Understand Sentiment Before Asking for Opinions

A few months ago I wrote about the perils of crowd-sourcing and using open ended platforms to engage consumers.

Starbucks UK did not read the post.

They recently launched a campaign using the hashtag #spreadthecheer to promote itself over the holiday season.  What the marketing department may have forgotten is that the Brits are very upset with the company after it was recently revealed that they lied to investors and dodged paying corporate taxes.

The Twitterverse reacted accordingly and used the opportunity to bash the company and promote other coffee shops .  They also broadcast the tweets real-time to a giant screen at a museum.  This was probably not the type of engagement the company had in mind.

They (and you if you are a brand thinking about doing something like this) should keep on top of sentiment and understand what the pulse is.  Conducting active social listening is a must have for any brand to understand the feelings of consumers in the marketplace.

There are a variety of tools and measurement techniques that must be used whether you're going to be engaging consumers online or not.

Admittedly this could be a symptom of internal controls at Starbucks (Marketing vs Analytics), but it still doesn't make it ok.

Using Shazam to Engage Consumers

On a radio ad this morning, I heard something I have never heard before.  A retailer was promoting a sale of watches and didn't start trying to say as many numbers and words possible within their 30 seconds.

Instead, they gave the premise of the sale (30% discount on designer watches) and directed people to use Shazam to be linked to a page with the full details.

Shazam is normally used to find out the name of songs.  Hold your phone to the speaker and after a couple of seconds it will tell you the name of the song and artist, show the YouTube video and link out for you to buy it on iTunes.

But this usage is great innovation as marketers constantly struggle with two major issues;

1. Having too much to say
2. Getting consumers to go beyond the ad

This addresses both issues.  By using Shazam, they don't have to ramble on about the details of the offer.  The page they are linking to can do that.  The app can recognize the digital signature of the ad and direct people accordingly.

They can measure the success of the radio ad in directing consumers to their website (which hopefully includes a deal specific landing page)

Other mechanisms like QR codes and URL shorteners also do a great job of accomplishing this.  The starting point is different (poster or tweet), but the resulting engagement is the same.

There will be an issue with people getting their phone out, starting the app and tagging the ad which may result in some missed opportunities.  But they are still way farther ahead than rattling off all the deals and hoping people go to their store or website later.