Communication, Marketing, Public Relations, Social, Strategy
The age of posting excessive pictures of your fancy drinks and fun foods on social media has arrived. Since the dawn of social media, people have captured photos and posted them online for the world to see. But now, everywhere you turn someone is seeking the perfect lighting for a picture of the newest vegan soup, or for the case of this discussion, the newest Starbucks drink.
But I love Starbucks…
There is no denying that Starbucks is dominating the Café industry, but have they gone too far? The new Unicorn Frappuccino went from an internet sensation to a controversial lawsuit in a matter of weeks. The globally desired drink hit the shelves on April 19 and was said to be a limited time offer. Limited time offer…brilliant. Not only did they develop a drink that was social media gold, they scheduled it so that everyone would have to try it before it was too late. Even the customers who were unable to get their hands on one turned to social media. Only this time to vent their frustration. I guess it’s true what they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity!
PR specialists explain that the Unicorn Frappuccino was inspired by unicorn-themed food and drinks trending on social media, unicorn emojis, and the unicorn filter on Snapchat. Brooklyn café, The End, had a different opinion, saying that Starbucks ripped-off their already established drink called the Unicorn Latte. The End began selling the Unicorn Latte in December of 2016, and has had a pending trademark for the drink name since January of 2017. That said, The End isn’t the only small business with a unicorn-inspired drink on their menu. This mythical creature is truly taking the social media world by storm #magic.
The interesting thing about these trends is that companies often leave the marketing up to the consumers. Why dump millions of dollars on social media campaigns when your customers will go online and do it for you? Aside from the initial announcement of the new product, companies get to sit back and watch as we upload endless posts, making their product a desirable fixation.
Take away the sparkles and what are you left with?
As a millennial, I too have developed a love for social media. I’ll even share the occasional photo of decadent cocktails or colorful cuisine that I come across. The one thing I don’t understand is the obsession over these trends, especially when people don’t actually enjoy the product. Most folks who purchased the Unicorn Frappuccino said they didn’t like the taste, claiming it tasted like sour milk.
There’s nothing magical about sour milk. I don’t care how sparkly or mystical it looks, if it tastes like dairy-gone-bad we should be tagging it the #DirtyDonkeyFrappe.
Communication, Marketing, Public Relations
United Airlines issued a report last week outlining changes in policy to prevent another incident like the one that occurred in April. After violently removing a passenger from one of their flights, their response to the situation was less than ideal.
“I breached public trust with this event and how we responded,” Munoz told The Associated Press. “People are upset, and I suspect that there are a lot of people potentially thinking of not flying us.”
United Airlines is finally admitting they didn’t respond effectively to the situation. Earlier, I talked about what this incident can teach us about public relations.
I can’t stop thinking about this situation, though. I want to know why it happened. How it happened.
Between United Airlines and the Kendell Jenner Pepsi Ad, there have been some high profile mishaps in the marketing universe. Pepsi created an ad intending to show they were cutting edge, on the edge of social change. As soon it aired, public outcry demanded it be removed. It was seen as racist, elitist, and everything that is wrong with our society.
I don’t think I’m alone in wondering how they got there. How did the in-house Pepsi team sit in a room and approve that ad? Why did it take United Airlines so very long to realize the error of their ways?
I Have a Theory
Have you ever heard of groupthink? First defined in 1972 by Irving Janis, this communication theory illustrates when a group comes to a unanimous wrong decision despite facts that point to a different outcome. Basically, the group cares more about group cohesiveness, approval, and everyone feeling “good” about the decision and being “right”. Options get overlooked, opinions are left unsaid, and critiques are withheld. This often leads to terrible results – some famous examples include the Challenger disaster and the Bay of Pigs invasion.
I believe groupthink played a large role in both United Airlines and Pepsi’s decision making.
It makes you wonder – are you guilty of groupthink in your organization? What about tunnel vision or having a myopic outlook? All things that work together to create a perfect storm of bad decision making.
Groupthink Quiz
Here’s a quick quiz to help you determine if you are guilty of groupthink – answer yes to one of these questions and maybe it’s time to put some preventive measures in place.
- Are people in your organization afraid to offer an alternative opinion that goes against the majority? How do you know that they are not? Do you have anonymous survey data to back that up?
- Do most of your meetings seem very harmonious with absolutely no discussion or disagreement? There can sometimes be too much of a good thing.
- Do you avoid bringing in an outside opinion or perspective? When’s the last time that happened?
- Does the leader of your organization give their opinion before everyone has chimed in?
- Do you assume silence by any member means they agree with the majority?
Why It Matters
In the case of United Airlines and Pepsi, the outcome of their bad decision making has been quite devastating. They are now dealing with the following:
- Dramatic drop of stock prices immediately following the incidents
- Negative publicity
- Demolition of their company image
- Legal ramifications
- Potential loss of future revenue
To grow as an organization, it’s important to take constant stock on both your internal and external communication strategies. Sometimes, that adjustment is a slight pivot, and other times it requires a giant leap in a different direction.
Groupthink has led to some terrible outcomes for companies and consumers. Don’t be the next example of what not to do.
