Threats of Brand management in social media Why Strong Social Media Presence Magnifies Brand Weaknesses and How International Brand Managers Can Address This Part 2

January 19, 2015

Written by Jenni Väisänen 

Demand for Transparency 

Strong presence in social media is a threat for brands due to the fact that all pieces of information, no matter negative or positive, ever published in the Internet, can be found conveniently and quickly with a few “clicks” (Akar and Topcu 2013). The availability of information via Internet has changed the marketing atmosphere and its rules: there are no secrets. Previously companies have been privileged to market brands and sell products to consumers without a true demand to be transparent in their messages and operations, whereas nowadays companies and brands need to be more accurate in their actions. As it seems to be, truth, no matter how ugly, will be tracked down and brought to public, and to social media. This, in turn, has a negative impact on brand equity and reputation. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012). (Fournier and Avery 2011)

In case consumers find discrepancies in a brand’s external and internal image, its users and customers can point out their observations quickly in social media. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011) Unilever’s famous Dove-case represents ideological differences between Dove and another Unilever-brand, Axe. While Dove fights for Natural Beauty, Axe promotes the idea of a total opposite of a Dove-woman, craving to get a piece of an Axe-man. Women in Axe-commercials are far from Dove-women in terms of their looks: they meet the standards of beauty industry. This created a wide conversation, questioning and threatening Dove’s authenticity. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) Pictures 5 and 6 below demonstrate the different perceptions of women between Axe and Dove. These kinds of cases, where a company’s actions are criticized can have a remarkable negative impact on brand reputation (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012).

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, 6 women with a "normal" BMI

Picture 5: Dove Real Beauty

(Dove U.S. Homepage 2014)

Axe Lynx Effect commercial stating "the cleaner you are the dirtier you get". Skinny blonde woman holding bikini top at its place.

Picture 6: Axe Lynx Effect (Claudiu, 2011)

Another example of brand management gone wrong is the case of BP. When the Deep Water Scandal proved that the beyond petroleum -rebranding practices were implemented not throughout the company, but only as a public relations –trick, the brand and corporate reputation were deeply criticised. (Fournier and Avery 2011) This, lack of authenticity and transparency, generated a lot of negative publicity for BP, decreased brand equity, and made the company look like a travesty of an environmentally-responsible firm (Ritson 2010).

Stand for your values

Corporate integrity is not any more dependent on the company operations only, but also on its employees and brand image. In order to establish transparency, authenticity is a key factor. To become authentic, brands need to correspond to what they claim to be, and employees must stand for the same values as the companies they work for. Hence, both product and corporate brands’ external and internal images must correspond with each other, and enhance similar values. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011)

Constant criticism 

Consumers have become more critical, and as they are connected in social media, they also interpret brand messages and values as a mass of people. Hence, if a brand message is supported, consumers are prone to show it by “liking” or “sharing”, whereas unaccepted brands are roughly criticized web-wide. Constant evaluation of companies and their brands either work for the brands as networks endorse them, or against them as consumers share negative experiences or pure hatred towards the brand. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Because social media enables convenient opinion and experience sharing, consumers seek reliable comments on the internet. They perceive other consumers as the most reliable sources of information. (Blackshaw and Nazzaro 2006, cited in Akar and Topcu 2013)  According to Muñiz and Schau (2007), the source of information does not have an impact on the dispersion of it: even consumers’ perceptions about brand-stories, which used to be created by brand managers only, can spread as rapidly as if they were originated by companies (cited in Singh and Sonnenburg 2012). Pitt et al (2002, cited in Fournier and Avery 2011) point out that when negative comments are published, they travel fast and reach a wide audience. Therefore, Homer’s (2008) findings about the relationship between brand image and quality encourage companies to support and protect their brands. He found out that brand image is perceived as a more important factor than the actual quality of a product. (Homer 2008, cited in Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012)

As Dell and Pampers’ have witnessed, trying to control, and moreover, enhance positive brand image, requires resources and time. Dell actually created a new job position for one of its employees, in which he works as a real-time help desk, solving consumers’ problems online (Fournier and Avery 2011), whereas P&G’s Pampers, suffering of mothers’ social media accusations of causing diaper rash to their babies, remained convinced about their new product’s safety. However, it was only until a third party, Consumer Product Safety Commission, was involved to the case, when the buzz around the sensitive issue and angry mothers started to calm down. (Barwise and Meehan 2010; Geller 2010) Below, Picture 7 shows, how experiences regarding Dry Max-diapers were shared through Facebook.

Pampers Dry Max Diapers -anti-brand Facebook site; people sharing skeptical questions.

Picture 7: Dry Max Facebook conversation (Recall pampers dry max diapers! 2010)

Online word of mouth can, at its best, concentrate on promoting a brand and work as a co-operative force in enhancing the brand. However, when world-wide communities focus on attacking a brand, they generate rapid, negative, and widespread electronic word-of-mouth and hence, reputation, by reaching a large number of consumers. Especially strong brands have been associated with “anti-brand sites”, which share negative perceptions about the brand. (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati, 2012) Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009) identify three reasons why specifically strong brands are threatened by communities. First, the more known the brand is, the more attention one can draw and hence, try to influence the industry. Second, as strong brands tend to dominate the market, damaging their image can cause changes in the market shares, and third, the fear of decreased brand equity can make larger companies to listen to boycotters’ requests and mission. (Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009)

 Learn, develop, and communicate it!

Constant criticism can, however, encourage companies to learn from their mistakes and lead to an improved brand image, which, ultimately, strengthens brand equity. By listening to consumers’ unhappiness, companies can identify constantly occurring problems with their products and find out their root causes. This can lead to improved products and more satisfied customers. Companies who have been actively communicating online about their learning processes and attempts to compensate claims, seem to be appreciated by consumers. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Conclusion

Nowadays, strong media presence and publicity have greater than ever impact on brand equity, corporate reputation, and company profitability (Fournier and Avery 2011; Krishnamurthy and Kucuk 2009). Therefore, it is vital to know the new environment and its rules when introducing and managing brands online. As the environment allows people to form strong online communities in which they exchange ideas and experiences, negative brand image is probably one of the most horrifying issues brand managers can think of.  And managing that image is more and more challenging due to the fact that in social media, brand managers do not possess full power over their brands. There, in the jungle, also consumers own the brand and take part in creating it. By realizing the new conditions of survival, learning from others’ (and their own) mistakes, and being constantly aware of the possible consequences of their actions, brand managers can not only survive at the era of online marketing, but also manage their brands successfully, together with consumers.

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Threats of Brand management in social media Why Strong Social Media Presence Magnifies Brand Weaknesses and How International Brand Managers Can Address This Part 1

January 15, 2015

Written by Jenni Väisänen

Nowadays, brand managers focus more and more on marketing online, due to the multiple opportunities it offers. However, to manage brands efficiently in social media settings, marketers need to understand the rules of their new marketing environment. This paper examines survival tactics of brand management in social media in the form of literature review. Based on Fournier and Avery’s article (2012) about the evident characteristics of social media and their impact on brand management practices, this paper discusses four factors, which can threaten brand management by magnifying their weaknesses, and ways to overcome them. The factors are characteristics and demands which have risen at the era of online marketing. They are 1) power of social collective, (2) entertaining parodies, (3) demand for transparency, and (4) constant criticism. Depending on the way these characteristics are addressed by brand managers, they can work either as an endorsement or threat to branding practices in social media.

Introduction

Today, being present in social media is necessary for most companies, as it provides possibilities to connect and create relationships with various groups of stakeholders. Intensive use of Web 2.0 technologies in marketing pays off, as it has a remarkable impact on company reputation, profitability and market share, when properly implicated. (Bughin and Chui 2010; Kietzmann et al 2011) Because web 2.0 is regarded as a door-opener for two-way communication and information sharing (Filho and Tan 2009, cited in Akar and Topcu 2013), including it to the traditional marketing mix provides various new platforms for marketing activities (Winer 2009). Akar and Topcu (2013) define social media marketing simply as a tactic to promote both company and its brands via different social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter or Youtube.

