Buzzword #17,327: 'Advocacy'
Everybody talks about it, every brand wants it and every marketer claims to be able to deliver it.
But what is advocacy?
There thousands of differing definitions but specific to brands and consumers we can describe an advocate as:
A customer who has favourable perceptions of a brand who will talk favourably about a brand to their acquaintances to help generate awareness of the brand or influence purchase intent.
Sounds good right? What brand wouldn't want that?! Having a brand advocate is invaluable. Someone who will promote your products, personally recommend them to friends and colleaugues and who, in all likelihood, will be a repeat purchaser...
Therefore creating advocacy within your customer base is nirvana for all brands, and the best part is that nirvana is achievable, just not via one avenue.
Ad agencies, media agencies, social media consultants, PR executives and mediaowners are all spouting 'miracle grow' strategies for creating advocates for their respective clients.
To be honest, a few months back, i was spouting the same rubbish which went something like this: "social web", "jump in", "dialogue", "be part of the conversation", "creates advocacy" blah blah blah.....
Having actually stopped talking and started listening, learning and understanding i've realised that there is no 'miracle-grow' strategy for advocacy.
Advocates must be earned, and cannot be bought via advertising or by one or two online conversations on Twitter.
If we go back to the definition of advocacy we can break it down into what it truly means to be an advocate.
There are 3 key defined areas which are outlined below:
1). A customer who has favourable perceptions of a brand
2). who will talk favourably about a brand to their acquaintances to help generate awareness of the brand
3). or influence purchase intent.
Translated, the above points mean:
1). I like what the brand stands for, i understand their positioning and messaging and it is relevant to me and resonates with me
2). I like their products and the experiences i have had with the brand, so much so, that i am comfortable recommending them to friends
3). I would buy from them again as they are reliable and deliver on the brand promise they defined in point 1
So where does advertising fit in?
In my view, only really point 1.
We have the ability to convey what the brand/product is, what it stands for, what message we want to get across and where people see the brand and how often...
We do this via creative messaging, media placement, social web interactions and PR....
But to be clear here, we are not creating advocates, we are merely facilitating an initial connection, a lead or a sale.
We're only one third of the advocacy journey (i.e. we can't take them the whole way).
Points 2 and 3 are outside of the control and influence of advertising and/or marketing.
They are about the product or service itself.
Advocacy is built on the basis of a good experience and an experience can be had with multiple touchpoints, all of which can have a bearing on brand favourability.
Some examples are below:
Touchpoint 1: The website - is it easy to navigate and clutter-free with short forms and little demand for personal details?
Touchpoint 2: The shopfront - is it easily accessible with friendly staff, clear pricing and a simple purchase process?
Touchpoint 3: The call centre - are there short waiting times, easily navigated choices and helpful people to speak to?
Touchpoint 4: The product - does it meet expectations, is it good value for money and does it deliver on the original promise made by the advertising?
To create advocates, brands must deliver a good experience (preferably a GREAT experience) in all of the above areas plus advertising and marketing messages.
So who does this well?
Brands deliver on the above promises in varying degrees of success but perhaps one of the most accomplished in this area is Apple.
Apple deliver on all of the above at either a good or great level.
* They create innovative and exciting advertising and messaging which resonates with their core audience
* They have shopfronts which are seductive with big white spaces, funky music, fancy gadgets and super-helpful staff
* They have an easily navigated website which remembers you and your preferences adding a personalised, customised edge to your experience
* Their version of customer service is cheery, fast and individual
* Their products are leading edge, aesthetically pleasing and dependable
So they have brand advocates and a gold star from me.
Apple have achieved nirvana....but not via advertising and marketing alone.
They delivered a 360 degree brand experience.
Now lets take a look at CBA (Commonwealth Bank Australia)....
In early 2008 they released a daring new ad campaign, something which had never before been attempted by a bank in Australia. It recieved mixed reviews, but the point of the advertising was to push their new tagline: 'Determined to be different'
So the advertising said one thing but what about the other touchpoints?
Now CBA didn't go out will the sole purpose of selling more products (at least not overtly), they went out with a brand message which was to dictate who they were and what they stood for.
They didn't have a great track record when it came to customer service but then not many banks do....
With the new 'determined to be different' tagline there was a pressure to deliver on the new brand promise across all areas, otherwise the threat of empty words could result in more harm than good for CBA.
They didn't turn around their customer service overnight but they looked to 'determined to be different' as an aspiration which became an internal mantra for staff and, bit by bit, CBA delivered.
They altered their customer service, they changed perception and they achieved their goal of slowly creating advocates (or as many happy customers as they could considering they're a bank).
Once again, they didn't create these advocates solely through advertising.
They used advertising to position themselves but then carried through on the promise across multiple customer interfacing touchpoints.
Ultimately our job is as the initiator of interactions, we can also have a role in CRM but mostly we create and place messaging, however, the age old saying that "we can lead a horse to water but we cannot make it drink" is especially relevant here.
We can lead a potential customer to a brand but we can't force them to like the product, or buy it. We can't ask them to turn a blind eye to crappy customer service or to recommend a shitty, unreliable product to their friends.
I think we should reframe our promises of advocacy creation to our clients and start to put some of the responsibility back onto them.
We're marketers, not miracle makers.
