Today’s New
York Times has an article about the “new rules of engagement” for building
brand awareness. The article covers a
recent conference of Madison Avenue types as they extol the virtues of their new
customer engagement models. They “talk
the talk”, but based on this article it’s not clear that they “walk the walk”.
Joseph T.
Plummer, chief research officer at the Advertising Research Foundation made
several astute observations about the new approach by Fortune 500
advertisers.
"It's turning the mental model
of the industry on its head," he added, compared with previous benchmarks
like awareness and recall, which are longer-term and have a rational basis.
Another big difference is that
engagement "happens inside the consumer, not inside the medium," Mr.
Plummer said. "All the measurements we have now are media metrics:
ratings, readership, listenership, click-through rates."
"What we need is a way to
determine how the targeted prospect connected with, got engaged with, the brand
idea," he added. "With engagement, you're on your way to a
relationship instead of just a sales transaction."
But the
examples discussed in the article were little more than consumer promotions
using new media channels, and linked to existing ad campaigns. Campbell Soup Company uses its recipe site to
distribute its jingle "M'm! M'm! Good!" Subway’s site provides additional information
about Jared Fogle, their miracle weight-loss customer.
To
effectively engage consumers and build relationships, marketers need to put
their brands in the context of the customer’s experience. Most people give little thought to the soup
they buy or the lunch they eat. But when
marketers find ways to tap into customer zeitgeist, they open the doors to true
consumer engagement. Consumer Generated
Media offers unprecedented opportunities to do just that, whether it’s by using
blogs to derive market insights or encouraging passionate users to create viral
videos.
Of the
examples in the article, Wendy’s International is the closest to that type of
real consumer engagement. Wendy’s has
created Smart Square, a character based on the square hamburger, which was quickly adopted among the
MySpace community. If members of the
MySpace community start creating their own viral videos with Smart Square, then they’ll know they’ve
got a hit on their hands – and a truly engaged consumer.
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