It's one thing to write about all the wonderful things that some forward-thinking companies are doing in joining the consumer conversation, based on second-hand reports and fancy websites.  But when it comes down to interacting directly with those firms, a dramatically different picture often emerges.  What I have been learning these past few months as I finish the preparation of my next book, Psychological Foundations of Marketing, behind all the social media bells and whistles, many companies may talk the talk, but in the end, it's all bullshit.  Case in point:  Starbucks.

Despite all the praiseworthy pages I scribed in Connecting With Consumers about how Starbucks, after some growing pains, gets it when it comes to customer engagement, when I asked for a little something from them, all I got was a door in my face.  Now, I must admit, I am not a loyal Starbucks customer.  In fact, the only time I've ever been a Starbucks customer is when I was stuck in a Dulles airport terminal (prior to its recent renovation) in Washington and was desperate for a cup of java.  As I waited for my beverage to be prepared at the Starbucks stand, I found myself counting the cockroaches ducking in and out of the containers of straws, spoons, and napkins.  No big deal, I live in Paris, where there are 40,000+ alternatives to the handful of Starbucks stores dispersed around town.  Who needs Starbucks?

Well, actually, I do, or at least thought I did.  In chapter 3 of my new book, my discussion of perception includes some examples of how company logos often are subtly changed over time, to keep them looking up-to-date, to freshen up a brand image, whatever.  One example was to show Starbucks' recent logo change, and here is what I intended to include:




These images appear on untold websites, no doubt without any permission rights obtained from the company.  For my forthcoming book, however, I am understandably obliged by my publisher (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) to obtain the rights from the image owners.  When I attempted to do so from Starbucks, no matter how clearly I explained how the images were to be used, how I wrote glowingly about the company in my previous books, and so on, all I received was a series of, basically, impersonal emails.  Here is a sampling:

1st Email:


2nd Email:

Dear AJ,

 

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.

 

I do apologize but unfortunately we are unable to provide any contact information for our CEO Howard Schultz.

 If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know. 

 

Warm Regards,

 

Emmanuel D

Customer Relations

Starbucks Coffee Company

800 STARBUC (782-7282)

Monday through Friday, 5AM to 8PM (PST)

3rd Email:

Dear @Starbucks,

 

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.

 

 Unfortunately, due to the volume requests we receive, we’re unable to grant the information about the company beyond what we make publicly available.

 

For more information about Starbucks, including our most recent annual reports, visit our website at www.starbucks.com/aboutus and also www.starbucks.com/.  There you will find the Global Responsibility reports, our latest press releases, SEC filings, and general company information.  For industry information such as market share, please visit the Specialty Coffee Association website at www.scaa.org. 

 

We also recommend that you check out www.businesswire.com. This useful website contains media releases, a company profile, and links to stock quotes and our SEC filings.

 

Thanks again for your interest in Starbucks Coffee Company, and good luck with your project.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jaime 

Customer Relations

Starbucks Coffee Company

800 STARBUC (782-7282)

Monday through Friday, 5AM to 8PM (PST)

4th Email:

Dear AJ,

 

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.

 

I am truly sorry about your disappointment and frustration. However as stated by the previous agent we're unable to grant the information about the company beyond what we make publicly available.

 

I want you to know that we take feedback from our loyal customers seriously. Because you know better than anyone else what you want from Starbucks, I will share this with the  appropriate departments here in our corporate office.

 

We have made a promise to our customers to provide outstanding products and service.  I know that this is a primary reason why you visit Starbucks and I understand how disappointing it is when we let you down.

 

Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to improve what we do.

 

If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know. 

 

Thanks again,

  

Anjelika R

Customer Relations

Starbucks Coffee Company

800 STARBUC (782-7282)

Monday through Friday, 5AM to 8PM (PST)

Share your ideas at www.mystarbucksidea.com

5th Email:

Dear AJ,

 

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company.

 

I am sorry, sir, that we are unable to answer your question adequately enough, however we are unable to provide you with any other resources other than the ones made available to you on the website at www.starbucks.com/aboutus and also www.starbucks.com/. While I admire your determination to find the resources to put in your book, the reports that are made public on the above two web links are the only resources that are available.

 

As previously stated, you will find the Global Responsibility reports, our latest press releases, SEC filings, and general company information on the Starbucks website. You can also find industry information such as market share, at www.scaa.org. 

 

If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know. I wish you luck with your book, and hope the information that we can provide will be enough.