Despite the opportunities social media marketing has to offer, brand managers need to realize that there is a thin red line between success and failure, when a brand is presented in social media. Rapidly spreading electronic word of mouth (Akar and Topcu 2013), powerful consumer activism within online communities (Cova and Pace 2006), and co-creation process of brand image (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) do not run only with positive energy. If brand managers lack understanding of vital rules in the jungle of social media marketing, strong brand presence and visibility can turn into a threat for the brand. Negative brand reputation spreads fast in social media, which can have serious impact on sales and even survival of a company (Kietzmann et al 2011). As the prerequisite of social media is that it was created for people – not for marketers nor brands- companies should be aware that they are to walk on their toes in the online jungle. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Fournier and Avery (2011) summarize four phenomena in social media, which brand managers ought to take into consideration when marketing online. They are (in other words than Fournier and Avery, 2012, presented) (1) power of social collective, (2) entertaining parodies, (3) demand for transparency, and (4) constant criticism. As social media has changed the landscape of marketing practices remarkably, resulting in “traditional” marketing techniques becoming invalid, it is important for companies to understand conditions of their new marketing environments (Awasthi, Sharma and Gulati 2012).  These phenomena, help to clarify the root causes of the benefits, without forgetting the threats, of having strong social media presence. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

Purpose of the study

The purpose of this paper is to understand, why social media as a marketing landscape is challenging for brand managers. The aim is to encourage learning from others’ mistakes, and discuss some ways to address the dilemmas. This paper is divided into two parts; in the first part, focus is to discuss the power of social collectives and parodies, whereas the second part concentrates on how companies should handle demands to be transparent and constant criticism.

Magnifying and managing brand weaknesses: need for belongingness and entertainment

Power of Social Collective 

Social media answers to peoples’ need of being accepted and feeling the sense of belongingness through its various communities, virtual friend-making and social bonding. By “liking” their friends’ updated statuses and “joining” different groups, people connect with each other conveniently. Online communities offer a place for like-minded people to share their opinions, photos and experiences, which enhances the feeling of belongingness. (Fournier and Avery 2011) Picture 1 below demonstrates, how many people Nike reaches via Facebook.

Nike Facebok coverpage, with 16,508,118 "likes".

Picture 1: Nike social media –Facebook (Nike 2014)

Marketers have traditionally been able to bring brands and their messages to the awareness of consumers, possessing full control over the message, but social media has changed this. Today, managers are creating their brands together with consumers by sharing experiences and opinions. Because this new type of branding process is dependent on consumers’ opinions and perceptions of the brand image, managers need not only to listen carefully what their customers are saying, but also engage consumers into the co-creation of their brands. This two-way communication has changed the ideology of branding online completely. (Corstjens and Umblijs 2012; Fournier and Avery 2011; Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) 

The fact that consumers may connect different characteristics to a brand than the previous owner, brand manager, can cause problems to the company and threaten the brand image (Fournier and Avery 2011, Corstjens and Umbljis 2012). Singh and Sonnenburg (2012) suggest that instead of trying to control the brand message too much, brand managers should concentrate on guiding consumers’ comments to support and endorse the original brand-story. According to Singh and Sonnenburg (2012), some corner stones of the new way of brand management are to switch focus to the process instead of the output and understand the role of “tension” in brand-creation.

Switch focus to the process, not to the output

As the core idea is to co-create brand-stories together with consumers, they need to be encouraged to participate into the process. Brand managers need to accept that brand image will be affected by different kinds of experiences and stories shared by individual consumers, which, in other words, means that there is no “one storyline” or “one image” of a brand. What brand managers can and should try, is to guide shared comments to reflect the desired brand concept. This can be done by e.g. engaging, provoking and seeding. Engaging can be done by encouraging different opinions and by challenging new stories, whereas provoking by addressing emotional topics for discussion. Seeding is a tactic to encourage co-creation in multiple social media platforms (Shau, Muñiz, and Arnould 2009). Additionally, brand managers should provide a suitable social media platform for consumer-discussions. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012)

Realize the role of “tension” in branding

In order to activate consumers to participate in branding, marketers must provide tension to the story. Tension as a concept has been divided into three categories: internal, personal and external. Internal tension rises from the need to look into the mirror and identify oneself, whereas personal tension lies in the differences between people. By external tension, the issues between people and their environment, nature and even supernatural, are brought up to discussion. When holistically practiced, all sources of tension are discussed in a brand co-creation process. Hence, tension is the driving force to generate consumers’ emotional engagement to the brand story. (McKee 1998, in Singh and Sonnenburg 2012) Below, in Picture 2 it is visible how Ben&Jerry’s Icecream creates tension at their Facebook site: they promote well-being of cows and ask, which flavour their consumers prefer on “Belly laugh day”.

Ben&Jerry's ice-cream highlighting the importance of happy cows and asking flavour preferences, i.e. creating tension.

Picture 2: Ben&Jerry’s social media -Facebook (Ben&Jerry’s 2014)

The curse of co-creation is that it makes branding uncontrolled: if consumer societies’ opinions collide with brand’s mission or values, solving the emerging problems can be challenging. (Fournier and Avery 2011) A good example of a mismatch between consumers’ and brand managers’ perceptions of a brand is Frito-Lay’s: brand managers enhanced environmentally-friendly values in product development, whereas consumers considered “convenience” as a more important factor. The brand had to give up its ecological packaging material in order to meet customer wants: a package with less-rasping sounds. (Brady 2010, cited in Fournier and Avery 2011)

Entertaining parodies

Yet parodies about brands are not a new invention, spoofing has emerged as a form of entertainment in social media. Parodies about different brands and advertisements have become normal in different social media platforms, such as Youtube. Previously parodies were distributed mainly by professionals, but nowadays anyone can entertain others in social media. In general, brands and advertisements offer a variety of themes to make fun of. (Fournier and Avery 2011)

The Dove Beauty 'Sketches' ad has been parodied in terms of men's face. Sketches are completely different as men see themselves as more attractive than they are.

Picture 3: Dove sketches parody –men. (Adweek 2013)

When consumers use parody in order to attack a brand and in order to humiliate it, it is time for brand managers to get restless. Rude parodies concerning the core values and positioning can be particularly damaging for any brand. (Fournier and Avery 2011) After Dove’s Real Beauty campaign was launched, some parodies were uploaded into Youtube. They were made about men, with the same idea as “sketches”-video: men were drawn on the basis of their description about themselves, and then, on the basis of another person’s description. The descriptions concerned, depending on the spoof, their faces or their testicles. (AdhocVids 2013; Irakli Kopaliani 2013) Pictures 3 and 4 demonstrate the two parodies.

The Dove Beauty 'Sketches' ad has been parodied to put testicles front and center.

 Picture 4: Dove sketches parody –testicles. (Ma, 2013)

    Be fun if you can –and if not, know your audience

If the brand identity supports the idea of being funny, some marketers themselves can use the idea of silliness and implement “parody” as a selling tactic before consumers do. Indeed, there are some brands who sell by being funny, such as Blendtec. Even though the idea of a kitchen blender is not entertaining, commercials made it funny by blending almost anything. (Fournier and Avery 2011) However, if the brand image does not convert into a funny story, brand managers should realize that their online marketing activities can reach anyone. Even though target group is defined, social media allows other people, who do not even consume the product, share their point-of-views and therefore, have an impact on the co-creation of the brand. (Singh and Sonnenburg 2012)

Demand for transparency and constant criticism are discussed in part 2.

Diesel’s lesson for the digital brand manager of tomorrow

December 18, 2014

Written by Master Student at Lund University

Introduction

Mr. Renzo Rosso was facing a serious problem that could have melted its brand as ice under the sun.

Having built the first e-commerce ever for a fashion brand in 1995 (Rosso, 2011), he is proudly one of the first entrepreneurs that embraced the digital revolution, but in 2012 his brand was not anymore appealing to the young people.

How to save a global brand of a multibillionaire holding (Forbes, 2013) in the fashion industry?

By creating  an Instagram account and hiring Lady Gaga’s stylist, of course. Why that answer cannot be found by a digital brand manager on books or any academic papers?

There are few reasons.

Traditional media is not working

During the last decades, the digital disruption generated a new environment in which it is effortless for users to communicate (Deighton, 2009). Not only digital communication is unlimited in space and time, but also it is spread in the type of the entity exchanged, from information to real data and objects, (Deighton, 2009).

The conversation, however, happens between users, which are on the same level consumers, marketing executives and digital brand managers. There is no structural difference between business and individual users. In fact, many digital innovation, especially the social media, were not built with business as the main purpose.

Nevertheless, commercial and market activities have soon entered the scene following the marketing style of traditional media (Deighton, 2009). The attitude of business, defined by marketing and brand managers in the digital environment has been one of incursion in customers’ conversations.

