A Brand Advocate can be defined as: "A customer who has favourable perceptions of a brand and who will talk favourably about a brand to their acquaintances to help generate awareness of the brand or influence purchase intent".....
What do you think brands could do better to achieve advocacy?
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It's not through a "catchy" jingle, that is for sure. If I even SEE a Kay Jewelers, I feel like throwing a brick through their display case. Lately, I think Southwest is doing it properly, by saying what makes them different/better in an endless sea of garbage people movers.
ReplyDeleteI am truly loyal to any brands that I feel constantly perform and live up to what I expect from them. I find that when brands reach out by offering discounts to loyal customers or create an exclusive group (with benefits) to their loyal customers you really can't shop anywhere else. I think it's the personal touch that creates brand advocacy.
ReplyDeleteGreat first post Chris. Brand advocacy to me is one of the holy grails of marketing. Creating people who feel so passionately about your brand and will put their reputation on the line vouching for it is an absolute marketing achievement. With that being said, I think a number of different things make it up, but the key thing is "value". What you define as valuable is up to you, be it performing a service no one else offers, tasting better, standing for something people can relate to, etc. I'd love to do an anthropological study on Harley riders, coca-cola freaks and the ilk to see what mental cross sections there are.
ReplyDeleteNow more than ever, the online experience needs to be well thought out and precise. People are relying on the company website to communicate that "value" and it needs to be clearly stated and adhere to the offline strategy. In many instances,this becomes the "face" of your brand. The site must convey your brand principles and allow the user to easily identify with them. The purchasing process also needs to be simple and not too complicated...
ReplyDeleteI think there's a problem when we think of this idea of "advocacy" in a general sense - as though it can be switched on by marketing.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of charlatans selling ways and technologies to activate "advocates" on behalf of any brand that will pay them, and there are people buying that BS. Then they count up comments and send-to-friends and think they've done their jobs. Because they are approaching it with a dull, self-interested point of view. They're thinking of transactions instead of relationships, converting consumers in the short term instead of serving them in the long term.
Real, valuable advocacy - the kind where people are sincerely interested in the purchase decisions other people make because of experiences they've had - is not a magic trick. Marketing can enable that or catalyze it - it can give people ways to talk and tangible things to talk about - but it can't create real advocacy. That only comes from what a brand does at the core of its business, not the latest whiz bang idea from an agency (unless a new core business idea comes from them, like R/GA and Nike+).
Like everything else we do, it comes down to this: Good brands don't try to be good brands. They just do shit people like, consistently. That's it. They find a certain group of people and they get better than anyone else at knowing what they like and doing it in product, service, comms, all of it. It couldn't be any simpler, and social media makes it easier.
The key to achieving brand advocacy is good customer service and relations. With so many brands becoming commodities, the deal is sealed or broken by the person-person connections - or lack of same.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me. What's up with retail clerks who respond to my "Thank you" (why am I thanking them in the first place?) with a "No problem" instead of a simple "You're welcome my good chap!"
Look here Barry Barrista - you're damn right it's no problem. I gave you my money and you are paid to be of service to me. Where in that dynamic could there be a problem?