The last Employee Engagement conference I attended had speakers from both Human Resources and Communications at Fortune 500 companies presenting case studies of their latest Internal Branding efforts. Based on their similarities, I deduced that the trend in Employee Communications is "I Am [insert company name]"

They must have all read the same 3-step engagement doctrine which lists the path to engagement as movement from UNDERSTANDING ("I understand how to impact the brand and the company") to DELIVERY ("I am the brand") and thought that it was as simple as fill-in-the-blank.

But, since it is the last day of February and trendwatching.com's February Brief was about FUNCTIONALL, let's brainstorm together on how we can implement cheap and/or simple ideas that keep employees committed to their employer and enhance the culture and brand.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, engagement

The year was 1994 and something called a job board was being
launched- specifically CareerMosaic, named after the web browser credited for
popularizing an old thing called the Internet.

In a meeting with top executives, Bernard Hodes, a brilliant marketeer and the CEO of the agency that bore his name, shared his rationale for creating the pricing structure for his new category of recruitment advertising.

"We’ll price the postings as a $100 add-on with any newspaper ad” he said. (At the time a 1” by 3” classified ad in the NY Times on Sunday was probably about $1,500.) He continued, “Who doesn't have an extra $100 to experiment on a new media?”

Unknowingly, he was establishing a precedent for what is today a $6+ billion business. (Factoid- CareerMosaic was eventually sold to headhunter.net which was eventually bought by CareerBuilder, as of today one of the 2 giant oaks still standing.)

However, equally important was his underlying reminder that everyone has a budget for failure- aka experimentation ... a lottery ticket fund that smart people can sometimes leverage into big payouts.

I call this a budget for failure because that way if the outlay fails to generate a positive return on its investment, at least you can take solace from having known it in advance.

For me, it is the amount of money I set aside for a potential bad hire- someone who doesn’t meet my exact requirements but has a kernel of an idea that might take me new places.

It's important because the BRANDEMiX brand is a culture of ideas and execution.

Also included in my failure budget is an amount I can spend on something I’ve already tried that didn't work out. That’s also important to our brand since one of our brand pillars is “solutions that leverage technology.” In the fast changing digital world, though experience is a great teacher, it is not necessarily a great predictor of future outcomes.

Lastly, my budget for failure includes spending time and effort (time is a dollarized investment, effort is not), on new business pitches that are outside of our core capabilities. At BRANDEMiX, we are a culture of continuous learning and we often learn from succeeding at new challenges.

In case you haven’t yet drawn the connection, my budget for failure is also part of my plan for success. Without funding for my failures, I am unable to succeed at delivering my brand.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, Employer Branding

A leader is a tone-setter, responsible for bringing people together and setting a model of attitude and behavior. It’s the reason social movements form around charismatic luminaries, and the greatest football teams always have headstrong quarterbacks. Without a CEO who lives and embodies the brand, customers will not buy into it.

So if a CEO is the figurehead of a company’s brand, who is the figurehead of a company’s employer brand? You might guess HR or Marketing, when in fact it is again, the CEO.

Whether you subscribe to BRANDEMiX “1 brand” theory of corporate strategy or not, any branding initiative, regardless of target audience, needs to be inspired by the CEO. Employees will not rally around a brand unless a company’s culture and personality are defined at the top.

Without top down inspiration, the brand can flounder like a ship lost a sea.

So what’s HR’s role? First Mate.

HR must take the captain’s orders and radiate the brand out to the labor market and to the internal employees. Just as marketers have insight and knowledge about communicating to consumers, HR should understand better than any department how to talk to jobseekers and employees.

Figuring out the brand is the easy part – you already have it – communicating it is the creative part. It takes a constantly evolving understanding of the people you’re talking to.

As HR people do we spend enough time understanding the attitudes and behaviors of jobseekers, and more importantly our own employees? When’s the last time you did employee focus groups? Have you surveyed jobseekers? More importantly, how have you implemented any findings into the usual course of your communications? Answering these questions needs to be HR’s responsibility as part of the CEO’s marching orders for the brand.

Marketers have always relied on their ad agencies for this insight and expertise in communicating with consumers. Now HR has a secret weapon too.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, Employer Branding

BRANDING AND THE BOTTOM LINE

Branding, just as any other strategic endeavor, is about bottom line business results.
A brand makes attracting new customers and holding onto current customers cheaper.

Employer Branding does the same thing. It makes attracting talent cheaper and inspires turnover-cutting loyalty. Suddenly HR looks like a moneymaker.

So what would your CEO say to that?
“Why does our company need more than one brand?”

The answer, of course, is that you don’t.

The finer points of how the brand is communicated obviously differs from consumers to employees, as do the specific value propositions, but the core of the brand does not. It’s the still the same personality, the same voice, the same values.

HR is merely one of many stakeholders in an organization’s overall brand. It’s their role to communicate the brand in a compelling way to current and potential employees. Similarly, the CFO’s role as a brand stakeholder is to communicate the brand to the financial community. Marketing communicates the brand to consumers. PR communicates the brand to the media. But you never hear terms like “financial brand,” or “PR brand.”

Does HR really need its own term for this responsibility? I can deal with it if you can, so long as we don’t lose sight of the fact that it refers back to the same brand that everyone else in the company is talking about.

If everyone is striving for profitability then having just one brand is only natural. Just ask Phil Knight or Steve Jobs. Nike and Apple, two of the most desirable places to work, don’t do “employer branding.” They don’t have to. Their brands are so well integrated throughout every department that employees and consumers alike are attracted magnetically.

Whether you call it employer branding, employment branding, or just plain branding, your CEO still only wants to know how it can save money or make money for the company.

For more perspective, call BRANDEMiX.

Labels: brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, Employees, Employer Branding

Here’s the first thing you need to know: There’s no such thing as an employer brand.

In reality, your company only gets to have one brand. It’s not as if you can have a consumer brand that targets consumers, an employer brand that targets employees, an investor brand that targets investors, and a vendor brand that targets vendors. You can’t simply build a different brand with a different meaning for each audience.

The reason? No one thinks that way. You only get one reputation. We don’t isolate our opinion of a company as an employer from our opinion of it as a product maker or service provider. We balance everything we know about a company and determine one attitude towards it. Wal-mart’s reputation as an employer doesn’t just hurt its talent acquisition; it deters some people from shopping there. Conversely, Oldsmobile’s inability to create desirable cars didn’t just hurt its sales figures; it made attracting top engineering talent very difficult.

Not surprisingly, employee loyalty and customer loyalty are highly correlated. It only makes sense to think of the brand holistically.

* Studies show a high correlation between consumers’ admiration for a company’s product and their willingness to work for that company and vice versa.

Since there’s only one brand for many targets, every department from HR to PR is thus a stakeholder in your brand. They all have a responsibility to hold up their part of your company’s reputation and their cohesion is critical. We can’t have the HR people scurrying around building a brand that clashes with what the marketing people or the PR people are doing.

