Entries Tagged 'Customer Experience' ↓

I am not sure how this one slipped by me late last week but thought I would share the update from the IPA in the UK. Effective on the 26 of May 2008 certain activities will become a criminal offense when the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations becomes effective.

Seeding positive messages about a brand in a blog without making it clear that the message has been created by, or on behalf of, the brand will be an offense. Using “buzz marketing” specialists to communicate with potential customers in social situations without disclosing that they are acting as brand ambassadors will be an offense.

Seeding viral ads on the internet in a manner to suggest you are an ordinary member of the public will also be an offense. Legal Director at the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) Marina Palomba warned agencies and marketing departments that not assessing their activities could lead to hefty fines and potential prison sentences. She said, “If advertisers and their agencies ignore the ethics of responsible advertising, the damage to the advertising and marketing industry generally will be considerable, undermining all commercial messages, their effectiveness and the self regulatory systems.”

This is one of the foundational elements and principles of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association based in Chicago with affiliates in the UK and my company. Marketers globally are continuing to understand and embrace transparent conversations with consumers - it is the only way to have dialogue otherwise governments will begin to regulate as we are seeing happen in the UK.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, of Forrester and Groundswell fame, are conducting a session about the groundswell that is affecting brands and companies. The four step approach to the groundswell for companies and brands is to think in term of the following acronym “POST” (People, Objective, Strategy, and Technology). To tap into the groundswell there are a couple of groups that can benefit from leveraging social media such as: Researchers for “Listening”, Marketing for “Talking”, Sales for “Energizing”, and Support for “Supporting”. Their is a big need for brands and companies to develop two-way conversations/dialogue with customers in order to fully leverage the value with social media.

A variety of examples about social media engagement/viral video like the tried and true “blending i-phone”, but a great new example of how Ernst & Young is engaging to aid recruitment strategies and P&G are approaching things very differently to engage with consumers. Charlene’s examples were to highlight the new ways of talking and engaging with customers via social media. Josh is up now and is covering the “Energizing” portion of the session. Examples highlighted Friskers and Brides.com. And a great overview of Dell and Lionel Menchaca’s team, who we are proud to support with our TruCast technology. The punchline is listen, learn, get started, don’t try to boil the ocean, focus, pilot, engaged and then replicate.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Good morning from Los Angeles and the Forrester Marketing Forum. Harley Manning is on stage explaining the new environment for marketers. The decline of traditional channels and rise of new channels and the challenges they present. “How do we get back to strategic marketing” he asks…the new imperative is Engagement. Brian Haven, a great analyst from the Forrester team that we work with quite a bit, will be leading the opening session on Engagement and how brands can drive success via direct engagement with their consumers. We will be hearing from over the next two days from Casey Jones from Dell, Cathy Halligan from WalMart, and Nancy MacIntrye from Leap Frog Enteprises, plus many others. I will do my best to cover/post from as many of the session I attend today and tomorrow.

Blake

Visible Technologies

Andy Sernovitz, one of the founders of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association and GasPedal, who is a leading guru on WOM and social media has just launched “The Blog Council” a professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices for corporate blogging. Founding members are AccuQuote, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Starwood Hotels and Wells Fargo. These many of the most respected companies that are presently listening, understanding, and engaging with customer in social media. Congrats to Andy for founding what I am sure will be a great organization. Nice quote in the official press release from Sean O’Driscoll at Microsoft.  To learn more check out the council’s site.

Blake

Visible Technologies

Delivered a presentation with Clint Schaff from M-80 on Blogging and your Brand yesterday in Las Vegas. We had a decent audience size and mixed up the session so that we could drive audience participation and conversation verses sitting in the front of the room reading from slides. Viaspire blogger captured the essence of session. Lots of good discussions and insights.  Appreciate everyone who attended and participated in the discussion.
Blake

Visible Technologies