Brand strategy in a digital world

Stefan Erschwendner Managing Partner Lighthouse CEE

Strategy in a digital world

Agenda

Our topics of this morning

• Changes in technology that effected society• Today’s digital landscape• How to lead a brand in 2010• Q&A

CHANGES IN TECHNOLOGY THAT EFFECTED SOCIETY

A brief review of the last years

The connected world

Technology and the internet moved from the plug in the wall to the the whole world via WiFi, mobile internet & internet on your mobile.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/15732690@N00/308024625/


Enhanced devices

Mobile phones merge from a simple telephone to a powerful gadget for mobile internet, email, micro blogging, social networking, location based services, live streaming, turn by turn navigation,…



Convergence into the cloud

Various data source share their information online in the cloud and allow users and applications to connect, remix and mash their data to create new information.

http://www.slideshare.net/bartmuskala/digital-natives-session-6-the-future-of-the-web-presentation

Everybody is media

In the old days the access to mass audiences was limited to publishing houses and broadcasters. With the internet, social networks and decreasing prices of technology this all changed.

Today users can reach masses via different tools, if they tap into the notion of the community and create content that is worth spreading.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvera/324818324/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvera/324818324/sizes/o/

Empowered Consumer

Thanks to Google consumers can find exactly what they are looking for. Google local search and location based service add a completely new layer to search.

Blogger, Twitter, Facebook and other instant publishing and community tools help users to spread their opinions and reach masses like never before.

Users can now find and spread messages One way communication is over.



TODAY’S DIGITAL LANDSCAPE

Status quo of digital

This was 1984

http://www.slideshare.net/Klawiklawaklawong/digital-strategy-a-deck-for-the-university-of-applied-sciences-siegen-3216472


This is 2010



Forget everything, tomorrow will be different

The most fundamental shift that happened in communication over the last decades in the rise of social media.

This shift goes far beyond communication and influences the way people do business, collaborate, vote, buy and use products or services. It’s a fundamental shift in the direction of n:m relationships, collaboration and openness.

http://www.briansolis.com/

http://www.briansolis.com/

The value of sharing

“In the past you were defined because of what you owned. Today it’s about what you share.”

Charles Leadbeater – We think

Technology is a process and platform

“Technology is technology only for people who were born before it was invented.”

Alan Kay, Computer Visionary

It’s not about technology. It’s about technologies immersion into everyday life. Which is giving us access to people in a completely different way.

Everything ends up online

We spend most of our time in front of the computer and the internet and we even start to duplicate various offline experiences in our online world: holiday pictures, restaurant recommendation,…

What is social media?

Social - we use tools or create stuff together with other people – no stand alone applications or process.

The biggest power is the audience – media is part of the product/channel.

What is social media?

Social media is not about channels, technologies or a social networking site.

It is about about real life relationships, behaviour and conversations.

Social media merges offline and online: in real-time, local and connected

Foursquare now offers real time, location based statistics for it’s venue owners.

Starbucks joined Foursquare with a “Barista” patch that you can unlock after 5 Starbucks check ins.

Foursquare x Starbucks

http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/foursquare-starbucks/

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/foursquare-introduces-new-tools-for-businesses/


Gowalla offers it’s partners digital gifts that can be swapped at locations. Furthermore users can earn branded stamps for completing if they checked in at certain business location.

Gowalla x Palm


Hungarians love to be connected

http://www.slideshare.net/mickstravellin/universal-mccann-international-social-media-research-wave-3

Social media in practice

Passive consumption Experimentation Active contribution

http://www.slideshare.net/mickstravellin/universal-mccann-international-social-media-research-wave-3

In general:

• More than 400 million active users

• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

• More than 55 million status updates posted each day

• 990.060 users in Hungary

User statistics:

• Average user has 130 friends on the site

• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month

• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook

• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month

• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month

• Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month

• Average user is invited to 3 events per month

Facebook in numbers

http://www.facebook.com

March 6th - 13th 2010:

Facebook over takes for the first time in history Google as the weekly most visited website in the US.

Facebook growth compared to last year 185%

Facebook takes over Google

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2010/03/facebook_reaches_top_ranking_i.html

Social Media allows brands to create meaningful multidemensional relationships that add value for the community and the brand instead of singular communication campaigns.

Social media fosters relationships between people and relationsships between people and brands.

Relationships instead of campaigns

Social Media usage situations

HOW TO LEAD A BRAND IN 2010

A holistic view of brand, media & consumer

Markets are conversations

Several shifts in marketing happened of the the last years:• Decreasing relevance of advertising• General shift towards digital• Fragmentation of markets• Network effects among consumers• Rising consumer expectations


Digital – the first, the last, the everything

As “digital primacy” has risen, so has the way consumers learn about and purchase a brand’s products and services.

