A Morning with Adrian Ho

The February 1st  Burlington Social Media Breakfast featured Adrian Ho from Zeus Jones. Aside from a very last minute cancellation from Alice.com, the event was one of the more interesting talks I've been to. We had a good turnout of about 175 people who came to network, eat the yummy breakfast by Sugarsnap, and to hear Adrian challenge a lot of our marketing and social media assumptions.

He started off by saying that people aren't really interested in a relationship with a brand; they're interested in relationships with other people. If I had a penny for every time I've heard the phrase "we're building relationships" I'd have retired already.  Okay, so if social media isn't about relationships, what is it about? According to Adrian it's about delivering more value. The more value you deliver, the more social you'll be and the more buzz you'll create. It sounds almost too easy.

But that was my big take away from what Adrian talked about. Traditional marketing is about making things harder: We have to come up with the grand insight and then we have to create an expensive and complex campaign. Social marketing (a term he uses more than the term social media) is a lot about looking at how your organization provides current value between real employees and real people, and amplifying that through social media. Of course, Adrian says it much better, and with a better accent to boot, but it boils down to this:

Social marketing is a way to do something for people.

One of the most powerful things about social marketing is that you don't have to spend gobs of money on focus groups to find you what customers want to do. You either have to listen to what they say online, or listen to your customer facing employees. The knowledge exists in the system or in social media; the question is whether you have an organization that can act on that information.

As Adrian says, in almost every category you can figure out what people want.

Here's the tough part for us marketers: we love tools and new things. We want a Facebook strategy or a Twitter strategy. Taking the time to figure out what customers say and want is sometimes messy and unglamorous. Implementing a listening culture internally takes a lot of effort to break through ingrained habits.

But its possible by simply using the same approach inside that you would outside. The quote of the day may be: "If you want to change the way someone thinks, change their behavior first" rather than the other way around.

I think Adrian made a lot of people stop and think. I think a few of people in the audience still just wanted a tool guide to tell them what to do.

But for me, these breakfasts have two purposes: To network with other digital marketing professionals around Burlington, and to challenge us to get better at what we do by bringing new ideas and ways of thinking to the table.

The social media breakfast event with Adrian Ho did both.

And it was colossal fun to see everyone there and to follow the Twitter stream on #btvsmb. What a great way to start February.

P.S. This was the first time Adrian and his family had been to Vermont. It sounded like they were impressed. Big thanks to Trapp Family Lodge for sponsoring.

Great Hybrid Marketing Example

Earlier this week I talked about hybrid marketing and the next day I found a great example. I also found a not-so-great example within the same category. Looking at these two marketing pushes, I think it's pretty clear who the winner will be.

Nordstrom, working with Zeus Jones (one of the most innovative digital shops), basically reengineered its BP fitting rooms into a Social Media Photobooth. Zeus Jones uncovered some key insights into customer behavior, including the fact that most women took their phones with them to snap pictures of themselves trying on new clothes. They then shared these photos, and others, on Facebook for some "crowdsourcing" fashion advice.

Rather than trying to force Nordstrom into this equation, Zeus Jones and Co. basically speeded up the process by providing tools to let people do this more easily. They introduced technology into the fitting room process. They've ultimately blurred the lines between the in-store and the Facebook experiences. Check out the video below.

bp. Photobooth Walkthrough from Zeus Jones on Vimeo.

I think this is great hybrid thinking and the initiative has must-win written all over it.

Compare that to a campaign Estee Lauder launches this week. Estee Lauder will start offering free makeovers and photo shoots at major stores across the country. The idea is that women will take these pictures with them and use them as Facebook profile pages. Estee Lauder hopes that its background branding doesn't disappear when people start editing the pictures. All I can say is "Good luck with that!"

While both approaches deal with pictures and fashion, Nordstrom's approach clearly relinquishes control to its customers, realizing that they can be part of the conversation but they can't control it. Estee Lauder tries to control everything from the taking of the pictures to the branding.

Most telling though, is that Nordstrom has made social media a part of the experience, not an extension. It's hybrid approach. Estee Lauder hopes to extend a promotion. It's an integrated approach.

Keep your eyes on Zeus Jones and their partner VaryWell. Hopefully we'll see a lot more of this.