I have a confession.

When I’m not using Starbucks to up my cool quotient at the office, I’m happy to grab coffee from the first place that doesn’t have a nightmare lineup. Being a coffee agnostic has allowed me to enjoy (read: judge) the brand experience of a few different places.

Over the last few years, one of biggest changes I’ve noticed in coffee is lid engineering. There seems to be a healthy interest in redesigning lids so that they spill less. Pretty good deal. But it’s baffling that one of Canada’s largest coffee suppliers, Tim Hortons, has failed to switch their lids over. In fact, they’ve been pretty mum on the issue, even as it picks up some chatter on blogs and a few news sites. Yes, I’ve done my research.

Ignoring the fiscal or engineering challenges involved, the chatter got me thinking about brand experiences.

Spilled coffee is an inconvenience, but having all of your competitors offer a better solution to this problem is another realm entirely. Ignoring room for improvement to basic offerings moves it into the realm of a failed brand experience.

Think of it this way: between innovating new donuts, marketing, new contest and events, etc. someone forgot the table stakes: the coffee itself and the “on the go” experience in general.

Starbucks and Second Cup are one thing. But when McDonald’s – a “cafe” bandwagon jumper of the first order – even opts to address the issue, Tim Hortons’ omission becomes all the more glaring. They’re the odd-one out in a world where a few innocuous design changes mean the difference between my soggy jeans and actually enjoying my coffee.

Whether Timmy’s wakes up and notices this silent revolution is yet to be seen, but it’s a good, caffeinated reminder that we need to keep our eye on every part of the brand experience — not just the parts that have maple leaf die-cut sprinkles on them.

Attention marketers! Your brand is probably on Facebook, right? And I’ll bet getting “likes” is Priority One because it’s the closest thing you have to a brand relevance barometer. I bet you think the more likes you get, the more you’re in the hearts and minds of consumers. Which in turn gives you permission to fill their news feeds with product information and attempts to create culturally contextual and relevant status updates in the hopes of keeping the dialogue going. Right? Maybe. Up to a point.

But for most brands in the social space, the conversation is decidedly one-sided. Or in the case of the lucky ones where it IS two sided, it’s actually “bilaterally unilateral.” (I just made that up). You talk about what you want. Your consumer talks about what they want. But you pass like ships in the night.

This is a missed opportunity that can actually a negative impact on brand equity, the very thing you are trying to bolster on Facebook. While it takes very little effort for a consumer to “like” your brand, it does take effort to write on your wall or post picture or a video. And when you ignore it, it’s like ignoring a complement; a virtual slap in the face. The inverse is also true. If you take the time to like your fans’ posts, nurture the friendship, even write comments, their love for you will grow exponentially.

I speak from personal experience. There have been numerous times when I have posted videos and pictures to the wall of some of my favourite brands. Usually, it’s me using the product along with a comment about how much I love it. Only twice has a brand bothered to respond. And let me tell you, when it DID, I was really happy about it. So kudos to you, Big Green Egg Canada and Memphis Drum Shop. Thank you for liking me back. You’ve done more than validate my existence. You’ve reinforced why I “liked” you.

Now I know what you’re thinking. It’s not cheap to put resources against Facebook community management. But ask yourself what true loyalty is worth. If you are serious about participating in the social space, then take it seriously. Develop a community management strategy, please. Mine your wall for insights. Respond to consumers. Play to Facebook’s strengths: being social and creating dialogues.

And for those brands who ignored my posts of good will in the past? You can go to hell.

You’re in the middle of the cosmetics/electronics/frozen foods aisle, scoping things out. Suddenly a trigger goes off somewhere in your cerebrum. “Wait,” you think to yourself, “isn’t that the brand my best friend raves about?”

We’re a new generation, we’re hyper-connected and savvy about the information we consume. But the fact is that the most credible source of persuasion comes from those you trust: your friends and your family. That’s why word of mouth is the best kind of marketing. It’s honest and personal.

When consumers are weighing their options, how do you leverage the positive word of mouth influence that gets consumers to reach for your brand?

Meet the YouTube influencer.

There’s a sense of trust that comes with seeing an average person demonstrate the use of product without all the sparkle and shine of a professional shoot. The personal nature of the communications has an added layer of credibility. We believe the person is speaking honestly and is unlikely to have an ulterior motive. We believe them to be ‘regular’ people like you or I. YouTube does a great job of creating a sense of community and connecting you to the person you’re watching.

While a few brands have tested the waters with YouTube influencers, only a few have done it well. Take Michelle Phan, for example. She’s a 24-year old art student living in Florida, who used to work part-time as a server in a sushi restaurant – and she’s the number 1 most subscribed woman on YouTube with over a million subscribers. Phan made her YouTube debut in late 2006 with her beauty tutorials and has since posted over 135 videos.

