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Has Brand “Engagement” Gone Too Far?

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Kit Kat, the candy bar, got rave reviews in the marketing trades (https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/07/10/how-kit-kat-managed-turn-viral-tweet-branded-proposal) for helping a guy propose to a gal using props supplied by Kit Kat. 

In May, the gal posted a photo on Twitter to prove that her boyfriend was clueless when it came to eating a Kit Kat bar. He had chomped into it without breaking it in half first. The tweet racked up thousands of comments. Kit Kat took to Twitter and joined the conversation. Next, the brand, and I’m quoting directly, “developed an internal relationship” with him. I guess that means a bunch of emails were exchanged. 

So, when the guy, wanted to pop the question to the gal, he asked Kit Kat for help. After all, Kit Kat had made him famous. His Twitter shame conferred influencer cred that made him adorably, clumsily lovable, and worthy of a “yes,” from his girlfriend. After a quick discussion, the candy company produced an engagement ring box that looked like a Kit Kat. When opened, it appeared to be “broken apart.”

Today, we can all be the stars of our own digital lives, particularly at its most intimate moments. Engagements and weddings must be documented on your wedding website and Instagram feed, and, to make sure that your older relatives know what’s what, you’ve got to maintain your Facebook profile, too. Bonus points if you can get a brand to sponsor some of your posts to offset the costs of your wedding. They’re out there, waiting for you

The candy car brand manager is quoted as saying: “Our brand is really all about providing breaks, and we want to advocate for breaks. Giving Evan (our man on Twitter) a break just fit in really nicely.” The brand manager also said he helped to keep the moment “authentic,” by not inviting TV crews to cover the proposal. Then he said the PR was cheap – reckoning the total cost at $2000. I think Kit Kats cost about two bucks. Just saying. 

Brand authenticity is killing your most private and personal moments. And it’s not the brand’s fault. Marketers are just doing their jobs – really, really, well. It’s not surprising that Kit Kit chimed into Twitter conversation. Brands are primed to listen and respond playfully to positive comments about them. The social media team would be “tsk-ed, tsk-ed” if they didn’t. It’s also not a stretch for the brand’s marketers to consider extending the conversation, turning the candy faux-pas into a campaign to find other people who never ate a Kit Kat and therefore don’t know that you get maximum deliciousness by breaking it in half for the best ratio of crunchy wafer to creamy chocolate. If I were on the Kit Kat marketing team, I would certainly be thinking about how I could turn that viral second into an hour or two of attention online and in the street. I can also see how the campaign could include a role for the first guy on the planet who didn’t know how to eat the candy. 

But, the article said that the guy reached out to Kit Kat when he wanted to propose. That’s what floored me. The unintended influencer turned into the “even my engagement is for sale” huckster.

Last month I read that couples that met on Bumble and Tinder used the brands in their weddings. A couple that met on Bumble had a Bumble executive officiate their wedding. When we invite “brands” to sponsor our most intimate moments, they become baked into our life stories, and the brands risk becoming more important than the dizzying, wonderful, burned-into-your-brain moment itself. I want you to marry me – and eat a Kit Kat.  After all, everybody deserves a break. 

Maybe the break we all deserve is one from social media. Take a break from social media, and vow to cherish those special moments as they happen in real time, unmarred by commerce, for the intimate, beautiful, personal ones that they are. 

Lessons for Public Relations People

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I confess. I have only caught snippets of AMC’s new show, “The Pitch,” a reality show where two advertising agencies compete for business within a one-week window. For my weekly entertainment, I’d rather enjoy the mock-pitches dreamed up by the writers of “Mad Men.” As a creative PR and social media agency, “The Pitch” cuts too close to the bone. I’m afraid my heart would race in empathy with the competitors throughout each episode.

The one snippet I did manage to catch was the end of the Subway pitch episode. I heard what I assumed to be the head creative guy bid farewell to the potential client by saying, “We had a blast working on this.” The potential client gamely replied (I’m paraphrasing) “We’re glad you had fun.”

I knew that agency was doomed. I was right.

So, after I watched all of this week’s addictive “Mad Men” content on amctv.com, curiosity got to me and I clicked on a segment featuring the CMO of Subway explaining “Why they won.”

What I learned from the two-minute web video was something that I thought I already knew but is worth keeping in mind, for those of us who spend a lot of time pitching. Even though the brand may ask for a big idea (they always ask for a big idea, right?) what they really want is a big relationship with you. They want to like your agency (consultancy, freelance singleton) a lot – and they need to like your really good idea enough that they can see its potential.

At the end of the pitch, it’s not necessarily the idea that will win you the business. A brand wants to buy your story about them — the way you tell it demonstrates  your potential as a business partner.

