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Tom Formeski's recent post about social media and brands is an interesting take on brands that don't really respond to negative responses on social media platforms.

Tom singles out Apple and Wells Fargo as examples of companies who don't really to respond to negative comments. He claims that because they face no repercussions for their inaction that this is a bad thing for the social media marketing mavens.

It's a  complex subject and involves understanding how people relate to brands. Certainly, there's an impact to bad news and some consumers react, communicate vocally and exit from the brand. However, it's all about brands having strong "mental balance sheets", if people feel that overall the brand is doing a good job they will give the benefit of the doubt and allow it a few indiscretions.

I would argue that all brands need to be aware of the balance of the conversation by monitoring and evaluating it.

There's no doubt that brands like Dell needed a response when the conversation turned against them and they turned things around rapidly. Interestingly, Dell is a brand heavily invested in social media, but one that's yet to reap the rewards. This is because a turnaround is a long uphill battle involving product and category evolution.

Starbucks is another brand in the same postion. In a recent report by The Altimeter Group, Starbucks ranked as the no1 brand in social media, but as we all know, the brand is in something of a crisis.

Incidently, Dell ranks as No2 in the Altimeter study, suggesting that the most troubled brands are currently the most invested in social media.

Then there's Zappos who used social media probably to enhance its value, who recently sold to Amazon for for close to $900 million.

Social media engagement is no guarantee of instantaneous success and it doesn't replace the need for product and service excellence. At present, it's return on investment story seems undeveloped at best. We are the early stages of learning about this world, but within the next 24 months, companies will become much more strategic about goals and objectives setting for social media across divisions.

At present, as Tom suggests there's no penalty for brands with strong "mental balance sheets" not engaging in social media, as the field becomes more crowded and brands get to understand it better, this is not likely to remain a "truth" for much longer.


Posted by Ed Cotton The once great Dell is trying to re-invent itself for a world that's radically changed since it first came into being. As the company shifted away from it's focus on the customer, the social network and the blog rose up to call them out, a resurgent Apple has re-defined computing, not just for a small niche, but for masses and computers themselves have shifted from desktops to laptops.

Dell is trying to cope with this radical change and makeover the brand to be more relevant.

Throughout its history, the company has hardly been a champion of design, it's simply not part of the DNA for the very functional, custom built, price driven brand.

It appears, design is also on the change list at Dell who are making some bold moves upmarket with the Adamo sub-brand.



Can this shift upmarket work for Dell?

It seems like a complete case of Apple envy and a bad rip off of Apple's Air laptop. However, one could argue that it's a start and Dell needs to do radical things like this to pull itself from the mire.

BTW- Are there any American industrial designers?


Posted by Ed Cotton From the FT..

At Dell:

"Bob Pearson, former senior vice-president of corporate communications, became vice-president of communities and conversation for Dell in 2007.."

"He now has 45 people working for him..."

"The core team works on “blog resolution” – trawling the web for dissatisfied customers, then attempting to contact them to make amends. "

"Others on Dell’s social media team manage the company’s 80 Twitter accounts and 20 Facebook pages. Still others manage IdeaStorm, Dell’s forum for customer feedback."

It's an example of clients seizing control of the conversation response and moving it in-house from out of house and from reactive and slow to proactive and fast.


Posted by Ed Cotton The important ad news of the weekend is Chevron's 150 second advertising buy on Sunday's 60 Minutes.

It's big, bold and epic and the purpose is to educate, inspire and try its hardest to improve the negative perception of the oil business.

Of course, the ad tries hard to be real and genuine by employing the talents of Lance Accord and a  voice-over from Campbell Scott. The result is a somewhat restrained flashback to the glory days of big corporate advertising in the mid 1980s. You can't help but feel the production dollars that were thrown into this as the multiple locations fly across the screen.

You are left with the feeling that this is a company that wants to create the impression that it wants to have a conversation, but by the looks of things you can tell its going to be very one sided. The kind of conversation where you can't get a word in.

Despite all the good intentions of the campaign, you get the message that a big oil company has created the longest and perhaps the most expensive ad ever created on American television.

It's brave of Chevron to start this tough conversation and get the ball rolling, but you can't help feeling that this could have gone much further.

This is evident because the campaign uses an old web site , complete with "token forum" that's difficult to navigate and contribute to. When you read the small print it becomes clear..

"One a topic is closed, you will be able to view all of the previous comments, but no longer be able to submit new ones. We will then have an independent organization review all of the published comments and summarize their findings, which we will post on this site within 60-90 days."

Net- We will publish a report

This isn't good enough, Chevron needs to act and do something not publish a report and let it gather dust.

It needs to start and maintain a real conversation that isn't token, but is dynamic, real and acted upon.

Where are the Chevron employee pages on Facebook?

Where are the and the hundreds of Chevron employee blogs?

Where is the the pitch to the world for ideas and open innovation?

Reading between the lines, you can't help feeling that Big Oil wants to educate us.

Sure, there's a very important job to be done, but if you want to win the battle of hearts and minds, you've got to get down off your high horse and out into the streets.

You've got to create real, vibrant communities on the internet and you've got to respond in a tangible way to those voices in the community. 

Educate doesn't mean dominate.

Big Oil needs to find a way to show us its humanity.

Perhaps before it does this, it should go back to the classroom itself and read up on what Procter&Gamble, Sun and Dell have been up to recently and learn how to reach out and invite the outside in.


Posted by Ed Cotton Jeff Jarvis had drinks with Dell's PR people and tells an amazing tale of a company that appears to be getting the customer revolution.

"The team said that IdeaStorm was Michael Dell’s own idea and passion. And before we met, the company announced that because of IdeaStorm they’d decided to offer Linux now not just in servers and workstations but also in desktops and laptops. The people at IdeaStorm pushed this hard. Dell came back worried about how many flavors of Linux it would need to ship and support. They wrote:

The IdeaStorm community’s interest in open source solutions like Linux on Dell platforms has come through loud and clear. Many of you have suggested a survey to help Dell determine which distribution is most popular, and we think that’s a great idea. Based on your idea, we now have a short survey, which will be open until March 23, where you can tell us more about your favorite distribution of Linux, your preferred method of support, and more.

More than 100,000 people took that survey, leading to Dell’s announcement. And the discussion continues on the blog.

Welcome to the age of customer control. This isn’t just crowdsourcing. This is crowdmanaging. Companies still fear this. But, hell, if even Dell can lean back and let its customers begin to take charge, anyone can."