4. Theme of today’s presentation
CVs and applying for a job
personalisation and democratization of communication
application in the real world of marketing
7. Easy concept to understand
extremely difficult
for people to put into practice.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. CVs and you
How good are you at advertising yourself without lying?
Writing a CV and attending job interviews is one
of the most important marketing and communication
self-promotion in a CV is accepted, however there
is a big difference between painting a nice picture and being a fraud
29. Personalisation and democratisation communication
there are several different truths which depend on an individual’s perception
extremely difficult decisions to be made in marketing and communication
consequences of bad decisions can be extremely damaging
33. Putting it into Practice
The ultimate goal of marketing is to
generate an intense bond between the
consumer and the brand, and the main
ingredient of this bond is trust
Hiscock, 2001
34. Putting it into Practice
5 ways to foster trust
when mixing social and marketing
35. Be Relevant
Knowing your audience isn’t optional
in the world of social marketing
Kentucky Fried Chicken wouldn’t stand
a chance mixing socially with vegetarians
36. Serve don’t sell
Society’s “me-first” mentality opposes this philosophy.
Selling puts brand objectives at the forefront;
serving places the consumer in the priority seat.
Find ways to help your consumers use your
product or service – solve problems
38. Listen and learn
Encourage two-way communication,
and then be prepared to act on the feedback.
39. Build community
Consumers want to
do business with people,
not organizations.
40. If your focus is just getting your brand out there for top-of-mind
awareness, that may only help you in the short-run.
For long-term sustainability, your communication strategy
needs to be intentional and purpose-driven.
The message needs to have value.
41. Our approach at ESET
Have a transparent and honest approach
Emphasise our strengths and admit our failings
Build on past success, but look to the future
Be clear, consistent and co-ordinated
Ensure that all customer contact is done in a considered way
42. Some advertisers use exaggerated communication
in an attempt to grab attention.
Most consumers want to do business with brands
that are authentic, believable and credible.
Say what you mean and mean what you say
…and above all tell the truth
Editor's Notes
Introduction to me Hello everyone, sorry I should say dobry den! Unfortunately although I am currently doing lessons my Slovak is still not very good, so I will need to speak in English today - prepáčte! Hopefully I will speak clearly enough for everyone to understand, just in case I do not, I will leave plenty of time for questions. My name is Eddie Johnson and I am the Global Marketing and Communications Director for ESET, I am based at our head office in Bratislava and have been living in Bratislava since October 2011 when I started working for ESET. As you may have realised by now, I am English, which made coming to work for ESET extremely challenging. ESET is relatively unknown in England so I had not heard of the company and had never been to Slovakia before applying for the job. Now after a year here I know ESET very well and I am starting to know Slovakia a bit better Although I do seem to spend most of my time at the moment in and around Bratislava, but this is something I intend to change in 2013, so I am welcome to any tips...
Discussion of content I would like to quickly provide you with an overview of the areas I am going to be discussing today. I have obviously never been to Unicamp before, I also have never been asked to speak to a group of students to provide advice and information. So for me this was a big challenge to think of what to say and try and find something that will be useful, after all I am not a teacher and teaching is not my strength! I have also not been through the Slovak education system so have little understanding of what would be a useful addition to the knowledge you have already acquired during your studies and experience. After some thought I came across one thing which, although pretty general in nature may make you think about how you go about your future role if it is in marketing. I like to keep things simple. I am not going to pretend this is something unique to me; in fact many people have a similar philosophy. Although people feel Apple and Steve Jobs own it, the idea has been around long before either existed! I try to make sure whatever I am doing that I follow this philosophy and use it as a guide for my work. It is surprisingly easy to make something complicated and unfortunately it is usually frustratingly hard to make something simple.