The term “employer brand” merely speaks to HR’s responsibility as a stakeholder for the overall brand. HR owns the task of conveying the brand in a compelling way to the labor market.

It’s important to remember that your brand already exists. Employer branding is not about starting from scratch – trying to conjure up some positioning that you think employees will find engaging. You already have a culture, a vision, and values (and they’re all already being communicated by other departments). Your employees already have a certain attitude towards the company. Jobseekers already have preconceptions. The first step is simply to figure out what these things really are. A little hint for you … it’s not what’s written on your website.

** For help, BRANDEMiX is here.

Labels: brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, consumers, Employees, Employer Branding, HR

As further evidence that brands are becoming social movements, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that NBC plans to produce more programming that promotes a specific cause.

Shows like “The Biggest Loser” that espouse social causes have become the lone bright spot in NBC’s otherwise struggling portfolio. Their success is not surprising -- there’s high demand for social meaning today, and we’re looking for it in our purchases, our jobs, and now our entertainment.

Our growing fascination with these shows is another indication that social causes now play an important role in the makeup of Americans’ identities. What you believe in is becoming as important as what you drive in terms of showing others who you are, and brands are now trying to foster relationships in that way.

In fact, growing their viewer base was not actually NBC’s primary motive. Instead, they hypothesized that socially-charged programming would help advertisers connect with consumers on a deeper level. Today, media that work to form an emotional bond between brand and consumer (rather than just providing a forum) command higher profit margins and have thus become the Holy Grail of ad sales.

This trend will only make brands look more like social movements, and will put an even higher premium on having intrinsic social meaning for your brand (or at least a social agenda).

This may or may not be good news for nonprofits. Certainly, the growing importance of social issues in our lives is positive, however this also illustrates the encroachment of consumer brands on the business of nonprofits. Companies selling widgets are building brands the way NPO’s ought to be: using causes as a rallying cry for a loyal brand culture. The organizations that actually know how to “do good” need to seize this opportunity.

If NPO’s don’t build strong, movement-like brands, Americans’ awareness and understanding of what they do could become diminished in favor of for-profit models of involvement.

The opportunity may be found in forming partnerships with the media companies. In order for networks like NBC to retain credibility with consumers as their cause-related programming becomes mainstream, they’ll most likely need to partner with nonprofits that already have brand equity with that particular cause. A partnership of this sort entrenches a nonprofit within the program long before any advertisers get involved, plus the media company gets kudos for getting involved with a nonprofit.

Labels: Advertising, brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause, cause marketing, marketing, nbc, nonprofit, npo, social cause, the biggest loser

In the latest episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Bill paid a rather interesting compliment to Sarah Silverman. He said, “you’re amazing because you’re willing to unsettle an audience. Anyone can come out and tell people what they want to hear, but you’re willing to scare them.”

This fact may be one of the secret ingredients to Silverman’s success and it also offers an insight into what motivates people to think and act. One of the theories of humor is that it’s essentially based in incongruity. What makes people laugh is a sudden twist of plot or perspective -- something that surprises us. On a bustling street, where everyone is going about their business as usual, when someone slips suddenly, one of our instincts is to laugh (for some, this instinct is stronger than for others). When the punch line is in sharp contrast to the set up – when they are most incongruous – we laugh the hardest.

Beyond humor too, contrast seems to emotionally move humans. We live in a world of symmetry – almost all living organisms are symmetrical, so when we experience incongruity we are startled. It causes us to laugh at jokes, pay attention to art, avoid danger, and gasp when we’re frightened.

It’s not surprising that humor is such a mainstay in advertising. In order to emotionally move someone in 30 seconds or less it takes tremendous incongruity, and humor is the best way of getting at it.

Naturally, I began to wonder what the role of all of this is in social movements and branding.

When I thought of the strongest brands, the ones with the most loyal, passionate followings (the ones that most resemble social movements), it seemed they were all conceived from some form of incongruity or dissonance. Apple of course stands for creativity in a world that was once dominated by beige boxes. Google gave us easily organized information in the wild west that was the internet. Target represented the democratization of design in a mass production economy.

Similarly, social movements are all born from intense dissonance from prevailing social currents. Without the affluence and prosperity of the 1950’s would the Beatniks have been so down-trodden and anti-materialist? Without the growth of the Industrial Revolution, a period of horrible working conditions, would organized labor have become such a force? If college graduates weren’t entering such a bleak economy today would they insist they like the taste of PBR?

The whole point of social movements is that they originate as an opposition – an incongruous alternate to the way the world is. Without representing some sort of a contrast, a brand will just blend into everyday business. So what makes your brand worthy of a movement? What would you say that would unsettle an audience?

Labels: Advertising, brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, social movement marketing, social movements

This week’s post was inspired by Dan and Chip Heath’s “Made To Stick” column in this month’s Fast Company. The Heath brothers are calling for “an arms race of goodness -- a generation of companies that compete on real emotion rather than stick-on sentiments.”

The column covers an issue in branding that has long been a topic of discontent for me. Creating an emotional bond with customers is not a new idea – Palmolive was doing it in 1921 when they asked housewives “would your husband marry you again?” And yet, for the majority of our dynamic consumer landscape, the approach to branding hasn’t changed in a century.

We’re still trying to attach product attributes to random emotions without any substance behind it. Is there any reason to believe Calvin Klein cologne makes women lose their inhibitions? Is there any reason to believe Citizen watches make you “unstoppable?” Is there any reason to believe Coors Light “tastes colder” and is thus more refreshing than other beers? The answer of course is no – and consumers are paying less and less attention as a result.

Back in the day, Palmolive actually struck a chord with women because no other dish soaps were claiming that they softened your hands. But today, in every sector, there’s at least 3 competitors making the same claim. Owning a product attribute is almost impossible now, but that hasn’t stopped marketers from trying.

So how do we create an emotional bond now? How about actually meaning what we say? How about brands walk the walk for once? If you’re the cereal brand that gives kids the energy they need to learn at school then start a campaign for in-school nutrition or to stop the cutting of phys-ed programs. If you’re the jewelry brand that empowers women to take what they want in life, then do a campaign about your program to educate women in developing countries.

To create a social movement around your brand, “meaning it” is critical. We’ve already discussed Gen-Y’s desire to align with brands with built-in social meaning, and as word-of-mouth becomes marketing’s gold standard, only brands that give people something real to talk about will be heard.

Some brands are catching on: Toms Shoes for example has “doing good” built into their business model by donating a pair of shoes to kids in developing countries for every pair they sell. Consumer brands are now encroaching on the business of non-profits in order to build their brands. Conversely, non-profits are “doing good,” but very few of them pay any attention branding. What if brands competed on how much good they do rather than how many GRP’s they run in prime-time?

The article mentions one last critical aspect of social movement marketing. Actually standing for something, makes employees engage with your brand. When you walk the walk, you define a strong, internal culture for your organization, which ultimately and inevitably leads to a strong, customer culture for your brand.