 

Warm Regards,

 

Amber C

Customer Relations

Starbucks Coffee Company

800 STARBUC (782-7282)

Monday through Friday, 5AM to 8PM (PST)

As is pretty evident, these are all pretty much form responses which seemed to all ignore the essence of my basic request.  Hardly indicative of a company that is supposed to be so good at 'listening' to consumers.  Several attempts to discuss my request by telephone with someone other than a 'Customer Relations' worker resulted in my turning around in circles and racking up a hefty long-distance phone bill.  So, Starbucks can rest assured that the images that appear here will never appear in any publication written by me, including this website.  I have no idea how the images got onto this site. 

My summary reaction is that Starbucks is a joke.

I also requested permission to run the following in-store poster that appeared in Starbucks stores shortly after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.





This poster, as is now widely known, was viewed by some consumers as too close for comfort.  Here is the passage in my forthcoming book that explains how this incident provides a good illustration of the subjectivity of consumer perception:

Starbucks was forced to pull from 3000 North American outlets its “Collapse Into Cool” promotional poster for the popular coffee chain’s new TazoCitrus drinks when numerous consumers complained that the poster’s imagery (flying insects surrounding two tall iced beverages) was overly reminiscent of the September 11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center (see Exhibit 3.2).  Although the ad had nothing to do with the event, the combination of the term “collapse” and the unfortunate choice of illustration was perceived by some consumers as insensitive on the part of the company and a malicious attempt to capitalize on the misfortunes of others (Roeper, 2002).   This example reflects the fact that although people may receive information about the environment through the senses essentially in the same way, perception tends to be more individualistic.  Thus, what one consumer might perceive as a rather innocuous promotional poster from an internationally-known coffeehouse chain, another may interpret as an insensitive and offensive allusion to a national tragedy.

I can better understand Starbucks' reluctance to have this image appear again in the public eye (despite the fact that it too can be found on countless Internet sites, such as the snopes.com site, which debunks the original charges that the association to the World Trade Center was intentional), yet when I asked for permission rights, all I got in return were more of those emails you see above.

Starbucks isn't the only culprit - in subsequent installments, I will detail how the responses I received from other supposedly engagement-friendly companies, such as The Gap, Colgate-Palmolive, Nespresso, were worse than those from Starbucks.  If this is how these companies treat authors who are offering an opportunity to discuss the marketing practices in an innocuous way, I can only imagine how they treat customers with complaints.  Well, as for Starbucks, there already is some indication of that - the Starbucked.com website that I discussed in Connecting With Consumers is still up and running.  Perhaps those cockroaches were symbolic of the brand after all.

"More people are depending on reviews for what to buy and where to go, so the incentives for faking are getting bigger," says University of Illinois computer science professor Bing Liu. 

That consumers are increasingly turning to online reviews prior to making a purchase (offline or online) is now pretty much common knowledge.  I wrote extensively about this in Connecting With Consumers in my discussion of WOM and have posted a separate entry at this site on the power of consumer reviews.  That a majority of online reviews tend to be positive, with a ratio relative to negative reviews estimated anywhere from 3:1 (Robert East and his colleagues at the UK's Kingston U.) to 6:1 (Keller-Faye), already raises questions about whether many reviews may be bogus.

It is one thing for blatantly fake raves to be anonymously posted by unscrupulous e-commerce marketers, the equivalent of the used-car salesman freshly painting a worthless crate to move it off the lot, but now it appears that online tactics are becoming more subtle. Last week amazon.com seller VIP Deals offered buyers of its $10 plus shipping leather case for the Kindle Fire (list priced at $59.99) a full rebate for writing "a product review for the Amazon community."  The offer was explained in a letter that arrived in the package along with the leather case, further explaining, "In return for writing the review, we will refund your order so you will have received the product for free."  Although it wasn't specified that the review had to be positive, the statement "We strive to earn 100% perfect 'FIVE-STAR' scores from you!" made it abundantly clear what kind of review was sought - the not-so-subtle equivalent of a wink, an arm twist, and a quick elbow jab to the ribs.  So it is no surprise that by last week, 310 out of 335 reviews of the leather case were five stars and most of the others were four stars, and the company itself had received 4,945 reviews on Amazon resulting in a nearly perfect 4.9 rating out of five.

Unfortunately, this tactic is nothing new.  Representatives of TripAdvisor have learned that an increasing number of hotels are bribing their guests with offers of free rooms, upgrades, and discounts if they post an "honest" but "positive" review of their property on TripAdvisor.  If you've searched for a hotel online, you probably have a good idea what these bogus missives sound like, especially if you yourself have been misled:  "Wow, what a find," or " a peaceful paradise"  or "perfect in every way!"  There is nothing wrong with owners encouraging customers to 'spread the word,' or 'write a favorable review'--a clear incentive to provide good service-- but when the offer of an incentive is thrown in, then things get dicey.

