Ready, Fire, Adapt!

 [Posted by Lisa Bradner]

My report on Adaptive Brand Marketing continues to generate coverage and comments positive and negative in both the US and Europe: see links here for Marketing Week and AdAge.

The Ad Age piece in particular is interesting to me.  While I’m not fond of the “we haven’t read the report but here’s what we think” approach, I do appreciate the folks from BBH Labs weighing in and sharing their vision of what the future adaptive marketing organization looks like. Several of the things called out on their list are in my report as well—although anyone who’s read Dave Frankland’s recent report on customer intelligence, "The Intelligent Approach to Customer Intelligence" knows that equating this function to market research doesn’t’ scratch the surface of everything that is involved.  

What I am concerned about is the attempt to bring adaptive brand marketing down to a list: lists won't get us there. We need to fundamentally rethink the people, process and technologies we use and, take on hard issues like organizational structure; partner relationships, compensation and metrics, or this just becomes another reinvention activity that stops short of real change.

My piece is neither an indictment of agencies nor of brand marketing organizations. It is an attempt to begin the dialog about what we keep, what we give up and how we make our relationships more productive for all parties. In my many conversations with practitioners on both sides of the fence (both for the piece and at Forrester’s Consumer Forum this week) I heard that no one is happy with the status quo and no one feels they have all the answers. I also heard a lot of smart business minds willing to wade in and take on the core issues and that excites me greatly.

At Forrester we'll be continuing to push the thinking on how to design, build and operationalize an adaptive brand marketing organization. As a 3rd party research firm we have the opportunity to look across both the agency and brand marketer camps and help surface solutions. The more everyone commits to talking about and thinking through the tough issues the better the solutions we'll create together.

So I’m here to give a shout out—there’s been a lot of noise out there but things are quiet on the marketing leadership blog—I hope you’ll change that: post here, tell us what you think, ask provocative questions and be part of the conversation.  Let’s make this something we build and grow together so we create lasting change not just another industry buzzword.

Post your comments here, or ping me on twitter @lisabradner

Brand Management’s Wake Up Call

 [Posted by Lisa Bradner]

Adaptability is key to any living organism.  As the environment changes, those who adjust and find new ways to operate survive. Those who cannot or choose not to change die out.

 Meaningful brands are living organisms, shaped by the people who create the products and services behind them, by the people who use them and create memories and associations with them, and by the marketers and agencies who build stories and emotional associations that resonate in people’s hearts and minds.

 The recent past has been unkind to many venerable brands. Globalization, competition, the digital revolution, and good old fashioned greed have challenged legendary brands from General Motors to Merrill Lynch to, most recently (and saddest to the cooks among us) Gourmet magazine,  showing even the most iconic brands aren’t safe from the sway of market forces.

With all this change, one might think that the tools and approaches brand marketers use would be changing too. Yet too many marketers still use old brand management models built for a mass homogeneous media marketplace, not for an always on, multi-channel, connected global world.   While these approaches feel safe and comfortable they fail to give marketers the tools they need to survive.  What should marketers do differently?  My new report, “Adaptive Brand Marketing” addresses this question and recommends a framework for helping brand marketing organizations become more agile, responsive and flexible so that their brands can thrive.  Additionally, Advertising Age has a lengthy write-up that focuses on one element of the report:  what Adaptive Brand Marketing means for the future of the brand manager. 

Adaptive Brand Marketing is not just about social media. True, Coke has  3 million fans on Facebook and 800,000 people are fans of Pop Tarts. The social revolution has given us insight into just how much passion exists for the every day brands we use  Adaptive brand marketing is about harnessing the power of people inside and outside the organization backed by superior intelligence harnessed and processed by top notch technology to create brands that are relevant and resonant to the people they serve on a daily basis. No small task—but isn’t that what makes marketing fun?

I welcome your feedback on the report as well as your thoughts on adaptability.  What do you think are the top three things brand marketers must do to adapt and thrive?  How many of them are happening in your organization today? What practices need to die out now? Let’s compare notes.

P.S. To hear industry practitioners discuss this and other topics related to Multi-Channel Consumer, join us in Chicago for Forrester's Consumer Forum 2009 on October 27-28 and in London for Forrester's Marketing Forum EMEA 2009 on November 17-18.

Shifting Tides

 [Posted by Lisa Bradner]

Last week, Tide announced “Tide Basic”, a lower cost and less featured version of their iconic brand.  This is a wise response from P&G, driven by the realities of a recessionary marketplace that has consumers:

• Defecting to private label. A recent Forrester survey reveals that 45% household product consumers say the recession will drive them to buy more private label products (see figure below).

