TribalWorks

The Nissan Cube launch in Canada was supposed to leverage social media extensively.   The cornerstone of the promotion was a contest where 50 people  would get a set of keys to a brand new Nissan Cube.  The contestants had to demonstrate their creativity and blog and write about the Cube.  Unfortunately, the hundreds that did not win were disappointed, many of them started to investigate ties between the judging panel and the contestants.  Resulting in some deeming the contest to be unfair.  You can read the in-depth story here.

However, one quote in the article by Tony Chapman, CEO of Capital C stuck out for me.

“I want non-conformists. I don’t want dad pulling the groceries out of the car in Markham,” Chapman told the Financial Post in an interview that appeared June 5. “[The Cube] is a quirky, function-follows-form kind of car. It is not for everybody, [and] it is not meant to be. The person getting out of there will have dreadlocks and a courier bag, or they will have their modeling portfolio under their arm; they are not giving in. They are pursuing their creative dreams.”

According to Chapman, these comments were intended to address questions about who would find the Cube appealing. Both he and Nissan deny that they were meant to influence the judges. In fact, they point out that judging had already taken place when the articles in question were published.

(Bold added by me - you’ll see why below)

So I’ve decided to hold our own contest.  For anyone describing, or showing a creative way to pay for a Nissan Cube, we will post your story, picture or video on our blog (please keep it tasteful and respectful)

Here is my way:

Walk into a dealership in a caffeinated state.  Open up an over-sized courier bag and spread a large quantity of old coins on the dealer’s desk.  Then emphatically try to convince the value of the coins is equal to the ~$16,988 -$18,288 you’ll need for a base model.

After all, they want non-conformists

According to Leon’s (The Canadian home furniture store), the company was able to increase its market share despite a decrease in sales.

Leon’s Furniture Ltd. said its profit last quarter was 26% lower than the same time last year as the Toronto-based retailer and its franchise affiliates felt the impact of the economic slowdown.

Leon’s net income was $8.62 million in the second quarter or 12 cents per share, down from $11.6 million of 16 cents per share in the same period of 2008, the company announced Tuesday.

Total sales including franchise stores fell to $209.9 million from $224.7 million, a decline of $14.7 million. Franchise sales fell to $44.7 million, down 6.8% or $3.3 million compared to the second quarter of 2008.

“In order to help offset declining consumer confidence, we continued running a very active marketing campaign to coincide with the company’s 100th anniversary. Although same-store corporate sales were down 6.5% compared to the prior year, based upon a competitive analysis of the marketplace, we feel confident that we did increase market share,” Leon’s said.

This case illustrates the problem with analyzing multi-variable problems.  It is difficult to ascertain why Leon’s sales dropped at a slower rate than its competitors.

• Was it because of the reported 13% increase in advertising spending in the quarter?
• Was it because Leon’s has successfully ingrained the positioning (over many decades) that they have the lowest prices?
• Did shoppers who were looking at buying furniture naturally migrate to the large format stores and by-passed the local boutiques in order to save money?

A good example how Warner Brothers has used Real Spaces for the launch of the newest film to the Harry Potter.

The magical world of Harry Potter is starting to blend with the muggle (i.e. non-wizard) world in Toronto thanks to Warner Bros.’ outdoor marketing campaign for its new film Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

A vacant storefront in the city’s busy Queen Street West neighbourhood has been renovated to serve not only as a surface for outdoor advertising, but as a home for a scene from the film.

On the outside, the store is covered in the film’s “Good and Evil” campaign posters, while the inside has been magically transformed into Prof. Dumbledore’s office at Hogwarts, the school Potter attends.

By creating this location, the promoters have developed a place where the tribe can connect with other members as well with the fantasy world of Harry Potter.  This in turn deepens the connection with the brand and helps increase customer lifetime value.

A great video on how if you don’t serve your customer the way they expect, they have the means to tell millions of people.

This is why companies need to understand that in the eyes of the consumer their business is not just a collection of departments, but one organization.  Furthermore, this illustrates why an organization has to really care about a customer and not just say so in their tag line.

Earlier, I blogged about the launch of Metrotwin, and how I did not quite understand the value proposition.  To recap, my biggest issues were:

• I am not quite sure who they are targeting.  Will the membership base consist of (note: as of their Sept 13th blog post, they were planning on sending 4,000 invites out):
  • People who travel the NY-London route frequently?
  • Residents of NY/London who don’t fly often but know their restaurants and bars well?
  • Business travellers?  Tourists?
• What is the connecting thread between the people who will form this community?
  • The love of travel?
  • The love of good food?
  • A sense of adventure to try new things?
• How much better is this site than other sources with the same information?
  • Network of friends
  • Restaurant guides
  • City guides
  • Other social networking sites

Well, about 9 months later, I think some of the issues I had raised earlier are affecting Metrotwin.  I went on to alexa.com to see the changes in the site’s usage statistics (over 3 month period).  The 3 areas of concern for British Airways are:

• Pageviews/User - Down 11%
• Bounce % (ppl who leave after viewing 1 page) -  Up 8%
• Time on Site -  Down 10%

 Adding more to the MyKmart/MySears story, here are some more details and insight as to why they did it.