In the US, for example, the regulatory agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has rules stating that when there is a connection between a merchant and someone promoting its product that affects the endorsement's credibility, it must be fully disclosed.  Failure to comply can be costly.  Last March, a company that sells music instructional tapes, Legacy Learning Systems settled charges that it had hired affiliates to post favorable reviews on Web sites, paying $250,000 in fine.  TripAdvisor places a red flag against those properties it suspects of paid-for-reviews, but alas there is no foolproof way at present to nab all the culprits.  Considering that reviews can make or break a hotel or restaurant on such a powerful site, more precise methods are sorely needed.  The aforementioned Prof. Liu is among those working on the development of mathematical models to systematically I.D. the bogus endorsements.  

So while we wait for those computer gurus to find a sure solution for 'fakespotting,' here are three simple tips offered by Rebecca Greenfield (The Atlantic):

My fear is that as more companies continue to jump on the fake review bandwagon, viewing it as a cheap way of marketing, it won't be long before consumers stop trusting customer reviews entirely.  And once you shoot an arrow through the heart of WOM, what are we left with but traditional advertising.  Do we really want to go back? 

Some good advice from Sundeep Kapur over at ClickZ.

In the pursuit of trying to get things done, some "top" brands have made mistakes. Here are some things to avoid, with no exceptions - things that I hope are rarely repeated.

1. Run specials all the time. In a struggle to keep the consumer engaged, brands tend to keep offering consumers special deals. This all-out effort to discount and lure tends to have a negative impact by devaluing the brand and devaluing the relationship.
2. Wait for people to come. Brands set up shop on social media sites and simply wait for the consumer to come and find them. They do little to engage via dialogue or by trying to market along other channels. They have simply set up shop and expect that it is good enough to drive consumers in.
3. Run contests and games all the time. Gamification is the new buzzword for engagement with many brands investing significantly in games to engage their consumers. Additionally, brands tend to run multiple contests, which results in severely diluting their engagement to conversion metrics.
4. Block negative feedback. Many top brands tend to either block or ignore negative feedback. If you put up a comment on their site they either take it down or have a defined strategy to push the bad comments as far down as possible. This strategy diminishes the value of the positive comments.
5. Launch press releases on social media. Do you pay attention to more than 300 characters or watch long video clips? Brands tend to forget the conversational nature of engagement on social media sites - short, interesting stories are a much better way to engage.
6. Wait 24 hours to respond. Some brands take a long time to respond because they only check "social feedback" twice a week. Other brands take a long time to respond because they have to get approval before they can respond. The problem is that if you take too long, the consumer will probably call your brand for an answer or move over to someone else.
7. Not connecting your channels. Always a classic with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Just two weeks ago, a major travel company sent two types of incentives - a gas discount card by email that shaved 10 cents off each gallon and a gas discount offer via social media that offered a five cent discount. It took a direct mail piece to fix the issue.
8. Snoop on and shock your customers. While it's OK for a brand to leverage "widgets" to track consumer behavior on social media sites, it's scary when the brand surprises these consumers with offers. A click on a social link led to a phone call by a cruise representative who unabashedly told me that he observed my behavior online.
9. Just roll along. Some brands feel that it's OK to reach a certain critical mass in social media after which their sites can just "roll along." The snowball can roll the wrong way and hurt brands.
10. Focus on "likes." A blind focus on driving up "likes" has led to the "like" button being devalued and resulted in significantly lower ROI.
11. "Wait" to get started. Believe it or not there are still brands, especially in the financial services area, that are waiting for the social media "fad" to end.

Feel free to add your own, just click 'comment.'

'Flawsome.' It may not be a word that you'll find in the dictionary, but an increasing number of companies are using the strategy, whether they know it or not. In the spirit of the new year, I reproduce verbatim, this short piece on flawsomeness from [Forbes|http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisperry/2011/12/19/what-should-top-brands-new-year-resolutions-be-flawsome/|en].

What Should Top Brands' New Year Resolutions? Be 'Flawsome'

A nice followup to my last post pertaining to smartphones, this HackCollege.com infographic comes to me by way of Peter Kim, and offers some perspective on the role of the portable phone in the lives of contemporary American students.  Granted, the sample is small: 200 respondents randomly sampled from several universities nationwide, and somewhat skewed in favor of females (approx. 60-70%). 

