Emotion and Audience Engagement

I am about to get started on The Power of Communication: Skills to Build Trust, Inspire Loyalty and Lead Effectively by Helio Fred Garcia. So looking forward to hearing more about the ways in which I can present myself in a way that is inspiring, firm and trustworthy. Something I feel every business owner needs. If you have the time…you should probably pick the book up too!

In researching the book, yes odd to research a book that you want to read, but with such little time I need to really figure out what is worth my spare time and what isn’t, I came across this Fast Company article. I wanted to share the highlights with you, so if you don’t have time to read the book in its entirety, you can at least get the gist.

The article starts off with: The default to emotion is part of the human condition. Yes indeed it is. It is rare to find anyone in a room who is listening to an inspiring speaker who doesn’t feel something emotionally either toward the speaker or the topic. Even if you dislike the speaker or the topic, you most likely do so in an emotional way. The primitive brain explained below, is what is important for leaders, business owners and for anyone who is looking for success.

The primitive brain and the limbic brain collectively make up the limbic system, which governs emotion. Within the limbic system, there is a structure called the amygdala, which leaders need to understand.

When faced with a stimulus, the amygdala turns our emotions on. It does so instantaneously, without our having to think about it. We find ourselves responding to a threat even before we’re consciously aware of it. Think of jumping back when we see a sudden movement in front of us, or being startled by the sound of a loud bang. We also respond instantaneously to positive stimulus without thinking about it: Note how we tend to smile back when someone smiles at us; how we are immediately distracted when something we consider beautiful enters our line of sight  

So, with this information, we need to understand that attention is emotionally driven. If you want to grab attention and keep it, you have to find a way to trigger the Amygdala in your audience. Whether it is in person, during a meeting, a social media campaign, marketing campaigns or a piece of advertising, it all comes back to something as simple as emotion. Frills, bells and whistles won’t work unless you trigger the right emotion.

As mentioned in the audience, here are five strategies for audience engagement:

1. Establish a Connection. You have to actually connect with your audience before saying anything important. “Techniques to connect include asking for the audience’s attention, if only with a powerful and warm greeting, followed by silence and eye contact.”
2. Say Your Killer Piece First. So you have established your connection? Directly after that, you need to say your most important piece of information. It should be a main framing piece that will help guide all that follows, and stay in your audience’s memory.
3. Never Finish Without a Recap. Always close with a re-brief of what your main most powerful framing statement was about.
4. Make it Memorable. We all have to keep in mind how much we are bombarded with information at every point of our day. Whether it’s TV, Social Media, Phones, Emails, and Meetings etc. Make sure what you are trying to say is simple, and easy to remember. Repeat your most important points.
5. The Rule of Three. The most important take away of the whole article for me was the rule of three. Have three main points, topics or examples…but never more than three. People just won’t be able to focus on more. Make it short and sweet, but keep it to three.

I am so looking forward to the book. Look out for a review on the book and it’s main principles…as soon as I get through it!

Customer Experience Rules

In my research for this past week's posts I came across two great blogs: Stage Two and 3rdIdea. Both of them had postings based on Dustin Curtis and the Twitter storm he started with a letter and a site re-design of AA.com. If you aren't familiar with the Dustin Curtis AA.com story here is a short synopsis:

Dustin Curtis (interface designer by trade) became so infuriated with the poorly designed and confusing AA.com site that he not only decided never to fly with them again, but also to write them a letter describing his experience on the site.  His Dear American Airlines Letter can be read here. He also took the time to give them a quick re-design. After David posted his letter, an American Airlines employee (one of the site architects) contacted him and stated: "You are right. Our site is a mess." Of course Dustin posted this, and low and behold, AA.com fired the employee - even though Dustin never mentioned him by name, AA figured out who it was and fired them. The story ended up going viral, picked up by mass media. American Airlines didn't do a great job at reaching out to customers, or handling the press firestorm. Eventually it blew over.

The major piece to take from this story? Customer experience/engagement is key. In the world we live in, one voice can make a difference, because one voice can become thousands depending on who is listening. Dustin Curtis said it best:

Customer experience is the new brand.
I’m not referring to a brand as a logo and a typeface. I’m referring to the new kind of brand, the one is formed by the entire experience of a customer’s interaction. That experience gets branded into his or her memory and leaks into the buzz of modern culture. If you can’t make a good customer experience from start to finish, you’ve failed to generate brand value that will attract customers to come back for repeat business and tell their friends to come back, too. That’s how good customer experience directly affects the bottom line.

