Brands ‘wasting time and money’ on misguided digital strategies, study

UK social media users are among the most resistant consumers in the world towards brands invading their personal space, according to a new study, which reflects how businesses are wasting time and money trying to reach people online who, in all likelihood, probably aren’t listening.

Data revealed by TNS Digital Life found that 61% of UK consumers do not want to engage with brands in their social networks, a figure that is slightly above average (57%) from other developed markets studied.

In stark contrast, fast-growing markets, mainly across Asia, South America and Africa, are much more open to brands online. About 60% of consumers there see social networks as a good place to learn about brands.

In Europe, however, the numbers seem bleak in comparisonth TNS suggests that misguided digital strategies are generating ‘mountains of digital waste,’ from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads.

This is being combined with ever-increasing content produced by consumers – the study shows 47% of digital consumers now comment about brands online.

The result is huge volumes of noise, which is polluting the digital world and making it harder for brands to be heard – presenting a major challenge for businesses trying to enter into dialogue with consumers online.

The study also sheds some light on why people do engage with brands online. More often than not, motivations of online commentators can be self-serving. 61% of consumers are driven to engage with brands online by a promotion or special offer.

About 46% of consumers motivated to post comments on companies do so for the simple desire to impart advice, while more people like to praise than complain online (13% v 10%).

According to marketing consultant, Richard Hillgrove the problem for many brands is the message.

“People in the UK don’t want obvious messages. It’s the same way Britain has largely rejected product placement on television. We don’t like things ‘in our face’ – the Americans don’t seem to mind.”

TRUTH WILL OUT!

Majority of Britons do not want to engage with brands via social media

Six out of ten Britons (61%) do not want to engage with brands through social media, leading to companies creating “mountains of digital waste”, according to a global study!

Above all else, Shopper's Voice will solve all your on-line and digital problems visit: http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

The Pepsi Follies

An anonymous blog but worth repeating here!

For over three years we have been documenting the marketing follies at PepsiCo.

On July 29, 2009, we said...

"It seems like the brand babblers have taken over at Pepsi, and they are screwing it up royally....It will take a while (like it does in all big organizations) for someone with a brain to realize what's been going on. "

Pepsi has been the world's leader in advocating and implementing new-age marketing nonsense, and is now paying the price for its foolish belief in the three-headed marketing monsters: "branding," "engagement," and "conversation." (Here's a tip for anyone left alive in the Pespi marketing department. There is one thing, and one thing only, that advertising is about -- persuasion. All the rest is word games and chit chat. Got it?)

Last week it was reported that after years of fighting Coke for first place in the soft drink category, Pepsi-Cola had fallen to third place.

The L.A. Times called it...

"...a stunning fall from grace."

According the The Wall Street Journal...

Pepsi-Cola and Diet Pepsi saw their U.S. sales volumes in 2010 fall sharply, by 4.8% and 5.2%, respectively...

The U.S. soft drink market is about 74 billion dollars. If my maths are correct, a 5% drop in Pepsi's US market share (which is about 10%) cost them well over $350 million on the Pepsi-Cola brand alone.

While Coke has been wisely sponsoring American Idol for years (yeah, on that useless old dinosaur, the television) Pepsi has been suffering from the marketing version of Attention Deficit Disorder exemplified by chasing dubious social media rainbows and comical "re-branding" exercises.

In Monday's post about the Pepsi Refresh Project (called Social Media's Massive Failure) I included this quote:

"We took the divergent path," explained Frank Cooper, chief consumer engagement officer for Pepsi. "We wanted to explore how a brand could be integrated into the digital space."

The alarming aspect of the above quote is not the vapidity of the clichés, it's the fact that Pepsi has someone called a "chief consumer engagement officer." You have to be seriously confused to pay someone to run around your building with a title like that.

The most unsettling part of this episode is that Pepsi has been fawned over as "forward thinking" among the brand babblers and social media hustlers who have seized control of the marketing world. When Pepsi launched its Pepsi Refresh social media project last year, Time magazine had this to say:

To Pepsi, and to companies around the world, the days when mass-market media is the sole vehicle to reach an audience are officially over.

These days, viral marketing seems like a smart strategy. "This is exactly where Pepsi needs to be," says Sophie Ann Terrisse, founder and CEO of STC Associates, a brand-consulting firm. "These days, brands need to become a movement..."

