#mark9057

Chapter 4: On Purpose

The theme of this chapter is brand purpose. To thrive in the Relationship Era, brands and marketers alike need to be clear in their purpose.

Why is knowing a brand’s purpose important? According to Garfield and Levy, “a clear purpose defines what the brand or company stands for, beyond financials, and inspires people not merely to patronize the brand, but to join it” (57). Brands who have a clear purpose generate loyalty and passion – people get excited about the brand and what the brand is up to.

I am going to stress again that in the Relationship Era, customers want transparency. Customers hear every celebration and hiccup your brand faces. As a brand, “you are being evaluated not just for what you sell but how you conduct yourself in the world – with consequences that flow directly to the bottom line” (58).

If your brand’s purpose is to protect aquatic life, do not turn around and put whale blubber in your lipstick. Seriously think about your brand’s purpose and take a pledge to honour that purpose. Your customers will see and appreciate that you are staying true to the image you project.

Deriving your brand’s purpose can be difficult, as there are many questions you have to ask of your brand. What motivates and inspires your brand? What role do you see your brand playing, and what role do you see for the goods your brand puts out? (60).

The example Garfield and Levy used in this chapter of a brand finding their purpose is Louisville Slugger. They struggled to find their purpose at first, but it helped when they were able to narrow down a clear set of company beliefs. Pulling from their beliefs, what matters the most to them as a company, they were able to find their purpose – Louisville Slugger exists to make players great.

Chapter 5: Sustain

Chapter five brings us back to taking a deeper look at the brand sustainability map, and what makes a brand sustainable.

In the Relationship Era, if you build trust and a solid, human relationship with your customers, you will be able to achieve brand sustainability.

Sustainable brands, like Costco, Target, and Amazon do not have to purchase large quantities of traditional advertising. They already have brand loyal customers; customers who willing advocate for them through word-of-mouth. According to Garfield and Levy, Amazon, Costco, and Target spend an average of .52 percent of sales on measured media (82). That is just over a half of a single percent!

If your brand has a stellar relationship with your customers, your brand is more sustainable.

Chapter 6: The Secret Secret

Chapter six focuses on Secret deodorant. Secret deodorant launched around 1956, and was the first deodorant marketed exclusively for women (93).

A major campaign that Secret launched in 2009 dealt with the gender inequality found within Olympic sports. Many competitive events in the Olympics only have male competitions. In most cases, if women have their own events for the same sports, they came much later in Olympic history.

Secret wanted to tackle how, despite it being the year 2010, there was going to be no ski jump competition for women at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. Secret’s brand purpose, after all, focuses on the equality of all genders and supporting women in pursuing their goals without fear (97).

Secret curated a commercial highlighting the inequality between ski jump athletes, using the slogan ‘Let Her Jump!’. This commercial appeared on YouTube, as well as it having its own Facebook page. Over six months, Secret saw its sales increase and their video went viral.

Book reports can be incredibly intimidating. What if I don’t like the book? What if I, despite reading the book cover to cover, miss the main point of the book? What if I don’t get ‘it’?

This semester for MARK9057 I had the opportunity to read “Can’t Buy Me Like: How Authentic Customer Connections Drive Superior Results” by Bob Garfield and Doug Levy. I will be honest – this is the first marketing book I have ever read. I dreaded the idea that the material would be so dry that I would need a tsunami worth of water to make reading it bearable. I try my best to be an optimist, but often times I am filled with doubt.

I am so incredibly relieved to share that “Can’t Buy Me Like” was a fantastic read. The book offered advice, industry insights, humour, examples, and a new way to look at one’s relationship between their brand and their customers. All eleven chapters were professional yet conversational in tone; I felt as though I was being actively engaged with (albeit a one sided conversation) instead of being talked at.

I loved Garfield and Levy’s wisdom so much that I created a Twitter Account dedicated to some of Can’t Buy Me Like’s outstanding quotes.

I have organized my digital book report to be a chapter-by-chapter overview, including Garfield and Levy’s main themes, brand examples that follow the Relationship Era style of thinking (more on that later!), as well as my own commentary.

