Starbucks Social Strategy Keynote Presentation

At the recent Social Influence conference in the UK, Alexandra Wheeler, digital director of Starbucks shares some insights, actions and philosophies that Starbucks has adhered to in order to be one of the most successful brands in the social web space to date.

Starbucks are the largest brand on Facebook with over 10 million followers, they are also number one on Twitter...



Some of the key notes:

• Social is about relationships, not marketing
• Relationships in real life have many dimensions so too should relationships within the social space; such as fun, functionality and social responsibility - adding all of these dimensions and more means you have many ways to curate and create content
• Ensuring 'authenticity' can be easily translated to 'be relevant to your brand and what it stands for' (i.e. don't try to own a space or topic that doesn't fit)
• 'Don't outsource your voice' - don't let your agencies do the talking for you, keep it in house
• Social should always fit within a larger digital strategy which should, in turn, be wrapped into a larger integrated strategy
• Don't get fixated on the number of fans or followers, it's about the idea itself and the resulting opportunity to build new relationships
• 'Build a coalition' - aka - you need to be best friends with legal, marketing, product, partners (franchisees) & technology and they need to understand why engaging with customers in this way is valuable, if you do this you can make some special things happen (i.e Starbucks made it possible to donate to the Haitian crisis through stores within 48 hours of the disaster happening thanks to all departments working together)
• Co-creating the brand experience in partnership with customers leads to infallible advocacy (My Starbucks Idea), and it's not enough just to listen, you need to act (over 100 ideas implemented so far)
• Starbucks digital see themselves as 'content archeologists' but in addition to finding great content they've also become good at saying 'no'. Many people in the organisation say 'we want you to tweet this or post that' but Starbucks digital always ensure that unless it's adding value or creating meaning in that environment then it doesn't go up online. However, they say 'no' in a way that makes the other departments want to then give them something of value and of meaning for their community
• She show's the 'one song, one vision, 156 countries' video which they created to support their relationship with RED and world AIDS day which is amazing
• Opening up new social channels such as Twitter needs to be done with solid consideration of the use of that channel. Starbucks opened Twitter up for their much love Frappucino to help with the discussion about how to customise your drink and to generally tap into the many conversations already happening about that particular product
• However, social isn't just about Facebook or Twitter, it's about looking for those relevant extensions and experiences that can be easily built based on a passionate community (content creation, video mashups, mobile, personalisation)
• Their latest foray has been into looking at the connection between social and mobile with focus on location based ideas, such as the partnership with Foursquare and the creation of a badge and 'mayor' deals, this is all about rewarding loyal customers
• Integrate across the organisation, such as linking in Facebook feedback with that from In Store and the call centre to provide a holistic view of what customers want
• It's great to create new relationships and go after new customers but in the end you must always remember to love your existing customers and communities
• Have fun with your brand and don't take yourself too seriously

Five Steps for Consumer Brands to Earn Social Currency

Here's a great article from Fast Company which contains brand examples, strong statistics and simple pearls of wisdom such as 'advocates trump followers' and 'gimmicks marginalise trust' all within a lovely infographic format (because who doesn't love an infographic!)

A taster...

Read the rest here

The difference between gifts & choices

"When you are 80 years old and in a quiet moment of reflection, narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the series of choices you have made. In the end, we are our choices, build yourself a great story"

An inspiring Princeton class of 2010 graduation speech by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon:
(Start from 6 minutes)

Nudiversity: Radical Communications

As part of Naked's ongoing training program which encourages us to explore everything BUT advertising, we have a regular session known as 'Nudiversity' which is, in simple terms, where we encourage speakers from outside of our industry to come and talk to us and to tell us how they communicate and how their minds work. These speakers could be anyone from musicians to writers to politicians...anything goes.

It's a pretty cool way of conditioning yourself to consistently think outside the barriers and processes, which many of us who have spent time in the industry, have had thrust upon us and within which we've been trained and trained again. After all, creativity is born from human experience, not advertising experience.

This week we had the pleasure of meeting Jess Hall, founder of GoodyTwoShoes communications, she specialises in all things ethical, environmental & sustainable.
She spoke to us about the need for 'radical communications' within these fields due to minimal or no budget and the type of confrontational messaging required to get people to take notice, so thinking outside the box is essential.

She described 'radical communications' as being born out of a formula which can be visualised as:

NECCESSITY (to take action) 
+
MOTIVATION (to make a change) 
+ 
SIGNIFICANT BARRIERS (no public interest, legal issues, companies favouring their bottom line over doing the right thing, government legislation, people with their heads in the sand, no money)
=
RADICAL COMMUNICATIONS (driven by requirement)

Now more than ever the opportunity for communications to make an impact has grown exponentially with the rise of the social web & technology alongside the dissemination of power from the media and government to average joe public.

She shared some amazing examples of these 'radical communications' in action, two of which I've outlined below which I thought were pretty special and inspiring for different reasons:

1). Fuck For Forest (FFF) - A non-profit erotic ecological organization

Pornography + Forest Location = Environmental Change

This is a prime example of multi-lateral thinking. In order to raise money for their cause of saving the world's forests, two Norwegians decided to take a slightly different angle on the traditional preaching and protesting and instead tied together their desires with those of others and thus 'Fuck For Forests' was born.
In essence they film hardcore pornography in forest locations and sell it online with all profits going to the ecological charities of their choice. It may sound a bit bizarre and far-fetched but FFF made over $100,000 in the first year alone and donated the cash to the indigenous communities of Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest fund!


2). The Yes Men - culture jamming activists

Telling lies which should be the truth to raise mass awareness and force change.

