This article discusses the power of individual consumer voice online and how it destroyed a heritage brand like Maggi in India.
Read moreHandling Crisis Communication On Social Media - What We Can Learn From The Germanwings Case
How to handle crisis communication on social media? See what we can learn from the Germanwings case and how to effectively use social media for crisis communication.
Read moreThe future of automotive brands: From car manufacturer to mobility provider?
This blog post explores how car manufacturers and automotive brands can adapt in times where the car industry is facing a digital disruption.
Read moreAre the sharing economies helping us to trust each other?
Trust is the currency in sharing economies and many brands have evolved into controlled entities which elaborates the concept of collaborative consumption.
Read moreHow to Solve the Conflict Between the Exclusivity Paradigm of Luxury Brands and the Open Source Character of Social Media Part 2
Based on the previous discussion about and comparison of the two concepts of exclusivity paradigm and the open source character of social media, the maintenance of exclusivity while opening their communication to millions of users emerged as main challenge for luxury marketers. As mentioned before, luxury marketers have pursued a very exclusive communication strategy targeting their consumers directly. By using social media this exclusive communication and targeting is watered down. This development is one of the most significant paradigm shifts within their history (Costa and Handley, 2011). Now every user can communicate on the brand publically.
Read moreHow to Solve the Conflict Between the Exclusivity Paradigm of Luxury Brands and the Open Source Character of Social Media Part 1
Social media has significantly restructured the communication of companies - influencing organizations, the consumer and brands all around. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram together register more than 2.7 billion active users who spend an average of 2.4 hours daily on these platforms (Adweek, 2014). This corresponds to 39% of the world’s population – illustrating the immense power of online users. Consumers are no longer search for information passively; they actively create content and moderate discussions on brands (Hanna et al., 2011). Nowadays, we are living in an era where corporate communication is democratized as the power over communication has shifted from organizations to consumers (Kietzmann et al., 2011). Brands had to realize that online branding is an open source activity controlled by the customer rather than by brand managers (Fournier & Avery, 2011). Posing simultaneously both an opportunity and a threat, this consumer empowerment has a significant impact on how industries operate – the luxury industry being no exception (Dubois, 2014). Due to the enormous increase of online users, digital marketing and especially social marketing has become a mandatory element for every company (Hanna et al., 2011). But why have especially luxury brands struggled so long to invest in social media?
Read moreOnline word-of-mouth and its key characteristics to manage it effectively
Online or electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has been defined as “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet” (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004, p. 39). Moreover, eWOM also includes opinions and share of information not only about products but also about services and brands (Jalilvand, Esfahani, & Samiei, 2011). In this post I will address the question: what are key characteristics of eWOM that companies need to know in order to manage it effectively?
Read moreSocial Media Monitoring – 3 reasons why companies should do it Part 2
In the first part I provided three reasons why companies can benefit from Social Media Monitoring. In this part I will present well executed best practices that reinforce these reasons.
Best Practice 1: Old Spice listens to its audience and gets personal
In 2010 P&G’s brand Old Spice launched a campaign, which is a great example of how Social Media Monitoring can serve as a basis for interaction with the customer. It started with a spot called “the man your man could smell like”, which aired a few days before the big Super Bowl game on Youtube and Facebook. It was 30 seconds long and showed an attractive man who talked about how everything is possible with old spice body wash. The spot became a viral hit, capturing 76% of all online conversations about male body wash brands, and reached 10 million views on YouTube in a few months (Effie Awards, 2011).
Read moreHow Brands Should Deal with a Social Media Crisis. United Airlines case
With the huge rise of Social Media over the last decade, a new era has begun in the web environment. The presence of social media such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc have utterly changed the online scene for brand managers and marketers (Fournier & Avery, 2011). Billions of people were now connected and were able to express their thoughts, write articles, share images and videos.
Social media brought the world closer by providing a platform where everyone and from everywhere could join. Just to take a picture and understand the massive size of social media; Facebook statistics in 2014, showed that their monthly active users are 1.39 billion people, while Youtube users account for more than 1 billion as well (Facebook, 2015; Youtube, 2015).
Read moreBrand transparency – The brand that’s got nothing to hide for consumers
Written by Filip Zvorinji
The internet and its related interactive technologies have changed the rules of the game for brand managers and companies over the last ten years. The hierarchical one-way communication that worked in favor for brand managers has been replaced with many-to-many communication