Social Media Marketing is not enough

Social media marketing is meant as the use of social media for the promotion of a company and its products (Akar, 2011). The structure, the rhetoric, and especially the relationship between consumers and companies are radically different from traditional advertising and digital brand managers should be aware of that (Armellini and Villanueva, 2009).

Regarding brand management, the new digital environment requires a unique style of communication (Hansen et al, 2011). Interactivity has been defined by Blattberg and Deighton (1991) as the possibility for individuals and organizations to communicate directly with no restriction of time and distance.

Second, in the digital world, variables are different, especially when measuring brands. Social media require more complex drivers than reach, such as engagement, intimacy, loyalty and advocacy (Hanna et al, 2011).

Reach and frequency are simply not enough for marketing and digital brand managers to picture the the interactive media environment and the ROI of social media marketing cannot be based just on such variables (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010).

Digital markets do not deal in measurable messages, but conversations (Levine et al., 2001) Therefore, corporate messaging, with the obvious purpose of encouraging purchase, cannot be effective, as attention and interactivity are not presumed (Russell, 2009).

Community is not everything

Several ways have been proven to be effective as alternatives to traditional corporate messaging. It has already been argued that building a community is essential to provide meaning to digital brands (Wolfe, 1994) and that users are now consumers, marketers, brand managers and advertisers at the same time. Users can create content related to companies and products and influence the perceptions of brands (Roberts and Kraynak, 2008).

The power given by the digital media is potentially equal for all the users, both individuals and organisations. In that sense, the authority of digital brand managers has been reduced (Deighton and Kornfield, 2009; Denegri et al, 2006) while the influence of consumers on brands has increased (Kucuk, 2009; Urban, 2004 ).

Thus, the new balance of powers needs to be shown by brand management (El-Amir and Burt, 2010).

The behaviour and processes of communities on the web creates value for its members (Schau et al, 2009) and later also for the brand through co-production and social production (Benkler, 2006). However, the scope of the benefits for brand managers of co-production still has to be defined (Cova and Dalli, 2009; Toffler and Toffler, 2006). Consumers as digital users are proven to create value for companies (Cova and Dalli, 2009). Moreover, consumers show signs of appreciation for being recognized as contributors to building brand value (Humphreys and Grayson, 2008).

It has also been suggested that the construction of shared meaning within a community enriches directly brands and their brand equity and that capitalism itself would soon rely entirely on consumer contribution to brands (Arvidsson, 2008).

Crowdsourcing is not what it seems

On social media, digital brand managers are aware that the driving factor of a successful relationship between brands and consumers is reciprocity (Tadajewski and Saren, 2009). One way to build reciprocity is crowdsourcing, which was first appreciated as an efficient method to outsource to people (Safire, William, 2009).

As defined by Howe and Robinson, editors at Wired Magazine, Crowdsourcing is the use of achieving services, content or ideas from the contributions of an extended group of individuals, usually an online community, instead of employees or suppliers (Howe, 2006).

Crowdsourcing is effective for marketers and digital brand managers. It helps developing ‘engagement’ with varied audiences (Simmons, 2008). Engagement on social media has been demonstrated to be effective to improve marketing strategies (Joseph and Seb, 2012). Crowdsourcing consists of gathering good ideas and discover the best ones and works both as a source of ideas and understanding of the customers (Lazzarato, 1997)

In particular, crowdsourcing is a form of engagement which is based on consumers’ work, being social interaction or contribution, previously named ‘immaterial labour’ by Lazzarato (1997). It seems logic for digital brand managers to consider it as a technique to empower the users of a community, but that implies a certain distance of power between brands and contributing users.

Renzo Rosso and the Diesel campaign

In April 2013 Renzo Rosso enrolled as the new artistic director for Diesel Nicola Formichetti, the stylist of Lady Gaga and former Mugler art director.

The campaign, launched by Formichetti, was named #dieselreboot, a permanent crowdsourcing project built on a tumblr blog - dieselreboot.tumblr.com. The blog was aimed to showcase public contributes in order to discover talents as nominate the next brand ambassadors among them, instead of leaving the choice to brand managers.

Through Tumblr all the users had the possibility to upload their artworks according to different topics and interactive missions.

The promotion of the campaign followed the dna of Diesel as defined by digital brand managers, based on provocation, sex appeal, rebellion. Provocative images and guerrilla marketing actions have been shown in the main cities of the world. Among them, as an example, a female pope projected on the Colosseum in Rome (Diesel, 2013).

The real novelty of the campaign, however, is not referred to the innovative and rebellious style of its communication. A number of previous campaigns had already made Diesel win several advertising prizes (Rosso, 2011).

The lesson for the digial brand manager of tomorrow

The innovation relies in the digital communication style chosen by brand managers Nicola Formichetti and Renzo Rosso.

First, the missions, called ‘call-to-actions’, are communicated via youtube uploads. The video cannot be even remotely referred to a corporate ad. It is rather an amateur clip recorded from a smartphone. The first video featured Nicola Formichetti itself in a chinese restaurant, asking the community to submit what inspires them. Definitely not an ordinary digital brand manager.

Second, the campaign was mainly spread not through the official Diesel channels and social media accounts, but through Nicola Formichetti’s and Renzo Rosso’s personal Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr accounts.

The Tumblr blog itself of #dieselreboot is detached from the official Diesel channels. It does not have a custom domain and has no direct links to the Diesel website.

Third, Formichetti, as a digital brand manager of himself, has always been active sharing his lifestyle on social media, especially on Twitter and Instagram. Renzo Rosso has followed Formichetti’s style, creating a Facebook, a Twitter and an Instagram account and sharing his ordinary lifestyle.

Fourth, Formichetti and Rosso are characters whose strong personality is aligned with the Diesel brand.

A brand can be deconstructed according to Kapferer’s prism (2004) into six facets. Among them, the personality trait, for Diesel, could be expressed by the following adjectives: rebel, challenging conventions, modern and innovative. Both Rosso and Formichetti embrace the mentioned qualities.

The sender, therefore, is coherent with the message, a brand manager would state.

Renzo Rosso guerrilla marketing for dieselreboot

Fifth, content shared on their social accounts is not refined. Photo captions are amateur, as well as text. Grammar and typing mistakes are left untouched. There is no filtration by copywriters. The quality and the style of content remember the one generated by ordinary social media users.

Sixth, crowdsourcing activity of the #dieselreboot campaign is aimed not only to create content, but also to elect brand ambassadors within the community, instead of choosing representatives from models or famous public characters. It is a clear intent to empower users by Diesel’s digital brand managers.

The use of social media as individual accounts leads the path to a new communication style on social media. In the digital world, especially on social media, brands can be uniquely represented by individuals that are aligned with the personality traits of the brand.

It has to be analysed whether it could be applied to brands of every nature.

The key for being social is being a user on the same nature of the other users. No distinction between corporates and individuals. The brand becomes a trait, a part of the lifestyle of the users. Belonging them to the organisation or not, it soon will not matter. This is tomorrow’s digital brand manager.

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NATIVE ADVERTISING, THE NEXT BIG THING? Part 2

December 15, 2014

Written By Thomas Roos

Part 2: Native Advertising Discussed 

Part one of this paper discussed the rise of native advertising and how it is a result of paradigm shifts in consumer culture as a whole, as well as of developments within the online marketing field. This part will further elaborate on how native advertising is practiced and eventually discuss native advertising in terms of its success, and its limitations. To conclude with I raise the question that I could not answer in this paper, but should be of interest of anyone that has genuine interest in the field of internet marketing and branding. 

Empirical data analysis: Native advertising.

The consumer annoyance and scepticism towards advertisements, advertisers and capitalist practices in general as described in part 1 have forced online marketers in a new direction: native marketing. Native advertising, as explained in this infographic about native advertising by Wasserman (2012), is the creation of high-quality content by brands which is placed “…into the organic experience of a given platform.’’ Perhaps a simpler definition of the concept was given by Keers (2013), on the Content Marketing Association blog: “…instead of a simple, same-everywhere ad, it is targeted content, sitting alongside the publisher's content, but produced by brands themselves.”

The essence of native advertising is that it answers the consumers’ demand for valuable content from brands, whether they are the targeted audience or not. Holt (2002) argues that in the post-postmodern paradigm, consumers will judge brands and their ads on how they add value to people when they are not customers. Samuel Johnson once said: “The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.’’, and this research provided reason to believe that the same mantra will define brand perception in the post-postmodern internet era. Native advertisements make a clear step into that direction, which is perhaps the reason why they work so well.