Labels: brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause marketing, Employer Branding, nonprofit, npo, social movement marketing

I stumbled into a brilliant Social Movement Marketing case study at Mashable’s Summer of Social Good Conference last week. Andy Ridley, the executive director of Earth Hour, presented an inspiring case study of the work his organization (WWF) has been doing.

Previously I’ve discussed how successful social movements are able to balance a seemingly contradictory dynamic: They empower individuals by forming one collective identity. Followers of a movement join a group of many to achieve personal betterment; the way mackerel form schools to increase the chances of survival for each individual fish.

Abstruse as this may be, Earth Hour is a perfect example of how to work this balance in the cause world.

You may have participated in Earth Hour without even knowing it. In Sydney, Australia in 2007, Earth Hour convinced 2 million people to shut off their lights for an hour at the same time. The stunt has now become an annual global event that, in 2009 saw 4,000 cities and 1 billion people participate. (Watch a great video about it here.)

For one organization to inspire one fifth of the planet to act in unison, they needed for all participants to bear the responsibility of promoting the movement. Earth Hour’s brand, manifested in its culture of joy, communion, and hope, transcends geography, nationality, and class. However, it was Earth Hour’s ability to let people personalize the brand that really generated a movement.

People took those core virtues of joy, communion, and hope and ran with them. Some people organized candlelit beer pong, some organized rock concerts, some hosted dinner parties, some had bon fires, and the ideas went on and on. From Israel to Iowa, people took ownership of the movement, but everything remained in the context of the culture of Earth Hour.

However, we must recognize that this wasn’t the luck of the draw. Earth Hour set out to encourage people to personalize the brand or movement. They offered access to download any of the promotional creative work to use as templates, created a forum for people to share materials they had created on their own, and made available all of the social networking tools necessary for people to the reins of the movement.

Brands must offer both the collective identity and the personal reason to believe. Earth Hour mastered both and changed the world, at least for 60 minutes. As the media landscape changes to favor individuals, relinquishing brand ownership to the people will inevitably be necessary…all we can do now is set the context.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause marketing, earth hour, Mashable, nonprofit, social movement marketing

It’s nice to see the theory of Social Movement Marketing get some national exposure…too bad it had to come from the Ford Motor Co. Though Ford (and GM for that matter) have consistently botched their attempts to sell cars that American youths relate to, Ford has nailed it this time…at least from a marketing standpoint.

To market their new Fiesta model, a sub-compact for urban youths, Ford is running a campaign called the Ford Fiesta Movement. Sound familiar? Rather than spending $30 million dollars cramming TV spots into NFL games, which they usually do, Ford recruited 100 “agents” to spend 6 months with the car and to use social media to tell EVERYONE about it.

These Fiesta agents get a free car, free insurance, free gas, and national exposure for 6 months. Each of the 100 agents embodies what the Fiesta brand wants to be: Young, urban, artsy, funky, curious, active, and most importantly, savvy in social media. In return for living the Fiesta life for half a year, these agents are charged with essentially tweeting this car into pop-culture lore.

The Fiesta movement’s website aggregates all of the agents’ tweets, pics, flics, vids, blogs, nings, and any other contemporary monosyllabic networking tool into one, well organized place where you can learn everything you need to know about the Ford Fiesta culture.

Perhaps most surprising is that Ford was able to resist making the campaign egregiously self-serving. Understanding that product information doesn’t start social movements, Ford gave the agents specific missions to accomplish (with their Fiesta at their side) that focus on community service, activism, and culture. They’re using these 100 agents to be the poster children for an aspirational urban identity, of which the Fiesta is a small but necessary part.

This is, of course, fundamentally how social movements work. They define a vivid collective identity (active, multi cultural, urban youths), empower charismatic leaders (the agents), and spread influence through stories (missions) and word-of-mouth (social media).

Traditionally, social movements have relied on word-of-mouth because buying TV spots was far too expensive. Now, thanks to social media, word-of-mouth has become what TV used to be: the most influential means of communication, and marketers are looking to own that too.

Consumer brands may put together impressive campaigns like the Fiesta movement, but they can’t own it – nonprofits have an equal opportunity to push influence in social media. A nonprofit could easily find young activists (start with your volunteers) to be agents for a cause. For example, put 50 young, multi-ethnic, urbanites on the street with a cheap video camera, have them film discriminations they come across in daily life, put it in an online documentary, promote it on Twitter, and you’ll get more national attention than 6-months worth of highway billboards would get you.

For help with your social media strategy call BRANDEMiX.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause marketing, ford fiesta movement, nonprofit, npo, social media, social movement marketing

In consumer marketing there’s a term called “selling the category.” For example, if your company sells spray-tan and you run an ad that says “look like George Hamilton all year,” you would be selling the category – you’re only convincing consumers of their need to buy spray-tan in general, but not your particular brand. Unless you’re the market-share leader, selling the category is not a good practice because it benefits the competition as much (or more) as it benefits you.

I’m adapting the term for the nonprofit world: selling the cause. A lot of nonprofits do this. They convince people of the general importance of a cause, but say nothing specific about their organization to position it as the solution. However noble it may be, this doesn’t help your organization build “market share” or brand equity.

It’s becoming increasingly important to avoid just selling the cause. There are more organizations than ever – 60% of nonprofits are less than 30 years old. In every single cause category the competition is getting steeper for increasingly fewer available dollars. Chances are, your nonprofit is not the biggest in the category, in which case you have to make a case for yourself not your cause.

That’s where brand comes in.

Just as consumers buy brands for the culture not just the product, people join social movements for the culture not just the cause. Whether it’s the hipster movement of the 60’s or today’s straight-edge movement, they all have a distinct culture in addition to a specific social or political agenda, because it’s that which magnetically attracts followers. The cause provides all of the tangible reasons to join a movement, but the culture provides the ultimate emotional impetus to act.

The same goes for nonprofits. They’re all based on fighting for a cause, but the ones with the most culture have the strongest brands, which is manifested in more donations, volunteers, and more loyal employees.

NPR has done a great job of building a magnetic culture. They’ve built a steady, unapologetic culture of highly educated people who value long-style, in-depth reporting and they’ve sold this culture through social media. They stopped asking for money “because public radio is important” and started defining a movement of young, thought-leaders who are growing up to discover that they’re dissatisfied with the state of journalism today.

With social media as pervasive as it is today, communications is now actually the easy part. The hard part is defining a culture that’s unique and making a dedication to selling it rather than the cause.

For help defining your culture, call BRANDEMiX.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause marketing, non-profit, npr, social movement marketing

Here's an excerpt from my recent Meet-Up on Social Recruiting- How to make the most of your message, media and meager budget.

Yes, the room is dark, No you can't see the slides but shoot me an email and I'll send you the presentation. Or, I can come by and present just for you.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, social networking, social recruiting

In my last post, I lamented the fact that too many brands (and non-profits in particular) communicate in such a way that forces people to think analytically. Logic does not tell someone to become a brand evangelist. Logic does not tell someone to open his or her wallet and hand out money for nothing in return. However, emotion does … in particular self-interest.

