists)
3. Set goals and main objectives. Collecting data to get more data is useless. Set goals. THEN start collecting the data you need to understand more. 365 days a year.
4. Create magic. Discovering potential for enhancing the storytelling of the brand that can increase marketshare by observing/analyzing data without acting upon it is useless. Create one or more stories which are always aligned with what the brand stands for. The marketing 101 used as guideline for decisions 365 days a year.
5. Publish and start develop these stories where people are. Transmedia planning. (The model of a media neutral planning with one idea being executed differently throughout various channels is dead…) Focus on something people can bring to their networks or enhance the possibility of them contributing to it, by creating something of shared interest. Use whatever works best for your story: Ads on TV, Apps, Sponsoring, Social ads, Mobile, Sites, Social moderation and activation, Events, Print etc.
You co-create a story with the market. 365 days a year. I.e Mondelez who gathers data(mPulse lab), creates and publish(done by professional storytellers/creatives) stuff 365 days a year (Planning it for all their 65 brands - 10-20 is up and running already. I.e Oreo) Here´s where most brands fail however. And the reason for it is, beyond that they focus mostly on tactics, is that they do not have professionals who proactive develops and enhance the brands crafted initial storytelling. Many are good at customer service but the same people seems to be behind really bad attempts at storytelling that worst case can ruin a brand. Especially when it comes to content and real-time marketing. Brands can create their own TV commercial, but understand the importance of letting professional creative storytellers develop and produce it. This understanding is not present when it comes to storytelling in social media.
It´s important to
plan and activate people so that they continue to influence their networks
both on- and offline. So that we can operate more meaningful than our
competitors in the marketplace. Which implies that the quality of the STORYTELLING is the most important factor for success. To become part of the stories between people. To resonate emotionally and rationally. The right story. Only then you can start with tactics. Do things right. Also when responding to something unexpected on paid, owned or social media - in real-time.
People act like a herd. Similar people attract each other online. And they behave much the same way there. So the key in marketing is what kind of social currency your are creating. And its not the ego centric individual that´s the aim - it´s group dynamics. Focus on communities of people. Interests. And be the space in between them by adding something of value. Something they will experience as a social value.
"We find the correlation of anger among users is significantly higher than that of joy, which indicates that angry emotion could spread more quickly and broadly in the network. "
Anger spreads faster than joy: Read more here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.2402
For most brands - create joy...
Steve Jobs, interviewed on stage alongside Tim Cook (current CEO). He was asked if Apple’s goal was to win back dominant share of the PC market
“I’ll tell you what our goal is…to make the best personal computers in the world and products we are proud to sell and would recommend to our family and friends. And we want to do that [raises voice] at the lowest prices we can, but I have to tell you there is some stuff out there in our industry that we wouldn’t be proud to ship, that we wouldn’t be proud to recommend to our family and friends…and we just can’t do it, we can’t ship junk”.
Sir John Hagerty: "We do not create and broadcast commercials anymore for our clients - we create and broadcast events on TV to start up conversations. If you are a marketeer - this is what you want! This is what results in sales."
Brands, especially big brands, need to broadcast to kickstart, maintain and fuel the possibility for being perceived as more relevant than your competitors. To keep and create the mental availability of the product/service on peoples mind = brand growth.
Forget about awareness. Forget about TV, Digital or mobile. Forget about creating a TV commercial.
Focus on the ideal of the brand, create and execute awesome ideas that builds the story of the brand and it´s customers. Focus on interest. Focus on telling the story/ies 24/7/365 using whatever tool or media that works to tell it to, together with and for people so that the brand becomes part of the stories between people.
It´s not about a "consumer" and the deep psychology of his/hers innermost thoughts. To achieve success with marketing, to gain "fame" and change behavior, you need to focus on people and how the are connected and connect with others.
That´s why it´s so important that a Brand has a clear stated purpose or ideal if you like. The Brands answer to questions like: "What are we fore?" or "Why are we in the market?"
This is even more important now that brands realize the importance and potential of Real Time Marketing, Branded Content, Performance Marketing, Big Data etc - which are just buzz words on new possibilities to achieve what has always been important within marketing to ensure growth: being perceived as more prominent and relevant than your competitors. But new technology has enabled marketeers to do this more efficient and at a faster scale. When a brand create content or do something that becomes content that people choose to communicate to each other on Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn o.s - that´s when you have succeeded in resonating with the market. With culture.
Cases and white papers shows that people who are exposed to content via social (i.e clicking on a friend´s FB post link) deliver high scores on different communication KPI´s and tactical KPI´s. These cases however are about brands that do NOT focus on talking about themselves and their product features. But creates and/or do stuff that focus on pursuing the brands purpose that it shares with culture. A good example is Apple´s "Think Different" TV spot. Not a word about the functionalities and did not even show the computer. But it resonated and if it was 2013 it would - in addition to IRL WOM - be shared, liked, favorited, retweeted, remixed, pinned, starred etc massively by people and thus Apple would become part of the stories between people. Which would then again make people interested to learn more about the product and it´s features. Aspire first - then attributes.
"We´re good at the consideration phase. When it comes to evaluation:
Even if I have fantastic advertising… if 50% of my consumers come online and they don't find anything to evaluate me on, they'll probably go to the competitive products. It doesn't matter how much I've spent on consideration."
- Marc Speichert, L'Oréal USA CMO.
Take a look at these two photos. The first thing that comes to mind is that is must have been much better to feel alive in the 90s.
It´s not that simple. My view is that both being able to share and show live + being there enhances the experience. The enhanced ability to after rationalize, both during the event and after, makes it a bigger moment.The value increases.
And hey, being at a concert with Sonic Youth or Prodigy in the 90s was much more of a "hands in the air" moment than being at a Taylor Swift concert anyway...