A second important strategic advantage of native advertising is that it offers value to both brands and publishers, as well as to different platforms. As Miller, the CEO of The Guardian Media Group (in this case: the platform) puts it: "There's an opportunity to work with advertisers on creating content that meets the editorial aspirations of ourselves and meets their need to get to consumers." {C}(Jackson, 2014){C}. What is being created is thus ‘branded content’ instead of simple advertisements.

{C}{C}{C}To illustrate this, an example is provided that came up during the empirical research online. The picture below shows a BuzzFeed article, and on the surface it seems like another entertaining BuzzFeed article (click on the image to view the full page). Who posted it? It was posted by Captain Morgan, and looking at the marked text in the description, its purpose is not just to entertain you{C} (Muniz & Schau, 2011){C}; it is there to educate consumers about the man behind the rum. On the side, we can find more ‘sponsored content’ from Captain Morgan. Evidently, the success of one such native ad is to create content that 1) enhances brand equity, 2) adds to the publisher’s / platform’s value, and most importantly; 3) is valuable for the audience that needs to be engaged.  

Figure 1 : Native Advertising in practice; Captain Morgan offering valuable content on Buzzfeed.

Native Marketing explained

Buzzfeed, Forbes, The Atlantic, Facebook, The New Yorker, etc; they all have developed a version of native advertising, called ‘sponsored content’, of which the above is an example. Buzzfeed runs completely on the gains from native advertising; not only do they encourage advertisers to settle in between the website contributors, (the regular visitors), but they also offer help to potential and existing advertisers to create content that is likely to be shared often by BuzzFeed users.

An overview of the main players in the native advertising field is provided in this map of native advertising platforms, and was taken from a 2013 article (Berry, 2013), and therefore not completely up to date. However, it accurately shows the division between different native advertising channels. Please note that more players joined this landscape since the map was made, however, the main players have remained more or less the same (Berry, 2013):

• Sponsored Posts and Articles: Facebook and BuzzFeed (and newspapers)
• Sponsored Video: YouTube and ShareThrough
• Sponsored Images: Imgur and TripleLift
• Sponsored Playlists: Pandora (mainly U.S) and Spotify (mainly Europe)
• Sponsored Links: Disqus and Zemanta (many more have emerged)
• Sponsored Listings: Uncrate and Yelp

Discussion.

In a study that was published on February 12th 2014, The Media Briefing (Taylor, 2014) investigated the traffic around these native ads and provided this study with interesting data collected from 689 BuzzFeed native ads posted by 51 companies.

The results (average ad shares per social platform) are astonishing:

• 263 Facebook shares
• 36 Tweets
• 7 Google ‘plus one’s’
• 44 Pins
  
• 2 Linkedin shares

Additional outcomes of the study:

• Native advertising on BuzzFeed is likely to result in 4241 total social media interactions.
• Spotify’s native ad wins: 8530 Facebook shares, resulting in almost 50.000 Facebook interactions, including likes and comments.

According to The Media Briefing (2014), it can therefore be argued that BuzzFeed’s native advertising strategy is a tremendous success simply because advertisers love the idea that consumers will share an ad on their social network platforms. Why? It turns out that the earlier-mentioned Word of Mouth is of vital importance for gaining trustworthiness, and therefore is much more likely to lead to an increase in sales (see table 1 below). “That these services enable only the sharing of content on the Web is not important here. What is important is that they allow simultaneous sharing in reality.” (Akar & Topcu, 2011, p.39).

A 2012 study conducted by The Nielsen Company (2013) indicated advertising in the form of word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family continued to be the strongest factor triggering action among 84% of 29.000 global respondents from 58 countries (table on the next page).

Table 1: Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising, Questionnaire 1-2013 (Nielsen, 2013)

Native Marketing explained

A brief Critique and suggestions for research.

Some critique is being raised about native advertising as a new form of online advertising.  Listed below are the most commonly raised issues:

• Many platforms may not have the capacity to handle the growing amount of native advertising, even though they say they can (Kantrowitz, 2013).
• It is generally hard to tell whether native advertising is more successful than conventional banner methods, as they are used at different scales.
• Joe McCambley, who helped creating the first banner ad, says that native advertising might destroy journalism, as “You are gambling with the contract you have with your readers,” and “How do I know who made the content I am looking at and what the value of the information is?” (Carr, 2013).
• There are ethical questions being raised about the extent to which for instance The New Yorker is fooling their audience and breaching the contract of offering valuable and trustworthy content.

The scope of this paper leaves no room for discussion of the above, therefore it is suggested that further research should be done towards the limitations of native advertising, in terms of scalability as well as in terms of ethical issues.

 

Conclusion.

Web 2.0 has made a significant impact on the power relations between brands and their audience, and native advertising is one answer to this paradigm shift. Online advertisers now find themselves on thin ice, as the “…web-based power struggles between marketer and consumer brand authors challenge accepted branding truths and paradigms: where short-term brands can trump long-term icons, where marketing looks more like public relations, where brand building gives way to brand protection, and brand value is driven by risk, not returns.” (Fournier & Avery, 2011, p.193). This paper confirms that advertisers will always be looking for better ways to reach their audiences, and that those who are most adaptive to change will always be upfront.

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NATIVE ADVERTISING, THE NEXT BIG THING? Part 1

December 11, 2014

Written By Thomas Roos

Part 1: How Web 2.0 gave consumers endless power

An introduction to native advertising.

Native advertising is a new phenomenon within the online advertising field and by some people is referred to as the new disruptive online advertising strategy (Salmon, 2013). Native advertising has received wide-spread attention within the online marketing field, especially among content marketers, but seem to be poorly understood by too many stakeholders. (The average monthly Google searches of the term ‘native advertising’ has gone from 800 January 2013 to 4000 in 2014.) Native advertising includes ads that ‘blend in’ with the content that surrounds them, but are actually branded and paid for. Evidently, the success of one such native ad is to create content that 1) enhances brand equity, 2) adds to the publisher’s / platform’s value, and most importantly; 3) is valuable for the audience that needs to be engaged.

The nature of this paper and the reason for writing.

This article will merely reflect upon my interpretations of the information that was collected and processed, and it is written to provide deeper understanding of native advertising. But most importantly; it tries to identify native advertising’s place in the existing marketing paradigm and to relate it to current movements within consumer culture.

After reflecting back upon the recent paradigm shifts in society and in internet marketing that are relevant to the rise of native advertising practices, I will display the findings from a literature search, highlighting authors that made future predictions in regards to the development of (internet) marketing and advertising. In the second part, the empirical data resulting from an explorative study using netnographic methods and secondary data sources will be analysed and discussed. After illustrating the essence of native advertising and how native advertising has developed to what it is now, I will provide the reader with an argument that explains the success of native advertising for brands. The paper will conclude with a discussion of native advertising and how its success might be predicting the future form of advertising in Web 3.0

Consumer resistance to online advertising.

Online advertisements are everywhere. It seems that there is no way to escape them, even though we were fairly quick to adapt our cognitive efforts to the overwhelming amount of stimuli; nowadays 90% of the banners is selected out by our brain and does not even reach our conscious mind (Benway, 1998) (Burke et al., 2005) (Buscher et al., 2010).

Digital advertisements have become more and more intrusive, some colourful, some beautifully simple; but they all annoy us to a certain degree. Certainly, advertisers and marketing agents have become better and better at drawing the online wanderer’s attention along the way, using a variety of methods (Winer, 2009, p.110).

‘’The early part of the 21st century has witnessed an explosion in new media utilized by marketing managers to reach their customers’’ (Winer, 2009, p.119). Not solely through visual attractions, no, a fine-tuned mix of audio-visual materials is often used to facilitate a desperate call for attention. Think of the time you were listening to your favourite playlist on Spotify, rudely being interrupted by an audio advertisement in your native language, along with a screen-size billboard popping up on your screen. Think of the times you were distracted by extravagant banners on the side of the news article you were trying to read. Think of that, and you’re thinking of the post-modern internet era, an era of ‘advertising deficit disorder’ (Rubleski, 2008).

