Tag Archives: offline to online

Will the Holidays Save QR Codes?

First, SXSW. Then, Facebook. Then, NYC. Now, it looks like the holidays are bringing QR codes with them. It’s the time of the year when we receive loads of holiday circulars and it all started this past week. I like these magazine-type circulars. I like looking through them to see the sales and this year, at least, I like to see if the brands are making any effort to drive consumers deeper into the brand experience. Well, judging by what I saw this week, they’re jumping all over the opportunity.

First, it was Best Buy. I opened it up (I take as many opportunities as I can to remind my wife where she can get me an iPad), and the first thing I see is a big, fat QR code staring me in the face. This really didn’t surprise me because I’ve noticed that Best Buy is now printing QR codes on all of their shelf price labels.

Then, it was Target. We’re on the lookout to help Santa, so of course, I had to see what kind of contribution Target could make. And, bam, right there, 3 on 1 page. I started to get real excited at this point, scanning codes, talking to myself, kind of freaking my family out.

And then, because I felt like we were on a roll with finding these little treasures, when I got our Geico newsletter/magazine, I just knew they had to be using them in some way. So, I opened it up, and sure enough, QR codes sprinkled throughout.

This whole 3-day experience really brought to light a few things for me, all of which made me happy:

Brands (and the agencies supporting them) know what QR codes are.
They’re not afraid to expose them to any type of consumer (tech, toys, insurance.)
They’re taking the opportunity to drive consumers into a deeper brand experience.

I think these basic fundamental acknowledgements are important because it shows a level of comfort, from a brand’s standpoint, to introduce these codes to consumers, in such a mass-visibility way. I suspect there is a little bit of experimentation going on, but they’re exposing them nonetheless. Next question is whether or not consumers will know what to do with these. I wonder how far off I really am – along with the general consumer – in expecting these codes to be included in print pieces like this? By the time I got to the Geico magazine, I expected them to include QR codes. And they did.

So, I believe sooner rather than later, consumers will expect these crazy-looking codes to be in magazines like this and perhaps more print pieces than not. By seeing them in this type of collateral and on windows of their local businesses and at airports, they’re going to know that they can “unlock” some sort of information. It’s really the “payoff” now – the content on the other end – that is going to drive expectations and perceived value. The content is certainly more important than the code, but we have to start with the code and getting consumers familiar with them.

We’ve implemented quite a few code-based initiatives this year and have learned from each one of them. Here are some best practices that we follow:

Before creating the codes, understand what you are going to offer to the consumer once they scan the code. Is it going to be a mobile version of your site? Is it going to be a video? Is it going to be a text? Is it going to be a VCard? You must answer this question before you get into creating the actual code.
Creating the codes is the easy part. We’ve used Kaywa and I’ve seen ScanLife a lot lately. It’s a simple process, just follow the directions with whichever service you’re going to use.
Understand where the code is going to be placed, when printed. Is it going to be circular like this? Or is it going to be on a poster? Or is it going to be on a magazine ad? You’ll need to include instructions for consumers to understand what it is and how to actually use it. What kind of piece it’s going to be printed on will dictate the amount of instructional information you can include. At the very least, let consumers know that they can a) scan the code for something else (more content, special offers, etc…) and b) how to do it. This includes telling them what QR code reader application they need on their smartphone and that they need to take a picture of the code.
If you have the means to use/implement a text messaging service, it would give the consumer another way to “unlock” the information without scanning a code. Include this option in your instructions.
Let consumers know – very clearly – what they can expect by scanning the code. This can be a simple text description next to the code.
And finally, if at all possible, make sure the content offered up on the “other side of the code” is appropriate to experience on a mobile phone. If you can help it, don’t send them to the regular .com. Send them to the mobile version of the site or even directly to a Vimeo/YouTube playlist. The more valuable the content on the other side is, the more value consumers will perceive to be behind these codes.

QR codes are an ideal technology to enable the offline and the online to converge. They’re so simple to create, if you have the wherewithal to use them and good content to use, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t include the codes on all of your printed pieces. It’s good to see so many brands using them. At the beginning of the year, I don’t feel like anyone really knew what QR codes were, certainly not the average consumer. But if these holiday circulars are any sign of the times, it hasn’t taken long to learn.

