Great Facebook Brand Pages

It's surprising how few brand pages really stand out on Facebook.

E-consultancy have pulled together a list of their top 25 Branded Facebook pages which should provide some inspiration.

BrandKarma

Brandkarma - Intro from Brandkarma on Vimeo.


BrandKarma is the world's first brand-centric social media platform.

It's designed to bring together important information about how brands behave, so that people can easily evaluate and rate them. Their goal is to make brand owners more accountable to all their stakeholders - Customers, Employees, Suppliers, Investors and the Planet.

There's a good interview on Contagious with BrandKarma founder Craig Davis of Publicis.

Join up. Do Good. Feel Good. (or at the very least find out what's being said about your brand)

From the mouths of retailers

Following on neatly from our piece on M&S's Penny Bazaar initiative, a new survey of over 350 large and medium-sized retailers by The Centre for Retail Research has piqued our interest. It suggests that UK consumers are increasingly unwilling to pay full price for, well, just about anything.

• 66% of the retailers surveyed felt that consumer expectations have changed so much that larger price cuts are required to achieve an uplift in sales
• 33.2% reported that consumers are only buying discounted goods
  
• 32.4% believed that consumers are making greater use of money-off vouchers
  
• 23% said they have reduced all prices
  
• 39% have already implemented significant targeted price cuts

Clearly, consumers now see bargains as the norm rather than the exception, which throws up some pretty big decisions for marketeers. Received wisdom from past recessions teaches us that reactive discounting will only temporarily solve the problem of declining profits. In his book 'Advertising in a Recession', Patrick Barwise points out:

"While it is generally accepted that promotions generate short-term sales, some of those sales are simply 'stolen' from future purchases by the same consumer...If a brand is on 'special' price too frequently, consumers are likely to think of the 'special' price as the normal price for the brand - and learn never to buy the brand unless it is discounted."

But as we are learning, this is no ordinary recession so maybe it's time to re-write the rules?

Our view is that in a bid to demonstrate value, marketeers all too often focus on price. Value is as much about quality as it is about price. Maybe now is the time to blaze your own trail and communicate your quality credentials instead?

The Daily Brand

An oldie but a goodie. For those of you who haven't already come across it, this 'day in the brand life' monitors a typical Friday in the life of Jane Sample. It's a neat way of demonstrating just how many brands command space in our private lives, and how these brands change according to day of week and time of day. A must-have for your time capsule.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Daddy, what did YOU do in the Recession?

We've already blogged about how a little goodwill can go a long way in these straitened times.

Here are some nice examples of brands putting this into action:

Kraft has been offering literal warmth and fuzziness in the form of heating bus shelters and giving away free soup samples in the Windy City.

Also in the US, FedEx has made the grand gesture of allowing customers to print off up to 25 copies of their CVs for free - at any of its 1,600 stores across the US.

Hyundai US has bucked the trend for car manufacturers to lure in new custom by offering 0% finance deals (i.e. what got us into this mess in the first place!) with its aptly-named 'Assurance' programme. The promise? If you lose your job after buying a new Hyundai, you can simply walk away from your loan or lease and return the car to Hyundai. The programme launched in January and so far, Hyundai has recorded an increase of nearly 5% YOY (versus overall US car sales which are down 40% YOY).

Meanwhile in the UK, Tango has shown that manners cost nothing by launching a limited edition can replacing their "Tango" logo with the word "Thanks". Why? Simply to "thank the public for saving the brand" by responding to the "Save Tango" campaign in their droves and boosting sales by 8%.

What could your brand be doing to shore up a little goodwill?

Tweet sheet

trendcentral.com has just published this handy cheat sheet for late-to-the-party Twitter virgins.

"For those still unfamiliar with the real-time microblogging service, here's a look at some of the Twitter trends and terms you need to know:

Celebrity Twitter Streams: While Twitter is primarily used as a self-promotional tool, a large part of the service's appeal is the voyeurism it offers. Through Twitter, celebrities are taking PR initiatives into their own hands, using their tweets to directly reach out to their fans who love following their favorite public figures with such intimacy. Of course there is always the chance you're following a fake, but the blog Valebrity verifies the genuine high-profile users.

Twitter Branding: Want to check out how the competition is using Twitter? A new directory of tweeting brands, Twitter Tracker, compiles real-time updates from companies using the service, such as Whole Foods, JetBlue, and Starbucks.

TweetUps: A TweetUp is an impromptu gathering of fellow Twitter users, many of whom have previously never met in person. These events are usually publicized in the feed of a Twitter user who has an exceptionally large number of followers.

Twitter Slang: Much of the Twitter lexicon originates in gaming terms, like pwned (which we wrote about in New Slang, w00t (it's like a cheer - woot woot! But those "o"s are zeros!), and FTW (for the win), all of which users often use to punctuate their tweets (e.g., "@twitterfriend I just dominated that run. W00t!").

Hashtags: A commonly used character of the 140 permitted in each tweet is the number sign, or the "hashtag." A hashtag is placed before a word in a tweet so that it can be tracked as a trend - Twitter trends change almost daily. For example, when candy company Skittles recently incorporated Twitter users into its online marketing, under the Trend dropdown menu on the Twitter homepage, #skittles was listed. Noted fantasy author Neil Gaiman has a large Twitter following, and after he tweeted about his 33,333rd fan ushering in the "Armageddon," within hours, #Armageddon was one of the highest ranking trends. The power of Twitter!"

Now you've now excuse. Tweet or face defeat!

The lost art of kindness

I’d like to share with you a truly brilliant essay published in the Guardian Review dated Saturday 3rd January.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/03/society-politics

The article runs to some nine pages so allow me to summarise: kindness is dead.

Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor (just Taylor, not Bradford) put it much more eloquently:

“Most people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad and dangerous to know; that as a species - apparently unlike other species of animal - we are deeply and fundamentally antagonistic to each other, that our motives are utterly self-seeking and that our sympathies are forms of self-protectiveness.

Kindness - not sexuality, not violence, not money - has become our forbidden pleasure. In one sense kindness is always hazardous because it is based on a susceptibility to others, a capacity to identify with their pleasures and sufferings. Putting oneself in someone else's shoes, as the saying goes, can be very uncomfortable. But if the pleasures of kindness - like all the greatest human pleasures - are inherently perilous, they are none the less some of the most satisfying we possess.”

I believe there is a learning herein for, believe it or not, brands. Yes, brands - the very pillars of capitalism. The economic downturn represents a great opportunity for brands to show some compassion and understanding for their consumers (and store up some goodwill while they’re at it).

‘Nichetributes’ are a great example of how they could do this. The brilliant http://www.trendwatching.com/ coined the term, which denotes attributes/features/additions to existing products, making them more attractive to specific user groups, while at the same time signalling to those users that the brand ‘gets’ it, that it cares. For consumers, anything practical and useful will go down well in these leaner times, while anything that speaks their language will be reciprocated with appreciation and goodwill.

N.B. This trend is NOT about tailoring your advertising message; it IS about tailoring your product.

So, there you have it. Be kinder. If there’s a better New Year’s resolution out there, I’ve yet to hear it. NG