How to do that? Start by showing how much you understand them. Their business, their competitors, their customers, their pain points. Then, before even sharing your idea, use your insights to take them to a place that they haven’t been before, but that still feels familiar to them. Color too far outside the lines and you risk them thinking that you don’t “get” them.

During the pitch, they don’t know you, so be explicit. Explain how you figured things out. Preferably, you did more than web research and got out and talked to people for insight. Share what you’ve learned.

Save those big ideas for last. You’ve got a seat at their table, so they already know about your good work. Now that they’re meeting you when you’re supposed to be at your best, they’ll also think that you’re smart. And because you’ve laid the groundwork, the insights will ensure that your big creative idea will be good and maybe even great.

Then, at the end of the hour, thank them for giving you the opportunity to think about their brand. Not because it was a blast for you, but because their brand is now already yours, too, and you will give it the fullest measure of your time and attention in your journey to tell their story.

SECRET PR. HOW TO TURN YOUR BRAND INTO THE BEST-KEPT SECRET.

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Last week, Mark Bittman wrote about his favorite lunch place in Manhattan but he didn’t reveal its name. It’s his and he wants to keep it that way. In the September issue of bon appetit, editor in chief Adam Rapoport extols the virtues of his favorite dinner place in the West Village, name withheld to keep the place free of foodie riff-raff. Or maybe free of you and me.

The point of both stories, which were published around the same time, is that sometimes it’s good to get away from the trendy, the highfalutin, the celebrity and blogger and amuse-bouche-fueled ceremony that makes restaurants cool and expensive and instead enjoy something that’s simple, delicious and welcoming.

Bittman’s and Rapoport’s desire to eat well without ceremony and paparazzi is a useful notion for PR folks to consider, not just those in the food business. Often, we are asked to figure out how to insert our clients into a conversation where influencers are and our first instinct is to ask how we can make our brands stand out and be cool. Reese’s as the official candy of the 2011 CES show comes to mind. It was positioned as a tech brand and executed through a lot of fun tactics but at the end of the day … really? I’m sure there are numerous brands at Fashion Week right this minute that have no business spending a dime near the tents because they’re trying too hard.

To take a lesson from Bittman and Rapoport maybe it’s better to figure out how your brand can make influencers feel as if it is their “regular” spot, their best kept secret. A go-to place that offers a cornucopia of pleasures absent from the newest hot-spot but makes them feel that all is right with the world and that they are being taken care of.

What would your brand be like if it were a best-kept secret for someone who has seen it all, done it all and has an expense account for it all? Here are some characteristics that best-kept secrets share:

  • Specially located.
  • Intimately sized.
  • Unspoiled by commercialization.
  • Available in limited quantities; scarce.
  • Authentic and genuine, untouched by trends.
  • Welcoming and personal.

Imagine your brand having all of those characteristics. If it were specially located, where would it be? How few people can it accommodate at once? What if you didn’t care about making tons of money, but rather, you’re just making enough. How little of you is there to go around? What might that be? What is the very most authentic thing about you? How can you show it? How can your brand connect on a truly personal level?

You may manage a huge brand, but this exercise is worthwhile. People, even people who have access to the best of everything, love their best-kept secrets. That’s why they keep them secret.

Let me know what you uncover. I promise I won’t tell.

UNDERGROUND MARKETING

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I am enthralled by the trend of finding abandoned, unloved and seemingly hopeless spaces and turning them into something remarkable. New York City’s High Line is one example. I’ve recently learned about two projects that are meant to move people underground. Thinking about them made me wonder what that means for PR people and marketers. Can we harness the underground trend?

The Low Line is an underground park planned for Manhattan’s Lower East Side – still in development and seeking some funding on Kickstarter.  The visionaries say that they “plan to transform an abandoned New York City trolley terminal into a vibrant community green space using new solar technology.” They explain that they’ve invented technology that will channel solar energy underground. The solar energy will be, literally, like sunshine and create photosynthesis. Trees and plants can grow in the trolley terminal. Cool, huh? The developers say that the 1+ acre space can be used for farmers’ markets, concerts, school programs and the like. As envisioned, it’s a green boon to a cement-bound community, albeit a green underground.

This month, award-winning Finnish chef, Timo Linnamaki opened what he calls a “Pop-down” restaurant. It’s a 64-seat establishment in the bowels of a limestone mine near Helsinki. An AP article says the place is booked solid until it closes September 29.  Linnamaki was quoted as saying that cooking underground helps him cut out all the distractions and focus on his art. Restaurant guests report that their four-course $160/plate meal was superb.

We marketers know that placing a brand in an unexpected place can help reframe the conversation around it. Pop-up stores, the Charmin bathrooms in Times Square, and the Occupy Wall Street protesters are all proof-points for this. But being underground is already fraught with meaning. A brand that goes underground must use the back story to tell its own.