In the consumer world, smart branding is when you can escape the urge to pontificate about as many product attributes as you can conjure, and instead highlight the emotional benefit of the total package. In other words, people don’t by drill bits, they buy holes from which they can hang pictures of their family. People don’t buy lawn mowers, they buy a lawn that makes their egomaniacal neighbor jealous. Advertisers are extremely adept at activating consumers’ self-interest on an emotional level.

What I find fascinating about social movements is that they’re essentially a group of people acting in concert with one collective identity who, at the same time, are motivated by self-interest and are bent on expressing their individuality. They force group action by telling stories that move people on a personal level (like the story of Rokia in the previous post).

Non-profits and causes, in theory, are built on selflessness so triggering self-interest feels incongruous. However, rationally we all know that giving money is far from being a purely altruistic endeavor. People still want their name on the library and daddy still wants little Larry to get into school. Would Paul Allen have donated $1 billion if Bill Gates hadn’t done it first? Self-interest will always play a role in giving so we might as well understand how to leverage it.

The good news is that self-interest doesn’t have to imply materialism or narcissism. Social movements promise the benefit of enjoying meaningful change in one’s life or the euphoria of joining a group of like-minded people. For donors, self-interest could mean assuagement of guilt, self-actualization, transcendence, and many other things. You’re not selling the importance of fighting alcoholism – you’re selling heroism. You’re not selling the importance of reducing homelessness – you’re selling peace of mind.

One great case study on leveraging self-interest for a public cause is the “Don’t mess with Texas” anti-litter campaign created by Dan Syrek. He determined that the typical litterer in Texas was a truck-driving, rifle-wielding, beer-drinking, young male (as if there’s any other kind). Guilt, shame, or fear was clearly not going to be enough motivation. The ads he created featured Texas icons, like football player Too Tall Jones, crushing a soda can and saying “don’t mess with Texas.” It implied that real Texas men don’t litter, and anyone who does, is instantly an enemy of the state, and if you’ve ever been to a Cowboys game you’d know that this is not acceptable. Syrek was able to appeal to self-interest through identity … which is exactly how social movements work.

One last example. Consider this ad that was designed to get young people to vote.



It makes a personal appeal, and it’s certainly emotional, but where’s the appeal to self-interest? What does this have to do with the collective identity of young men and women? What’s the benefit of not silencing yourself? This ought to be spelled out.

What if the ad said something like “Are you still letting your parents make decisions for you? That’s what you’re doing if you don’t vote.” What if it was a picture of a 45-year old man in a suit and said “would you normally let this man tell you what to do everyday? That’s what you’re doing if you don’t vote.” Young people are very individualistic and rebellious, so theoretically they should care deeply about having others make decisions for them.

For help creating ads like these, contact BRANDEMiX.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause marketing, non profits, social movement marketing, social movements

I’ve spent a lot of time advocating that a brand is not merely a marketing device. It’s not a spectre that operates in some ancillary business silo. It’s the culture of an organization. It’s the style, temperament, and personality of a collective – whether it’s a social movement or a non-profit.

That is, of course, where the whole idea behind SMM came from in the first place. Building and selling culture is what takes ordinary business-to-consumer relationships to a higher order of collective action.

I was reminded recently, as I stumbled upon I book I read for a college class about America in the 1960’s, what happens when a movement goes “off brand.” That is, when an organization or cause abandons its culture and personality.

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), pronounced “snick,” was one of the most influential organizations in the American Civil Rights Movement. Originally, it started as a series of student-led meetings in North Carolina, but soon got the attention of white, liberal students in the Northeast who joined the cause.

SNCC organized “sit-ins,” “freedom rides,” and other protests designed to rebel against segregation in a non-violent way. In addition to their opposition to violence, SNCC has another unique aspect to its culture. Leadership and decision-making were democratic, not top-down. All decisions required consensus and meetings often lasted over 6 hours while everyone voiced their opinions.

It only made sense to founders like Ella Baker that a movement for the people should have an organizational structure owned by the people. It may have been inefficient, but supporters were passionate and it was certainly “on brand.”

However, things changed – Stokely Carmichael became chairman of SNCC. He was closely aligned with the Black Panthers and a major proponent of using violence. Some SNCC leaders supported Carmichael and he was able to push through some violent agendas. As these agendas progressed, Carmichael even changed the name of the organization to remove the word “non-violent” and SNCC became the Student National Coordinating Committee.

As Carmichael took SNCC out of the mainstream movement and into the radical violent one, a major rift developed within SNCC, and not surprisingly, the organizational structure became more top-down and autocratic. Carmichael expelled all white employees and volunteers, many of whom had helped start the movement. By the late 60’s SNCC had become almost entirely ineffective and by the 70’s it was all but extinct.

I think SNCC is a great example to explore because it’s both an organization and a movement. Culture is what binds a movement, and when it’s neglected, the fallout is potent enough to derail an organization with rich history and incredible popularity.

When an organization takes on a strategy that is so radically off-brand that it must change its name and management style, then you can be sure it’s destined to fail, no matter how trendy it is at the time. In many ways, this case exemplifies the power of brand. It must pervade everything from the name of an organization, to the management style, to the very personality of the people. Without that, no one inside or out, will understand where you’re going or where you’re coming from.

For help finding your organization’s personality, click here.

Labels: brand, BRANDEMiX, Branding, non profits, social movement marketing

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding

In my last post, I discussed one of the ways to create a culture around a cause. A concrete mission can energize a community, but it’s only the first step. The key to creating a movement with staying power (one that is magnetic enough to have people seeking you rather than the opposite) is brand.

This term gets thrown around excessively so let me explain exactly what I mean. In essence, brand simply refers to a company’s promise. It’s a set of expectations that a particular product will do certain things or make you feel a certain way. That’s why we expect to jump high when we wear Nike and why we expect to be treated like cattle when shop at Circuit City.

Often times, brand is literally the only difference between 2 competing products. Why do we buy Claritin when the Duane Reade brand is right next to it for half the price and it’s the exact same drug? Because we have higher expectations of the Claritin brand.

But what if you don’t sell products? What if you run an NPO and there are 4 other organizations with the exact same mission (or even the same name) as yours all vying for the same donor. What makes you special? Your mission and your brand cannot be the same thing or you won’t have a differentiating proposition regardless of how noble it is.

People already feel empathy for your cause. They know homelessness is bad. They know children in third world countries need clean water. All of this has been programmed in by society. But in order to get them to buy-in emotionally, which is where the real power is, they must be connected to your culture and your people. What separates you from the 4 competitors is the personality of your organization. It’s the way you go about accomplishing your goal. It’s how your people act, talk, think, and do. That’s your brand.