Because of the interactive nature of the medium, one brand experience can lead a consumer from “awareness” through “purchase” and “recommendation” almost instantly.

According to a Razorfish study, 64% of consumers have made a first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience such as a website, microsite, mobile coupon, or email.

No other medium has so impacted—or altered—the traditional marketing funnel this way.

2009 Razorfish digital brand experience study

How to lead a brand in 2010

5 directions in which brands need to improve their efforts to ensure current and future growth:

•365•Optimize media & networks•Content is crucial•Conversations are essential•Strategy needs to lead digital

365The shift from campaigns to conversations

The shift from campaigns to conversations

“The conversation is going on whether you care to be involved or not. If you choose not to be involved, you lose control of the conversation about your product, your service, your brand, your organisation – you become irrelevant.”

Cluetrain manifesto

2009 Razorfish FEED


In the past – We were not building sustainable relationships

Traditional Campaigns start from almost zero and abandon the audience they’ve amassed upon completion. Campaigns based on earning Sustainable Relationships leverage the existing audience and grow it for future use.

Marketing has gone away from away from cyclic campaign boost in favour of active and suistanable relationships. Marketing cannot interrupt a dialog with consumers along time. Today, communication is fragmented, surgical and constant.

http://www.slideshare.net/maximo23/do-you-still-know-anything-about-marketing


To do’s for brands:

• Identify digital brand communities

• Use social media monitoring to gain insights and a feeling for the community – identify opinion leaders and topics

• Shift budgets from traditional channels to establish a social media strategy and presence

• Review internal structures (cross department teams) to ensure dialog capacities

• Set clear goals for activities and track key performance indicators like fans, mentions, interactions, activations, direct sales, buzz,…

• Start with little steps and adapt plans according to internal/external feedback and KPI tracking

OPTIMIZE MEDIA & NETWORKS

Create synergies between owned, paid & earned media

Optimize media & networks

“We are not in the business of supporting media companies. We are in the business of connecting consumers.”

Trevor Edwards, VP Global Brand, Nike

Companies spend most of their marketing budget on media instead of content. In times of digital extensions and social networks – everybody becomes a media owner and is able to reach masses. This means for brands that everything between the brand and the consumer will get stream lined. If content can flow freely and is pushed by brand communities there is a smaller need for paid media.

The more owned media the less paid media is neededBrands start to shift budgets from paid media to owned media. Pepsi is shifting it’s $ 20 million from superbowl to social.

Owned media platforms need to be socialWithin the field of owned media there is a shift to platforms that offer a setup to earned media. Brands start following the audience.

With 2010 Coke and Unilever shift from microsite (owned) to social media (partly owned but high ratio of earned media).

* http://www.nma.co.uk/news/cover-story-coke-drops-campaign-sites-in-favour-of-social-media/3008538.article

Brands need to create content first to earn media

When brands produce content that is worth discussing and sharing, this well spent money directly converts into „earned“ media.

Interruption media Interaction media


Successful examples of earned media

In the digital age brands are not dependend on their media spendings as they used to be. Figure out what is useful and the (brand) community will do the rest for you.


Successful examples of earned media

• iPad 19.900.000 hits on Google

• More than 100.000 fans on Facebook

• Up to 2400 tweets per minute• Free media coverage across

the globe in various traditional main stream channels

The home of the brand is everywhere

In an age of high media fragmentation, growing importance of media and the ability to use liquid content across multiple channel the home of the brand is not the website anymore.

Brands need to follow the people and be were the people are instead of trying to drive people to their homes with the help of expensive campaigns.

The home of the brand is libero.com, google.com, facebook.com, twitter.com, youtube.com, flickr.com, formspring.com, vimeo.com…

Contemporary websites need to pull content from social media portals and become a central hub that guides users depending on their needs.

Source: Aberdeen Group – The ROI on Social Media Monitoring (October 2009)



• Integrate brand communities and platform in all brand activities

• Try to leverage owned media for every brand activity

• Shift owned media channels in favor for owned media with strong social integration or improve social integration of existing owned media eg. Facebook connect – the whole internet is a social network

• Constantly update and review social networks to look for additional synergies with brand activates

CONTENT IS CRUCIALBrands need to produce content to stay top of search & share

Digital shift perceptions

• In a digital world brand action/experience/content counts more than a brand message.• Consumers google for brands, look at product reviews and check out branded Twitter and Facebook profiles. What they find online is what counts• 65% of consumers have changed their brand perception positive or negative depending on the digital brand experience.• You can further build your brand in the digital world and leverage or compliment overall brand experience

2009 Razorfish digital brand experience study

Digital experience & interaction

Digital experience influences consumers

• 65% report a digital experience changing their brand perception

• 97% report that digital experience has influenced their purchase

• 24% have produced digital content in order to enter a contest

2009 Razorfish FEED, http://feed.razorfish.com/

Content is crucial


• Brands need to led lose of their brand control and give power to consumers. They will use your content, modify your content and share your content with no respect for copyrights or ownership.

