Can social media make boring brands sexy?
May 19th, 2009 by Jon Clements
Mr and Mrs Marketeer: how difficult is your job if your brand is…well…not sexy?
Forrester analyst, Josh Bernoff, writing on Groundswell reckons that anyone in marketing responsible for “boring brands” is really earning their keep, as “you are trying to get people interested in something they don’t really care about”.
Having worked in B2B public relations for more than a decade, I can testify to the sector having more than its fair share of companies that the world at large may call “boring”. It’s a totally subjective problem; where cable ties and ball bearings may be as effective as counting sheep to some, they are rock and roll personifed to someone else.
But back to Bernoff and the challenge of making the “boring” interesting…
Believe it or not, he sees social media as a thoroughly relevant way of bringing brands - that you wouldn’t automatically think of as social - to life.
The point is, talking about your brand or company may be inherently dull to the customer, but talking about their problems isn’t. Bernoff calls this “borrowed relevance” - generating talk about things your audience really cares about. And the examples he cites show how coming at your company’s marketing from a lateral point of view (our sister company, TBWA Manchester, would call it “disruptive”) can achieve something that has significance for the customer and banishes the boring tag.
Especially with B2B organisations - where their overall customer base is unlikely to be on the same scale as consumer brands -creating a buzz about what you do and making it relevant to the people who matter is essential. And social media is another way of finding those people, keeping them interested and relishing just how beautifully boring your business is.
Tags: Brands, Forrester, josh bernoff, Marketing, Social Media
May 19th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
This makes for a good read. Sharing comonalities in business will inherantly increase the buzz about what you do and how to do it better.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Thanks James.
You put your finger on an important point: businesses learning how to do things better by engaging with social media. If your customers can’t tell you what to do better, who can?
May 20th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I may be missing something, but isn’t this what we do anyway in B2B marketing? We may do it in more off-line, traditional ways, but discussing issues and possible solutions have always been part of a good B2B campaign - at least the ones I have worked on.
Things like forums, user and working groups, seminars, and even the humble case study are all part of this process, are they not?
The challenge is transferring these tactics on-line and attracting people to participate.
Just focussing on products rather than issues-based campaigns is the easy route too many people take - and too many clients accept.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Grazia
Thanks for your comment.
You’re right about the traditional approach to B2B marketing and apologies if I wasn’t clear - my point is that UK B2B companies in my opinion have been slow to consider social media as a legitimate activity for them.
I think the major difference is that interactive customer activities in traditional B2B PR/marketing tend to be occasional, whereas using social media enables them to be continuous and ongoing.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:29 am
Social networking is a godsend for “boring brands”. I can’t see a better way to engage with customers, gather feedback and to influence opinion on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.