Eager to leverage the power of Phan’s subscriber base and tap into the younger mindset Lancôme hired Phan as their official video artist. Co-branding a line with the YouTube sensation and having her incorporate Lancôme products in her videos has helped infuse youth back into a brand that was spiraling towards the archaic.

The key to partnering with a YouTube influencer is that the content must continue to engage users, but in an organic way. The positive buzz needs to be injected into conversations directly. The desired end goal is that consumers feel like they can trust the influencer as they would a friend.

Food for Thought: How can we organically create positive ‘word of mouth buzz’ and help our brands to become more trusted among consumers? Is there a way to transform the positive impacts influencers can have on brand image into measurable results?

Contests and sweepstakes are a huge part of marketing in Canada. In fact, Canadian companies spend about $200 million dollars a year on contest and promotions*. With the help of contest chat rooms and websites that exist purely to make it easier for “contesters” to enter everything available to man kind; you’re going to encounter an interesting phenomenon: pro contesters.

As a new-ish community manager, I was definitely not prepared for what I would experience working on my first big sweepstakes promotion. I came across people who would literally hunt and hoard bottle caps to collect PINs for entry. It was an eye opener which taught me a couple things about running a contest which I think may be valuable to share.

Contestors actually read legal. They will use it to their advantage (and sometimes to your disadvantage). If the contest allows for unlimited entries, you will inevitably find that some people will enter to their hearts’ content. This could mean they literally fill out thousands of written entries, or sometimes use entering software to enter a sweepstakes as much as mechanically possible. The magic words here are: one entry per person – unless of course you need a PIN number from inside the product.

Make contests about buzz. Why have a simple contact form to enter a contest when you can ask consumers to create and share videos, Photoshop their own ad or write a good old-fashioned essay? Making the entry process a bit more time consuming and helps shine a light on those who are truly passionate about the brand. Volume of entries alone doesn’t indicate how engaging your contest is. It may just mean that your prize is good enough to have drawn a group of pros.

In the end, a truly engaging contest will attract a huge number of entries from a cross section of types who are “in it to win it.” The question is, which types of promotions help elevate the brand – the ones that draw more eyeballs and entries overall, or the ones that tease out those who are potential brand ambassadors.

*Stat from the 2008 CBC Documentary “Winning for a Living.”

Great branding is in the details. It’s granular. It’s about levering every possible touch point to reinforce a consistent message. So imagine my delight upon to discovering a brand that’s sweating their brand identity right down to a discount promo code.

Bonobos is an internet-driven men’s clothing brand and e-tailer that pride itself on a refusal to sacrifice comfort and fit for the sake of style. Earlier this week I came upon a web banner ad that drove that message home. Short and Sweet.

“Buttery Soft” it read. To be more precise, it read “20% OFF. Use this code: ‘Buttery Soft’ to get offer.” I clicked through. I poked around their site. I came away understanding a distinctive point of view – comfortable men’s clothing – from an online, everyman’s clothing retailer.

Comfort, in and of itself, may not seem to be a unique, or distinctive claim. In this case though, the comfort thread is sewn through every tout, copy claim and even the tone of voice employed on their blog. Bonobos owns it.

And I own a new pair of cords.

In 2008, Mountain Dew created a music label called Green Label Sound. In 2010, Converse announced the opening of their recording studio called Rubber Tracks. Other than having to do with music, what do these events have to do with one another? They both offer artists a chance, for free, to go into a studio to record and then release music. The brands have no control over the music produced, the artists retain ownership rights, and the songs are not intended to be used in commercials. Bands also get the advantage of funding to record albums and film music videos, as well as access to marketing and distribution channels. So what’s in it for the brand? Brands gain a halo by sponsoring young and cool upcoming bands – and that halo can be molded by the brand depending on how they want to be perceived: popular, youthful, fun, serious, controversial, mainstream, innovative, etc. They also gain relevance, credibility, and perhaps even appreciated from consumers for who music is a large part of their lives.

Inevitably, a question gets raised: are these bands selling out by basically accepting a corporate sponsorship?

Think back to when Apple began advertising the iPod in 2001 with a track by the Propellerheads, and then raised the profiles of artists like Jet and Feist through their commercials. 10 years later, popular tracks are leveraged and licensed by car brands, beer brands, food brands, and brands in pretty much every other category advertising on TV or the internet. The ease of access to music by consumers nowadays, whether it’s through blog reviews, Pandora type suggestion apps or instant download via iTunes, means that bands are facing increased competition and are struggling to literally get their voices out there. Some bands will do anything to get their music heard, and it’s become a common occurrence for bands to let brands use their music – and their coolness by association. Which in turn makes bands more comfortable recording with music labels funded by brands like Starbucks, Red Bull, Converse, and Mountain Dew. Does this signal the death of the traditional music label? Definitely not – these brands aren’t necessarily looking to compete or invest on that level. But for artists that might never otherwise get the chance to put out their record, it’s not likely that they’ll forget the brand that helped make their dream come true.