Friday 4-1-1, “PR”/Social Style

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Back in Dallas today after a whirlwind tour this week. From New York, I flew to Detroit for meetings, then finally made my way home last night. Just in time to see my kids before they went to bed. I’m such a homebody. I love being in my home around my family. My wife and I just sat in silence and talked. It was nice.

Now, here we go again. Back at it. As I’ve said before, the one thing that I don’t like about live-blogging events is that I don’t really get to put my commentary on what I’m hearing. I sprinkle things in here and there, but for the most part, I haven’t found a way to successfully manage that part of blogging events. I think there’s a lot of value to get down what others are saying so all of you can get a glimpse into other perspectives. That’s the primary reason I approach conferences and live blogging the way I do. Do you find value in that? I would love to know if I’m off base.

What I want to do for today’s Friday 4-1-1 is take what I heard from the conference and give you my thoughts on some of the things that stuck out to me. First, as a digital practitioner, most of the “digital” conversation was basic and not new to me. I really enjoyed hearing different approaches to the “types” of work that we’re faced with on a daily basis – the crisis management session really stuck out to me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been dealing with a few clients on this very thing and it’s a type of work that I’ve never done before so it’s just fascinating in general. But, there were others:

1. I heard multiple times something along the lines of “merging the offline with the online.” This, of course, makes my ears perk up because I want to see how other people are thinking about this concept. It’s clear that people have an intuition that this is becoming more prevalent and possible, but noone talked about any other “screen” than the mobile phone in relation to “walking down the street.” If we think there is a huge need for education in the “digital signage” industry, I’m here to tell you there is a huge need for education across the board. Agencies like mine even have a hard time understanding a) what the “new” OOH is and more importantly, b) the potential of it. Yes, it includes mobile, but it’s much more than mobile. It’s much more than “digital signage,” too.

2. I enjoyed hearing much more talk centered around relationships than platforms. I believe whole-heartedly this is the right way to think about brands touching people. It’s not so much what brands touch people on (platform or channel), it’s about how they touch people and with what (content). Brands need to look no further than what’s already happening on each “platform” for how people naturally use them. The platforms are already being used and used in a way that allow people to connect (in the way they want to connect) with others and build relationships. If a brand is going to be successful in today’s ecosystem, they (and the agencies that support them) should understand that to be sustainable, you have to focus on the relationship, not the platform. Same thing with “digital signage” – it’s not about digital signage, it’s about using this technology in a way that it actively builds relationships between brands and consumers. It’s powerful if used properly and ineffective, just as any other channel, if not.

3. Today, more than ever before, people/brands/agencies are making things up as they go along. This is a new era and people have to come to terms with the fact that there might not be any “example” of a particular type of work – social, mobile, and/or OOH. This is exciting and daunting, for sure. This makes relationships and trust more important than ever – not only with communities, but between agencies and clients. It’s important to think things through and do as much due diligence as possible, but in reality, we are (literally) all learning together. Be smart. Be brave.

4. If you want to be successful in “social” – and this is for anyone – brands, businesses, bloggers – don’t make everything entirely about YOU. It’s not. You and your contribution are certainly important. The way that you contribute can make or break you. It either builds trust or breaks it. But it’s important to recognize your community. Think of ways you can do this. People just want to belong to something, and they’re willing to have brands involved, too. Just as long as it doesn’t become a selfish act and “pushing” anything in their face.

“Uh-huh” – man, the crisis panel and the make-up of the panelists was the highlight for me. If you sat in that session, you would have walked out of there learning more in an hour than you might have in a year. Here are some of the best nuggets that I took away, and they don’t need any additional commentary. If you’re ever faced with a crisis, read this and follow what speaks to you:

If someone asks, “what should my digital crisis management plan be,” your first question back should be – “Do you have a regular crisis management plan?” The approaches can’t be independent of one another.

Brands and detractors have the same tools. Those detractors are smart and resourceful.

If you do not have a social presence and a voice right now, start creating one immediately.