Being underground implies something secret and hidden, a netherworld or alternate universe. Something that is underground is buried and demands discovery. Being underground also suggests the opposite: hiding from something or someone.  Underground, you don’t want to be found. Like the residents of District 13 in The Hunger Games you’re waiting for your moment to return to surface where you can achieve world dominance. The goal in both cases is to come back into the light.

Underground parks and high-end “pop-down” restaurants have a lightness built into their narratives. But an underground movement or project or place could just as easily turn dark. If we plan to go underground, we will have to tread carefully and present our story as something rich to be uncovered. Reframing a conversation with an underground element adds a frisson of mystery and excitement that could be mined (!), but tread cautiously, as the story could easily be misread.

For my brainstorming exercises this week, I’m going to think about how to take brands underground, fully exploring the good and the sinister. I’ll also consider world dominance, of course. What about you?

BTW. The Lowline developers have staged a model in the Essex Street market this week. I plan a visit.

BIG BRANDS NEED TO FEEL CUSTOM-MADE

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Hijacking a Trend

I love things that are hand-made and have schlepped through more craft shows than I can count. I now consider myself to be a master of the strum stickand a Kettle corn connoisseur, that salty-sweet popcorn sold in gigantic bags at every craft show imaginable. When I discovered Etsy.com, it was love at first crocheted baby blanket.

The explosion of hand-made and custom-made sites like Etsy.com and CustomMade.com cater to people like me. But the cool cash that venture capitalists are putting behind these sites (Etsy just grabbed another $40 million in a round of financing) tells me that, duh, I am not alone.

It makes sense that handmade, custom-made, monogrammed, personalized things are booming now. In our high-tech, low-touch, mall-ified world, we all crave something that’s made just for us.

If I was developing PR and marketing programs for brands that are far removed from this trend, for example Quaker Oats, or Toyota Prius, or Aveeno, I would be asking: can we hijack this passion? What can we own about hand-made?

Duct Tape did this brilliantly with its duct-tape prom dress initiative launched a few years back. Sharpie does this well, too. But those are tools and, not to detract from the brilliance of the prom dress idea and the fun of Sharpie’s, it makes sense to see what you can make with products that help make other things. But when your brand is about warm cereal, saving gas while enjoying the open road, or eliminating wrinkles, the answer is not so clear.

To get started, imagine what your product would be if it were custom-made. Custom-made oatmeal? Sure. Create a custom-make-your-own oatmeal bar with all the fixings, put it in an unexpected place, have oatmeal fans share their favorite mix-ins. Have contests for the most fattening, the healthiest, the sweetest, the most savory. Invite home ec teachers to judge. (Do they exist anymore? If not, they should). Make an app. You get the idea.

Custom-made Prius? Maybe it’s not about the car, perhaps Prius has discovered that their customers are incredibly loyal, buying not just one, but many. Reward them. Make a contest of it. For every dollar saved on gas, maybe they earn points towards something planet-saving and custom-made. A partnership with Custom-made.com? Woodworking classes?  Just thinking. Isn’t it fun?

Beauty brands like Aveeno might take another route, hitching their wagon to the custom-made star by organizing knitting or sewing or painting classes for bloggers. Creating how-to videos and sharing on YouTube. Taking a custom-made message to farmers and flea markets that dot high-end neighborhoods on the weekend, co-sponsoring programs with Fiskars or Brother sewing machines. Or, reversing that thinking, setting up workshops with large pharmacy chains.

The creative possibilities are there; but the custom-made essence must remain in order for the program to authentically connect with consumers.

Thinking about how your brand can connect with a white hot trend is a worthwhile brainstorming exercise and can result in a memorable campaign. What trends have you hijacked that are strategically aligned with your consumer? Remember, Food Trucks are so 2011. Look ahead. What’s coming up?  Share your story here.

AMERICA’S MANLIEST CITIES AND OTHER PR STUNTS

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It’s a classic PR tactic – and one of the most foolproof ways to get media attention – name the top cities in the country for some oddity. These are campaigns that are devised by PR folks on a messaging mission. The wackier the category, the more likely the campaign is to drive media attention nationally, locally and socially.

This week’s entry is from snack foods brand Combos, with its second annual survey of “America’s Manliest Cities.” Cities were judged using a hilarious group of criteria.  The survey asked who had the most cops and firefighter, pickup trucks, motorcycles and steakhouses, for example.  Oh, and of course, salty snack-food sales. Cities lost points, called “emasculating criteria,” for having more home décor stores and sushi restaurants.   In case you were wondering, Charlotte, North Carolina won, moving up one spot from last year’s survey.