A simple, but effective way to deal with these annoying banners and ads, is simply to install so-called ad-blocking plug-ins such as Adblock, that claims to have been downloaded over 200 million times (Palant, 2014). When companies started blocking Adblock users with software called Adblockblock, activists invented Adblockblockblock to avoid that (Smith, 2013), indicating an endless cat and mouse play.

Literature study: Are we witnessing the maturation of Web 2.0?

Even though the past decade has shown us numerous examples of brands that successfully drew the attention of their target audience, it seems like the ‘traditional ways’ of online marketing (Winer, 2009, p.110) are getting out of fashion. More specialized online marketing such as interactive methods have emerged in the past years, indicating a possible maturation of the online marketing paradigm as we know it (Wind, 2008) (Varadarajan & Yadav, 2009, p.20). 

This maturation of internet marketing goes along with shift in society as a whole. The paradigm shifts that have taken place in consumer culture naturally have their effect on marketing. In the current postmodern consumer culture, brands are used primarily for identity building projects. A growing body of literature from a more consumer culture perspective deals with how advertisements are perceived by consumers nowadays. Slightly older, but still very relevant contributions to this body of literature were made by Mick and Buhl (1992) and by Ritson and Elliot (1999). The former argue that ads function considerably as carriers of social meanings and are actively being used for identity building and creation. The latter argue that ‘’advertising can form the basis of for a wide variety of social interactions’’ (p.273). Firat and Venkatesh (1995) argue, - in their rather elaborative description of the postmodern condition of consumer society-, that “...it is not to brands that consumers will be loyal, but to images and symbols...’’ (p.251). Deighton and Kornfeld (2009, p.9) therefore argue that of their five possible strategies for interaction with online consumers, the one that facilitates people’s identity projects and that contributes to a collective sense-making will be the most successful.

{C}{C}{C}{C}In Why do brands cause trouble? (2002), Holt predicted a paradigm shift from postmodernism to what he calls ‘post-postmodernism’. He provides evidence for the impact that contemporary anti-branding movements will have on marketing as whole, and based upon the exploratory research that was conducted, this paper suggests that these predictions are to a large extend applicable to the online marketing paradigm as well. The recent changes in consumer attitude towards brands show that branding has become a fine art and is now subject to growing consumer scepticism of brands, producers and capitalist systems in general (Holt, 2002) (Barwise & Meehan, 2010). The well-awake and self-educated brand critics that we used to call consumers are now questioning the authenticity of each branded article, advertisement, blog or other content they come across. Advertising online is subject to a changing power balance between producer and consumer, and brands will be valued as long as they allow interaction from both sides and can be used to create meaning (Vargo & Lusch, 2004). As Christodoulides (2009) argued already 4 years ago: “Post-internet branding is about facilitating conversations around the brand” (p.142).

The empowerment of the consumer is enhanced in the numerous user-generated content (UGC) platforms: “…whether the news is good or bad, they will tell everyone.” (Levine et al., 2001). Recent examples of consumer empowerment include single Youtube videos posted by one single individual, resulting in substantial losses (or gains) in brand equity when going viral, and proving why Word Of Mouth (WOM) is one of the strongest means through which a brand can gain exposure. Later on WOM will be discussed further. 

Consumers have turned to UGC to inform themselves and others about brands and products, rather than listening to companies (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010, p.180). Now the companies seem to have their answer: settle in between the audience through native advertising.

Part 2 of this paper will take the above into consideration when discussing empirical examples of native advertising as an answer to this changing power balance, as well as its successes and limitations. It will offer visual aid while explaining the essence of native advertising.

The Rise of Social Media: Effects on Consumers and Brands

November 29, 2013

Written by Ioannis Petalidis

Purpose – introduction

It is an undisputable fact that the Internet was a revolution that changed not only the consumption field, but in general the way people live and exist; according to Aleks Krotoski and his BBC documentary “Virtual Revolution” it actually created a brand new kind of human being: the “Homo Interneticus”. Nevertheless, the last 10 years this revolution, took a totally different shape that occurred with the rise of social media. When Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 invented the Facebook platform for his classmates in Harvard, no one could imagine that 10 years later he would be one of the world’s richest people. But what was the reason, behind the shaping of “Homo Interneticus”?   

social media connect the world

How the rise of social media and the evolution of the Internet changed the consumption landscape

Susan Fournier and Jill Avery (2011) claim that this dramatic rise and success has its roots to one of the most basic human motivations: “the desire to feel accepted, to fit in and to belong; they name this new era “the age of the social collective” and describe it like a community through virtual connections among like-minded people, that creates “micro-targeted niche groups” to which people can easily belong.

Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden (2011) argue that the main shift in the consumption landscape through the social media revolution is that consumers are no longer passive recipients in the marketing exchange process; rather than that, consumers have a progressively active role in co-creating the marketing content. In their effort to highlight this immense change in the rules of marketing game, they are attempting to bust some prevalent myths that existed in the pre-Internet era:

1. Brand managers own and orchestrate their brands

2. Phones are for making phone calls

3. The Web is for finding information

4. Companies use marketing communications to control their message

5. Consumers purchase products promoted by marketers

6. Providing a forum for customers to talk is dangerous and risky.

Those 6 myths that marketers believed in and were building their strategies upon them are today something more than obsolete; they can prove disastrous.

For instance, if one focuses on myth number 2, it will become clear that during the last years mobile phones transformed completely from a calling and texting device to a portable mini-computer. This shift resulted to the rise of a brand new marketing field, the so-called mobile marketing. Andreas M. Kaplan (2011) defines this field as “any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device”. Social media went mobile and this was a revolution inside the revolution; from a broader perspective, mobile social media allowed for a tighter integration of virtual and real life, proving wrong some researchers that believed the Internet would result in less communication. (Andreas M. Kaplan, 2011). The Facebook check-in for example is a tool that has proven powerful, as a mean of exhibitionism, but also for helping people meet each other. Nonetheless, as far as the consumption field is concerned, the increasing use of check-in, pushed companies (especially restaurants and cafeterias) to engage in the social media world.

Papasolomou and Melanthiou (2012) highlighted another great change in the consumption landscape that came with the rise of “Homo Interneticus”; the existence of intermediaries or Non Media Connectors (NMC) in the marketing procedure and their crucial role in the building of the brand in the virtual world. This evolution has made marketing being a field of Public Relations, rather than the traditional detailed strategic arena. 

Furthermore, the rise of social media democratized corporate communication, while messages and information about brands circulate with or without permission of the firms in question (Kietzman, Hermkens, McCarthy and Silvestre, 2011). From this point of view, the statement of BBC Business Editor, Tim Weber, summarizes in an emblematic way the position of the brands in the era of Homo Interneticus: “These days, one witty tweet, one clever blog post, one devastating video – forwarded to hundreds of friends at the click of a mouse – can snowball and kill a product or damage a company’s share price”. It is worth mentioning that his kind of anti-branding activism on the Internet is a very common phenomenon, which indicates the online consumer power and the growing consumer sovereignty in the virtual world; what is more, the majority of online anti-brand attacks target well-established and powerful brands (Krishnamurthy, Kucuk, 2008).

Moreover, another important aspect of the latest evolution in the virtual world is the high degree of credibility with which Internet users treat the online word of mouth (Akar, Topcu, 2011). There is no doubt that customers perceive the user generated content as more reliable than straightforward business communication; as a result, electronic word of mouth has turned into a dominating channel that influences consumer behavior; social media marketing has become multidirectional, participatory and consumer driven.

Movies industry – example

After having examined some prevailing theories about the major shifts that the Internet revolution and the rise of the Homo Interneticus brought to the consumption landscape, it is time to focus on a field that the virtual revolution not only had a strong impact, but changed it radically: the movies industry.

 IMDb (Internet Movie Database)

IMDb logo

“Those Eyes”, the predecessor of IMDb, was launched in 1990 by professional computer programmer and British film Fan, Col Needham and it was about listing actresses with beautiful eyes. Others with similar interests soon responded with additions of different lists of their own: “Actors List”, “Dead Actors/ Actresses List”, “Directors List”. The goal of the participants changed over time towards making the lists as inclusive as possible. By the end of 1990, the lists included almost 10,000 movies and television series. When Needham developed and inserted a program that could search among the lists, Internet Movie Database was born. In 1993 IMDb became an independent website run by its followers and the amount of stored data increased hugely. In 1998, due to restricted funding, Needham sold IMDb to Amazon.com, with the condition that he would remain in operational charge.

