The leaves have finally turned in North Carolina. An intensely hot summer that stretched into October generated deep, vibrant colors set against clear blue skies. It’s time to take stock of the waning year and prepare for the road ahead in 2011.
Fortunately, we’ve had time to do some clear-headed thinking over the past few weeks. RLF recently participated in three significant public relations industry events: the WorldCom Public Relations Group’s Americas meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, the Public Relations Society of America conference in Washington, D.C., and the Council of Public Relations Firms’ forum in New York City. In all, we heard from more than 30 leading business, advertising and public relations leaders and engaged in conversations with corporate and agency professionals from across the United States, Canada and Latin America.
As all of us begin to plan, prepare and budget for 2011, here are six key observations we pulled from the events. These and other thoughts will guide RLF in 2011 as we amplify our efforts to live up to our mission to be devoted to ideas, strategy and service that advance our clients’ business objectives.
1. The Strong Are Surging
The buzz among top agency executives is restrained optimism. The restraint is easy to understand. Unemployment remains high, credit is tight and confidence among consumers remains elusive. But optimism is finally muscling aside the gloomy predictions of recent years. Across almost every business sector, corporate clients are gearing up for an aggressive 2011. Companies who made it through the great recession are ready to reap the rewards of aggressive cost-cutting and conservative business practices over the past three years. Companies intend to spend on programs and campaigns that will generate revenue and increase market share. As one speaker noted, the companies (and agencies who serve them) that can tap into helping consumers recover from the recession and regain control over their lives in small measures will see great success in 2011.
2. “My Friend Recommends…”
A great deal of discussion focused on social media and word-of-mouth’s continued rapid rise and influence on consumer behavior. One startling statistic shared – 78 percent of consumers “trust” a peer recommendation, but only 14 percent “trust” what a company says directly about a product or service…”
The good news is that the fundamentals of marketing, branding and public relations have not changed. Reaching “key influencers” has always been a critical component of our work, but it is now taking on different forms. As one action step, companies should assess if the relationship between marketing, public relations and customer service teams is working. These teams need to be constantly talking and sharing information about what consumers are saying, thinking and doing. Leading companies are establishing rapid response teams to monitor what is being said online about their products and services and addressing problems before they spiral out of control. As a senior vice president from American Express said, the logistics and time commitment are “enormously challenging” to do this kind of work, but the payoff appears to be worth it.
3. Ideas, Trust & Courage
Corporate marketers were steadfast in their belief that “great ideas” are more important than ever in building brands, and they are open to those ideas no matter which agency they come from. “The best idea will win” was repeated, in one form or another, at every forum we attended this fall. And the ideas need to not only be good, they must also be “big.” We heard little support for embracing ideas that would generate only incremental improvement. Two ingredients — trust and courage — will be required significantly by marketers and agencies in 2011 to transform great ideas into workable, measurable campaigns.
The chief marketing officer for Heineken USA talked about the genesis of a very popular campaign for Dos Equis beer. “The Most Interesting Man in The World” campaign has generated tremendous sales based on the strength of integrating paid advertising, online marketing, social and earned media. Coming up with the approach and concept was a challenge, but the larger task was convincing the brewers funding the campaign that it was “okay” for the main character to say, “I don’t always drink beer…” For people who make beer for a living, supporting a creative campaign that discounts beer drinking takes a tremendous leap of faith. However, including that phrase makes the campaign “authentic” and one audiences have been willing to embrace, watch on YouTube, “like” on Facebook (at last count, the fictional spokesperson for a small Mexican beer had nearly 800,000 fans) and buy in the store.
4. The Value of “Value”
Winning consumers with “the lowest price” is not going to be as effective a strategy as it has been for the past few years. For example, one speaker noted the average shopper now spends 30 minutes more in the grocery store – comparing, sorting and judging – to better assess “value.” And increasingly, consumers are willing to spend money on items at all price points, but expectations have been reset.
Figuring out what “value” means to consumers in your business, and then creating ways to deliver that “value,” should be a top priority for companies who want to increase market share in 2011.
5. “Going Viral” Requires Creative Content…And Money
Consumers are drowning in content. The media and information channel explosion created a world of “constant communication” that must be filtered for value. For example, there are 24 hours of video uploaded on YouTube every 60 seconds. It’s not just that quantity exceeds quality; it also exceeds our ability to process it.
Reaching consumers requires both sides of the media equation – paid media (advertising, marketing, sponsorships, product placements, etc.) and earned media (media relations, social media, industry leadership, contests, etc). They support, influence, and feed off each other’s strengths.
For a corporate campaign to spread via word-of-mouth and social networks, creative content has become more important, not less important. And good content must be buttressed by paid media (in whatever tactical form that needs to take) to have a fighting chance of success.
6. Give Your Team Direction and Boundaries, Then See What They Can Achieve
One of the most fascinating speakers out of all the fall events was Vinton Cerf, vice president and chief evangelist for Google. Cerf, one of the earlier pioneers of the Internet and the person we can most likely praise (or blame) for the creation of email, spoke eloquently about the Internet’s meteoric rise. Cerf and his colleague Robert Kahn created the “rules of the road” for the Internet, the basic architecture for how people should program in this new frontier. “We didn’t tell people what kind of car to make or drive, just what side of the road to stay on,” said Cerf. “And by focusing on creating a solid infrastructure, we’ve seen an explosion in applications and programs.”
Looking ahead, Cerf foresees the same explosion taking place in mobile devices, and that view was shared in every forum. How we use mobile devices is still in its infancy, but companies who can provide consumers convenient and value-added applications will gain market share. Companies should challenge their marketing and public relations teams to envision how they can tap into mobile marketing and generate market share ahead of competitors. And then fund the big, game changing ideas.