word-of-mouth marketing

The sad thing about this is, instead of one united Kentucky voice shouting louder and with more impact than anyone else, there are now two disparate groups clamouring for share of voice. If Kentucky Tourism would embrace the Kentucky4Kentucky guys,everyone would win! While this post is a great lesson in who owns what in the social space and viral age, it’s also a billboard for the power of working together and the weaknesses of working apart. (Although I’d suggest the two organisations have such different cultures it’d be like Ben and Jerry working with Tracy Anderson on a new comfort food!)

Interestingly, they can both be right but you need to be open to that… If you take “Kicks Ass” and follow it up with the Dept. of Tourism’s positioning statement, mission accomplished.

The Dept. of Tourism positioning statement is nice enough but it’s the safe approach — and the kind of thing people read and think “yeah, okay, whatever…”. And they get there because they can’t connect with soft and fluffy.

But “Kicks Ass” evokes some immediate gut reaction, the kind of claim that pushes the pride button. Would bet there were some stronger, perhaps even more provocative ideas in the creative process which got killed because “we can’t say that” took over. Or “we need to change people’s perceptions.”

And the miss here is that the Dept. of Tourism folks had an opportunity to actually… well… “endorse” might be too strong but connect with this grass roots creativity — even claim that the effort itself is reflective of their positioning statement.

Best lesson of all is one that seems to keep needing to be re-learned — a defensive posture is rarely the right one when it comes to this sort of thing, need to accept certain things, make the best of it and move on from there.

Enjoyed reading this article, especially because I believe most tourism marketing doesn’t “kick ass”. In fact, most of it, quite frankly, is quite bad. It tends to pander to the 27 constituents it serves and appeals to people who LIVE in a state, vs. addressing what matters most to people who might, in all likelihood, visit the state. Some organizations just can’t move past the idea of telling people what they want them to know, instead of understanding what their audience needs to hear. This article also raises the question of the distinction between a solid brand position and the audience-facing manifestation of that positioning in clever and creative marketing. Advertising is NOT the same as strategic brand positioning, but far too often it becomes positioning because there is no underlying brand positioning (good or bad) to strategically drive creative development and messaging.

In the middle of the 20th century most communication technologies were monologue broadcast. You had to be a very wealthy and powerful organization to make movies, or run a TV or radio station. As a result, it was the “golden” age of totalitarianism. Brands, which are pretty benign, might dominate the conversation. So could rulers like Stalin and Mao(1).

Today things are different. Most communication technologies are Internet-mediated, narrow-cast, dialogue-driven. You cannot control the conversation. Hosni Mubarak, with dictatorial powers over Egypt, failed miserably. And your brand is it going to succeed? You have to live with it, and figure how to use it. The world will not turn back the clock for your benefit.

(1) Phew, I managed to avoid violating Godwin’s rule by listing only the top two (by civilian body count) instead of top three.

As usual…Tom Fishburne kicks ass!

(Okay, Beth already said pretty much what I am saying here but since I typed it up, I’m sending it anyway)

There’s a HUGE disconnect between what works on the web (honest and/or funny) and what marketers are often asked to do (image polishing, ego soothing). Promotions often try to show what they want a state (or other commodity) to be, not what it truly is. I’ve seen the watered down results of branding efforts in my own county/city with well-meaning solutions that are meant to appeal to everyone but which usually end up as message-free pablum that work for no one. Just like any product, find a realistic target market and produce materials accordingly. The cartoon is dead on with the desires of the branding groups. But when you straight-jacket a concept, it loses energy and becomes useless. That being said, it’s also a lot easier to react to something than to create something. The internet LOVES to screw with a self-important, boring promo. That’s one way to go viral!

The fact that I’m starting my working day 5000 miles away, back in a small village in The Netherlands, with this marketoon and video and will for always remember the slogan is the proof this W-O-M is working! Kentucky Kicks Ass!

The cartoon says it all. Generating “WOM” (word of mouth) means giving up a certain amount of control and allowing your brand advocates, lovers, fans and followers to help shape your message and image to the mass audience. The best thing a brand can do, is listen, engage in conversation, learn and adjust to what the consumers perception of the brand is. data & research and social listening tools are key to this approach

dont be like “mr. head of the table” in the cartoon. be a little more like the guys from “kentucky kicks ass” . building a proper framework for your brand to play in and allowing consumers to shape the message inside of that framework seems like a hypothesis for both the boardroom (depicted in the cartoon) and the cafeteria (where all of our social media fans express their opinions)

There’s been a similar story going around over the past day or so regarding Nutella’s parent company, Ferrero, putting out a cease and desist order to a fan run “nutella day”.

http://gawker.com/nutella-maker-shuts-down-fan-holiday-dedicated-to-buy-508891199

I can at least see the rationale of the Kentucky tourist board to distance themselves for fear of offending certain people (though that could have been done in a positive rather than abrupt and rude way) but the Ferrero case blows me away. Why a company wouldn’t want to encourage a celebration of their product by consumers is beyond me.