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Companies in every category are ready to strike out in
the new direction and are eager to know how to succeed.
There is a need for a new look at what leads to business
success in the current shift from the industrial age
economy to the information age—from the time when most
business was production-based and dealt with the
customer at arm’s length to a time when what you do to
interact with your customers can be critical to your
company’s future.
A new
reality is emerging—a reality in which direct
interaction with the individual prospects and customers
is replacing the mass-market mentality of the past. With
the “wildfire” model, we saw a way to improve
performance along the entire continuum, which turns
likely prospects into longtime customers. It offers a
unified strategy approach in which people who are
actually or potentially your best customers are
identified, contacted, motivated, activated and
cultivated in order to maximize sales and profits.
As I
write this, it is a week since I had a one-on-one
interview with the most powerful woman in Asian
advertising during the 20th Philippine Advertising
Congress in Subic. Michelle Kristula-Green, president of
Leo Burnett and Arc Asia-Pacific, puts a spotlight on
how Leo Burnett’s “wildfire brands” are driven by
technology and the value of human connection more than
ever before. They see themselves into the public
consciousness due to service, trust and community,
rather than traditional advertising.
This
columnist is not talking about the superficial “customer
satisfaction” programs that are standard business
procedure nowadays. Leo Burnett Worldwide and Contagious
magazine introduced the notion of wildfire brands at the
2006 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
“Wildfire Ideas That Spread & Sell” was something quite
different: it’s about finding daring new ways to improve
the quality of life of those who purchase what your
company has to offer; adding value to the sales
transaction by exceeding expectations and developing an
ongoing involvement with the customer.
Wildfire
brands and thinking is a movement away from the “Sell!
Sell! Sell!” dictum of the past marketing era to the
“Tell! Tell! Tell!” marketing style of the new
information age. This is a new kind of corporate culture
that faults managers for not being risk takers—with CEOs
in the most successful companies questioning the
effectiveness of a manager who didn’t fail once in a
while.
Risk
taking and creative intuition, according to Green, are
among the keys to business success. Agencies are
reminded to act less like a “jealous brand guardian” and
instead assume the role of intellectual property
magnate. With wildfire brands, it is doing something
more. They are pushing beyond the marketing wisdom of
the late 20th century into the marketing of the future.
They are exhibiting qualities of heart and guts and
vision that can’t be taught by rules alone and that go
beyond the tactical steps of the marketing process.
“The way
to define wildfire brands is that [it’s a brand that
has] special idea that believes in people and [it also]
spreads and sells frequently through word-of-mouth or
through nontraditional media. [It’s a nontraditional
thinking] and looking for ways to really make genuine
connection [with people],” Green tells this columnist in
an exclusive interview.
As the
clamor and clutter of thousands of advertising claims
all around us become more intense, customer resistance
will continue to harden, making it even more difficult
to get anyone to pay attention to what your advertising
is saying. Direct interaction centered on real customer
interest is the best way to build strong feelings.
“It’s
[about understanding] where your customer is and then
deciding [when the best time] it will reach them.
[Another important key is looking for] how will I engage
them? Because what I don’t want [to do] is just tell
them something. I want them to feel a relationship with
me and my brand,” Green points out.
Too
often when a brand and/or marketing manager or an
outside consultant comes up with a brilliant plan for
getting closer to the customer or investing in a
powerful marketing database to push an
information-driven strategy, initial enthusiasm runs
into the usual set of idea killers.
§
“We
don’t have the money—it’s been allocated to the new
advertising campaign or to a blockbuster promotion
needed to make this quarter’s numbers in the business
plan.”
§
“They
[the senior management] will never buy it.”
§
“We
tried that before and it didn’t work. We don’t have the
people to get it done.”
§
“It’s
just a fad. It will fade away.”
So the
new move is either killed outright or starved to death.
There are a hundred ways to kill a challenging new idea
that might have gotten the company moving in the right
direction. Instead of focusing on what works about the
innovative approach and then fixing the troublesome
parts, management takes the easy way out. They analyze
and critique the big idea and stay with the
tried-and-tested. Trouble is, in the postcold-war
Information Society, what used to be tried-and-tested is
down-and-out.
It’s the
reason why wildfire brands and thinking is a key to
success for many of the agency’s marketing winners. In
her in-depth presentation during the recent Ad Congress,
Green tackled at a number of wildfire thinkers,
including mobile operator Blyk, Stikfas toy campaign,
Joost, Social & Corporate Activism campaign, Earth Hour
and Nintendo’s phenomenally successful Wii.
Cadbury
World is one of the few tourist attraction “theme parks”
run by a brand that is not primarily in the
entertainment business. Many say it has no business to
be doing this, not least some within the company, who
could point out that it has lost money for more years
than it has turned a profit. Of course, it is there for
reasons other than profit—its financial target is in
fact to break even. But Cadbury World helps cement the
brand definition—quality and fun. It doesn’t exploit the
brand, it helps to build the brand, and the vast
majority of its millions of visitors will have creative
and wholly positive interaction.
Wildfire
brands and thinking can perhaps benefit the most from
extending their customer interactions beyond the
confines of their products. Selling services and
solutions rather than products is a common strategy, but
it is not always easy to get the due reward. Using a
brand to identify the package of services and solutions
as a distinct entity from the competitor’s “product” can
help enormously.
Of
course, the Internet has provided a whole new medium for
interaction with many consumer brands operating web
sites that offer product information, deals and very
often advice that helps position the brand on a much
wider footing.
“[The
biggest change we are seeing now] because of the
Internet and mobile phone, you’ve got the major ability
to do word-of-mouth really, really fast,” Green notes.
The
interaction is two-way, providing information to the
brand owners on how to steer their brand positioning in
the future. The consumer is given a new channel of
enquiry in this exchange, and with equal access to
competitors’ sites there is an increase in the
transparency of the brand for the consumer. Choice is
made easier, comparisons are made easier and, in some
cases, genuine enquiry into value received can be made.
In this way, the Internet and mobile phones promise to
keep brands on their toes as much as it gives them a new
medium of interaction.
Since
its launch in 2006, Leo Burnett Worldwide has been
invited to talk about wildfire brands and thinking in
over 20 cities worldwide. With offices in 16 countries
in Asia-Pacific, Leo Burnett handles many of the world’s
top brands, including Marlboro, Procter & Gamble,
Kellogg and McDonald’s.
In a
recent study by the Wall Street Journal about the top
women they believed to have the potential to make
significant impact on business in 2007, the Journal
included Green on its list of “The 50 Women to Watch:
2006,” referring to her as the “most powerful woman in
Asian advertising.” |