There is no denying the fact that nowadays, IMDb is the most powerful and useful tool for everyone, before watching a movie. The democratized way of its rating system and the message boards in which the users exchange opinions about movies and TV series, are its two strongest components that allowed it to prevail in the movie’s critic field. A series of negative e- words of mouth in the IMDb message board or a low rating can prove devastating for the reputation of a movie and lead to a catastrophically small attendance in the theaters.

Besides, the site gives the opportunity for users to make their own lists of top movies, in general, by movie category or by actor. The evolution of IMDb demonstrates the shift from the passive movie consumer to the active co-creator of movies industry’s reputation. Award ceremonies like the Oscars and film festivals like Cannes review movies every year, however, those judgments might be biased due to financial interests of the industry or lobbying and are likely not to be proportional to the public’s opinion. On the other hand, professional film critics lost their authority over the quality of a movie.

How can marketers best adapt

While in a world that is ruled by Homo Interneticus and social media, the challenges have become clearer, the answers that marketers should imply are still surrounded by fog. According to Fournier and Avery (2011) the traditional branding strategies seem obsolete, disconnected and irrelevant in a space owned by the social collective, where transparency, criticism and parody of the well established firms reign. Instead, they suggest a different approach where brand building gives its place to brand protection, as an ever present need to protect reputation from attack and demise. As it can be clearly seen, the old attack-oriented brand strategies do not apply to the world of social media; whereas, a defensive attitude is more applicable and a strategy focused on risk management and risk control is much more effective. In addition to this, Fournier and Avery (2011) highlight the need for a shift from strategic planning and proactive, pre-constructed strategies, towards a branding ruled by faith in intuition and excellence in execution; for this purpose they encourage firms to employ the so-called “digital natives” or “Generation Y” who was raised amid the social media revolution. Last but not least, for the best adaptation of marketers in this brand new world, it is proposed to stop giving priority to differentiation and turn towards the creation of resonant cultural conversations; following this road, marketers will start to focus on building short - term brands, opposing to the dominant branding philosophy that emphasizes in creating long- term brand assets.

Moreover, Kietzman, Hermkens, McCarthy and Silvestre (2011), suggest a framework with a form of a honeycomb that consists of seven functional blocks of social media activity: presence (the extent to which users know if other users are accessible), sharing (are users exchanging, distributing and receiving content?), relationships (at what point are users are related to each other?), identity (the extent to which users reveal their true identities), conversations (how often users communicate with each other?), groups (are users forming communities?) and reputation (the extent to which users can identify the standing of themselves or others in a social media setting). Having those seven blocks in mind, marketers should try to recognize and understand in depth the social media landscape, finding out if and where conversations about a firm are being held, who are the main influencers and gathering competitive intelligence. Also, they should adapt their strategies to the different social media functionalities and develop a clear understanding of how often and when a firm should interfere in conversations as well as who will represent it online; the key success factor here is to identify who has the ability to listen and care about online chatter and especially who is capable of creating emotionally appropriate content for the community. This has to be done by creating relationships that solve customer issues, not just sympathizing. It is significant for marketers to scan the environment in order to understand the velocity of information; even when it seems too late an appropriate response may turn the tide.

Likewise, the case of negative e- word of mouth and its managing by the companies has gained attention by a lot of researchers. It is claimed that bad evaluations have a stronger impact on the brand reputation than positive ones and this is based on Kahneman and Tversky’s (1979) principle of prospect theory: people perceive losses more severely than gains (Shimabukuro Sandes, Torres Urdan, 2013); consequently, companies should remain vigilant and treat the criticisms properly.

At the other end of the scale, the example of Lego Group gave another perspective; not only monitored or interacted with customer communities, but took a step further and collaborated with them; the Lego paradigm is an exceptional case of how a traditional, tightly controlled company that for decades was run by the slogan “we don’t accept unsolicited ideas”, was transformed into an open-minded, collaborative and customer-oriented business. When LEGO management was found at the crossroad of either taking legal measures against the violation of their copyright or invite users to collaborate on new innovative products, the decision was brilliant and characterized by strong peripheral vision. Antorini, Muniz Jr, Askildsen (2012) highlight the main principles that marketers should keep in mind when collaborating with customer communities; at first it is important to clarify the rules and expectations; secondly there is a need of forming a win-win mindset, by creating the feeling to the collaborating customers that the firm does not only care about “getting the job done”; thirdly, it is significant to recognize that outsiders are not insiders, which means that user communities should always be treated as independent entities and not a part of the firm; additionally, companies should not expect one size to fit all and create different environments for each type of innovation; last but not least, they should be as open as possible in order to allow collaborators to interact with each other to the maximum extent and not sacrifice this openness for confidentiality reasons.

In the same wavelength, Muniz Jr. and Jensen Schau recommend to companies to take the initiative and create on their own the virtual community of their consumers in a well structured environment that embraces the differences of the members; it is very important for marketers to give motives at the members of brand communities in order to keep their attention and interest at high levels.

Conclusion

To recapitulate, it can clearly be noticed that the dawn of the 21st century was the transition point from a world that the big brands set the agenda, to a virtual reality that consumers break their chains and take things at their hands. Nevertheless, this era of the social collective and growing criticism about the power of firms, is also characterized by an unprecedented overload of information, where the consumer is bombarded in a daily basis by a huge amount of new data. Especially in the Internet field, the new experiences that an individual gets have become countless; consequently, the challenge for marketing experts is not only to create a friendly environment that serves their customers but also to keep the attention of the consumer in an everyday tough battle, among the never ending stimuli of the virtual world. Marketing strategies should be innovative, entertaining and avoid the web’s worst enemy; boredom.    

Reference list

Akar E., Topcu B. (2011). An Examination of the Factors Influencing Consumers’ Attitudes Toward Social Media Marketing. Journal of Internet Commerce. 10, 35-67.

Antorini Y.M., Muniz A. Jr. and Askildsen T. (2012). Collaborating with Customer Communities: Lessons From the Lego Group. MIT Sloan Management Review. 53 (3), 73-79.

Fournier S., Avery J. (2011). The uninvited brand. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, 193-207.

Hanna R., Rohm A., Crittenden V.  (2011). We’re all connected: The power of the social media ecosystem. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, 241-251.

Kaplan A. (2012). If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile social media 4x4. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 55, 129-139.

Kietzman J., Hermkens K., McCarthy I., and Silvestre B. (2011). Social Media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, 241-251.

Krishnamurthy S., Kucuk U. (2009). Anti-branding on the Internet. Journal of Business Research. 62, 1119–1126.

Muniz Jr. A., Jensen Schau H. (2011). How to inspire value-laden collaborative consumer-generated content. Business Horizons, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. 54, 209—217.

Papasolomou I., Melanthiou, Y. (2012). Social Media: Marketing Public Relations’ New Best Friend. Journal of Promotion Management. 18, 319-328.

Shimabukuro Sandes F., Torres Urdan A. (2013). Electronic Word-of-Mouth Impacts on Consumer Behavior: Exploratory and Experimental Studies. Journal of International Consumer Marketing. 25, 181-197.

Wikipedia. (2014). Internet Movie Database. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database. Last accessed 15th Feb 2014.

Wikipedia. (2013). The Virtual Revolution. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virtual_Revolution. Last accessed 15th Feb 2014.

Brand coherence: how is it affected by the increasing connectivity?

November 20, 2014

Written by Mikael Omberg

INTRODUCTION

Brand coherence is strongly connected to a brand’s essence, the very core of what identity the brand is communicating to the marketplace. As all relationships, the bond between a consumer and a brand is built as well as maintained over time. Therefore, to systematically and successfully communicate brand values to a consumer or customer, maintaining brand coherence becomes an inherently vital tool for brand managers. However, the growth of a company and their respective market presence, arrival into new markets, new product lines or service offerings, creates challenges to maintain an approach to consumers which does not lack brand coherence (Kapferer 2012). These challenges also arise when companies are forced to adapt, often promptly, to new and constantly evolving communication channels (Kapferer 2012; Kietzmann et al. 2011; Hoffman & Novak 2012).

AIM OF RESEARCH 

The aim of this paper is to study what impact the Internet and social media have on a brand’s ability to stay connected to their identity and stakeholders as well as what risks or opportunities these communication channels may present concerning brand coherence.