This rings true for customer service, customer experience and experience marketing. Everything needs to fit properly. Everything needs to be brand appropriate, fall in line with target audience and customer behavior, engage and ultimately work in order to make sense. You can build a beautiful marketing campaign, fill it with  quirky gimmicks, buffer it with stellar PR and advertising, but if at the core the customer experience isn't up to par, it won't work. And in the case of Dustin's customer experience example, you lose the customer.  As I said in my FLAWSOME post last week; you have to engage your customer correctly. You have to be authentic. You have to be transparent. You have to be willing to receive bad reviews and even publish them and then own up to them and show how you are changing - or why you made the decision to stay the course. Dustin is right. Customer Experience is the new brand, and Customers can make or break your brand in as little as 140 characters.


[image via 3rd idea & sylvainpaillard.com]

Experiential Marketing & Customer Engagement

In yesterday's post I discussed the most simple definition of Experience Marketing. The underlying necessity for knowing your customer and using that knowledge to create an experience that will be worthy to them and ultimately provide you with the engagement you are seeking for your brand or product.

Here are some examples of great experiential pieces. They were successful because at their core they spoke to customers on a behavioral level, and the experience was deeply rooted in what the brand and product had to offer.


The Mercedes Benz Tweet Fleet
Mercedes Benz wanted to promote their park assist feature in their cars. The app helps you find parking spaces in your area, and navigates you to the spot. Knowing people's frustration with finding a parking spot in an urban environment, especially around the holiday's was the main impetus for this great campaign. Mecedes Benz created the Tweet Fleet, and their experiential campaign was born. The company had cars driving around Stuttgart, Germany tweeting empty spaces with geo-tags so that followers were alerted to the space and it's location via the navigation system.

Not only was Mercedes Benz one of the most popular brands through out all platforms of Social Media in Germany for the duration of the campaign, it was in the Top 3 of talked about brands. A win-win for customers, who considered the Tweet Fleet Park Assist campaign a game, but for the brand who received accolades, and a lot of unsolicited press. Great buzz always works!

Also check out my Four Fun Interactive Campaigns post from last week. The T-Mobile Live Angry Birds promotion was a clear success and a personal favorite. T-Mobile, wanting to promote themselves in Barcelona, created a live Angry Birds game in a public space. It's not a far stretch to associate T-Mobile with virtual and gaming fun. They capitalized on the incredibly fun and popular game, and customers who engaged had fun. Fun they will associate not only with the game, but with T-Mobile. Check out the video and see the looks on everyone's faces. There is a community feel that just made this campaign perfect!

Have your own example of a great Experiential piece? Share it with me and let's talk about it!

Related Topics:

Check out the Experiential Marketing Forum for more on Experience Marketing.

[Cover image courtesy of sylvainpaillard.com]

Four Fun Interactive Campaigns

A little fun to help get you through this blistery Wednesday! After yesterday's post about FLAWSOME behavior, I thought today we would look at some genuinely awesome and out of the box customer engagement behavior.

T-Mobile Angry Birds
A promotion by T-Mobile in Barcelona 2011. T-Mobile actually built an Angry Birds set. People place their smart phones in the main hub, and play the game. The game is projected on the big screen on the left and the game is played real time. Not only do people have fun, it builds a nice community feel all associated with Angry Birds AND T-Mobile. Check out the video....it's genius!

Kauko Cafe
A cafe in Helsinki was built as part of World Design Helsinki 2012. You can remotely control the furniture, music, lights and even the height of the chairs people sit on via an app or the Kauko Cafe website. The aim of the project was to get people thinking about how bad design can impact your life...and this video shows that it really does!

The Friskies Playhouse
What cat wouldn't want a playground! Friskies Playhouse is a playhouse for rescued cats. The playhouse is created by facebook fans and streamed online live via the page. Fans are able to remotely control the toys and play with the cats. I love that you never lose the idea that this is presented by Friskies, and it's a great way to engage with their cat loving customers.

KLM Surprise!

I tweeted about this last week. KLM has done some great customer engagement programs recently and this one doesn't fall short either. KLM Passengers who Tweeted or used other social media methods to announce their KLM trip were targeted - and with a brainstorm on the best individual gift to give them - are met at the gate with their personal gift from duty free. So great to be met at the gate before a long flight with something personal. I guarantee people will appreciate it!

[Simply Zesty.  Image from http://www.peopleinsight.co.uk/ ]

FLAWSOME! Can Brands Embrace Flaws and Win?

After reading the most recent TrendWatching brief, I learned a new word: FLAWSOME. The basic definition: brands that are still brilliant and thriving despite having flaws.  The basic principle that "human nature dictates that people have a hard time genuinely connecting with, being close to or really trusting other humans who (pretend to) have no weaknesses, flaws or mistakes," helps explain the most recent surge in the FLAWSOME trend. Consumers want (beyond great customer service, a great working product and the feeling of community) transparency and brands that are human aka flawed.

Based on recent studies by Havas Media, November 2011, nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to be involved in promoting individual and community well being. While only 28% of people think that companies are working hard to combat environmental and social challenges.