Discussion of content So today I have based my presentation on one core theme which is going to be the first and most important thing I would like to speak to you about. The second topic I will cover is that of CVs which are crucial in gaining a good job and I see many many CVs, some good ones and some very bad ones. I may even see some of yours over the coming months as ESET advertises for new talented people. I am not a career counsellor and I will probably fail if I try to give you detailed help here, although I do think I have one simple piece of advice which should help. The third topic I would like to cover is the personalisation and democratization of communication and how the freedom of information and the ease with which it can be shared has completely changed the marketing landscape. Finally I would like to discuss the basic application of this knowledge into the real world of marketing, giving you a small insight of how we at ESET are working today.
The theme for today So the theme for today, as I mentioned is based on a single idea. It is a fundamental belief I have personally and one which I also carry with me into the workplace. It is pretty simple and I am sure very easy to understand. Tell the truthor in Slovak…povedať pravdu
To tell the truth – this is a simple principle and one that children are taught from a very young age. There are even many famous stories about it such as Pinocchio, the little wooden boy whose nose grew every time he lied. Like the story of Pinocchio, it is an easy concept to understand and one which crosses cultural boundaries and has been applicable through history. In the most basic form telling the truth seems pretty easy and straight forward, I am sure most of you tell the truth – well most of the time anyway!Out of interest let’s do a quick poll of everyone here. I do not care whether it is a very small lie that you felt was insignificant or a huge one which you will never reveal to anyone, I personally admit I have not always told the truth… how many of you have failed to tell the truth at some point during your life… so hands up, time to be honest for once! Refreshing how honest you are after all, although I am sure there were a couple of you there who were lying and kept your hands down! It is not really a surprise that so many of you raised your hands, because no matter how simple a concept it is to understand and how widely accepted it is as the right and proper form of behaviour, it is almost impossible to put into practice and it is possible to argue that sometimes you need to avoid telling the truth. I find it very difficult to believe anyone has ever told the truth 100% of the time.
I admit that no matter how much I have wanted to, it has not always been possible for me to be completely truthful. Does that make me a bad person and does that make you bad people for having also found it hard? No of course it doesn’t, but it gives a really simple example of how easy it is to not tell the truth and also how socially acceptable it is for people to not tell the truth – you just admitted to it publically, so did I! It has throughout the ages and across cultural boundaries and national borders been something which is actually extremely difficult for people to put into practice. This principle which is hard to put into practice in your social and private life is just as hard to put into practice in the workplace and while doing your job. In sales and marketing this is an especially big challenge as there is a great deal of pressure to increase sales and awareness of products that our employers make.
Marketing is often viewed as an occupation held by people who are happy to lie or twist the truth; it does not take long searching on the internet to find cartoons making fun of this. Here is one I found after a quick search… Like any industry some people work in a reputable way and others do not, the temptation to exaggerate can be large as one of the easiest ways to market and sell a product is to exaggerate the performance or over sell a particular feature so it sounds better than it really is.
For example a quick online image search led me to this advert which has a ridiculously exaggerated claim! A drink that will help you live forever, now that is a compelling message and nicely designed ad, however graphically illustrated it is. The message certainly gains your attention, but it is a horrible way to advertise and in my opinion it is a really poor message. The company actually argued that the claim was so exaggerated nobody would take it seriously, however the advert was banned from being used, which for me is a good thing.
There are countless examples of companies that exaggerate the performance of a product that give marketing and communications professionals a bad name. Whether it is Cheryl Cole advertising the benefits of L’Oreal hair products despite wearing hair extensions and having some extra gloss applied by Photoshop…
…or Axe with their sexist and comedically exaggerated product claims that are regularly used by the Axe effect advertising campaign which has been running now for many years in countries all over the world.
Now be honest, have you ever been served a burger like this by McDonald’s? Fat and juicy, with so much salad it almost looks healthy! I haven’t if they did serve food that looked like this I would probably eat there.These are just some of the examples out there and I am sure you can come up with many other and probably lots which are specific to Slovakia. So I have talked about the exaggerated claims and misleading adverts and introduced the core theme of my presentation, now for the next topic which for me nicely links to this concept of telling the truth - CVs and applying for jobs. One of the most underestimated forms of marketing and communications is one that everyone has to do writing CVs and attending job interviews.
