The document discusses the growing distrust consumers have towards companies, with a significant shift towards reliance on peer reviews and online discussions. It emphasizes the importance of engaging with customers transparently through digital platforms like blogs and social media to rebuild trust and enhance brand reputation. Marketers are encouraged to listen, connect genuinely with their audience, and create memorable content to stimulate demand and foster community engagement.

1. Engage Your Customers or Die Bridging the Gap between the Marketers and the Market

2. 76% don’t believe companies tell the truth in advertisements (Yankelovich 2006) 68% trust other people “like themselves” up from 22% in 2003 (Edelman Trust Barometer) Consumers don’t Trust us

3. Technology Enables People are Empowered Share & Communicate Blogs Chat Rooms Discussion Boards Email Social Bookmarking Rating/Referrals Shut out Marketers Tivo/DVR On-demand Cable Satellite Radio Pop-up Blockers Plugins Widgets

4. 100 million+ blogs 120,000 new blogs created today 1.4 new blogs every second 1.5 million blog posts today Adult blog usage grew 163% in 2006 The Blogosphere is on Fire

5. User Adoption is Gaining Steam Consumers with high-speed broadband spend 48% of their spare time online. In Q1, more than 3 mm new broadband customers; 56 mm households total. MySpace grew 163% this year. Facebook grew 1300% this year.

6. Customers , Clients and Employees are Talking 1 out of every 5 adults will comment online 80% of all consumers read online recommendations 75% do online research before making a decision 1 out of every 30 comments online is an employee discussing the company they work for (Jupiter Research)

7. What’s this all about? Community

8. Why is this Important? These discussions can and will become branding issues. Google: 82% of 1 st pages have blog/discussion posts. Yahoo: 63% of 1 st pages have blog/discussion posts.

9. “ When marketers took the life out of the messages , audiences started looking for ways to take us out of their lives .” – Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

10. Examples: Successes & Failures

11. Dell Hell People have unprecedented power. Jeff Jarvis started it all on June 21, 2005. Within 1 month of post: Dell received over 300 emails a day in complaints. Over 100 new posts a day with tags “Dell Hell”. First time, Dell was not #1 in customer service.

12. Dell Hell

13. Dell Hell

14. Launched October 06. Viewed over 2 million times. Commented over 1000 times. Favored over 10,000 times. Over 1 mil searches in Google. Launched a phase 2 & 3. Dove Evolution

15. Did everything right. Huge buzz Blogosphere fully engaged. Disappointing revenues. Opening weekend is about hype, the second weekend is about word of mouth. Snakes on a Plane

16. They lied. Flippant when caught. Another PR nightmare. Will be forever linked to agency. Huge backlash Sony – All I want for Xmas is a PSP “ Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn’t a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony…..”

17. Pretended to be something that it is not Blogosphere attacked Bad PR for Wal-Mart and Edelman Steve Rubel Wal-Mart – Wal-Marting Across America "The moment you hide something, you will end up being exposed and picked apart."

18. Control – It’s time to accept we don’t have it Power to the people! Don’t be afraid of it, embrace it. Pretending it is not there will not make it go away. Your own focus groups

19. Honesty is rewarded Gain people’s trust back Speak to people not at them Mitigate risk DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAIL! It’s Ok to Admit Your Wrong

20. Where do we Start?

21. Connecting with users causes them to want to engage stimulating demand . Marketers must connect with their target market and be better listeners .

22. Begin by Listening Find where our clients’ customers are talking Locate Listen Monitor Plan Action

23. Monitor

24. Create something worth talking about . DO SOMETHING REMARKABLE

25. How can we be Remarkable?

26. Where does the target market congregate? What kind of message will resonate best? Online, offline, internal and/or external. The medium is the facilitator not the differentiator. Pick the campaign , not the medium

27. Can only be done online. Only works for B2C. Poor tracking and metrics. Cannot deliver ROI. Requires large company. Needs huge budget. Myths = Misunderstanding

28. Impressions/click-through’s. Purchases and/or leads. Customer behavior. Blogosphere. Chat rooms/message boards. Immediate feedback Tracking and Analytics

29. Final Thoughts It is not about brands , products or services; It’s about people. Embrace the possibilities of what we can accomplish. Voice to the voiceless .

30. Thank You Questions [email_address]