To set an example of maturity and restraint, I am not going to make any "movement" jokes.

Shopper's Voice is the only way to achieve multi media interactive success, contact Paul Ashby on (0044) 01934 620047 or visit http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com or email: paulashby40@yahoo.com

Pepsi Proves You Can Give Away Money

An anonymous blog however worth repeating here

I know I'm like totally old school and out of it and a big old dinosaur, but I thought marketing was supposed to be about selling stuff. Silly me.

So wasn't I all red-in-the-face and feeling like a dork when I read an interview in BrandWeek with Pepsi's marketing director. The interview was about their much ballyhooed "Refresh Project" -- which, in my churlish opinion is a big cynical gimmick to get some marketing leverage by giving away 20 million dollars to people with nice ideas.

Now, before you go calling me an ogre, I am all in favour of giving money to help people and communities. I even do a fair bit of it myself.

The difference between Pepsi and me, however, is that I don't go around beating my chest about it. I do it because I think it's the right thing to do.

...Call me cynical, but to me altruism loses its lustre when it seeks bouquets.

Pepsi is brazenly using their "Refresh" project for the purpose of buying their way into social media stardom and "creating buzz on social networks." Double yuk...

The thing that interested me most about the interview was that it focused on the marketing effectiveness of the campaign without once mentioning the word "sales."

"The success has been overwhelming. We have more than doubled our Facebook fans since we started the campaign. We have more than 24,000 Twitter fans"

Now here's the thing. If you're going to give away 20 million dollars to help people and communities, then god bless you...

On the other hand, if you're doing it to promote sales, then don't pretend you're Mother Teresa.

And if you're just doing it to attract Facebook friends and Twitter followers, then you're seriously demented.


This is probably the most expensive social media effort ever. I'm very curious to know what effect it will have on sales. So far all it's proven to me is that if you want to give away money, you can.

Yeah, the success was "overwhelming." I wonder what universe she is living in? I wonder how many Facebook fans it takes to cover a loss of 350 million dollars?

It was just a few months ago that the Pepsi marketing team was taking self-congratulatory victory laps at digital marketing whack-a-thons. Having once worked on the Pepsi business, I would like to give these people a little advice: Stay as far away as you possibly can from the next bottlers'

 Do visit Shopper's Voice and solve all your marketing communications in one fell swoop.   Contact: Paul Ashby on (0044) 01934 620047, visit http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com or email Paul on paulashby40@yahoo.com

The largest advertiser in the world for the past fifty years

 has watched its market share decline steadily for the past thirty years. (General Motors)

 

* One advertiser with a rock steady level of sales spent $50 million a year for five years to increase sales.  Sales rose the first year but fell back to pre-advertising levels by the third year. (Raisin Advisory Board)

 

* One advertiser faced with steadily declining sales spent $50 million a year for 15 years and continues to spend while sales continue to decline in a straight line. (Milk Advisory Board)

 

* One corporation that never advertises, doesn't permit advertising in its retail space, has grown in 6 six years from nothing to the largest seller in its field and has three times the stock market value of General Motors. (Google)

On the subject of the success of Google it is important to note the difference between advertising and listing.

* Advertising describes a message placed in front of many people most of whom have no interest in the message.

* A listing is a message placed in front of people who are looking for information related to that message. Google is pure listing, and it works.

 

But Shopper's Voice consistently lifts sales and all key elements of the marketing program.   Contact Paul Ashby @ paulashby40@yahoo.com. Visit htt://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com or call (0044) 01934 620047

The internet has changed the way the world does business.

 Let’s face it. The Yellow Pages are nearly dead. Newspaper readership is at the lowest level ever. Radio is being edged out by MP3’s and satellite radio services. Television is fragmented, making it nearly impossible to reach your target market effectively and affordable. More people spend time using the internet, especially social media vehicles than all of the other media vehicles…combined!

 More than 30 Million businesses in the US alone that are using social media to market and grow their business. In 2011, more than $2.5 BILLION will be spent in social media advertising alone.