These guys are the masters of corporate hoaxes and specialise in bringing attention to social or environmental injustices committed by large corporations who would never themselves apologise, accept responsibility or take action.
The most famous example was in 2004 when one of them posed as a spokesperson for chemical company Dow and talked live on BBC TV on the 20th anniversary of the horrendous Bhopal chemical disaster, in which thousands of people were killed and many thousands more were affected.

During the interview, Mr. Finisterra (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men group) shocked the BBC's audience when he said that not only had Dow decided to accept full responsibility for the incident, but that it was going to pay $12 billion in compensation to the victims. In response to the news, Dow's stock value promptly dropped.

The BBC had fallen into the Yes Men's trap because, while searching for someone at Dow to interview about the Bhopal disaster, its researchers had confused Dow's official website (Dow.com) with a copycat version created by the Yes Men (dowethics.com). The BBC had sent an email to the contact info listed on DowEthics.com, requesting an interview, and the Yes Men had happily complied.

Even though no compensation was paid out and no formal apology from the company was given, the Yes Men succeeded in reminding the world, 20 years later, of Dow's questionable ethics and their continued refusal to take responsibility:




Ethical, environmental and sustainable communications don't always need to be 'radical' because brands have the ability to create and build CSR programs to do some good and therefore bypass most of the barriers normally faced.

Forbes recently compiled a pictorial guide to the some of the most innovative CSR programs by big name brands in recent times which are far from boring and not at all 'radical' but rather fun, relevant and just plain nice.

In addition, Dan Burgess (ex Naked UK) recently wrote a fantastic presentation entitled 'Can the creative industries lead us to a sustainable future?' which compiles some fantastic communications examples and ideas built around the sole purpose of promoting self sufficiency, awareness of consumption and working together for a sustainable future which is well worth a look.

Ultimately I think brands need to take more responsibility for their impact on the environment around them and there is a real appetite out there in consumer-land to hear this stuff and to make a difference together, so rather than leaving these communications to the passionate 'radicals' who ultimately play on a small scale, brands need to get on with it!

Most big corporations fear to talk about their CSR work simply because they're worried they'll be attacked for not doing enough but in reality it's far more likely that people will be receptive to them just doing their bit.

In the words of Clay Shirky "even a brand can tap into it (cognitive surplus) to benefit the greater good".
Food for thought...

Creativity is just connecting things

Yet another reason for planners to read non-advertising stuff voraciously, have non-advertising interests and get out there and do non-advertising things!

If you remain in a bubble, you create in a bubble and will never break the mold or explore beyond the boundaries you set yourself.

via Kitsune Noir

5 key principles for all marketers

Contagious magazine and creative agency Devilfish last week co-hosted a breakfast for forward-thinking marketers in London entitled 'punching above your weight' which encompassed inspiring talks from heavyweights both client side and agency, and luckily for those of us on the other side of the world they wrote all about it here.

There were several great case studies talked about including the likes of Method and mobile start up GiffGaff , but for me, the most inspiring aspect of the talks stemmed from the simple but altogether crucial 5 principles that creative agency Devilfish hold themselves to:

• Be bold
• Make friends
• Keep talking (and listening)
• Make a difference
• Spend less
• Think harder

Many agencies have a core proposition which can govern work output such as Naked's 'everything communicates', Mediacoms 'people first, better results' or BWM's 'challenge, change, grow' but underneath all of these there should be guiding ideals such as these 5 principles which will add more discipline, positivity and direction to what we do.

It's already clear that some of the award winning work that has been created in recent times has met with at least some, if not all of these principles:

Be bold (aka change the status quo)

• Old Spice - the original ad itself (aka talking straight to viewer, continuous shot) as well as the latest 24 hour video bonanza shows us how the future of advertising may look...
• Pepsi Refresh - leaving behind a 23 year Superbowl advertising tradition to focus money entirely on a social media project
• Twelpforce - Best Buy's customer service goes Twitter crazy and responds to all tech questions not just related to Best Buy and it's products

Make friends (build yourself a community or following)

• Starbucks recently became the first brand to achieve 10 million Facebook Fans reportedly worth $1.8 million in potential revenue 
• Again, Twelpforce via customer service and building a strong community following they positively impacted brand health and sales

Keep talking (and listening)

• Gatorade recently launched their social media command centre which houses some amazing bespoke systems and softwares tracking every mention of Gatorade on the social web, their truly understanding that consumer knowledge is power
• Greenpeace has recently shown the value of their continuous social strategy. They have an impressively comprehensive approach such as using Vimeo as a back up when Youtube removes their videos and singling out companies one at a time to launch the most effective plan of attack and impact

Make a difference

• Forbes recently compiled a list of the most innovative CSR programs by brands in recent times which included amazingly simple campaigns such as Tide's 'Loads of hope' which started after Hurricane Katrina and offered to do victims laundry for free as well as the recent Levi's 'Go Forth' idea around urban regeneration

Spend less

• A recent campaign for breast cancer awareness in Poland focused on broadening their communications towards men to educate them about how to feel breasts correctly to identify lumps. They used the insight that men who appreciate breasts may spend more time on porn sites so they housed their campaign on one! They only spent 1,300 Euros and educated 175,000 men in one week

Think harder

• All of the above campaign examples represent people thinking a bit harder about the objectives and the solutions rather than jumping to the 'tried and tested' or obvious answers and should be celebrated for doing so.

Now lets all put these principles into action!

10 brands that will disappear in 2011

I just came across a great article by 24/7 Wall Street who have compiled a list of 10 brands they think will disappear by the end of 2011.

It's interesting to note that 2 of the 10 are facing closure due to advances in technology and their inability to adapt their business models (Blockbuster Video & Readers Digest), this also affects those brands who have been placed on the 'risk list' but are outside of the top 10 such as Borders book stores.

You can read the full article here