Social movements grow their influence by branding their followers…both literally (with a branding iron) and figuratively. They give them names: Beatniks, Hippies, Carpetbaggers, and Trekkies. They have a specific method for accomplishing their mission: non-violent opposition, civil disobedience, art and music. They can even have a unique way of dressing: bell bottoms and tie-dye, baggy jeans and ‘Tims, dreadlocks and red, green, and yellow.

Social movements have such distinct cultures that people cannot help but identify with them. Consumer brands are starting to tap into this as they brand their employees. That’s why only “geniuses” work at the Apple store, only Baristas serve coffee at Starbucks, and only geeks can fix your computer at Best Buy.

So what would you call your people? How is your way of accomplishing the mission special? How does your organization’s culture make you special? These are the questions that can turn your cause into a movement. To get a head-start check out BRANDEMiX.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, cause, social movements

As Seen on ERE.NET- This article marks my debut as contributor to ERE.net, the online community comprised entirely of professionals who are part of the recruiting industry. I look forward to being a valuable part of such a long-established leader in the virtual publishing field.
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Coming up on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, I am happy to report that I’m in first place in my pool of 35 basketball fanatics. I won two years ago and I’m looking to repeat the performance. The funny thing is that I don’t even follow the sport. My personal secret is my professional weapon: pre-project research.

Research is an oft-forgotten yet essential business tool and can save money, time, and resources. While the cost of entry for my basketball pool was only $25, the stakes are significantly higher when assessing the costs to launch a new branding campaign, career site, or national recruitment program. Small mistakes can create long-term headaches like high turnover, poor performance, or dropped conversion rates.

So before the next round of hoops begins, lets take a moment to look at some of the different kinds of research there are, and when it makes the most sense to launch yours.

There are three kinds of research.

Secondary. Secondary research already exists, and is therefore the least useful in helping you, since every project in unique. Your company, your culture, and your objectives are different from everyone else’s on your buddy list, so you can’t expect to have the same outcomes from similar projects that you launch. (Secondary research did however, account for my early success in the basketball pool.)

Quantitative. Quantitative research is often used as an independent survey tool, but it is most effective when used to validate the findings of your qualitative study. Think quantity, think survey, think slice and dice statistics. It’s much more objective since when the questions are crafted correctly, the answers are unbiased. The costs of running quantitative research surveys have come down considerably through online tools like SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang. The trick is getting the right analysis from the data. Make sure that you get a fair-size sample pool across geography and skill sets, if applicable to your project.

Qualitative. Qualitative research should be both the beginning of your discovery process as well as the launching platform for any next research steps. Bring in a small sampling of the “right” types of people and do a focus group, in-depth interview, or telephone campaign. The questions are open-ended and the answers are subjective. A trained moderator will probe to explore the deeper perceptions, opinions, and feelings about your topic. Think quality, ideas, and individual interpretation.

The costs of launching qualitative research vary, but expect a price tag of $3,000 to $5,000 per group, depending on the circumstances, and don’t make the mistake of going cheap and doing it yourself. You’ll be biased and won’t get good data from the effort.

Qualitative research using employees can help define: Internal culture; employer brand and value propositions; alignment of executive strategy with general population; and the strengths/weaknesses of your recruiting campaign among target populations.

Launching internal research using your own employees? It shouldn’t take more than two hours at the max. Get a skilled facilitator and have it off-site. The more people can rely on anonymity, the closer you’ll get to the truth.

Offer an incentive. These can range anywhere from a really nice catered lunch or dinner to $100 gift cards depending on the circumstances. If you’re doing a group with commissioned salespeople, consider that they might be losing revenue from possible missed sales.

Have a well thought-out discussion guide, but allow for the flexibility to go “off-road.” I’ve been involved in situations where from the moment the first group begins, I know I’m in for a bumpy ride. Whether there was a disconnect between assumption and reality or a significant event that shaped the course of the conversation, don’t worry if a group goes somewhere unexpected. Often that’s the precise outcome we’re hoping for because it demonstrates engagement of the attendees.

As in the adage “if it can’t be measured it can’t be managed,” research is the fundamental starting point of any new effort. For a cost of less than $20,000 and a window of 90 days, you’ll reap the benefits from new insights or a confirmation of gut instincts that ensures the successful outcome of your project.

Labels: Branding, Recruiting, Research

Kal Turner at Agency.com has offered some rules for finding the right Brand Voice across the newest Social Media. As creative communications professionals, we're all aware of the all important creative brief- the guiding principles for creating a branded identity and roadmap of communications. But marketing across social media- even in the internal sphere i.e. an intranet, means going back to the Branding 1.0 exercises we learned in school.

IF YOUR BRAND WAS A CAR...
In focus groups, we ask these questions to establish a brand personality- are you a Volvo, stable, safe and middle of the road; or a Jaguar - stylish, refined and sophisticated?

Matching your personality to your style of writing is critical in establishing a humanizing brand among your audience.

The Brand Voice of Starbucks is the voice of Brad, who posts on Twitter for them. Here he’s posting a picture of himself with some colleagues, just as any group of friends might do on Twitter.

Brands often go wrong on Twitter by thinking that in order to appeal to a certain demographic segment they need to somehow imitate that group. This is most obvious when brands go after the youth market and awkwardly pepper their language with outdated slang and a tone that is meant to sound ‘trendy’ or ‘urban’.










This post is both conversational, and informative. It’s what you would expect from Capgemini.










This Adobe developer posted about the product he’s working on, and since we’re getting a behind the scenes view of his work, it’s much more compelling than just having the link on its own.

Find Your Brand Ambassadors- they're closer than you think!

Kal cites a tech specialist who constantly improves the image quality of a camera lens. He could explain all the little details that go into creating a perfect image with such enthusiasm that you would be drawn into his world, and a topic you wouldn’t have guessed would be exciting– suddenly is. Adam Denison, “A PR guy at Chevrolet,” talks about cars without always directly promoting Chevrolet products.










Define your company's digital Brand Voice and incorporate it into your Brand style guide. Share it, hone it and spread it. It's as authentic as you make it.

And remember, when you think BRANDing, think BRANDEMiX.
Check out our newly enhanced website. If you haven't been lately, you're in for a treat.
Happy Spring!

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, Virtual Branding

Back in June you may have read about my disconnected experience with Pepsi and their new website launch.

I'm happy to say that the issue has been resolved. In an apparent Phase 2, the new Careers site is fresh, informative and interactive with just the right combination of information and branding. (And no, sadly BRANDEMiX did not do the redesign.)

But that's not the only thing Pepsi is getting right these days. According to a recent article in Brandweek sent to me by consultant Bruce Dorskind, back in December, Pepsi employees in Purchase were treated to the surprise of a new brand launch when they came to work. Rising on both sides of the campus driveway were 20-foot tall billboards plastered with greetings: "Howdy," "Hope," "Tango" and just "Yo." Pepsi's new circular logo stood in place of every "o" in the words. As employees parked their cars, they noticed an enormous blue flag that had been unfurled from the headquarters' roof -- a giant refresh symbol. The in-your-face signage was meant to give employees the same feeling that consumers would get in Times Square during New Year's Eve, which is where PepsiCo would be launching its new initiative publicly.