Don’t wait for a crisis to start developing relationships. Again, if you’re not doing this right now, start immediately.

There are no “special” crisis tools to use in a crisis. Use simple, common tools that are at your disposal all the time – search, legal council, email, and your website.

When faced with a crisis, remember 2 simple things – 1) overcommunicate and 2) don’t make the problem worse.

“Duh” – I don’t know if anyone else is tired of it, but I’ve just about had enough of all of this social media speak. I am around it all the time and we always joke about throwing around the buzzwords – engagement, listening, Facebook, Twitter, funnel, interesting intersection – ugh. I tried to separate myself from my body and “hear” what people were saying to me and I just thought, this is disgusting. We should ban those words (not just the above, but all of them. Good resource HERE) forever. Call me out, too. It’s easy to get sucked in and start speaking wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone! And thanks for reading!

The Coaster That Doesn’t Miss an Opportunity

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I’ve been meaning to get around to this since my vacation in July, but I’m just finding the time. I’m always looking for examples of brands utilizing offline materials (places & things) to drive deeper engagement “online” (not necessarily on a computer). I’m most fascinated when this online experience occurs on something other than a standard computer screen (ie. the places and things around us). Mobile, however, has really changed the game. This offline/online convergence doesn’t always drive experiences back to the world wide web; as mobile shows us, this convergence is often enabled through apps and simple tools like SMS/MMS. So, it was in July, when my wife and I were sitting in a bar in St. Augustine, and I looked down at the coaster sitting on our table.

Mobile promotions like this are standard fare. So standard, in fact, they might be overlooked more often than not. We can debate the effectiveness of coasters like this driving conversions (opt-ins), but here’s the thing – this is such a “no duh” utilization of pieces like this in the brand’s advertising mix. Coors Light is going to print coasters regardless. Why not plan to print something that drives a deeper brand engagement on the coaster vs. just putting a logo and artwork on it? Same thing can be said for posters or magazine ads. How many posters do you see that enable you to have a deeper brand experience beyond the “paper”? Magazine ads? Not many.

I have been surprised at how many magazine ads I’ve seen this year (some featured on this blog) where brands have experimented with things like QR codes/MS Tags, JagTags/etc.. And while I still don’t know how effective they are (I don’t see many brands paying it off that well), I have to give them credit for at least opening up the gate to go deeper into the brand. That’s what I mean by mobile changing the “OOH” game. Brands don’t need a “digital” origination point to drive interactivity. Out of Home initiatives, whether traditional or digital, can always be made interactive, in large part due to mobile capabilities.

In the end, it’s important to understand that all of the “channels” (Out of Home being one of them, coasters being a delivery mechanism for OOH) in a brand’s advertising mix are just part of their ecosystem. The brand’s challenge (and agency’s partnering with them) is to make sure their story is a) consistent and b) evolving across all of the channels and mediums. Often times, initiatives are developed, implemented, and activated in silos – OOH, DOOH falls within their own silo – and regardless of how big or neat or (even) effective they are, if they’re only happening in 1 silo, many opportunities are missed. So, next time you see something as simple as a coaster or a poster or a magazine ad that capitalizes on the opportunity to drive you deeper into the brand, take a minute and go through the experience. Try not to judge the experience, just appreciate the fact that they’re not missing an additional opportunity to take you, as a consumer, deeper into their brand via this standard-fare, see-it-everyday, ho-hum, gotta-advertise-on-it-anyway gateway.

Frosted Mini-Wheat’s Engaging Cereal Box!

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When I was a kid, over breakfast, I found great joy in cereal boxes. They came loaded with a toy and provided excellent reading material. It was all the entertainment I needed over the 15 minutes it took me to eat my cereal. Fast forward to now, my habits have changed – tend to eat cereal at night, not in the morning, I don’t buy cereal solely for the toy, and I usually don’t read/study the cereal box anymore. But I do I watch my daughter in the mornings finding the same joy in cereal boxes. Right now, it’s less about the toy and more about the reading, but it will change soon enough. This past week, I saw an example of what we might be in for and it was exhilarating! What I saw was an 11th screen cereal box! A cereal box (offline) that drives a deeper brand experience through online channels! No real-world, immediate gratification toy here. It’s all about virtual widgets and collecting virtual coupons for special real-world items.

