There is little debate today that marketplace power has shifted from the brand to the customer. Though it is critical that brands establish and maintain trust with customers, increasingly the customer has the power in setting the terms of the value exchange they have with their brands. This power shift was evident in 1997 when the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) published Measuring Brand Communication ROI by Don E. Schultz and yours truly, but fiercely debated at the time. Back then, the web was just beginning to emerge as the newest channel for communication and scholars and marketers alike weren’t sure what to make of the new medium.
Things are clearer now that customers are a click away from buying, selling, touting and trashing virtually any brand. Not only can they share their thoughts, experiences and opinions within minutes of a brand engagement, they can do so while on the move via their smartphones and even share a picture or video to bring their story to life. Never have brands been so blessed with the potential for free publicity and simultaneously cursed with the burden of scenario planning to anticipate and prepare for the PR disaster that may never happen.
This new relationship between brands and customers calls for new marketing approaches. Among these is better scenario planning. Specifically, pre-planned actions that are akin to those that emergency services and military personnel incorporate into their routines. Marketers must be prepared to capitalize on positive customer feedback and respond to miss-steps alike. Though there are many examples where marketers are doing this today, here are two recent examples that illuminate the challenges of managing customer engagement and brand responsiveness 24×7.
Customer-created opportunity: Iran’s recently contested elections have posed a unique opportunity for Iranians and supporters of democracy worldwide. Though it is still unclear whether anything will change in Iran, the post-election protests were shared via social media, including Twitter and YouTube, so that the world could see the discontent and brutal state response to the demonstrations in real-time. Shutting out traditional media didn’t stop the population from publishing their views of Iran’s dictatorship and corruption. If nothing else, Western citizens now feel a stronger kinship with a sizable portion of Iranians as they struggle in their pursuit of democracy. Perceptions of Iran, the brand, have worsened, while perceptions of Iranians themselves are humanized – this must be good and will hopefully transition to Iran as (eventually) a better global citizen/brand.
Customer-created challenge: “Customer-created” is really a misnomer since the brand, more often than not, creates the problem and the customer springs to action to publicize the affront. A few weeks ago a musician took matters into his own hands when United’s baggage folks broke his guitar while in transit – here is the link to the music video created by the artist. The broken guitar, in and off itself, wasn’t nearly the problem that United’s cold shoulders presented him in his attempts to try to “make it right.” The back story from the artist is interesting since the story is still unfolding with new videos on the way. Further, now that the story has captured national media attention, United has “snapped to” and embraced the problem.