By their nature, infographics provide a rather superficial glimpse of current trends and behaviors, so take this for what it's worth.  Needless to say, while we might quibble with the numbers, for many youth, take away their phones and you take away part of their selves.

Created by: HackCollege

Paris is an amazing city, I don't deny that, and I am sure that by living here, I am the envy of millions of people living in lesser cities, towns, or villages.  That said, Paris shares a major drawback that one can find in any alternative burg - people!  Here we are in the 21st century, with technology evolving at a mindboggling pace, enhancing our lives in untold ways, and yet many people seem to be stuck in the Stone Age - grunting in response to a simple request, blowing smoke in your face, bumping into you on the sidewalk as if you are invisible, resting their filthy trainers on metro seats, spitting and urinating in public, and in many cities, like the one in the US where I grew up, shooting, stabbing, maiming, punching, drowning, and whatnot, just for the hell of it.  What to do, yes, what to do?  Perhaps the obvious answer to how to cope with the caveperson formerly known as 'human' is just in front of our noses:  stay home!

According to a recent infographic, among several offered up by Peter Kim, who claims to have taken a fancy to this site, the computer and the Internet have made the 'never leave home again' coping mechanism increasingly possible.  You be the judge.

I personally think there is something to be said for leaving the home from time to time.  One reason is to chase after my cat, who is not yet 'connected.'  Another is to go to work, which I still can't completely do from home, although it probably won't be too long before most teaching is done via a computer screen - I've already exploited that possibility with some video teaching I did for TEC students sitting in a Monterrey, Mexico classroom.  Another is to actually meet up with people you like - that is, the non-cavemen types - in actual bricks and mortar settings, to converse around drinks, catch a live band, visit an art gallery, attend a baseball game, and my personal favorite, to have an original meal in a restaurant (without which my Paris Restaurants and Beyond blog would be lame indeed).  Not that these activities can't be accomplished virtually (although I'm a bit stuck figuring out how to accomplish the restaurant feat in virtual life), but from my perspective, something is clearly lost in translation.  What's scarier than not having to leave home at all are all those device obsessed persons in the real world who psychologically are nowhere except in their devices.  Watching many young Parisians walking around town while frantically texting, checking their messages, talking on the phone, etc. - don't tell me they are in Paris.  They are in the device, which for many, might as well be home.




Created by: College At Home

With all the talk these days about consumer insight, we sometimes forget that demographics matter.  The Facebook agency SocialCode just reported some findings relating gender and age to Facebook ad clickthroughs and "likes." 

Since last Fall up to August 2011, SocialCode analyzed Facebook ads for 50 clients and focused on those that included an image, text and a “like” button. The study analyzed how many consumers clicked on the ads, and from there, how many went on to “like” the company’s page.

Though the results are not exactly striking, the study revealed women to be more likely to click on an ad on Facebook, though both men and women are about equally likely to then click “like” once they’ve done so. The average clickthrough rate for women of all ages was 0.029%, compared to 0.026% for men of all ages. The “like” rate among those who clicked an ad was 39% for women and 38% for men.

In terms of age differences, older consumers were more likely to click on a Facebook ad, with clickthrough rates increasing from 0.026% for the 18-to-29 age range, up to 0.033% for the over-50 group.  As I said, not exactly striking, but there it is.  Moreover, consumers under the age of 50 were more likely to then “like” a brand, with 18- to 29-year-olds and 40- to 49-year-olds doing so 40% of the time. Those ages 30 to 39 had a 38% “like” rate, while only 36% of those over 50 hit the “like” button.

The conclusion?  According to eMarketer, 'Marketers can leverage these data to create Facebook ad campaigns that resonate with their target audience, and thereby increase “likes” and clickthrough rates. For example, in order to reach an older audience, brands should optimize their landing pages so these consumers can learn more about brands without necessarily clicking “like” right away. If brands are targeting a younger, more male audience, in particular, they would be well-served to focus on the “like” button within the ad.'

Good advice, but how did 'Like' become such a central benchmark of anything in marketing?  'Like' just sounds so milquetoast, kind of like having your date tell you that you are a 'nice' person, but he/she wants to start seeing somebody else.  If you're such a nice guy, for example, wouldn't she want to keep seeing you?  Or is it that she 'likes' you, but can live without you?  See what I mean?  It's pretty easy to be mildly amused by a humorous message and quickly click the thumbs-up 'like' button.  Ten seconds later, you are likely to have forgotten the brand and the message.  Who wants that?  As an attitudinal reference, I'm not sure 'like' taps any lasting evaluation.  Pringles has garnered nearly 15.5 million 'likes' for its Facebook fan page.  It's a pretty decent page, with nearly 100% response to consumer posts, plenty of short, amusing videos, etc.  How many of those 15.5 million 'friends' return to the page on a regular basis or truly appreciate the product?  'Like' - Just a passive measure of an increasingly passive culture.