Hall posters, floor and elevator decals and other placards made it impossible for anyone at headquarters to miss the brand's new look and message. The push culminated with "Rally Day" on Jan. 15. Pepsi execs gathered up to 4,000 employees, in person and online, and laid out the brand's strategy for the coming year. But in terms of size, scope and ambition, this effort was a first, according to Bill Wyman, senior marketing manager for trademark Pepsi.

Pepsi took great pains to assure that its employees weren't just part of the marketing process, but that the internal and external messaging was aligned. Beginning a whole month before the holidays, the company conducted no fewer than 10 Webinars for its employees and bottlers, introducing them to the "refresh" message. Feature articles and meeting reminders were placed in the internal company "Pepline" newsletter and MyPepsiCo.com intranet site leading up to Rally Day. "We had to take the communications level to new heights," Wyman explains. "It was critical to get information to every person [as to] how they could bring [the brand's new marketing message] to life in the marketplace."

We at BRANDEMiX, have always been a strong proponent of internal Brand activation but both experts and I concede that it happens less than it should.

Before you could blink your eyes, Coca-Cola followed in kind. On Jan. 21, Coca-Cola aired a Webcast that previewed its marketing plans (including its highly anticipated Super Bowl spots) for both employees and bottlers. Employees in the Atlanta office all got T-shirts bearing the new slogan next to Coke's iconic "contour" bottle. To reinforce the "Open happiness" message, Coke invited its employees to share photos of ways they were living positively. They accepted, submitting some 4,000 pictures showing people behaving optimistically both in and outside the office.

According to Coca-Cola North America CMO Katie Bayne, taking the time and effort to introduce new messaging internally is critical-and something the company has not always realized. "One of the things we fundamentally feel is that our employees -- not just at the Coca-Cola Company, but the Coca-Cola bottling company -- are the best brand ambassadors we have," Bayne says. "At times we have left them behind." She also adds a concept that you can find as well on BRANDEMiX website and in our materials--

"If employees are not aware of the goal or strategy for achieving that goal, how can they be expected to implement it? They need to understand that they are critical to the organization's success."

Most importantly- let's look at the business results-- Pepsi was rewarded with the 3 words every influencer wants to hear after launching their campaign.

Following a town hall-style meeting in which the brass explained the new logo and the marketing, "People came up to us afterwards and said, 'Now I get it.'"

So great news in Soda-land. I am optimistic that change is coming, and that more and more, we at BRANDEMiX will be preaching to the choir.

One last treat: Pepsi's Valentine, this courtesy of talented Matt Kalish also known as my talented nephew and BRANDEMiX Buzzmaster.

Labels: Branding, Employer Branding, integrated campaigns

The Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State’s Metro Services has chosen BRANDEMiX, the NYC-based communications consultancy known for innovative branding around human resources initiatives, to brand and launch an employee communications campaign in support of their new strategic plan.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, employee communications

Those of us in communications followed with interest the branding campaign that went awry in Washington as Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. called his $700 billion plan to shore up the nation’s shaky financial system the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Everyone else called it the bailout.

In a recent NY Times article:
The politics of governance in Washington is as much about marketing as anything else...by the time it was first rejected by the House — the White House, Congressional leaders and both presidential candidates — had long since lost the perception battle to critics on the Internet and radio and television talk shows. And if there was any broad agreement, it was that the plan needed to be rebranded to have any hope of resurrection.

“The hurdle is overcoming the word ‘bailout,’ ” R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, told The Times. “It has continued to be used by members of Congress. You see it in the press today all over the place. This is not a bailout; this is Treasury buying toxic assets that they will dispose of over a period of time and resell.”

Even maverick (don’t get me started) Senator John McCain agreed. “The first thing I’d do is say, ‘Let’s not call it a bailout. Let’s call it a rescue,’ ” he said on CNN. “Because it is a rescue. It’s a rescue of Main Street America.”

“The messaging was about as wooden and wonkish as it could be,” Patrick Griffin, a former White House lobbyist for President Bill Clinton, told The Times. “Poor Paulson — that was not his forte. And they started behind the eight ball. I never understood why they took so long to have the president engage.”

These two google trend maps show the failure of the Communications plan.

BAILOUT

RESCUE PLAN

Who says Communications aren’t important!

BRANDEMiX for President!

Labels: Branding

Americans are nearly twice as likely to speak to a friend or colleague than their organization's HR department if they have an issue at work, according to the latest Ouch Point(R) survey from Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company.Though 66 percent would opt to speak to their manager about an issue, 39 percent prefer to turn to friends and only 22 percent would go to their HR department for help.

One of the survey's more surprising findings is that over one quarter of respondents (26%) expressed doubt about the ability of their HR team to keep personal details confidential.

"Our research demonstrates the need to improve the quality of the relationship between employees and the HR department," said Vicki Wheatley, Vice President, ORC Employee Engagement Practice (US). "The critical role HR plays within an organization should not be underestimated, as the success of any enterprise depends significantly on the extent to which its workforce is engaged with and dedicated to its mission."

It might be time for Human Resources practitioners to rethink their role and that of the HR department, not only for the purposes of contributing to the organization's bottom line, but also for their own survival.

Some advice from about.com

Determine Your HR Department's Current Reputation and Brand

Ask yourself some important questions:

• Do you know what your HR department's reputation is among the employees? When HR is mentioned, do managers picture savvy strategists, backward bureaucrats, or pleasant, people-pleasers?

• Do employees understand and appreciate the importance of the HR department in furthering the organization's mission and objectives?

• Does the HR department make an effort to market its services to the organization? If it does not, then it has the reputation it deserves. You can, however, easily correct this reputation.

  Talk to Employees to Learn the HR Department Reputation and Brand

  The key is to open up conversations with all levels of employees, and present yourself in the role of facilitator instead of enforcer. You have to get out of the HR office and into the world of your organization’s employees. Finding these answers requires dialogue, which means that HR must communicate. That communication must consist of equal parts of listening and promotion.

  First, HR must listen carefully to what its customers need. Then it must promote what it has done and can do. HR staff must educate the organization about its capabilities and potential contributions. No one knows your capabilities as well as you do.

  Employees, for the most part, still see HR as "those people who handle benefits and do interviewing." To position the HR function for the next decades, every HR practitioner needs to take on a public relations role-starting with your own employees. Think of yourself as a product and do some smart marketing.

  The marketing of the HR department requires you to demonstrate your problem-solving skills, so others will know you do much more than simply process papers. The best form of advertising is the actions you take. By your actions, processes and programs, you can promote the HR department as a flexible, adaptable, solutions-oriented partner, a resource to whom the organization can turn when it needs problems solved.

Maybe you know a department that might benefit from BRANDEMiX Branding!

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, Human Resources

It was Friday night, and as I was in the restaurant, across from my husband, I was texting my love to ChaCha.