If you’re like most small and mid-sized businesses, you are at a disadvantage because:

1. You don’t understand how social media marketing works.

2. You don’t know how to make social media work for your business.

3. You don’t have the time or the staff to manage your social media marketing

The Effective Accountable Communication Company has the experience and the diverse range of service offerings to successfully serve local companies of all sizes via social media marketing, online content development and public relations. This combination of valuable services is helping companies to generate more attention and new business through social media. As social media managers, we help people promote themselves and their business through social media vehicles like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The results are immediate and always measurable.  most small and mid-sized businesses cannot afford to add a new employee to manage social media marketing.  Outsource your social media marketing to Effective Accountable Communication Company for a fraction of the cost of a traditional employee. We’ll create and manage your social media marketing, which will increase your web site traffic, generating recognition and potential new business. Social Media Management packages are available from £100 to £2,500 per month. http://shoppers-voice.co.uk or call Paul Ashby on (0044)01934620047.  
Visit http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

Social Media Management

The internet has changed the way the world does business. Let’s face it. The Yellow Pages are nearly dead. Newspaper readership is at the lowest level ever. Radio is being edged out by MP3’s and satellite radio services. Television is fragmented, making it nearly impossible to reach your target market effectively and affordably. More people spend time using the internet, especially social media vehicles than all of the other media vehicles…combined!

 More than 30 Million businesses in the US alone that are using social media to market and grow their business. In 2011, more than $2.5 BILLION will be spent in social media advertising alone.

If you’re like most small and mid-sized businesses, you are at a disadvantage because:

1. You don’t understand how social media marketing works.

2. You don’t know how to make social media work for your business.

3. You don’t have the time or the staff to manage your social media marketing

The Effective Accountable Communication Company has the experience and the diverse range of service offerings to successfully serve local companies of all sizes via social media marketing, online content development and public relations. This combination of valuable services is helping companies to generate more attention and new business through social media. As social media managers, we help people promote themselves and their business through social media vehicles like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The results are immediate and always measurable.

 most small and mid-sized businesses cannot afford to add a new employee to manage social media marketing.  Outsource your social media marketing to Effective Accountable Communication Company for a fraction of the cost of a traditional employee. We’ll create and manage your social media marketing, which will increase your web site traffic, generating recognition and potential new business. Social Media Management packages are available from £100 to £2,500 per month. http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Businesses are failing to listen to customers

Brands may be aware of the need for customer engagement, but research seen exclusively by Shopper's Voice reveals too few have taken steps to actively promote it.

Businesses are failing to listen to customers and act on their feedback, according to a study seen exclusively by Marketing Week. In a survey of 130 companies across 11 sectors, the research from Targetbase Claydon Heeley (TBCH) finds that 47% have no formal customer engagement strategy, compared with 44% last year.
TBCH chief executive Steve Grout says this is because too few companies take a holistic approach to collecting and responding to comments from the public. “Many brands do not actually have someone with a total overview of the customer.”

Several common barriers prevent companies

 keeping open channels of communication and using them to good effect. The most frequently cited are inefficient systems and processes, named by 47% of companies, workload pressure (38%) and budget (35%).

Last year, 60% of businesses cited budget as a reason for lacking an engagement strategy. Only 11% of companies now name it as the main barrier, putting it fourth in this year’s study.
Email is the second most commonly used communication channel for the purpose of customer engagement, with two-thirds of companies citing it. From some of the research we have seen in the past, people do not see that as a good way for a brand to engage them.”
Communication channels
Top of the list of commonly used communication channels for the purpose of customer engagement are websites, used by 75% of brands, while PR and advertising are joint third, with 57% of respondents claiming that they use these methods.
The high placing of these last two channels might suggest that marketers are failing to link their engagement strategies with the key elements of listening to and acting on customer comments since PR and advertising are more likely to be methods which push out messages to people rather than ones that encourage feedback.
Many companies perhaps still take this one-way ’broadcast’ approach to their customer communications. Brands often find themselves overwhelmed by the volume of comments and find it difficult to respond to each directly. In many cases, there is almost too much information, and brands and companies find it difficult to react to it.”
It is unsurprising, therefore, that companies that use social media to engage with customers prioritise monitoring comments and making company announcements ahead of creating a dialogue.
Using Shopper's Voice allows you to keep open channels of communication and using them to good effect. Thus ensuring that there is regular and constant involvement with your on-line and off-line marketing programmes.
Contact paulashby40@yahoo.com or call (0044) 01934 620047 or visit interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com