Communication, Marketing, Strategy
Most people can agree that reading statistics and data-dense content can be very boring. Without any visual appeal, the average person will most likely forget the data they’ve read shortly after reading it. The good news is that there is an effective alternative to presenting data that aids in understanding and retaining the information provided: infographics.
An infographic is a popular form of content marketing that can help you simplify a complex topic. Ideally, an infographic should be visually attractive and contain subject matter and data that is interesting to your target audience. Doesn’t that sound more enticing than reading textual statistics and endless data? We thought so too.
Infographics show your products without actually telling people about them. That, in turn, allows viewers to make their own decisions about your product. Visuals allow your brain to make connections more easily: information is expressed quickly and concisely which breaks through the clutter of other content.
So how do infographics actually help your company’s marketing strategy? Quite simply, creating infographics allows for your target audience to become more involved in your data and ultimately increase your brand awareness. When it comes time to design your visual keep the following tips in mind:
1. ENSURE CONSISTENCY AND EFFICACY
- Don’t repeat things—this just adds to the clutter
2. NARROW YOUR NARRATIVE
- Make sense of the data by telling a story
- With complex topics, it makes sense to paint with broad strokes first and then narrow down to the nitty gritty details
3. CHOOSE A VISUAL APPROACH
- Literal representation of data (charts, graphs, typography)
- Metaphorical representation of data (illustrations)
- Hybrid of both literal and metaphorical representations
- Use what is consistent with your brand!
Content marketing is a major source of social sharing, and is considered one of the most cost effective ways of generating multipart website growth. With your visual content being as attractive as it is informational, your content marketing strategy will improve, increasing online traffic and overall consumer involvement.
Communication, Marketing, Public Relations
Brad’s Wife taught us why social media management is important to your business. This week, United Airlines is illustrating why public relations management matters.
Over the weekend, they had a customer service incident that was videotaped and went viral. What did or didn’t happen during that event doesn’t matter to me as much as how United responded to the public relations crisis. Because a crisis it was – people were losing their minds on social media, and every national news organization picked up the story.
As we recently learned with the United Airlines leggings crisis, the company has a history of not responding quickly or effectively when negative topics start trending on social media. It appears that they continue to ignore the power that social media has in today’s economy.
It wasn’t until after national news coverage that CEO Oscar Munoz responded to the crisis. Voted U.S. Communicator of the Year by PR Week, he did not make it better. His first response, reeked of insincerity, accepted no blame, and offered no promises to fix a broken situation. He doubled down on this narrative in his second response and blamed the passenger on the flight.
For a large organization, that surely has in-house public relations staff, it took Munoz until the third try to get the statement right by showing empathy, accepting blame, and promising to rectify their policies and procedures. It was unfortunately too late. United endured a global outcry, backlash, and falling stock prices that cost the company close to $1 billion dollars.
Obviously, it hasn’t been a great week for United Airlines. This, is however, a great reminder for the rest of us to take stock of how we are handling our own public relations.
Here are some great questions to ask yourself:
- Who manages our public relations?
- Do we have a public relations strategy?
- Is this a part of our marketing plan?
- Do we have a PR crisis management plan?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, or don’t like the answers you came up with, maybe it’s time to bring in some professionals. I may know a few.
Communication, Marketing, Social, Strategy
Have you heard about Brad’s wife? If you haven’t, let me catch you up. It’s trending everywhere on social media right now. Hashtags abound: #bradswife, #justiceforbradswife, and #notmycountrystore. Memes are everywhere. To say it’s gone viral would be an understatement.
Recently, a guy named Brad posted a question as a comment on a post on Cracker Barrel’s Facebook page.
It then took off with a life of its own. A comedian posted about it on twitter and then the Internet did what the internet does best. Every single post from Cracker Barrel on social media is hounded with comments about Brad and his wife.
Is it funny? Yes, which is why everyone keeps participating. Part of what keeps it amusing is that Cracker Barrel has yet to respond. At all.
Other companies are responding. Chick-fil-A is apparently offering her a job.
I even saw a politician promising justice for the couple and an economy that produces a job for Brad’s wife. The memes? The memes are hilarious:
Even the Chicago Tribune is covering the story and reached out to Cracker Barrel for comment, yet they remain silent.
This, combined with the recent United Airlines leggings Twitter scandal, really illustrates how something simple on social media can blow up in a really big way. We also learn how the competition can take advantage of your bad situation for their own benefit.
What does this mean to you? It’s a good time to take a look at how you are handling your businesses social media accounts.
Three Important questions you should be asking yourself:
Is social media part of your marketing strategy?
Sadly, for some businesses this simply isn’t true. Maybe you are a small business and that’s one mountain you’ve yet to climb. Maybe you’ve created the accounts, but you have no time to dedicate to them. Maybe you just don’t understand social media. It’s time to leave those excuses (while very valid) behind, and get on board the social media train. Leverage its power for good and let it convey your marketing messaging to the world.
Is it an afterthought?