• Review current legal status of brand content and adjust buy out right for all upcoming brand content.

• Review existing brand content that can be adopted for conversations to earn media.

• Rethink the way how you present your products/services in a digital world. People read less copy and love to watch videos.

• Make it possible for consumers to engage with your own content and give them possibilities build up on your framework.

CONVERSATIONS ARE ESSENTIAL

Digital can trigger conversations online & offline

Rethink how you used to look at media

• Marketeers look at media as something passive, something you viewed, something that you consume in a lean back mode.• Passive consumption leads to thinking of creativity as a product - something sealed, perfect final, sent into the world• Digital works different than all other forms of media. Digital allows a real time dialog commmunication.• Digital can serve as a medium that you consume in a lean back mode like TV and in the same it allow active participation, conversation and exchange.

http://feed.razorfish.com/

A new generation of consumers as entered the market

• Digital natives (people born after 1980) have grown up consuming media actively. Itʼs a different mode of consumption.• People are used to look for all kind of information online, raise questions and look for recommendation. They like to consume content when they want (YouTube) and share what they find useful.

Active idea consumption requires a corresponding shift in how brands think about creativityFrom product to process (with gaps in it, that people can fit into)The focus shifts from what brands say to what brands do

Pull people together and give them something to do

„The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do... I don‘t have to control the conversation to benefit from their interest"

Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture

2009 Razorfish FEED

Conversation & interaction pays back on many levels

• Consumer insightsBest in class organisations are 2.6 times more likely than industry average companies, and 93 times more likely than laggards, to improve their ability to generate consumer insights that drive new product / service development.

• Brand reputationBest in class organisations are 3.3 times more likely than industry average companies, and 82 times more likely than laggards, to improve their ability to identify and reduce risk to the brand.

• Customer advocacyBest in class organisations are 2.3 times more likely than industry average companies, and 19 times more likely than laggards, to improve customer advocacy.

• Customer serviceBest in class organisations are 2.8 times more likely than industry average companies, and 15 times more likely than laggards, to decrease customer service costs.

Source: Aberdeen Group – The ROI on Social Media Monitoring (October 2009)

Conversations are essential


• Make it possible for users to interact with your brand via their preferred channel.

• Use Twitter for breaking news and instant help, create communities of social sites like Facebook, inform the audience more detailed via a blog, host videos and ads on YouTube, share your picture bank via Flickr or let users ask questions via formspring.

• Use brand communities as a hugh trial, research & development area. Consumer co-creation. Involve brand lovers in marketing and product development. Allow users to interacte and engage with the brand.

• Constantly feed in exclusive information and discount offers into your community of brand lovers. So that they can share brand news and evangelize new user.

STRATEGY TODAYStrategy needs to pay more attention to digital

Strategy today

There is no future for digital strategy, but there will always be future for strategy in a world going digital.

Digital is not something seperate anymore. Digital is part of everyday. As a marketeer you need to look at the world holisticly and not as seperate silos.

Digital needs to be become in the short term an integrated part of everything the brand does, this means beyond communication.

In the long term digital needs to become the central stream of how the whole organization works.

2009 Razorfish FEEDhttp://feed.razorfish.com/

Strategy today

transfer best performing content into other kinds of offline media like TV & print

From big ideas to micro strategies

transfer best performing content into other kinds of offline media like TV & print


Why digital will be the key asset for brands

• Consumers won’t look for products & services anymore, they will find consumers via social networks– Influence of word-of-mouth is growing (An average Facebook user

has 130 friends), while trust in advertising is on an all time low.

• Brands need to develop more consumer relevant content to keep relationships and stay top of mind– Brands need to open up, share content and join conversations to

use social network effects and optimize owned and earned media

• Digital will be the main content platform where all brand related content is available, all other forms of media will carry “teasers”– Digital is the only media where brands can share their full content. In

the future this content needs to adapt to different channel to create convenience for consumers and utilize the benefits of each medium

Predictions for 2010

• Less will get done, until we find out how to do more with less• Brands will rush to employ “social media/digital strategies”• Marketing will have more data and less understanding• Great content will travel at “speed of share”• Push versus pull will become less relevant• The target group 18-49 will become even less coherent• Size will become less relevant

Contact

Stefan ErschwendnerManaging [email protected] + 43 650 372 6486

Lighthouse CEERasumofskygasse 261030 WienAustria

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LH_CEE

Brand strategy in a digital world

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