Eagerly anticipating the copious food and endlessly flowing wine at the recent European Marketing Academy (EMAC) conference in Ljubljana, I knew I was in trouble when they first shuttled everyone into an auditorium and presented some local flavor in the form of a Slovenian playing what was proclaimed as a '6,000 year old whistle.'  Miles Davis he was not, but then I imagine there's not much you can do with a 6,000 year old whistle except to marvel that anything 6,000 years old can still carry a tune.  The whistler was followed by a representative of the global management consulting firm, McKinsey&Company, who began with a breakthrough discovery:  "Consumers are more connected than ever before in history."  Really?  I didn't know that.  For the next 20 minutes, the audience was presented with an oratory about what a great company McKinsey is, which I am sure is very, very true.  But as stomachs started growling, I think quite a few attendees had come to the conclusion that if we weren't yet going to be fed, then it would be better to get that 6,000 year old whistle back on the stage.  Anything but more McKinsey self-plaudits.  Better to get off the stage and get back to issuing pithy and terse reports, like its May 2011 Consumer and Shopper Insights paper on consumer engagement, penned by David Edelman, Patricia Ellen, and Christoph Erbenich, available at this link.  

To make a long story short, McKinsey developed a "Consumer Decision Journey" (CDJ) model in 2009, which incorporates four steps that organizations can follow to engage consumers at each step of the consumer journey from the initial purchasing consideration to the creation of brand loyals: Align, Link, Lock, and Loop.

ALIGN:  Invest marketing resources where consumers spend their time.  This likely will involve shifting resources from the 'consider' and 'buy' stages of the CDJ to the 'evaluate' and 'advocate' stages.  For many companies, investments will have to shift from paid media (channels owned by other companies, like print or online newspapers) to self-owned media (like the brand's Web sites) and earned media (such as customer-created channels like brand communities).

LINK:  Messages must reinforce each other, a daunting task in light of the proliferation of channels.  This doesn't only pertain to promotions, but also to product model numbers and descriptions, images, etc.  Edelman et al.  point to Apple's effort to eliminate jargon and maintain consistency in its product descriptions, creating a rich library of explanatory videos, etc.  Consistency, accuracy, and accuracy across touchpoints is critical.

LOCK:  Keep customers attention.  This requires the development of direct, opt-in channels, including email promotions, Twitter and Facebook feeds, and apps.  For example, McDonald's targeted millions of Japan's mobile-savvy consumers to sign up for mobile alerts with discount coupons, opportunities to participate in contests, special-event invitations, and other brand-specific content.  Keep it coming, keep it fresh, and offer consumers something they value, and I bet you don't lose their attention.

LOOP: Focus on consumer and expert created content for insights into customers and the brand, and use data collected about customers to create content that will engage them.  As I emphasize in my book Connecting With Consumers, it is critical to listen to consumers, but if you don't then apply those insights to better connect with customers, what's the point?  Edelman et al. give kudos to Amazon in this regard - the company invites customers to rate products and then makes the ratings available to shoppers.  But Amazon goes further - it also uses the data to decide how it presents its products.  This is what is meant by an information-rich loop, which goes from data to content and back to data, all contributing to product development, customer support, and personalized communications.

Hard to believe that YouTube is a mere six years old.  Why is it that it seems to have been around forever?  Way back in 2007, a mind-boggling 8 hours of video was uploaded every minute.  Today, that figure has jumped to 48 hours of video is uploaded per minute, or 69,120 hours per day.  And yet there are still company representatives who have the audacity to say, "We've uploaded a viral video to YouTube!"  And I say, "good luck."  Hard to tell which is more difficult - having your television advertisement stand out and become memorable or having a YouTube video go viral.  As WOMMA's Pat McCarthy observed, "We’re entering a validation era where content needs to come from trusted sources and be easily digestible."

From Courtenay Bird's Tumblr site:

 

Here you go, a very insightful infographic shedding light on the value of social media for firms.  This is based on research conducted by Syncapse, including a comparison of 20 brands to assess the economic potential of having fans on Facebook.  Thanks to WOMMA's Pat McCarthy for bringing this to my attention.