BRAND COHERENCE AND CUSTOMER EMPOWERMENT

Today, not only is the amount of people who look to the internet and social media to evaluate brands increasing, but they are also shaping the corporate communication in form of comments, videos, pictures, reviews – the list goes on (Kietzmann et al. 2011; Kucuk 2008). Grönroos (2008) argues that service marketing is taking place in a servicescape, a place where consumers and companies meet to interact with each other and interaction is now also located virtually. While the extension of the servicescape to an online platform creates possibilities for companies to find new ways of communicating with customers (Koernig 2003; Wilson et al. 2008), the loss of control of content and interaction (Kietzmann et al. 2011), might prove to make brand coherence more challenging (Kapferer 2012).

Essentially, brand coherence is damaged when the values of the brand becomes convoluted to the individuals with a connection to the brand (Kapferer 2012). An illustration of when brand coherence can become convoluted, and thus the subject of brand dilution, is anti-brand sites (Kucuk 2008). Kucuk (2008) argues that the increase in consumer’s ability to voice their opinion has become powerful tool for them to react to companies’ business. While enabling companies to find new and efficient ways to market their products and brands, the internet has become a double-edged sword which people can use to voice their displease with company efforts and policies (Kucuk 2008). According to Kucuk, individuals now have an instrument to purposefully harm companies brand identity – and in the long run, the brand coherence. As established previously, this then might prove harmful to the brand coherence. Through the most vocal of the anti-brand standard-bearers, the message has then spread through word-of-mouth, and is able to reach every corner of the world.

However, not all damage sustained to brand coherence online is made by malignant or disgruntled individuals who have found a way to communicate their disapproval. Brand ambassadors sometimes themselves prove to be just as efficient in decimating brands, when responding poorly to customer reviews or critique (socialmediatoday 2014). Socialmediatoday suggests that ignoring, deleting or responding aggressively or hollowly to consumer comments can have a strong negative effect on how the brand is perceived. This correlates well to the arguments presented by Kapferer (2012) in the sense that what is promised, or expected, of a brand has to be delivered – otherwise the identity will become unclear and thus hurt the brand coherence: the values expected by the customer will not be delivered.

Other ways in which brand coherence can become subject to change is when a brand has not a clear strategy of engaging stakeholders. Inability to foresee outcomes of online interaction can, as discussed above, somewhat be perceived as inherent to online communication but a complete misunderstanding or misjudgment of the brands’ situation can increasingly lead to events hurting the brand.

JP Morgan Chase, global financial services provider and one of the largest banking institutions in the USA, decided last year to have a Q&A(Questions and Answers) on twitter. They invited people to ask ‘What career advice would you ask a leading exec at a global firm?’ The twitter feed was overrun with individuals diverting from the topic and asking JP Morgan Chase questions such as ‘Can I have my house back?’ and ‘I have mortgage fraud, Market Manipulation, Credit Card Abuse, Libor Rigging and Predatory Lending AM I DIVERSIFIED?’. Short thereafter the Q&A was cancelled with JP Morgan Chase announcing ‘Tomorrow’s Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.’ (Rolling Stones 2013).

On the other hand, there are examples of when interaction with brand stakeholder and a serious and thought-through review of the opinions can be used to adjust and strengthen brand coherence. Deighton and Kornfeld (2009) explain, through exemplification, the metamorphosis of Unilever’s Dove brand trough the Real Beauty-campaign which garnered a lot of positive attention by shifting from a functional brand into a brand with a point-of-view, created through the scanning of opinions and trends of the marketplace.

Furthermore, scholars, actors and media powerhouses – among others – have taken to Reddit.com to engage the public in AMA’’ (Ask Me Anything). By doing so they are engaging the people interested in their craft or personality and strengthen connection with their followers and admirers, with a low dependency on intermediaries. Brand identity and brand coherence is here easily communicated, and formed, together with brand stakeholders.

Arguably, brand coherence is becoming crucial for brands because whether brand managers are making a conscious effort to advocate and support their products and services online there will be a constant community and stakeholder feedback and discussion being present. Chrisodoulides (2009) state that consumers will always know more about a company’s product or services than they do themselves and, more importantly, they will be talking about it. The author emphasizes the need for brands to facilitate these conversations that are taking place. The sheer amount of information that is being said about brands through reviews, comments, videos etcetera is according to Chrisodoulides (2009) impossible to control, but it is rather something that brand managers need to be aware of and act accordingly to. Furthermore, Hoffman & Novak (2012) state that it is important to understand that different brands generate the most and desirable consumer attention from different internet marketing platforms and strategies. Maintaining brand coherence therefore also becomes a question of strategic choices. 

Vargo and Lusch (2008) strengthens the arguments presented by Chrisodoulides and argues that online, a service-dominant logic is prevailing and that consumers must be viewed as co-creators of the experience. The amount of companies that provide us with intangibles have skyrocketed and some of them (consider LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram – the list goes on). In these cases Vargo and Lusch would argue that there is not service without the consumer. However, a service-dominant logic can also be applied to tangible products as described above in the Dove Real Beauty-campaign case. According to Kapferer (2012), this is   offering value to consumers.  This epitomizes the possibilities and challenges with maintaining brand coherence online.

HOW IT CONNECTS

It is to be understood that there is not a choice for a brand to have online presence or not. Whether a brand wants it or not it is subject to becoming the talk of town online. Internet has opened up communication channels and made it possible for everybody who wants to participate and voice their opinion. This raises on the other hand an important decision for companies – how, and to what extent do we want to participate in the discussions to ensure brand coherence? The first step in answering this question before taking action is to look at the brands identity and positioning. Providing stakeholders with the expected experience and make good on promises is essential to prevent the brand from lacking brand coherence through the multifaceted communication channels it will find itself in.

Likely, there will be negative reviews or comments regarding your brand but these comments can provide useful feedback, highlighting areas where consumers are not experiencing what you set out to do. It is improbable that consumers are commenting negatively on Amazons’ ability to provide them with an answer to where the closes coffee shop is. However, if they fail to provide good alternatives on which book to order for the weekend, they might be in trouble. Brand coherence is after all about delivering what is expected of you.

CONCLUSIONS

It becomes clear that there is, presently, no one true answer on how to maintain brand coherence through internet and social media marketing, but it is rather something that must align with the brand identity, as proposed by Kapeferer (2010), as well as the behavior of the brands target group  and the company’s brand strategy. Straying far from the identity of the brand, utilizing different voices and approached when communicating or even worse, neglecting customer feedback can however be highlighted as potential factors affecting brand coherence negatively. However, the rise of internet usage and social media presence of brand stakeholders are not to be issues out as a warning to brand managers. It increases the opportunities for companies to retrieve valuable feedback from consumers and customers and enables brand ambassadors to express their opinions. Moreover, it allows companies to reach people in the click of a button and promptly address issues as well as promoting products and services. All in all, it widens the scope and complexity in the work of managing brand coherence, but ultimately it provides companies with a powerful tool of brand management.

REFERENCES

Chrisodoulides, G. (2009), “Branding in the post-internet era”, Marketing Theory, 9, 141.

Deighton, J. and Kornfeld, L. (2009), “Interactivity's Unanticipated Consequences for Marketers and Marketing”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23, p. 4-10.

Grönroos, C. (2008). Service management och marknadsföring. Malmö. Liber AB

Hoffman, D.L.  & T. P. Novak, (2012), ”Toward a Deeper Understanding of Social Media”, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26, 69–70

Kapferer, Jean Noël (2012). The new strategic brand management: advanced insights and strategic thinking. 5. ed. London: Kogan Page

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Koernig, S K (2003). E-Scapes: The Electronic Physical Environment and Service

Tangibility. Psychology & Marketing, Vol. 20, Nr. 2, ss. 151-167.

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Socialmediatoday (2013) http://socialmediatoday.com/carole/568001/5-ways-brands-respond-negative-comments-social-networks-hint-only-one-effective [Avaliable 2014-02-11]

Vargo, S., Lusch, R. (2008). Service-dominant logic: continuing the evolution. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science. Vol. 36. Nr. 1. ss. 1-10.

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Focus across the Firm. New York, NY: McGrawHill Publishing Co.

Interactive Consumer Engagement: how the internet has changed consumer engagement over the past 10 years, and how marketers can best adapt

November 10, 2014

Written by Amy Mulcahy 

Purpose of the article

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the changing online environment has affected interactive consumer engagement with the medium over the past ten years. The paper will examine the evolution of consumer behaviour from the beginnings of Web 2.0 to present day, providing a case studies and a discussion of the implications for marketers and the means by which they can accommodate, utilise and ultimately benefit from such emerging behaviours. The paper will conclude with a summary of findings and recommendations for marketing practitioners.