This is not new. Even though I haven’t really paid attention to cereal boxes in the last umpteen years, I know that brands utilize these opportunities to drive consumers online. But as you can see in this example, I think they’ve gotten really good at it. I created a scorecard-type guide for experiences like this, so I’ll put my box of Mini-Wheats to the test.

Experience – What’s the brand experience? Is it offline to online or vice versa? Here, the experience begins offline, on the cereal box, and drives consumers online, to the “prize & account” hub where the user’s points/codes are collected and can be redeemed for various prizes. The site is simple. It’s there strictly for the purpose of utility – keep track of consumer’s points and allow them to redeem the points for a limited number of virtual & real-world items.

Purpose – What’s the purpose of this experience? The purpose I see here, really, is to provide more value in the merchandising/promotional items, which in turn, results in repeated purchase of Kellogg’s cereal. They do provide rewards for low-level engagement, but the real rewards come with multiple points, which means buying more cereal. Now, some of these things (bank account, desk light) are questionable in their worth/usefulness, but some are good, age-appropriate items (concession cash, movie pass).

Cereal boxes and makers have already set the expectation that there is something “special inside,” so I think they can get away with a little bit more in terms of CTA prominence than others. While the CTA on the front is small, it’s visible, separated enough in design from the rest of the packaging and appears in multiple places. Then, on the back of the box, the CTA and instructions take the entire real-estate and provide simple steps to get started.

Entry Points – How many “offline” entry points does the consumer have? And how many “online” entry points does the consumer have? How consistent with each other are they? Do they all drive to the same destination? The only way that I can find to get into this site is the direct URL from the cereal box(es). Neither the Kellogg’s site, nor the Mini-Wheats site makes mention of this promotion, which I assume is pretty standard with limited-time offers like this. I think they could get more coverage by including it on the Mini-Wheats site, at the very least, but you have to ask yourself a question – how many people buy a box of cereal vs. go to the cereal’s website. I daresay many more people buy these boxes than visit the site.

Content – I think there are two parts to this: 1) What type of content sets up the engagement? and 2) What type of content, if any, is generated by the consumers? As mentioned above, the site is pure utility, which is good for this audience. Before diving into the content of the site, consumer’s must register, which is a necessary evil.

I feel like they could offer a bit more exclusive content once logged-in. The only “free” content is a “funny real” from TS3. Aside from that, there’s nothing that keeps consumers here for an extended period of time. Since this is geared towards children, Disney/Pixar have an abundance of content that could engage them for hours on end, literally. I question, then, if all of these real-world items are really needed? There is something to be said about tangible items, but we live in such a digital world as it is, Disney/Pixar could just get away with serving up exclusive content. No content generated by consumers here, which considering the audience, seems appropriate.

Extensions – How deep does this experience go? It’s bringing people from the offline world into the online world, now where all can they go? The best piece of this experience, in my mind, is an extension on the site.

In my house, technology, while I think it’s great to expose our kids to, it is a major annoyance to my wife. The computer is just an extension of the TV and she is of the mindset that the kids need to be doing something other than sitting, watching TV or messing around on the computer. So, when this screen automatically appeared after I’d been on the site for 5+ minutes (I don’t know the exact timing), I appreciated the message. On top of that, Kellogg’s has created a site that actually gives kids activities to complete, all in “challenge” format.

Recently, I’ve been involved in a few debates over marketing to children and here’s an example of a company who is making an effort to put the right, responsible checks in place. There’s no assurance that this will strike a chord with kids out there (and even their parents), but it’s so much better than nothing.

All in all, I found this experience solid. While it excited me much more than my daughter, I think it’s a good idea for brands to be driving this type of engagement for younger audiences. We are living in a technical world where kids appreciate mobile applications much more than physical piggy banks. (Not so in my house quite yet, though!)

