how to touch the untouchable?

Is your customer hard to get to, let alone have a conversation with?

Well...why are you trying to have a conversation with them?

Why should they listen?

Maybe it is us who should be doing the listening. To what they have to say.

Mack Collier (@mackcollier) recently shared that Dell customers would be willing to pay more to get better service. An interesting finding for a highly price driven category. Kraft listened when the public told them that the name for the new version of the iconic Australian brand Vegemite, iSnack 2.0, stunk and killed the name in 4 days. As a result both brands have gained much positive media exposure for the way they listened to customers.

Maybe your customer (or potential customer) is not untouchable, they merely expect you to get to know them a little better first?

Flickr photo credit: Verces300

Does your brand have a life after death?

I recently saw an amazing Ted Talk by Dr Nicholas Christakis about the social connections between people and how they affect health outcomes. It got me thinking about how social connections affect brand.

They showed that there is a hard correlation between people with obesity - so much so that if one of your direct connections is obese, you have a 45% likelihood to be obese also. This diminishes with distance of connection.
Why is this?

Dr Christakis categorises 3 main drivers for this 1) induction, if I gain weight it causes you to gain weight 2) homophily, or birds of a feather flocking together and 3) confounding (science speak for some effect that we haven't yet been able to identify). They found that all 3 elements were in play affecting the incidence of obesity. You are not only affected by others, associate with people like yourself....but the effect of that lingers beyond your connection, even beyond death! What lingers goes beyond immediate cause and effect - it becomes part of the fabric, ideas and norms affecting the entire network.

Once the Idea, or connection exists, it remains like a cloud in the air. Intrigued, they then tracked this for positivity, finding that like a common cold, postivity is catching too.

We know that Word of Mouth (WOM) is one of the strongest stimuli influencing purchase behaviour (for B2B and B2C). But what happens when we go beyond WOM as a purchase influencer to the notion of a Sustainable Idea?

Some examples of this notion of a sustainable Idea that is harnessed and propogated by a brand are Earth Hour, Contours (the notion of fast, effective and female friendly workouts), Facebook (an online meeting place) and Nike (perform at all points in your life). Which brands do you think do this well?

What Sustainable Ideas exist around your brand, your business and importantly your tribe? How can you help them spread, connect and grow so you too can spread your own brand of positivity, even after the death of your current campaign?

hat tip: Heidi Allen for pointing out this amazing piece of work. Flickr credit:Binkiexxx

Saturated? Try a sweet tip from the Italians.

Ice cream. You would think that a product whose consumption is weather, leisure and time of day dependent would have a finite saturation point.
Not in Italy!
I was reminded of one of marketing's fundamental principles - to increase total consumption = amount consumed per occasion x no. of occasions.

How do they do it? Well, I saw glamorous fashion girls eating ice cream at work, people strolling at midnight munching, people by themselves, people with their families, people eating ice cream at 10 in the morning. In Italy, ice cream is an any-time snack! The no. of consumption occasions is unlimited.

How do they do it?

• Opening hours are longer for ice cream locations (except supermarkets!!) and it is in many different types of stores.
  
• Consumption is embedded in everyday behaviours - as kids they learn ice cream time is any time!
• There is a broad appeal - even svelte shop girls can be seen eating it
• They create a fabulous product...mmmm gelato!
• Each of the gelato stores does things with a unique twist, be it saucer-shaped scoops, funky packaging or generous mountains of gelato on display.
  

Have you thought about the basics for your brand recently? How can you increase the times that people can enjoy your product? A couple of great ways to stimulate our ideas on this can be (solo or brainstorming):

• Map the phases of the day - i.e. early morning, late morning, lunch etc and map out activities, emotions and social activities that occur - how could your product (or a new version of your product) sweeten that moment?
• Set yourself a challenge - each person need to come up with 5 new times/ways that people could benefit from your product in new occasions and why. Give yourself 10 minutes to do and then discuss.
  
• Drill down into the 1) emotional and 2) rational benefits of your brand - where else could you apply these benefits to your customers?

Have you seen any great examples of brands extending their occasions? Do you have a curly product that you are struggling to do this with? Tell us about it!
flickr photo credit: vicbrasil