Linked below are my blog posts written on Can’t Buy Me Like’s respective chapters.

1. Introduction and Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 3. Chapter 4, Chapter 5, and Chapter 6 4. Chapter 7 and 8 5. Chapter 9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 11

Chapter 9: Do’s and Don’ts and… No, Really, Don’ts

This chapter focuses on trust and authentic marketing strategies.

There’s that pesky word again: trust. It is imperative that not only your customers trust you as a brand, but you are being authentic in your words and actions. Make conversation with customers because you genuinely care about them, not because you have ulterior motives.

If you are just being friendly to your customers, or, I hate to even say it, pretending to care in order to get the sale, you are doing it all wrong. Garfield and Levy were right when they said that the Relationship Era has no time for manipulation (158).

Be authentic in all of your practices. Don’t try to lie or deceive your customers because they will find out, and when they find out they will not be happy.

If you are looking for interesting, out of the box content, see what your customers are creating with your brand! Invite your customers to collaborate with you and become part of the brand story (172). Allow your customers to share what they have made and use that content to your advantage.

People like seeing creativity. People like it even more so when they find out that the creative advertising they just saw did not come from some think tank, it came from another consumer just like them.

The content does not have to go viral. Your customers will share the content among themselves, on Facebook pages and subreddits dedicated to your brand.

Chapter 10: Bank and Trust

This chapter focused on a case study on Sovereign Bank in Boston and its executive Eduardo Tobon.

I personally found this chapter to be filler. It was short, and it did not add much to the conversation.

The chapter did, however, provide one important quote by Tobon in regard to trust.

Chapter 11: This Could Be The End of a Previously Very Good Relationship

The final chapter of Can’t Buy Me Like focuses on trust, and how brands cannot rely on a customer’s trust when they make a mistake.

According to evidence found by Shirley Y. Y. Cheng, Tiffany Barnett White, and Lan Nguyen Chapin while conducting a study on consumer psychology, they were able to conclude that “…consumers tend to react to criticism of their most admired brands as a personal attack on themselves, and typically circle their emotional wagons around the brand under siege” (195).

If somebody tries to say negative things about Target or Trader Joe’s, I immediately come to the brand’s defense. Most of the time their dislike for the companies come from a one-off experience and not from a big blow to the brand’s public image.

If Target or Trader Joe’s were to be part of a large scandal, forcing me to question everything I thought I once knew about the brand, my trust might crumble and my former admiration for the brand might not be enough to salvage my relationship.

Garfield and Levy are right when they say, “giving up on those you believe in is not easy to do” (195). I can forgive a small lapse in judgment, but when it comes to something being ethically and morally wrong, I cannot.

It is important for brands to understand that, “no company is immune to the loss of trust, any more than anything is immune to gravity” (201). One major slip-up for your brand and all your hard work can be lost.

Chapter 7: The Thing Called Like

Chapter seven focuses on brand advocacy, engagement, and badging.

Remember when we talked about being brand loyal? Two brands that I am loyal to are Target and Old El Paso. Target is my go-to store; I boast about Target, I think about Target, and if I have the opportunity to go to Target, you bet I will go there. Many of my friends know that Target is my absolute favourite place to be.

What abut Old El Paso? They make great taco kits, but I do not go out of my way to speak about them. Sure, I might suggest them if somebody is looking for good taco shells, but do I go out of my way to boast about how great they are? Absolutely not.

I might be brand loyal to each brand, but I am an active advocate for Target, while I am a passive loyalist for Old El Paso. According to Garfield and Levy, it is better for, “…people to be active advocates as opposed to passive loyalists” (112).

I engage with Target online. Many others do, too. I like their content on Instagram, follow them on Facebook, and seek out Target Dollar Spot hauls on YouTube. I go out of my way to engage with Target. People who like things online choose to do so, despite here being a million and one other things to do on the Internet (113).

When people are extreme advocates of brands, why do they wear the logos of their favourite brands with pride? Why do they put stickers or decals on their personal belongings? Why do people request one brand of vodka or another? According to Garfield and Levy, “This phenomenon is what social scientists call “badging” or “self-presentation,” wherein a person endeavors to define himself in varying degrees of conspicuousness for the benefit of the outside world” (113).