This is an example of how something completely inauthentic becomes utterly real.  Because the criteria are so goofy and manufactured, it’s hard not to love the results. The campaign is a great vehicle to drive local attention through social media and through old-fashioned channels, too.  Everyone loves a local story; everyone wants their city to be the best at something. Even the cities that were dissed got into reporting on the news. Portland, which ranked 50th, ran a piece on KGW.com, for example.

The Combo’s campaign is terrific; but it just can’t beat my favorite bit of PR puffery, when, on July 15, 2002, New York Times reporter, Rick Bragg wrote a story about how New Orleanians felt about the findings of a study naming America’s sweatiest city.  Right Guard was the sponsor. New Orleans came in at number 3, and Bragg took to the street to see how local citizens felt about winding up in the middling position. It was over 90 degrees in New Orleans on that day, the headline?  “In New Orleans, Sweatiness Is All a Matter of Civic Pride.” The story made page one of the paper.

These campaigns are fun; but difficult to execute well. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

  • Make sure your headline and message can be directly tied to your product.  It’s a great idea to write as many headlines as you can before selling the campaign to clients to see if the idea holds.
  • Choose the most experienced and well respected survey organization you can afford.  These surveys don’t come cheap.
  • Timing is crucial.  If you can tie your message to the season, all the better.
  • Make the campaign a franchise and commit to repeating it (if it works) year after year.
  • Determine how the campaign can be brought to life in the winning and losing cities – for additional PR.
  • Change some criteria each year to keep the survey fresh.

Have you done a PR campaign using the “best city for XYZ” tactic?  What worked? What didn’t? Do you have a favorite? Share your story here.

MAKING YOUR BRAND APPEAL TO THE AFICIONADO

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I recently wrote about a brainstorming exercise where you envision your brand as a big tourist attraction, using all their attributes to come up with a clever campaign that appeals to multiple audiences.

Brands can speak to the aficionado, too.

Ralph Gardner, Jr. wrote a story in The Wall Street Journal about going to the chocolate show in Manhattan, where he tasted lots of samples of fancy dark chocolate from  around the globe. He likes Hershey bars, and after tasting a piece of 91% cacao-content chocolate Gardner wrote: “If I wanted to test the limits of human endurance, I’d climb Mount Everest or jump out of an airplane. I wouldn’t do it by suffering through a chocolate bar.”

The chocolatier who shared the tasting with him didn’t really like the stuff, either, noting that the taste of that almost pure cacao was “palatable.” And therein lies the secret of the aficionado. The experience doesn’t have to be spectacular, it just has to be extreme.

For a marketer, reaching the aficionado is all about telling an unusual story about something that is rare, hard-to-understand, or so complicated that it takes an expert (or someone with a really tolerant palate) to appreciate it. Its distance from the mainstream makes it appealing, its cultish quality drives desire and, as we all know, if enough people catch on to the trend, it becomes factored into the mainstream. Hershey’s Dark Chocolate, anyone?

When telling a story about your brand, ask yourself – what is the one thing about my brand that would appeal to the aficionado? How can I tell a story to capture his or her attention?

What’s your story?  Let me know what you come up with.

HOW TO WIN BRAND TOURISTS

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Driving through Central Park this weekend, I saw four tourists walking single file along the car-clogged road that connects West 96th Street to the Upper East Side. They were hiking on the edge of the street. Central Park was hidden from them – and from traffic — by a high wall.

With the beautiful park only steps away, I figured those folks got some pretty bad advice for how to cross the park. They looked hot and unhappy. They probably were hot and unhappy. That dirty trek may well be what they will remember most about their trip to New York.

Which got me thinking about how to frame a marketing campaign to appeal to the tourists for your brand.  You know, the ones who think they might like you but are just checking you out? What does a tourist need to really fall in love with you?

Photo Credit: The New York Times

  1. Great maps.  They need to understand your brand’s layout.
  2. Instant access.  They need to be able to call for help at any time, be it online or in-person.
  3. An up-to-date guidebook. To show them what’s new and improved!
  4. A good concierge.  A local guide, who can tailor advice to their wants and needs.
  5. A big spectacle. They need to be wowed.
  6. An opportunity to discover something on their own, because that’s what they’re going to remember the most.

When building a marketing campaign, I’d say that 1-4 are the cost of entry.  Brands need to be clear about who they are, be easy to get access to, feel like a personal friend, be fresh and relevant.  But what is often overlooked is that element of wow and, even more difficult, personal discovery that feels unique to them.

Whether it’s a special offer for Instagram fans only, a free you-name-it (coffee, flower bouquet, waltz-lessons on 42nd Street) when you least expect it, a billboard in Times Square with your photo on it, what can you create for your brand tourists to discover that’s so unexpected, they’ll think they discovered it themselves?

What’s your story?

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