No, not the dance, but a free web-based, mobile text messaging answering service that has become my favorite thing. So favorite that I might even consider paying for it if I had to. Because, unlike with Twitter, almost like with Scrabulous before they shut it down, and definitely like my husband, ChaCha has become a can't-live-without addiction.

Here are the facts:
ChaCha allows people with any mobile phone to text 242242 (chacha) and ask any question in conversational English and receive an accurate answer as a text message in just a few minutes. ChaCha also offers voice search through a mobile service that could be queried via a toll-free phone number--1-800-2ChaCha (800-224-2242).

My first experience with ChaCha was tenuous- I texted ChaCha the following question: Where is the best place to invest a small amount of money to yield a 10% ROI. I waited. In minutes, ChaCha texted me back and told me to call a financial advisor. Ever so thoughtfully, ChaCha sent me a weblink to Financial Advisors in my area.

Other texts were more concrete— “What’s the weather this weekend?”, “How many seats are in Shea Stadium?”, “What’s the address of my dentist?” Time after time, ChaCha replied with accurate, up-to-the minute details. When I was in the midst of a conversation about gas prices, ChaCha saved the day by answering my question “If gas is $1.50 a litre, how much is it a gallon” with the following “it would cost $6.819 per gallon. Yikes! Have a great day and keep texting ChaCha. ChaCha told me how to get paint off the carpet, what my horoscope was for the month of July.

I’m not so interested in the behind the scenes at ChaCha but in case you are, the ChaCha system is set up so that each question is routed to a trained Guide who is knowledgeable in that particular subject matter. The Guide will research your question and send the answer back to you as soon as possible. The Guide will be able to see your previous questions so they will understand if you ask a follow-up question. Once you register, ChaCha will save your questions and answers, and you’ll be able to view the profile of the Guide that found your answer!

I also love the ChaCha website- very cool Valentine colors (because I’m not the only one in love) a place to read and leave confessions, a store where I can buy ChaCha apparel and a well-produced culture video.

My HR friends may even find this interesting: ChaCha recently announced that they are moving to a “Pay-For-Performance” system that was designed to improve search quality. Under the new program, “Top Guides” will receive 20 cents per question. Everyone else gets 10 cents per question. To become a Top Guide, users must do the following:

* >95% Quality Measurement.
* 95% and above completion of answers to questions:
* Minimum 300 Searches a week.

But what I really really love is that ChaCha will partner with BRANDEMiX in putting together branded mobile text campaigns including event promotion, text voting or trivia events.

So Friday night, when ChaCha told me what time the local movies were playing, I was so happy I literally texted back “I love you ChaCha.” And you know what ChaCha told me? “We at ChaCha think you’re the best, too! Our customers are very important so let us know if you need anything 24/7”

As a dependable virtual sage at my fingertips, or another leg in an integrated client branding or recruitment campaign, ChaCha stands alone!

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, ChaCha

Don't look now, the agency handling the recruitment for the National Guard is targeting you Mr. Fisherman.

Does anyone else find the concept of Branding the National Guard as Rock Stars a bit of a disconnect?

In August, the US Army National Guard will launch a mobile marketing campaign, supported by outreach to local media, to sign up recruits at various music festivals and other outdoor events.

Developed and executed by RedPeg Marketing on behalf of prime contractor Docupak, the "Rock Star Hero Challenge," as the campaign is called, features a tour bus with 52-inch touch screen displays that allow potential recruits to see and participate in virtual missions.

Interactive kiosks where visitors can pose with images of rock bands will sit outside the buses, tying into the musical nature of the events and emphasizing the figurative "rock star" quality of Army National Guard members. The National Guard is currently on track to meet its recruiting goal for 2008.

Since 2005, it has increased its "end strength" total from 330,000 to 380,000.

"Recruiters will know about the events [in advance] and pre-market them," said RedPeg president and CEO Brad Nierenberg. "The events will be a way to engage with consumers who haven't considered the National Guard before now." Day said that recruiting is typically done on a local, grassroots level, with recruiters attending any large event where its "target demographic" might be found.

"The interactive nature makes the 'Rock Star Hero' different and will appeal to our demographic's thirst for technology," Day said.

Labels: Branding, Recruiting

In something we can call the Recession job diet, the US economy is shedding jobs at the rate of approximately 73,000 per month. Don’t look now but we lost about 60,000 in June and almost 450,000 since the beginning of the year. Not surprising, the losses are primarily in the support to the housing market: financial services, mortgages, construction and manufacturing.

But with the stock market imploding and grim forecasts ahead, more companies will no doubt follow suit just to keep fiscally fad-conscious. Some of this will be healthy shedding and some will be hard but the unintended result will also be fear and de-motivation among employees that you really want to keep away from the exit door.

Don’t believe me? Look at what’s going on at my nemesis Yahoo. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Business Week article:

Top Yahoo Talent Rushing for the Exits
Posted on: Friday, 20 June 2008, 12:05 CDT

Another day, another high-level exit -- or three -- from Yahoo! (YHOO). The most recent round came to light June 19, when TechCrunch reported the imminent departure of three prominent Yahoos: Vish Makhijani, general manager of Yahoo Search; Qi Lu, executive vice-president for search and advertising technology; and Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice-president for communications and communities and the author of a scathing 2006 memo dubbed the "peanut butter manifesto" that accused Yahoo of losing its focus. Garlinghouse and the others are among more than 50 high-profile Yahoo executives and managers who have left the company in the past three months or intend to leave, raising concerns that a leadership vacuum will ensue in light of failed merger discussions with Microsoft (MSFT), and amid withering public criticism of Yahoo management by billionaire investor Carl Icahn. The exodus makes it harder for remaining executives to persuade shareholders the company has the means to turn itself around.

Ha! As you know, I have hated Yahoo since the debacle when they lost my website (note: now I hate Verizon too since they lost my internet during the move) so in many ways it’s just desserts, but, as the President of a Corporate Communications company, I would still work with them if they wanted my assistance. Here’s what I would tell them.


5 Internal Communications Strategies to Deploy During Employee Layoffs

1. Employee Recognition Program- It may sound disingenuous to begin recognizing the contributions of your current employees at a time like this but hopefully you already have a program in place and you can just ramp it up. Studies show that even non-monetary incentives enhance teamwork employee contribution and morale.
2. Rumor Cooler- Spot communications that separate fact from fiction will keep everyone informed and show that senior management is in touch with grapevine and doing their part to create authentic reports of news as it’s breaking.
3. Surveys- Sample your talent and identify their issues and concerns. This information can be cornerstone of a holistic strategy that touches on training and developing the high potential employees that remain.
4. Social Networking Intranet- A hybrid site where employees can collaborate based on individual needs and form new professional connections will help both socially and strategically as you create a line of site from the staff to the business needs.
5. Strategic Rebranding- Energize and educate your workforce on business goals and objectives as you roll out a new Employer Brand based on the To-Be vision of your business.
   