CVs and you How good are you at advertising yourself without lying? The reality is that writing an effective CV and attending job interviews is going to be one of the most important marketing and communication jobs you will ever do. Whether it is for the first time just after you leave university, or like me applying for a job at my sixth company – ESET. As a marketing and communication professional if you are unable to impress a future employer and make yourself sound like an enticing prospective employee; what chance do you have of successfully promoting the products and services of a company? Just like advertising a product or service, the truth is a bit of self-promotion is ok in a CV, it is accepted, however there is a big difference between painting a nice picture and being a fraud.
Some of you may have read the bio about me on the Unicamp blog, in case you haven't here it is... http://blog.unicamp.sk/post/30993116369/predstavujeme-recnikov-eddie-johnson …everything written in this piece is true, there are no outright lies, although ask the right questions and scratch the surface of the story and none it will sound as good or impressive. I have certainly made my burger look much better than the reality. If the topic of my talk was different I would not have presented myself in this way. The description feels wrong despite being true and I would never sell myself like this on a CV. This particular description is for me fraudulent despite not being a lie. You will have to be extremely careful and use your judgement as to what is acceptable to you personally and also to a potential employer. Lies in CVs and advertising are eventually discovered, maybe not always initially, but in the end they are impossible to hide.So where is the dividing line between a good piece of self-promotion that catches the attention of a future employer and exaggeration and arrogance? Unfortunately you are the only one who knows, just be true to yourself and who you are – the right job is out there for everyone. The less honest you are with applying for jobs, the less likely you are to find a job which is right for you.
The job market is extremely competitive; we are currently in a period of extremely poor economic growth across the globe. There are always exceptions but look across Europe and how the situation is in countries such as Spain, Greece and Portugal. There have been riots and violence directly related to the current crisis and youth unemployment has been a significant feature.The situation isn't all bad, some companies like ESET are still successful and growing and the US unemployment rate has started to fall, however good jobs are not easy to come by and investment in job creation is not the same as it has been.
There is an extremely difficult decision to be made here, as with marketing any product and service – how can you promote yourself in a fiercely competitive global market without over stepping the mark? Are you like McDonalds just making your burger look a bit juicer, plumper, healthier and more attractive than it is, or are you promoting a lie about yourself and something that is untrue? CVs are notorious for people exaggerating the truth and telling lies to make themselves sound more impressive, this has been the case in the past, it is happening now and it will happen in the future.
Again the internet is a useful source of information :) and full of examples, a quick search and you are confronted with this… http://www.google.sk/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=lies+on+CV&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=oMV9UJWRC8eRswaH8ICgCQ …there is a never ending list of articles talking about people lying on their CVs. Discussions about the rights and wrongs of doing it, examples of occasions when white lies have caused huge problems for people and even websites and articles dedicated to offering advice on how not to be caught lying on your CV.
I have mentioned the economic difficulties the world is currently having and tough times are said to bring out the worst and best in people. It is well known that creativity will often flourish during economic downtowns. After all where would the world of music, art and culture be without a bit of misery and angst. The truth is good people will always do well and creativity imagination and a bit of flair will always be admired.This particular advert was designed and paid for by a 26 year old Irish man who was struggling to find a job. Desperate not to emigrate, he took a risk and spent the last of his money on buying a big board on a busy main road in Dublin. It soon went viral and it wasn't long before his story had been told across the world's press. Mac went from being an anonymous face in the crowd of unemployed in Europe to creating one of the most talked about and outstanding adverts of 2011. His approach was simple, it told no lies and it stood out from the crowd demonstrating his ability. This approach worked for him at a time when Ireland had huge levels of youth unemployment and tens of thousands of young talented graduates were being forced to leave the country in search of work. Although I would argue - what is so wrong with moving to London, Sydney or New York!
Working in marketing and communications is highly competitive and can be high pressure. There are many difficult decisions and judgements to make with no easy answers. However for me if you keep it simple and tell the truth it is extremely easy, especially when compared to working in sewers!If you would like a particular job or career please takes care to represent yourself properly, it is one of the most important pieces of marketing you will ever do. There are many difficult choices and decisions to make to ensure you appeal to your desired employer and it is made even harder when you consider the next segment of my talk. Be true to yourself and you will find the right job, after all it is much easier than trying to cover your tracks on the internet.