JC Penney’s Simple Offline to Online Engagement

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The topic on my mind most recently is “merging the offline with the online” and I’ve been hyper-aware of noting examples when I see it. I think this is a practice that brands must work capitalize on when forming their cross-channel strategy. We operate in an ecoystem so connecting with consumers wherever they are (and driving them deeper into the brand) is key, particularly in today’s world. This is difficult to do, for sure – different departments are in charge of their own particular “house,” they each have different objectives, and in the case where they do work together to drive deeper experiences, there has to be a plan in place to keep people engaged. Remember, this is a relationship that brands are trying to build, and it requires an ongoing dialogue.

So, JCPenny gets some props today. We pulled out a JCP flyer from the mailbox this weekend and prominent on both sides of the flyer was a call-to-action for mobile engagement.

This is a simple way for JCP to use their existing collateral (they’re going to print and distribute these flyers anyway) to a) engage consumers in a different way b) keep an ongoing stream of communication, albeit only push messages and c) incentivize them to purchase. Now, putting this on a paper flyer is one thing. Communicating with the consumer is entirely different. Frequency of communication, the offers, and the actual words is where the real thinking and work comes in. Even with SMS coupon initiatives, brands still have an opportunity to speak their voice. That voice is instrumental in defining the brand and the relationship. They can’t push messages out too frequently, but they can’t disappear either. I think with an engagement like this, consumers are more tolerant to updates, but they will turn them off if they’re coming too frequently or not enough. As a brand, you really have to know your consumers’ behavior and attitudes to both mobile and shopping before you can really decide on the frequency.

So here, I applaud JCP for capitalizing on the “low hanging fruit,” but it will be interesting to see how they capitalize on the meat of the program.

Billboard Yourself – What Are You Made Of?

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I’m late to this in Internet time, but I just stumbled upon it and thought it was a great example of the 11th Screen – merging the offline with the online, the physical world with the digital world.

The whole concept here for Billboard Magazine was to show what music is made of, in the form of getting down to influencers on specific musicians. For instance, you can see that Eminem is “made up of” Ice T, Run DMC, LL Cool Jay and Vanilla Ice. Each musician is a mosaic of these influencer musicians. Pretty cool.

Then, any individual can walk up to this screen, turn the dials to correspond with their particular “influencers,” and see what they’re made of. Then, they can instantly save a photo of themselves to Flickr, which is a nice use of a social component.

The only downfall that I see is that it is single-user. This could keep many people immersed at the same time. I also don’t see any tie-in back to the magazine, which in the end, should be the goal – get something out of bringing this experience to the masses from Billboard Magazine.

That said, I think it’s a great example of taking a physical object (fabricated unit with dials on it) and digital components (like a screen and camera) and creating an immersive experience out of it. Then, being able to share it with a social community like Flickr. This, of course, racked up many awards last year (Clio and a Cannes Grand Prix). Nice work, AlmapBBDO.

Side note thought – I was at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas earlier this year and interacted with their Rock Wall and the other technology in their store and they could really learn from this. While all of the Hard Rock’s technology and experiences are cool and certainly immersive, they aren’t personal and they don’t extend beyond the store. Here, in this example, you can see how easy it is to a) make it personal and b) extend it beyond the physical location. In my mind, both of these elements really separate good from great, shallow from deep and meaningful experiences.

What do you guys think? Would love to hear your thoughts. Shout back if you’re so inclined.

Old El Paso’s Multi-channel Brand Experience – El TacoDor!

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As I said in my last post, I’m on a hunt to find brands (and examples) who create “complete” experiences, specifically by merging the offline with the online (or vice versa). I believe technology is an ideal way to do this, but not always required. Brands can find many ways to utilize what they’re doing “offline”, in the real world, and drive consumers deeper into the brand experience “online”, in the digital world. And I’m talking about more than putting a URL on packaging.

I found an unlikely brand doing something interesting when we decided to make tacos for dinner. Introducing Old El Paso and their “El TacoDor Game!” – found on their taco shell box and billed as the “Family Taco Dinnertime Game!”

For this experience (and others like it that come after), I’m going to modify my scorecard that I usually use for IOOH. As with that scorecard, I think it’s important to have a guide when looking at these experiences – something that will help focus my thoughts on what I feel is important.