In general, over communicate. According to HR guru Dr. John Sullivan:

After layoffs, it is essential that you keep two-way communications going: first, in order to ensure that the employees know when the cost reduction targets are actually met, and second, to give them an avenue to vent their frustrations and to get answers to their questions. Open book management, although it may be initially uncomfortable, is the short-term solution to keep everyone feeling in on things.

Labels: Branding, employee retention, Employer Branding, internal communications

OK- Believe it or not- even though I’m still in love with everything Zappos, this is about finding the love for Twitter. Never heard of it? No worries, that’s what I’m here for- (and Wikipedia).
From Wikipedia:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts, ranging up to 140 characters long. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.

From another blog:

The key to Twitter is the level of listening you do as well as talking. It is definitely supposed to be an interactive program. And, in fact, this is where you build the majority of your Whuffie (aka social capital). The more you interact on Twitter, the more people will interact with you, which attracts others to you as well.

From Tony Hsieh at Zappos:

You send an SMS text message to Twitter with your note, and your message will be automatically broadcast (like CB radio) to whoever is choosing to follow you (your friends). If people don’t care what you’re doing, they won’t follow you, so don’t worry about sending out trivial messages.

At first, it will seem really weird and unnatural for you to do this, but just trust me on this one. You will find that it’s actually a really good way to stay in touch with all your friends and know what’s going on in their lives.

…I was flying in to the Vegas airport, and I twittered “Just landed in Vegas airport.” I would have never texted anyone that message, but in the Twitter culture, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. It just so happened that someone on my Twitter network was about to fly out of Vegas, so we met up at the airport bar and had a drink. I would have never known otherwise that this person was at the airport, nor would I have ever sent him a text message or called him that I had just landed.


Stuff to Tweet About

There are no rules about what you should tweet out, here are a few suggestions for you. It is important that you balance the ‘outbound’ with the ‘inbound’. In otherwords, the announcements with the conversations:

1. Personal thoughts and reflections that suit your brand - this helps people feel more trust towards you and your brand and strikes up conversations
2. Events (both your own and other events your audience may find interesting) - this makes things interesting and, perhaps, gives you a way to meet your followers
3. Contests (”The first three people who answer this trivia question get….”) - they drive more followers and interest in what you tweet
4. Replies (@twittername) - this comes from listening to your followers (you have to follow back to see their tweets). The more personal the reply, the higher the impact.
5. Direct replies (d twittername) - this isn’t in the public timeline, but it helps build deeper bonds to talk directly to someone like this. This is helpful to answer people when it is a private matter or when you want to show concern (i.e. someone reports an accident, etc.)
6. New blog posts - you should keep these to one per day at the very most and you should also promote other people’s blog posts that are of interest
7. Announcements - if it is interesting, tweet it
8. OH’s (overheard) - someone say something in the office or when you are out and about that cracks you up? Type OH: “well, if you don’t mind, im trying to work on my love life” or something else funny (sometimes used to offset potentially racy comments…if you didn’t say it, but are just REPEATING IT, then it’s okay)
9. Rickrolls or other fun internet games - this shows you are a bunch of fun and has people trying to do the same for you. Spreading as many internet memes as possible is good.
10. Lyrics and quotes - especially fun are the lyrics: ♪Never give the game away | Try to keep me entertained, baby | Don’t make it too easy | Leave something for me and my imagination♪ as the musical notes make for lots of questions
11. Links to media you create - video is fun, podcasts, perhaps interviews that are posted online about you, etc.
12. Shout outs - @twittername rocks! Thanks for the great link: http://insertlink.com These make people feel great, too.

Tweets that make people laugh are awesome, but tweets that make people think are even better.

I'm not going to lie- I don't totally get Tweeter but I've heard enough people talking about it to know that it's resonating in certain circles.

So, I'm going to give it a whirl. Connect with me if you want to and we can all be bored together.

But, if you really want to know what I'm addicted to--- its ChaCha.

Labels: Branding, Tweeter

Here’s the Zappos follow up I promised you.

The backstory is a recent posting you can view here or continue reading the short and sweet version.

I came across an article about Zappos paying employees $1,000 to quit their job following training. The ones who stay become the Brand Ambassadors— committed employees who stay, perform and recommend.

I did some follow up research and found a presentation made by Tony— my NBF (new best friend) and also the CEO. At the end of the presentation, he said anyone who wants a culture book could send him an email. I did.

Here’s what I wrote (please indulge me my sales pitch— I’m an entrepreneur)
“I love your site. I love your culture. (And great shoes help.) I develop marketing and communications that support the attraction and retention of talent and if you ever need a hand- please count me in. Thanks,”

I also started following him on Twitter, http://twitter.com/zappos, and saw that he was in London.

Guess what! Tony wrote me back within hours and said
Hi Jody,
It's a physical book so I just need your mailing address...
Re: attracting/retaining talent, I've cc'd Christa who heads up our recruiting department and she will be following up with you!

Not only did the book come, following an awesome email from someone in shipping inviting me on a tour of the facility any time i’m in Vegas, but the call from Christa came along with a potential opportunity to assist them with their employee communications!

So, operationally, externally and internally, ZAPPOS goes from A to Z, or in actuality Z to A in living ther brand!

Great job Tony and friends.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, internal communications

YOUR CHOICE: SEE THE MOVIE



READ THE POST
Ever heard of a “Quit-Now” bonus for new employees? We’ve all heard of severance packages where long-standing employees are essentially paid a bonus to quit now. But a “Quit-Now” bonus for new employees to voluntarily leave after a week on the job … that’s novel.

Bill Taylor, of Mavericks at Work fame, writes how Zappos , a fast-growing online shoe retailer, will offer one-week old employees a “Quit-Now” bonus of $1,000. Zappos will ask new employees this question … “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.”

Why does Zappos do this? The reasoning, as Bill Taylor put it, is …

“Because if you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for. It’s hard to describe the level of energy in the Zappos culture—which means, by definition, it’s not for everybody. Zappos wants to learn if there’s a bad fit between what makes the organization tick and what makes individual employees tick—and it’s willing to pay to learn sooner rather than later. (About ten percent of new call-center employees take the money and run.)”

SEE THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION FROM ZAPPOS PRESIDENT, Tony Hseih




Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, provides his 10 tips for building a customer service focused culture.

Whichever is your media of choice, the deal is that for a virtual company to have such a strong connection with its customers, they must be doing something right.

All employees that are hired into their corporate office, regardless of position, are required to undergo a 4-week Customer Loyalty Training course, which includes at least 2 weeks of talking on the phone with customers in the call center.^[7] at full salary. After training the new employees are offered $1000 to leave the job immediately.^[7] This is to ensure people are there for the love of the job and not the money. Over 90% turn down the buyout.

Great job Tony. And move over Southwest. I've just found a new case study for my toolbox.

I have emailed Tony who graciously offered me a free copy of his culture book. More to come.

Labels: BRANDEMiX, Branding, culture, retention