Badging is convenient. You can learn a lot about somebody by seeing the products they associate with: if you go over to a significant other’s house and scan their bookshelf, you can see that they have a collection of Britney Spears CD’s, won a trophy for a spelling bee, or own every film from ‘The Fast and the Furious’ franchise.

People ‘badge’ themselves online through their liked pages on Facebook. Professors Hope J. Schau and Mary C. Gilly came to the conclusion that individuals, “use brands as shorthand for describing to others who they are, as well as who they are not” (114).

The Facebook Like is a unit of currency in the Relationship Era. Although you may consider it a vanity metric, you have to consider that living things is spontaneous, voluntary, and “at least minimally enthusiastic” (118). Liking things is a way for an individual to express that they are engaging with a brand’s material.

Chapter 8: The Shift

Chapter 8 takes an in-depth look at finding a brand’s purpose. Earlier we spoke about both Secret and Louisville Slugger’s brand purpose.

Garfield and Levy definite a brand purpose as, “the idea that inspires what you do and informs every action you take by getting to the core of why you do it” (126). Your brand’s purpose will always be at the forefront of your mind, and in the heart of everything you brand does.

12 chapters done & dusted and I am walking away with a whole new bag of tricks that I can’t wait to put into practice as I continue on this SMM journey . While I may not agree with all the tips I think there is something for everyone in this book and the authors themselves state at the beginning that they don’t expect you to take their word as Gospel. It provides a great starting point for anyone interested in Social Media giving you a number of checklists and road maps on how to navigate the different platforms effectively, optimize your reach and ensure you are presented in a professional , knowledgeable  All in all it was an enjoyable , quick read containing a lot of knowledge that can easily be referenced in future. If you have no idea what you are doing with Social Media or if you have plateaued and are looking to revitalize and re-engage then this book is a great starting point.... Heather says #readthebook !

Chapter 12 summarizes how to bring everything together providing a guideline & non fiction scenario that you can adapt to your event or product.

The first part is “ Build the Foundation” which outlines the groundwork at the start of the campaign and how to get your ducks in a row. Secondly they advise to “ Amass your Digital Assets” which is something I am diligently working to improve. The idea of having all your media ( video, blog post, youtube clip, etc) is heavenly to me but not one I have practiced as I should. I tend to store the ideas in my head and then rush to get them out as the due date draws near. ( this post is proof of that!)

 Peg Fitzpatrick is a planner and I have found a number of her Pinterest pins and ideas to be wonderful and have started to use them as a guide to create a template that works for me and MY brand.

Last step is “Go to Market” outlining the best time to share on each platform in the last few days leading up to your launch... now all that you have to do ( and me too!) is make it happen, which should be a whole lot easier with this arsenal of tips at your disposal

Chapter 10 discusses what we all want to know... how to AVOID looking clueless when it comes to Social Media! A number of great points are covered in this chapter such as don’t tell people what to share... a basic tenet of social media is if you don’t like what someone is sharing then DON’T FOLLOW THEM! Another point stressed is don’t buy followers... many companies can be tempted to do this for the mere purpose of saying “ Yeah we have 100K following us” but WHO are those followers? Are they people that use your product? are they interested in what you have to say? people that will share what you have to say or your product with others... NO they are just a +1 because you paid them to be. One great quote in this chapter I love is :

“ You may never be caught buying your way into social media, but to do so is pissing on your karma, and karma is a bitch” ~ Guy Kawasaki

Other paragraphs touch on not announcing your unfollowers or asking people to reshare your posts, don’t delegate your SMM to an intern this is the public face of your brand, your message you are relaying. You need to ensure the people handling it take social media seriously and understand the impact 1 misstep could have.

Another good point is to understand how the medium you are using works. The Town I live in tweeted this out, and my perception of it is that they don’t understand how Twitter works and it makes them appear like they aren’t interested in engaging with their citizens... they have improved slightly since then but they have a long way to go...