Experience – What’s the brand experience? Is it offline to online or vice versa? Consumers are driven from the box of Old El Paso taco shells (offline) to the El TacoDor website (online) where they can read the rules to the game, download scorecards, upload content via video/photo submissions, and even share content with their own Facebook communities. The site is actually rich with content and things to do.

Purpose – What’s the purpose of this experience? Old El Paso created this game so that families could engage with each other over dinner. I really like the idea of getting families involved with each other, via game or not, over a meal. In my family, meal-time and eating together is important. We don’t have the TV on, we rarely have music on – it’s just time where we can talk and focus on each other. Old El Paso’s type of engagement here is good. The game doesn’t require a lot and as you can see by some of the challenges, it looks to provide some fun times.

Visibility – Similar to “Drama”, here it’s important to understand how visible the call-to-action is that drives people from one channel to the other. In this case, the call-to-action is to play the game, which is found on the box. I’m no expert in packaging, but I have to say, I almost missed it. Just like anything, design plays an important role in how prominent something is. In this case, the call-to-action is up against an orange background and just fades into the packaging on the box. I don’t feel like it’s special enough. It doesn’t scream, “hey, I’ve got something fun for you guys to do around your dinner table!” The elements are there, it just doesn’t reach out and grab me.

Entry Points – How many “offline” entry points does the consumer have? And how many “online” entry points does the consumer have? How consistent with each other are they? Do they all drive to the same destination? I should start this by saying that the sweepstakes (for $5,000) tied to this game has officially ended (as of March 31, 2010), so I don’t know how much they want to promote this game via their packaging now. That said, the “game” never ends so I was disappointed to see the game only advertised on the box of taco shells. None of the other Old El Paso products mentioned the game at all. Clearly, they went to all this trouble to create this type of engagement online – it’s just a shame that they only used one product to drive people to the game (if in fact, this was the case prior to the sweepstakes ending). Online, I didn’t find many encouraging clues driving to the game either. The Old El Paso Home page doesn’t mention it at all. The Old El Paso Facebook page doesn’t mention it at all. And the Old El Paso Twitter page doesn’t mention it, either. The only other branded online driver I could find is the El TacoDor’s YouTube channel, upon which there are only 2 videos (both from 2009 – one with 2,600+ views and the other with 8,600+ views). What gives? There are various 3rd party sites out there that mention the game, but I think the brand is doing a huge disservice to themselves by not utilizing their own branded channels to drive people to this game.

Content – I think there are two parts to this: 1) What type of content sets up the engagement? and 2) What type of content, if any, is generated by the consumers? Here, Old El Paso does a great job of setting up the game, giving users all the tools they need to start and complete the game. It’s real user-friendly. As a little bonus, they even have a web-based game for people who just want to poke around. It’s a silly game, but I played it, and as a result, stayed engaged with the brand a little bit longer.

While there was content created by the consumers on the site, I didn’t see very much of it. There wasn’t any real, visible engagement on behalf of the brand on any of the channels – .com, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It all begs the question – is this something that people are motivated enough to do? Speaking from personal experience, no matter how good the idea is, if it’s not going to engage people to the point of spreading the word and/or coming back repeatedly and/or getting other people to see and play it, it probably shouldn’t be done. I think this is a real clever idea, but as a marketer and as a consumer, when I see so little content and engagement on the primary channels, I don’t feel like anyone’s watching. And when no one’s watching, I’m not going to play.

Extensions – How deep does this experience go? It’s bringing people from the offline world into the online world, now where all can they go? Here, I thought Old El Paso did a great job of giving the consumers the ability to extend this into their own social networks, specifically Facebook (which certainly helps the game spread virally).

They even give users the ability to make their own Certificate of Awesomeness, print it out, and hang it on the fridge, which is a less direct extension, but one nonetheless. I think this is a great touch to this whole experience.

