Active Branding? It's the credibility, Stupid

Our very own Mark Beeching and Jeff Flemings recently published a piece on Active Branding at Mediapost.  In classic blog style, I will now attempt to reduce their eloquent article to a single soundbite:

It's the credibility, stupid

What do i mean by that?  Well, it seems to me that active branding is all about being credible, and being credible takes more than just messaging.  You have to "walk the walk" too. 

Consumers are smart, and getting smarter by the day: people don't believe everything they read any more.  It's not enough to just tell people what your brand stands for if you don't really mean it: companies are ultimately judged by their actions and nothing kills credibility more quickly than making a promise that you can't keep (if you don't believe me, try a Dunkin' Donuts steak sandwich and you'll see what I mean).  In truth, we have always known this: Abigail Adams (1744-1818) put it succinctly

We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

So if we have always known this, what has changed that means marketers can't get away with the old tricks of yesteryear?  In a word (OK, two words), Consumer Empowerment.  Thanks in no small part to the internet, consumers have un-precedented access to alternative sources of information and products.  This free flow of information and shopping options means that a message that does not "ring true" is punished faster than ever.  Fasten your seatbelts, it's getting faster every day!

At least Jeff and Mark don't have to worry about credibility, they are already a hit with bloggers!

Comments

[Christine Beardsell]

When I think about Active Branding there is one word that comes to mind: connection.  Yes, it is all about being credible and distinctive in your messaging.  But what I find most interesting in the PSFK recent blog is the last bullet point —“Activate those experiences across all points of customer contact.” This is the point where the world of Digitas meets the world outside.  As a company we can write credible, engaging lines and saturate our work with more honest imagery and content, and as a company be impressed with how the brand comes across as REAL.   But what about the customer contact? How do we really Activate these experiences?

 “Active” in an electronic sense means to be “capable of amplifying voltage or currents; to make more powerful.”  Not just action, but action which doubles, triples, quadruples through contact. However, in an electronic environment such as the web, we measure our results through the individual action of one person.  Most of the time we are happy with the results of “click rates” and “amount of time engaged” or with people responding positively to a brand survey.  But how do we measure what that individual really said to his friend, or how many friends he told about the product?  “Tell a friend” and blogs like this one are a good place to start snooping, but how do we know if the person we are engaging with even has any friends to tell?  I think this is where the word connection becomes important, not just connection, but with whom we are connecting.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, Gladwell writes about “that magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spread like wildfire.”  Here, he outlines the critical role of the “Connector”—those individuals that bring the world together; they know everyone, they connect everyone, they are the key player in all “six degrees of separation.” More importantly, they play a large role in “tipping” the scale.  They can spark a trend, spread ideas faster, and connect and influence more people in any given space.

One can obviously see the role the Connector plays in the advertising world.  The recent My Life My Card campaign is a perfect example.  Here we have two well-known talents selling the same product in the same channels—Ellen and Coach K. Ellen:  quite successful in driving traffic to the online brand experience.  Coach K:  not at all.  A lot of factors could attribute to this, but the most obvious reason— more people know Ellen.  But is that all?  Coach K’s commercial was featured throughout the month of March Madness.  A large number of sports fanatics who know Coach K were tuning in every night seeing his commercial between every game.  Yet,  the amount of people that actually went to the website was negligible. Ellen is a Connector, but Coach K is not.   Without even trying, Ellen can sell a brand ten times better than Coach K. She is charming, she is convincing, and people want to hear what she has to say—and not just hear it but talk about it to other people.  Coach K has many admirable things to say that could richen a brand’s perception…real, honest tangible content.  Yet, his “Activation” wasn’t a powerful, amplifying voltage like Ellen’s. It was simply just a connection that made contact with an individual, but most likely didn’t go any further…

When thinking about “Active Branding” the connection itself is not necessarily enough, even when the message and content is credible and distinctive. We need to find the Connectors.  Customer "incite" strategies and research can go a long way in finding these people, and I think the more we can convince others (clients) that this is important the quicker we can make “Active Branding” a reality in all of our projects. Not every Connector has to be as well-know as Ellen. Whether it be an internet nerd blogging the night away,  or the old man that sits on a stoop telling stories (these people are not necessarily driven by technology, rather technology is just another tool)— we need to keep our eyes open for the Connectors that are influential in their own small world, and target our messaging toward them… then watch it “spread like wildfire.”

[george tannenbaum]

Or as Dr. Johnson said, "The soul of advertising is a promise." I think the point for me is that we now say "active branding" because so many advertisers and their agencies have engaged in "passive branding." Flaccid jokes or production values sans a consumer insight or an idea. Good advertising has always been active and engaging. And, in reference to the Dunkin' Donuts example--nothing kills a bad product better than good advertising.