The personalisation and democratisation of communication It is almost impossible to escape the internet, whether it is a story about some sort of success you had when you are younger or the photo of you falling over drunk last weekend that a friend put up on Facebook. The truth, or sometimes lies will follow you. Long longlong ago in a far off time when the internet didn’t exist, although that seems so foreign now I am not sure I can even remember what it was like!
People just had to watch whatever was on television, listen to one of the few radio stations that you could get a signal for or entertain themselves or talk to people on a landline or god forbid actually talk to people face to face. Now it is possible to listen to any music and video content you like, spend hours virtually being friends with people on social network sites or lose at an online game to a 10 year old in Hong Kong.
Living online may provide a wealth of entertainment possibilities but it also creates a virtual mine field of your data and information. I am sure within ten minutes and with a good network connection you would know more about me than my own mother does! Just like a future employer of yours could, the internet is bad at keeping secrets but good at exposing the truth. The same is true for any brand, just as information about you and I can be found all over the internet, it is also possible to find out all sorts of information about companies brands and products. The internet is a mine of information and opinions. For example this image of McDonald’s is a bit different from that juicy burger I showed earlier
Web-sites like Amazon and Trip Advisor harness the power of the online community to help create their user experience with reviews and star ratings relied on by millions. This is fantastic news for consumers everywhere as it provides them with a huge source of information that can help them to make decisions. The internet has changed our behaviour and how people communicate and social media is currently one of the biggest agents of change.
I found quite a nice clip online that will far elegantly talk through some of the basics; it is from a nice site called socialnomics… www.socialnomics.net/2011/07/05/social-media-videos-2011/ As that clip brilliant explained and you know, social media is huge. The internet and social media are great, I love them, you love them, most of the world loves them and the endless possibilities and opportunities that they provide. They have the power to create pop stars and celebrities and to turn Mark Zuckerberg from a geeky student nobody cared about into one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the world.
Last year social media even helped to bring down governments! So companies have been created, fortunes have been made and youTUBE stars born and of course lies in CVs have been exposed - that is the power of online. Like many individuals a company’s reputation on the internet is closely linked to success. If you personally upset someone I am sure the internet will know about it pretty quickly via Facebook or some other channel and the same is true for companies. Once the power was disproportionately with big business and the establishment, today anyone with a connection is a journalist. If a company or brand upsets customers it can end the business, it is not only governments that can disappear due to the power of the internet. You can type “I hate and pretty much any company name” - and you will have a sea of results. Today businesses live and die online.
I did a search before coming here today and there is actually a Facebook page called I hate ESET products, although rather reassuringly it only has 15 likes and a couple of the comments are saying they do not agree, which is nice There is nothing I can do about this and I do not want to do anything about it, on this occasion I quite obviously disagree but I am a great believer in the freedom of speech and people have different opinions.Not all companies fare as well as ESET and some even have websites set up and hate campaigns started. I found this one that is anti-PayPal… http://www.paypalsucks.com/ they have over the years incurred much more wrath than we have at ESET and this site also gained an awful lot of publicity at its height, becoming a newsworthy mainstream talking point.
If a company incurs the wrath of the public it can have huge consequences. Last year one of the world’s best-selling newspapers closed. The News Of The World was a hugely influential paper and a very successful business that often used some quite unconventional journalism to gain big hard hitting stories. It was extremely popular, selling millions of copies every week and receiving even more hits to the website. It even won some awards for good journalism. However the controversial newspaper overstepped the line when they were found to have hacked into the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl’s mobile to unearth a story. The general public turned against them, online campaigns were set up, advertising disappeared as companies turned their backs on what quickly becoming public enemy number one. After a remarkably short time the newspaper was unable to operate anymore and disappeared from newsstands and the staff lost their jobs.