There’s an element to this experience that I feel needs to be mentioned, as with any other game – I’m just not sure it goes along with all experiences like this that I’ll be finding and talking about – and that’s the aspect of incentives or rewards. Games can bring people together and enable deeper experiences with brands, but consumers will only do so much for “free.” There has to be some sort of incentive or reward to keep them engaged over a long period of time and coming back for more. Here, there was a sweepstakes tied to the game, but that’s the only reward I could find. Once the sweepstakes is over, what’s my incentive for coming back and interacting with Old El Paso? Why do I have to buy this brand? Now that I have all of the game elements, I can buy the generic products for the cheaper price. Old El Paso doesn’t want that. Simple coupons for consumers who reach a certain level of points (can be low-level) would not only give consumers something to play for, it would send them back into the store to buy more product. This is a key element that is missing from this entire experience.

All in all, though, I was really delighted with this experience. It was a smart idea, deep in experience, but didn’t seem to have the support commiserate with what is needed in this type of engagement. I’d love to talk to someone on the brand about the success (or failure) of this experience. With a couple of tweaks, I really feel like this could be a sticky engagement. What do you think?

Have you seen anything like this? Great idea – one that merges the offline with the online – but little engagement? If so, I’d love to hear from you!

Build-A-Bear understands Relationships and gets Loyalty

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Build-A-Bear does it again. I know these guys aren’t the only ones doing an effective job of communicating with their customers, regardless of channel (or “screen”), but, it’s worth pointing out, not only when (and how) they use those different channels – the end goal can’t be overlooked amidst the channel tactics: developing meaningful relationships with their customers. They seem to be honed in on what they’re trying to do with their customers vs. what they’re trying to do with their brand. Big distinction and something that I think a lot of brands can learn from. I think, generally speaking, brands get the concept and even strive for this more often than not. It’s about actually doing, making decisions based on what is best for the customer vs. what is best for the brand. They do go hand in hand but in order to do what’s best for the customer, I believe brands have to have a solid understanding of their story, their promise, their value to the customers (even world) – this frees them from doing things just for the sake of doing things. In this position, brands are purposeful and everything they do has meaning. It moves the needle.

So, it was of no surprise when my daughter received a special “gift” in the mail yesterday from Build-A-Bear.

This is right on so many levels.

1. Recognition – by simply saying “Happy Birthday”, BAB is saying, “you’re important to us and we’re thinking about you.” They’ve got this system down so right now, we’re technically important to a computer, but I guarantee you, as soon as we walk in the store with this, we’re going to get showered with the most welcoming and genuine “Happy Birthdays” outside of our family. And to have hooks in place, behind the scenes, to communicate with customers at appropriate times (like birthdays) is just another smart, meaningful, easy way to communicate and build the relationship.

2. Reward – it’s small (only $5.00), but it drives us into the store. Knowing my wife, our daughter will get an accessory with this gift instead of a bear, but in the end, that doesn’t matter as much as the complete impact that this one touch point will have on us. The card is only part of this touch point. The action that we take as a result of getting the card is the other part of the touch point. It’s not without challenge getting customers to do what you want them to do. Reward, even a small one, is a great way to entice them and move them along the relationship path.

3. Relationship – it’s an idealistic way of looking at the world of marketing and communications, but I think there’s 1 easy question for brands to always ask that will steer them in the right direction – “is this going to positively impact our relationship with our customers?” It’s certainly complicated in the world of ROI and KPI’s and budgets and the ever-evolving media landscape, but does it have to be? Build-A-Bear is in the relationship business, literally, and this is probably a huge factor in driving decisions like this.

In addition, they’re also making a concerted effort to drive us even deeper than in store. They’re complimenting the offline experience (card to store) with an even richer online experience (Build-A-Bearville).

This right here is something that I want to focus more on in this forum as we go into the 2^nd half of the year – the offline to the online and vice versa. The true power that I see with OOH, interactive out-of-home specifically, is how it can be an even greater bridge between the offline and the online. I’ve talked a lot about enabling technologies that allow people to take something offline and have an online experience, thus experiencing the brand on a deeper level. There are many ways for brands to do this and using the “OOH” channel is one of them. Many brands are doing this. I’m on a hunt for those brands.

But for now, thank you Build-A-Bear for being one of these brands, and on a personal level, this relationship is becoming meaningful, not only with me, but with my daughter, and we’re starting to become loyal. Which is the whole point. :)