Food For Thought: Think about the types of symbiotic relationships that could benefit your brands. Is a program which doesn’t necessarily deliver a measurable ROI justifiable – or determined to be a success?

I was mildly excited about Facebook deals when it was announced 4 months ago. By April of this year, I had already signed up for Groupon, Living Social, WagJag & FabFind. While I hadn’t bought anything yet, checking my daily deals had already become part of my daily routine, so Facebook seemed like another viable option. Any time Facebook does something, it’s big news, so I guess I was hoping this would equal big deals. And being in marketing, the mild excitement continued at work of course.  “Facebook has just launched its deals platform. They’re testing it in 5 cities. Once it expands, we can use it to leverage our brand”.

Unfortunately for us, we won’t have the chance to try, since Facebook announced last week that it’s canning deals.

This news was a bit of a surprise, but what was interesting was that Facebook really gave no reason at all. All they said was: “We think there is a lot of power in a social approach to driving people into local businesses…we’ve learned a lot from our test and we’ll continue to evaluate how to best serve local businesses.” A quick Google search will present hundreds of theories as to what happened – from the idea that Facebook may not want to compete with some of its big advertisers such as Groupon, to the thought that deals market is completely over-saturated and may not be as profitable as one may think.

Perhaps the most important consideration however, is that Facebook is social. Deals are not. Maybe deals never really belonged on Facebook in the first place. At least, not in the way that was initially proposed.

Checking my daily deals is still part of my routine. I do it while blow-drying my hair. I might buy something, I might not. A deal alone is definitely not social though, at least not for me. While it’s always nice to save some money, a deal alone won’t strengthen my connection to that brand. If there is some sort of experience around that deal however, it could be a completely different story. Had Facebook introduced deals in a way that fit organically with their philosophy – that everything is more fun when it’s social – perhaps the results of their test would have been different. Maybe getting a deal on Facebook doesn’t make sense unless I can somehow experience it with my friends.

Food For Thought: Facebook’s foray into the “new hot thing” seems to have fallen flat because it ignored a crucial of what makes Facebook, Facebook – namely, sociability. What’s the best way to provide your consumers with a new offering or experience, while still staying true to the core of your brand?

“Influence” – one of the big buzz words in the social space for 2011.  It’s a word that marketers are intimately familiar with – just ask pysop.tv.

But as is the case with many words adopted by the digital community, the meaning has been beaten about a bit.

Influence can be calculated through the probability of message amplification, which is measurable by tools like PeerIndex and Klout. Though each of these services has its own algorithm to do all the complex math bits, the premise is pretty simple: measure the ratio between talking and engagement, and multiply the result by the size of your network.

For example, Klout knows that I have 700+ followers on Twitter, 2500 tweets, 200 unique mentions, and x number retweets. Based on this information they give me a Klout score of 61 (give or take). They give a 35% likelihood that my content will amplify, with a possible reach of 15,000+ people.

Klout may believe that I am a “key influencer,” but that may not necessarily be the case. It might just be that I am good at finding content from other influencers. The reality is that content is king: its the links, thoughts and memes that are the spreadable commodity. So while “reach” is a form of influence, it isn’t the primary type of influence that individuals or brands should seek out if they’re looking to shift perceptions or spur action.

So how can you influence behaviour? Studies show us that consumer behaviour is most readily influenced by peer opinion. Marketers’ first instinct has been to use social media to amplify their brand messaging, in the hopes that consumers who share that message will radiate credibility to their friends. But this is only partially true, because its really the content of the share that will influence further sharing. If it is apparent that a consumer is being incented to share crappy content, the credibility of that content decreases. Concurrently, if the brand lacks credibility, the likelihood of pickup also decreases.

But how do you establish that credible, shareable presence? It’s a massive question, but a partial response can be found in studying consumer behaviour. And here we see something we already knew: people’s consumer behavior is altered by their friends, because they trust their friends, and generally appreciate the content that they share. So the short answer to the holy grail of gaining credible influence? Be true to your brand image, and dole out great content.

I can’t therefore stress the importance or expansive nature of “content,” which can be regarded as anything the brand is offering to its consumers. The “value” of content may be intangible (in the service of entertainment, creating emotional connection, or otherwise haloing the brand), or more obviously geared to improving consumer experience (loyalty programs, retail experiences or utilities). Each of these pieces plays a role. Eliminating things like commercials or digital engagement experiences removes a piece of the influence-building puzzle, because its this content that provides hooks for amplification.

