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The hero of the modern brand story is no longer the brand
Email and social marketing, Key to communities, Marketing and branding, Storytelling and marketing
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Before I went on my digression about Steve Jobs and his untimely passing, I was writing a series of entries featuring Dunkin’ Donuts and their innovative use of e-marketing promotions. Let’s look at some of the lessons we can learn from this company’s use of social media. Branding is changing in some fundamental ways: Brands no longer shape people’s ideas. The days when companies could tell end users what to believe through creative TV ads are long gone. Increasingly, modern consumers are influenced by the comments of Facebook friends, by blogs or by online chatter, far more than by any messages they might be hearing from companies. More and more … Continue reading
Give your fans a sense of belonging. Turn them into heroes
Key to communities, Storytelling and marketing
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We ended the last post with the concept of putting the consumer at the center of the action, and turning fans into brand advocates. Dunkin’ Donuts gets a lot of mileage out of its fan community because it finds ways to engage them actively in the brand conversation. Why is this so important? Fans who engage actively in your brand conversation are the ones who will promote you. They are the customers you can enlist to find and win new customers. By leveraging their involvement, we tap into the true power of Internet marketing. When I was doing research for my latest book, Email, social marketing and the art of … Continue reading
Fan engagement at Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts
John's reflections, Key to communities, Marketing and branding, Storytelling, Storytelling and marketing
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In the previous post, I wrote that Dunkin’ Donuts seems to do better than Starbucks at engaging their fan community. Let’s look at why. As a regular visitor to Starbuck’s Facebook page, and a subscriber to their emails, I am often puzzled by the lack of storytelling in their communication. If there is a company with some good stories to tell and an impressive following of loyal customers who could write about their in-store experiences, it would certainly be Starbucks. So, I sometimes wonder: Are they still living mostly in the old world of marketing, the world of one-way messages to their fans? Much like IKEA, Starbucks seems to have … Continue reading
E-marketing at Starbucks: another missed opportunity?
Starbucks is a brand that, similarly to IKEA, enjoys a strong culture, a loyal customer following, and a compelling “founder and origin” story. As Howard Schultz recounts in his memoirs, the beginning of Starbucks was characterized by a fierce commitment to bringing all the excitement, the passion and the quality of an Italian coffee house to America. To me, it is a wonderful story of entrepreneurship and vision, of attention to detail and quality. As a marketing company, Starbucks has also proven its merit. Today, they have locations in many countries around the world, and devoted groups of regular visitors at most of their stores. In spite of all this, … Continue reading
IKEA and authentic storytelling: Are they missing a great opportunity?
After last week’s blog entry, I got a bit curious about IKEA and went looking for further information. In particular, I wanted to see how good they are at storytelling. Much of the information I found is from sweden.se, the gateway site to Sweden. According to this site, IKEA’s catalog has become something of a style Bible for people all over the world. And, the Bible analogy is perhaps a good one. In 2008, the catalog had a print run of 175 million copies, in 27 languages and 35 countries, giving it the highest circulation of any publication worldwide—surpassing the Bible. The British design magazine Icon has called IKEA “the … Continue reading