• Finding discounts and deals everywhere they can. In Forrester's Q1 2009 online retail survey, 49% of online women said the current recession is driving them to look for more coupons online.

In this kind of environment P&G is smart to find ways to extend the brand franchise and reach out to strapped consumers without over discounting its flagship brand.  For the full report on how CPGs are fighting the recession and what other marketers can learn from them, Forrester clients can click here.

Want to learn more about how  marketers are spending differently in the recession, how marketers can prioritize to survive and thrive in a recession and how the recession can be a great opportunity to reframe your business?  Join my colleague David Card and me September 15 in Cambridge, Massachusetts for our Recession Marketing workshop.

Lessons from Loads of Hope

As regular readers of Forrester's blogs already know my colleagues Sucharita Mulpuru, Shar VanBoskirk and I (Lisa Bradner) were part of last week's Digital Hack Night at Procter and Gamble. (If you missed the story can read about the event in detail at Ad Age here ). In four hours digital experts and P&G employees were divided into teams and challenged to sell as many Tide shirts as possible using their social networks and digital skills. Proceeds of the Tide shirts benefit Tide's Loads of Hope charity. The objective of the event was to give a hands-on experience for traditional brand marketers at P&G the impact of social media. While debate about the event has raged online we thought it worthwhile to step back and take a look at the longer term lessons we observed from this event. These lessons aren't P&G specific-they're food for thought for every marketer trying to get smart in social media. So, what did we observe? For starters:

• Cause matters. Each attendee at the event was asked to tap their personal network to ask friends, colleagues and family to purchase on behalf of charity. That we were all so comfortable doing so speaks to the trust we had in the integrity of the P&G team and the value we saw in their charitable cause. Most of us, I think, would have hesitated to ask those same people in our networks to go out and buy something not related to charitable giving.

What it means for marketers: Marketers looking to access people's personal social networks must think long and hard about what they're asking those networks to do and whether the influencers have social currency they can provide ( a great cause, a great deal, or insider knowledge). Without that your effort is likely to feel like shilling and get very little pick up.

• Personal networks trump paid placements. Over and over again we saw that the highest responses and conversion percentages came from people's personal networks not from online ads. Exceedingly well connected bloggers like David Armano and Jory DesJardin tapped a deep well of good will and social currency to move Tide's message forward. What it means for marketers: cultivating deep relationships with key influencers will reap greater rewards than spray and pray. Don't simply put out a message hoping it will get pick up: identify the key players in your market place and the value your product or service brings to their readers.. Think about what you can bring to those connected people-advance access to new products, engaging them in a customer advisory capacity, etc. Can't identify your value-add? You're probably not going to get very far.
• Social media is a full time commitment. Across the teams those who were able to generate the greatest number of sales were full time bloggers (or at least full time social media gurus). Even among the so called digerati those of us for whom social isn't our sole focus were left in the dust by those who do it for a living. What it means for marketers: don't think you're going to make an impact asking your current digital marketing manager to add Twittering and blogging to their current job description. Figure out what your role should be in the social media space and staff with people knowledgeable and connected who thrive on contributing to and participating in that space. Social media isn't something you turn on and off for a campaign; it's something you live and breathe every day.
• Suspicion runs rampant. No sooner had the project begun than the comments started coming back: who is this for, whom does it benefit, why should I give, how do I know this is legitimate? Fortunately Tide had provided teams with information, images and a website with full program details. Even so, most people needed a lot of proof points before they would embrace talking about the program. What it means for marketers: Anyone who thinks corporate America is welcome at the social party hasn't been paying a lot of attention. Corporate messages and their bearers are viewed with suspicion and in some cases, derision. Overcoming it takes patience, information and most importantly truly good intentions at the root of your efforts.
• You can't please all the people all the time. No matter what some people seem to believe that most corporate efforts spring from bad intent. Some people were angered there were no plus sized t shirts, some were outraged that P&G was involved at all wondering why they didn't just send their money to a charity. Most of these concerns were mitigated with a healthy discussion and an honest mea culpa when appropriate (the T shirt size issue was, admittedly, an oversight but certainly not a slight) but some of them spring from the conflict that comes from companies who need to sell goods and services entering a space that has been largely non-commercial. What it means for marketers. Take time to plan for worst case scenarios: how could your intentions be misconstrued and how and when do you respond? Accept that you will never be welcomed by all but with a good faith effort, honesty, transparency and a long term commitment you can at least get a chance to tell your side of the story.

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