With customers living in a social media world, it only seems right that the transparency span to companies too. Consumers share their lives on Twitter, Blogs, Facebook etc. and feel it only fair that companies broadcast and share in the same way. What about the bad stuff you ask? Well, consumers don't believe that flaws and weaknesses don't exist. They want brands to acknowledge problems and mistakes and fix them or at the very least explain them. Flawlessness is an Illusion. Brands need to jump on their issues and take them public and make it known that they are aware of the issue and in the process of fixing it.

Revoo.com, January 2012 study presents the following facts:

• 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see good and bad scores. 

• 30% of consumers suspect fake and censored reviews if there aren't any bad reviews in the mix.

• There is a 67% conversion rate from Shopper to Consumer for those shoppers who go out and read bad reviews.  

So, as brand marketers we get that things will go wrong and that we need to open to responding. What else can we do in the brand marketing realm to see this FLAWSOME trend through?
 

1. Crowd Sourcing
A super hot trend right now that works? Yes. Crowd sourcing rules at the moment and why shouldn't it. You empower your consumer base, make them feel heard and why not introduce some neat ideas and products at the same time. Getting feedback from your consumer base not only gives you data on preferences, but it helps you engage with who you are producing for in the first place. Create a good platform for a campaign and test it out - either in beta form and get responses - or in real time. 

I love the aspect of using crowd sourcing at events too. Why not through a New Direction Launch Party. Add all your potential change makers to your guest list and use the event as a platform for change and engagement. Then follow through and keep in touch with your change maker base. I guarantee they will love being heard, will continue to follow and will help advocate for you.

2. Incorporating Transparency in to Marketing Communications & Events
 Countless brands have started to incorporate reviews, comments and public responses to their live websites. This can be pretty scary for brands, but if consumers are going to comment why not have them do so in a controlled environment where you can see them, hear them, understand them and respond to them. It's like having a focus group in your home. Use it to your advantage and get those bad reviews turned around with some great customer service.

A particular favorite - also mentioned in the TrendWatching Brief - is the Tweet Seats idea. We all know and either love or hate the vibrating phones during a show. The lit screens clutched in other viewers hands. Some people just can't let go of Social Media and want to Tweet everything they can about their experiences. Instead of fighting the Social trend, embrace it! Several theaters have created Tweet Seats. Rows of seats designated or those people who insist on using their mobile devices (still on silent). The rows are usually (and should be) in the back so they don't bother other theater goers. This way everyone is happy.

For events, why not have a large twitter board. Have people respond to content - and who doesn't like it to be on a big board. Wouldn't it be great to have a Social Media board be the Step and Repeat at an event? Get those voices out there and embrace them. The more authentic you are as a brand - the better the communication with your consumers. Of course there may always be a bad apple in the bunch who just wants to give you a cantankerous review or comment - but other consumers will see right through that and actually embrace you more.

3. Acknowledging a disconnect - You Either Take Us or Leave Us
Who hasn't seen and loved the new Miracle Whip advertising and marketing promotions?! Miracle Whip is just one of those brands you either love or hate as a consumer. It's no fault of the company, its just a taste preference and subjective. You either like or you don't! I personally have loved their We are not for everyone campaign, and would love to see some other brands who have the same cult following do the same. How about a love it/hate it promo party where you separate the two groups but somehow have them come together at the end.  Great way to convert the naysayers while embracing your fans.

4. Take Your Problem & Spin It
 I posted on the Domino's turn around story last year for their Times Square ticker and then again a couple of weeks ago with their Think Oven campaign. I can't think of any other company that has done such a great, transparent and incredibly visible campaign to take their atrocious reviews and bad press and spin them in to better sales and customer perception. The Times Square campaign put all of the reviews in plain sight of everyone in NYC's busiest intersection for foot traffic. Good and bad reviews alike were put on display in real time. The most recent Think Oven is a crowd sourcing idea that I hope brings them some great success.

So what can we learn? Be a human brand, embrace your success as well as your failures and work with them! Engage. Engage. Engage. And your customers will reciprocate.

Domino's Think Oven - Outsourcing Innovation to Customers

I really admire the way in which Domino's engages with their in restaurant staff and their customer community. Listening to their customers helped them turn around their pizzas - and their sales - and helped them become one of the leading brands in the US today. Remember the Raising the Bar campaign we posted about last year?

Domino's continues its customer engagement program this year by creating a new campaign - Think Oven - a Facebook app which lets fans suggest and influence how the brand functions. The brand is opening itself up to ideas for products, customer interaction, online presence and quality. There are 2 main drives behind the campaign: The Project Box and the The Idea Box. Fans can suggest projects, ideas, improvements or anything they would like to see fall under the Domino brand. The best and most well written/visualized ideas will be rewarded not only by Domino's exploring the idea, but also with a cash prize.

[Simply Zesty]
[CP+B]