So I have discussed the difficulty in telling the truth or in reality how there are several different truths which depend on an individual’s perception. There are extremely difficult decisions to be made in marketing and communication; whether it is about your own personal presentation when you are for example writing CVs and applying for jobs or the way a company promotes services and products. The consequences of bad decisions can as with the News of the World, be extremely damaging. Just to finish my examples why telling the truth and transparency are so vitally important I would like to end with an example of how sometimes bad publicity does not do massive fatal damage to a company and can in reality have little impact…
Ryan Air is probably one of the world’s most hated airlines and there are of course some Facebook pages and a website which are devoted to trash talking the airline. There are also videos on youTUBE that have received millions of hits. This song I am about to play has been aired on national TV stations and became a cult hit in the UK (play cheap flights video) Despite Ryan Air being so widely disliked and the millions of people that have watched these clips and found the “I hate Ryan Air” website and other similar sites the company is very profitable and still carries more passengers than pretty much every other airline in the world. This initially seems surprising, a company people dislike so much is so successful, however Ryan Air are honest. This is the key they tell you want they are, they do not hide the truth, there are no promises of good customer experience or luxury – just competitively priced flights to places people want to travel to.
This brings me nicely back to my overall theme – tell the truth – if as a company you misrepresent your products and who you are, sales and profits will suffer. If you are honest and transparent with your marketing and communications, even if you are unpopular you can still be extremely successful.
When allowed to market in consumers’ social domains, you’re entering personal territory. As such, it must be recognized as a privilege. If given the key to consumersinner circles, it is unlikely that those ousted out will be given a chance to re-enter, especially if the offender fits into the category of Marketer
So I have put together 5 ways to help foster and build trust when marketing in social media
Be Relevant—knowing your audience isn’t optional in the world of social marketing. Just as Kentucky Fried Chicken wouldn’t stand a chance mixing socially with die-hard vegetarians, your organization will suffer trying to mingle with those who have little interest in your brand.Even qualified prospects and consumers will find poorly timed, poorly conceived communications objectionable. Being irrelevant violates trust.
Serve don’t sell – society’s “me-first” mentality opposes this philosophy. Selling puts brand objectives at the forefront; serving places the consumer in the priority seat.Find ways to help your consumers use your product or service – solve problems – Believe in your product or service, then own lapses or gaps.
Be Consistent — The brand promise should remain constant across all channels. We’ve all probably had an incident where we had one experience on a brand’s web site and a completely different experience in the store.A consistent customer experience is crucial in maintaining trust and maximizing the lifetime value of a customer.
Build community - Be human.Consumers want to do business with people, not organizations. Have a personality. Where possible, lose the corporate speak and engage in conversation. Personalize communications. Create a brand voice and empowercolleagues to express that voice through their personality.
Listen and learn – This applies to internal and external stakeholders.Encourage two-way communication, and then be prepared to act on the feedback. A two-sided dialogue is authentic and supersedes rote, canned speech. Create a collaborative environment so insights are freely sharedacross all touch points.
In this age of content marketing, churning out messaging can become routine. If your focus is just getting your brand out there for top-of-mind awareness, that may only help you in the short-run.For long-term sustainability, your communication strategy needs to be intentional and purpose-driven. If your messaging turns out to be of little value, rest assured it won’t take long for customers to start asking questions like: “Why is it that you’re showing up in my communication stream every other day?” “What’s in it for me?” “Why am I wasting my time glancing over this?”
Our approach at ESET Have a transparent and honest approach Emphasise our strengths and admit our failings Build on past success, but look to the future Be clear, consistent and co-ordinated Ensure that all customer contact is done in a considered way
Part of being relevant is being real – Marketing and advertising is often filled with hyberbole. Some advertisers use exaggerated communication in an attempt to grab attention. Most consumers want to do business with brands that are authentic, believable and credible. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Part of being relevant is being real – Marketing and advertising is often filled with hyberbole. Some advertisers use exaggerated communication in an attempt to grab attention. Most consumers want todo business with brands that are authentic, believable and credible. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