Theoretical Framework

The transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is epitomised by developed Internet technologies, user-generated content, and greater cooperation amongst internet users; it has changed both what the Web contains, and the way it works (Akar and Topcu, 2011). Whereas the audience once used the internet to expend content, today, these factors are considered “hygiene,” i.e. they have to be there. Instead, Web 2.0 is concerned with a whole host of factors outside a brand’s control, and it is these facets of Web 2.0 that interactive consumers are increasingly engaging with (Christodoulides, 2009.)

Over the past ten years, we have witnessed a divergence from the Web 1.0 user, to a user of more purposeful intent when using the internet; indeed, interactive consumer engagement has emerged. Deighton and Kornfeld (2009) distinguish five emerging marketing paradigms in response to the growing power of the consumer in the new media environment. They use the term “person” to describe the roles the individual assumes when partaking in: thought-tracing, activity-tracing, property exchanges, social exchanges and cultural exchanges. These cornerstones of interaction set the foundations for the more specific category with which we are concerned: the social consumer.  

With the development of the Internet, peer-to-peer tools have enabled interactive consumers to talk back and talk to one another. As an extension of Schultz’s Social Media Ecosystem (2007), Li and Bernoff (2008) segment participants according to five different types of social behaviour: creators, critics, collectors, joiners and spectators (Hanna et al., 2011). With the rise of social media, these participants are driven to structure their daily lives around interactive technology in the pursuit of constant connectivity, motivated by connections, creating, consuming and controlling (www.forbes.com; Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). As a response to the diminution of traditional communication channels relative to the utility of applications, interactive consumers are seeking engagement with one another through new media platforms such as blogs, content sharing sites, wikis and social networking. It is abundantly clear we have witnessed a shift from the passive consumer, to a consumer empowered through greater information access, instant publishing power and a participatory audience; an environment in which it is paramount firms adapt (Krishnamurthy and Kucuk, 2009). 

Analysis

In recent years, companies have started going beyond simply maintaining a website for transactional purposes; instead, they are accommodating the socialising aspect consumer’s desire from their online experience and are finding new ways to instigate interactive customer engagement  (Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2013). This has proven both beneficial to firms that have engaged successfully with their markets. 

CouchSurfing, the hospitality exchange and social networking site for example, has positioned itself as a tool for consumers interested in travelling and connecting with other users to foster a “cultural exchange” (www.couchsurfing.org). The service relies upon users creating detailed and accurate profiles of themselves online. The website encourages interactive consumer engagement by requesting users to leave feedback so other users can decide whether they think the member would be a suitable host or surfer; doing so provides the starting point for opening a discussion with a fellow surfer, helping members determine whether they want to instigate contact offline and arrange a CouchSurfing experience; introductory videos interactively educate the consumer and can be watched here. Forums and discussion boards further aid members to arrange events and cultural exchanges creating both an online and offline community of CouchSurfers. 

Harnessing an online community means Couchsurfing facilitates interactive consumer engagement people feel within their real groups; these users are sharing information because they trust one another (Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2013). Through offering a platform to interact and share information, the service has effectively disrupted the boundaries of the hospitality industry and provided the consumer with the power and control to collaborate with fellow users to satisfy their travelling needs. 

Though CouchSurfing is exclusively concerned with the sharing of experiences amongst their users, other companies have followed suit by facilitating the users desire to construct interactive consumer engagement with other consumers. Amazon for example, the largest online retailer has successfully engaged their market by offering tools that enable consumers to create their own content in the form of wish lists and reviews (amazon.co.uk). Fellow users are not only more likely to read the consumer generated content rather than relying on summary statistics, but they also perceive recommendations and interactive consumer’s opinions as trustworthy; they are more likely to believe the opinions of engaging interactive consumers than a company representative (Chevalier and Mayzlin, 2006; Sandes and Urdan, 2013; Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2013). Ultimately, these tools enable users to supplement information provided by electronic storefronts such as product descriptions and reviews by experts, aiding the decision making process of purchasing a good (Mudambi and Schuff, 2010). 

Finally, engagement can be elevated through social media platforms in various ways, and doing so can bring about positive results for a brand when executed successfully. In an effort to achieve interactive consumer engagement, football team Tottenham Hotspur collaborated with their supplier Under Armour to create an interactive social media campaign that invited fans to submit images of themselves in the new Under Armour football kit (tottenhamhotspur.com). 

Understanding how to reach their consumers and the best channels to do so enabled the brand to customize their interactive user engagement. Promoting the campaign through a microsite, video and social networking platforms, the campaign promised 2,500 recipients images would be displayed in White Hart Lane tunnel and seen by the players at every home game for the rest of the season. Understanding the importance of the teams’ history to fans ensured the tagline “earn your place in history” pulled at the heartstrings of customers resulting in a hugely successful interactive campaign. Once the spaces had been taken, a digital version of the mural was made available through the microsite, viewable here. As a result of the campaign, the football team created interactive consumer engagement with its fans, successfully targeted its customer base and raised awareness more broadly.

How can marketers’ best adapt? 
In respect of the increasingly interactive marketplace, marketers must learn the power of harnessing their resources to substantiate a relationship of interactive consumer engagement that encourages two-way conversation. It is no longer appropriate for marketers to interrupt consumers with promotional material; instead customers want firms to listen (Kietzmann et al., 2011). Netnography in terms of monitoring forums, feedback and customer reviews is a good starting point for firms to understand the current needs and expectations of consumers (Elliott and Elliott, 2003). It is through these observations that marketers will learn that value creating activities develop even in the absence of marketer efforts. 

Interactive consumer engagement has become the main drivers of conversations; the task for the marketer is to establish credible and durable ways to foster this value creation through interaction and engagement with their audience (Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2013).  It is therefore crucial that marketers understand the whole Social Media Ecosystem and learn to navigate and integrate these multiple platforms; they have to understand the different types of social behaviour exhibited by users and learn how to influence and  create interactive consumer engagement (Hanna et al., 2011). Identifying the company’s targeted segment of the online market and understanding their underlying motivations for interactivity will enable marketers to tailor their promotional campaigns to achieve maximum exposure (Aljukhadar and Senecal, 2011). 

With greater understanding of consumer requirements, marketers can instigate collaboration through their communities. Doing so can bring about new product ideas, improvements in functionality of their service offering and greater customer loyalty. Equally, as in the case of CouchSurfing, online communities can facilitate offline interaction and brand exposure. However, whilst facilitating interactive consumer engagement online can promote brand awareness, it is important to consider that although satisfied consumers are likely to spread their satisfaction to other consumers, they are equally likely to use this channel as a means of expressing their dissatisfaction (Sandes and Urdan, 2013). This has important implications for companies facilitating interactive consumer engagement online; if the product or service is deemed inadequate, electronic word-of-mouth facilitates the user to make it publicly known. 

Conclusions and Recommendations
In conclusion, it has been observed that through the development of the Internet, the consumer has evolved from the role of passive listener, to interactive consumer engager, collaborator and creator of user generated content. The theoretical underpinnings demonstrate the multiple roles of user interactivity, from property exchanges to social and cultural exchanges. In response to the diminution of traditional communication channels relative to the utility of applications, users are seeking engagement with one another through new media platforms such as blogs, content sharing sites, wikis and social networking. In effect, new communication channels have ended the interruption techniques of old marketing; it is the task of the marketer to identify who and what their interactive consumer segment is online, and how best to address their needs through observing, interacting and listening to interactive consumer engagement through the multiple social media platforms that have evolved through the digital era; the recommendations are as follows:

•    Marketers should understand their media landscape, their objectives and determine how best to engage their segmented market
•    Firms should be aware of the Social Media Ecosystem and accommodate their strategy accordingly to the five different types of social behaviours: creators, critics, collectors, joiners and spectators
•    Marketers should provide interactive opportunities for consumers, as in the case of Tottenham Hotspur, to build brand awareness
•    Providing a platform for consumers to interact with one another will facilitate online communities and build trust amongst consumers
•    Marketers should be aware of the implications of facilitating customer feedback and reviews; this will not always be positive and firms should be prepared to listen and respond timely and effectively
•    Firms need to be patient when building online relationships; ROI is not always immediate but will be demonstrated through brand loyalty 

References

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