This shouldn’t be something that you do when you can get to it or you think about it. Posts should be planned and scheduled. Your accounts should be engaging. If you are doing it right, your social media accounts very quickly become the face of your business and often become your customer service department. This makes it one of the most important aspects of your business and how you present yourself.
Who is managing your social media accounts?
Is the person managing your social accounts able to give it the attention it deserves? Do they have the expertise to leverage your message to the right audience? Social media management is both a science and an art form – as platforms change and pivot, sometimes even weekly, you have to change with them.
Does the person that manages your accounts have the right tools in place to be able to respond quickly and effectively when a crisis happens? In the case of Cracker Barrel and United Airlines, had the response been timely and accurate the stories would not have become the negative press that they have.
There are ways to leverage a social media crisis for good.
Dippin Dots recently did. In just 64 hours, they were able to leverage what could have a nightmare into more great press than “11 Superbowl ads”. Why? They had professionals handling their accounts. The organization and their social media team determined that not responding was not an option. Then they strategically determined a response that fit their brand and led to massive attention.
Shama Hyder, CEO of Marketing Zen and Dippin Dots social team, recently spoke to Social Pros Podcast on how they used the controversy to Get 1 Billion Social Impressions. “Taking advantage of the opportunity, doing it in a way that wasn’t going to offend people, sticking to the brand values – we knew it was a risk. But it was a calculated risk that the leadership was willing to take.” And boy did that risk pay off for them in all the right ways.
She further speaks about how responding on social media isn’t necessarily about making your customers happy at all costs, but utilizing your customers to spread the message that you want to spread.
What’s Your Plan?
Social media strategy is a talent. A science AND an art. If your business has active social media accounts this is the year to put together a plan for handling angry customers, viral negativity, and irritable commenters.
When the crisis arrives you must be prepared to handle it properly. Work with your internal marketing team or talk with the Hoyden team to develop a plan that can be executed in times of trouble.
If you do, amazing things can happen for your business. But get it wrong and you may pay in ways that will hurt – like the symptoms of a bad virus.
Communication, Marketing, Video
I don’t know about you, but I am a visual learner. They say it’s because I am a part of the “Sesame Street Generation.” The generation who grew up learning our ABCs from Big Bird before we even attended kindergarten.
By the time we reached our teen years, we learned that Video Killed the Radio Star and became, quite enthusiastically, the “MTV Generation”. We liked our music by video, thank you very much, and nagged our parents obsessively until we got it. Anybody else remember screaming “I want my MTV!” every day for months until they added it to your cable package?
We got our news every morning at school by video piped right into our classroom via Channel One. Anderson Cooper and Lisa Ling told us about what was going on in the world. We watched Communism fall, the first Gulf War, the Rodney King riots, and the OJ Simpson trial this way.
We learned about the Holocaust by watching Schindler’s List, the Civil War by watching the Civil War PBS documentaries, and the birds and the bees by a wonderful reel-to-reel film they wheeled into your classroom in 5th grade.
This has led to a lot of communications studies which tell you that if you want to communicate effectively to those of my generation or later, you need to incorporate video. That can’t be your whole strategy, obviously, but it needs to be an integral part of it. It is how we grew up learning to learn, and it’s one of the best ways to get the message across to us.
As the internet has grown, and social media has expanded, video continues to grow and develop as an excellent medium to communicate your message. But the question remains, how can you effectively incorporate video into your marketing strategy to reach your target market?
6 ways you can incorporate video into your marketing message:
Commercially produced videos by a high-quality, professional video production company are an excellent option for several projects including television advertisements, event videos, educational videos, and longer promotional videos.- Creating a YouTube channel for your company is a great distribution channel for your videos – either those professionally produced or those you do with your own video equipment. Build your subscriber base and deliver enticing, relevant content and you’ve got a great way to market yourself, your products, and your message. If a 10 year old can build a multi-million dollar empire doing make-up tutorials from her bedroom, you too can conquer YouTube.
- Facebook Live is a recent new video development in the world of Social Media. You can go live from your Facebook page and share with anyone who has “liked” your page. Better yet, it offers a chance for real-time interaction with viewers who can watch live, comment, ask questions, and give feedback. It is a great way to increase your Facebook affinity with people who “like” your page, which will help your social posts show up in the newsfeed without having to pay to boost your posts.
While Vine itself has gone away, the idea of a vine has not. Short, succinct videos recorded on any smart phone can be uploaded on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, or Twitter. It doesn’t need to be long to be powerful or reach your audience.- Creating a viral video often feels like the holy grail of digital marketing, and we all want it. We want to create something that gets shared over and over again and increases our reach ten-fold. The best way to do that is to connect emotionally with your audience – create something touching, heartwarming or funny. You want to elicit a positive emotional response that people can’t help but want to share with others.
- Video and pictures are colliding now-a-days in entirely new ways. Whether it is an animated gif or a looped video created by Boomerang, it’s an important, effective way that people are now communicating. Find a way to deliver your messages in this medium. They are share-able, like-able, and powerful.
If you need help figuring out how video can fit into your overall marketing strategy, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are full of ideas on how to expand your reach through video in 2017.