The social space is the new reality of the consumer. When they see a product that they really like, a commercial they find funny or have a great or horrible experience at a store, they communicate it on mass to their friends and networks. And even then, they will probably only do so if the content feels authentic.

The most obvious way to pave the way to authenticity in your brand’s communications is to act in a consistent manner to the message you are delivering. But remember even if your brand strives to be authentic, you must still earn the trust of the consumer by offering:

1) Consistency: Try to consistently deliver content that resonates with the consumer. It also means consistently engaging with the community, and making an effort to reach into the other communities your consumer engages in.

2) Agility: The perception of authenticity is heightened by the speed and accuracy with which a brand responds. Say the right things quickly, and avoid sounding scripted.

3) Repayment: Followers volunteer time to consume the brand’s content. Pay that time back. Consider spreading information about relevant local events over Twitter, or drawing attention to a fan’s content (art, music).

The combination of solid content and an authentic, engaged presence is what paves the way to influence. In the end, the consumer votes with every tweet, every comment, every like, and every purchase. Influence comes from the community deciding whom they trust enough to follow, believe and ultimately buy from.

Are there any other ways in which you feel a brand can gain influence?

I spend a great deal of time talking about brands. Whether the conversation is held with our clients, fellow Grippers, or even with friends who share my fascination with marketing and consumer dynamics, it seems the question of how to build brand equity is a consistent topic.

Many conversations of late have revolved around whether contests and promotions build or undermine brand equity in the long-term. As with many debated in the marketing world the answer is frustratingly non-specific: “it depends.”

Contests and promotions offer brands an opportunity to provide value. In doing so, they have the potential to build affinity with their consumers by rewarding them for being advocates of, or participants in, the world of their brand. It is seemingly, and frequently, positive for a brand, especially when the contest or promotion links well to the objectives and, more importantly, the positioning of the brand. There are a multitude of examples of brands effectively using contests or promotions to build interest with consumers in a way that “fits” with how consumers see the brand.  Generally, these tactics – and they are tactics – work as long as the brand avoids some of the common pitfalls, namely over-reliance on price discounting, confusing mechanisms or high barriers to participation, etc.

Then there are the moments when brands run a promotion that is inconsistent with their consumers’ expectations. And yes, that can be damaging. Frankly, these examples are more fun to look at; in fact, one in particular was the influence behind this post.

A while back a friend forwarded me an email. The first thing that caught my attention was the subject line: “Dinner?”

Hmm, I thought. I do like a good dinner.

The ante was upped a bit when I realized that it had been forwarded, and that the original sender was President Obama. While we must acknowledge that Obama is a person (an American actually – thanks to Mr. Trump for clearing that up), we must also recognize the extent to which he has become a brand. In fact, his equity was strong enough to win him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize before he had done anything (aside from offer relief from the Bush Jr. administration.) At any rate, it’s safe to say that there is a certain tone of prestige and gravitas that I would associate with the Obama brand.

You can imagine my surprise when I realized that this email was essentially contest spam.

The body of the email explained that any donation over $5 to the administration would enter the donor into a draw for a dinner with the President himself. I am not kidding. It gets weirder when you read the poorly drafted faux messages from the man himself:

“I’ve set aside time for four supporters like you to join me for dinner”

“Most campaigns fill their dinner guest lists primarily with Washington lobbyists and special interests. We didn’t get here doing that, and we’re not going to start now.”

And my favourite: “This won’t be a formal affair. It’s the kind of casual meal among friends that I don’t get to have as often as I’d like anymore, so I hope you’ll consider joining me.”

That’s right, a nice casual dinner at the White House with the President with his “friends” who, if you remember, were picked by random lottery after donating a minimum of $5.

I initially thought this email was a joke. It seemed so out of character that my first reaction was to laugh. Then I felt sad. This is a prime example of how to damage the equity of your brand. It seemed less “Obama” than it does “Russell Oliver.”

Hard to believe, but it got worse when I realized that it wasn’t a one-off. A mere 6 days later, my friend forwarded me another email from Joe Biden checking in to make sure that we don’t miss out on this great opportunity. Joe seemingly went to the same writing classes as Obama:

“I’m reminded every week that sitting down for a meal with the President of the United States — without TV cameras or a big crowd — is something only a few people will ever get to do.”

He even signed off by wishing us luck!

The debate will continue as to whether contests or promotions build or diminish a brand’s equity over time. Clearly some, like this spam campaign, can do damage. On the whole though, I think they are a powerful tool when used correctly. They drive the desired behaviour (usually sales) and build brand equity. My one piece of advice would be to ensure that promotions alone aren’t doing the heavy lifting of building your brand. Strive to make this the case, and you will be much more likely to create something of value to the brand as well as the consumer.

You will also avoid embarrassing incidents like the team Obama email.