Insisting it has no plans to face off with Facebook or take the place of MySpace, retailer Sears has quietly launched its own social networking hub.

The chain has registered more than 200,000 registered users to MySears, a social networking site it rolled out in late March. This week Sears launched MyKmart, a similar site for its sister chain.

Rob Harles, vp-community for Sears, said the chain’s goal is to glean new insights from customers and give the brand more of a human face. “Ultimately we’re going to try to use this to first and foremost learn about our customers and secondly use those lessons and use that to integrate that into the shopping experience,” Harles said, adding that the company has already used some insights to restock items and address some customer service issues.

First of all, it doesn’t matter if you have 200,000 registered users if only 10% interact and are active.

Now that I better understand the goals and objectives (insights from customers, human face of the brand) of Sears/Kmart, I have to question two things:

1. Will this exercise allow them to gain any REAL insights?  The people interacting on these sites (assuming most of them are not employees) will not necessarily be a fair representation of Sears’ and Kmart’s consumer group.
2. Kmart and Sears are among, in my opinion, the least welcoming store formats around - if they really want to “…give the brand a more human face…”, how about focusing on customer service and interaction at the store level?

John Bernoff Forrester Research reiterates what I said in my earlier post.

Josh Bernoff, svp-idea development at Forrester Research, said that he thought Sears will have a tough time with the project. “It’s pretty hard to start a community in the context of a retail site unless your customers have a lot in common,” he said. “If you look at Sears, a Craftsman tool community would probably work out better than a Sears community. Do we really want to get together and talk about vacuums?”

I just found out that Kmart and Sears in the US has launched an online social media platform known as MyKmart and MySears respectively.

The premise of these sites is to build a community where prospective buyers can share reviews of various products before they buy.  However, the sites go further as you can build your profile, announce your interests, and yes, even add friends.  In other words, it is Facebook light for these retailers.

Here are some questions to think about:

• Why would people want to join in the first place?
• Even if people visit to look at reviews - why would people want to interact after they made a purchase?
• Why would I interact and add ‘friends’ on this platform?
• What passion are they addressing?

General retailers are hard pressed to leverage tribes since they are trying to be everything to everyone.  A better approach for Kmart and Sears would have been to build communities around various departments, i.e. home improvement, recreation, etc.  Even then, why build your platform when you can leverage others?

The most important thing we stress to our clients is to clearly articulate goals and objectives before developing a strategic or tactical plan.  Without understanding ‘Why’ you are doing something, it doesn’t matter ‘How Well’ you do something.

After reading about Holt Renfrew’s latest campaign, I have to wonder what their goals and objectives are:

Looking to extend its brand into the “world of social media,” Canadian clothing retailer Holt Renfrew is searching for trend-savvy ambassadors through its online Contemporary Correspondent Search.

The winners will report on fashion events in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal for five months.

“Our Contemporary Correspondent Search will generate peer-to-peer dialogue and actively engage our fan base on Facebook,” said Tracy Fellows, vice-president, marketing for Holt Renfrew, in a release. “This is a fantastic opportunity for us to extend the Holt Renfrew brand into the world of social media and connect with our audiences in unexpected ways.”

The entries will be narrowed down to six finalists (two from each market), by a panel of Holt judges. The finalists will then compete in a series of fashion-inspired challenges, while Facebook fans determine a winner from each city. As of press time, the fan site had just over 2,700 members.

Some of the key questions they should answer are:

• What behaviour are we trying to stimulate?
  • Website visits?
  • Store visits?
  • Transactions?
• Are the people they are attracting with the prizes the right people to be correspondents?  Are they credible enough for die-hard fashionistas to listen to?

  • The winning correspondents will photograph and blog about regional fashion events for five months, and will also receive a $1,000 Holt Renfrew wardrobe and a Sony VAIO notebook PC.

• Who are the people interacting on the Facebook fan page? 
  • Are they customers?  If so, are they loyal?
  • Or are they just fans who only aspire to one day shop there?
    • This is similar to : Porsche Canada Attemps to Bring In New Customers where the goal was to attract new customers, but the strategy and tactics were mainly targeting people who only aspire to drive a Porsche

Previously I blogged about how EA Sports found an innovative way to connect the brand with the tribe.  Essentially, if you submitted your name Brad Nessler would record your name.  That way if you created a player with your last name you will hear it in the game.  According to people working on NCAA Football 10, about 3,000 names were recorded.

Asked how many were submitted, Adam Thompson one of the game developers interacting with the community said:

Not sure, but at the cutoff point it was around 6000. From there I filtered out all the names we already have (like I got 30 people submitting “Smith”), and then filtered out anyone under 18 based on the birthday set for their EA Sports World account (the legal deparment made me do this). The rest of the ones that didn’t get out were the joke submissions, people entering their first name, or people with weird last names that didn’t give phonetic spellings. And no, phonetic spelling doesn’t mean your phone number (yes, 5 people left their phone number in that box).