“For us, it’s less about
selling to our communities and more about distributing compelling content that
shows you how New Balance is playing a role in peoples’ lives and the culture
we are trying to build. Through content, New Balance is accessible. We have a
personality, we stand for things and we have a culture.”
−Patrick
Cassidy, head of Global Digital Brand Marketing
Although Boston, MA based New
Balance (NB) athletic shoe and apparel company was an early-adopter of Myspace back
in 2007, the company incrementally adopted additional social media platforms as
they found customer target audiences using the new platforms and they succeeded
in delivering significant customer value through that platform. Audiences today will find the NB brand present on social
platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest. Although NB
initially used the digital agency Almighty for social media management, social
media is now lead by a NB in-house digital marketing team with cross-functional
staffing by brand marketing, corporate social responsibility, PR and customer
service. (Abramovich)
Beginning last year, NB began
a multi-year effort to transform and integrate their global brand website and
social media platforms as they sought to refine their strategy toward producing
share-worthy content that visitors were moved to share with their friends in
organic and authentic ways that inspire excellence. NB believes that their most
loyal customers, those who become brand ambassadors, want to be inspired and
want to be part of this personal achievement culture. In the past, 90% of its social
content was product “buy-now” paid promotion, while it now comprises less than
20% of content call-to-actions. (Content Marketing) Less focused on immediate purchase conversions,
Global Digital Brand Marketing head Patrick Cassidy believes that as NB
eliminates the formal NB-stylized branded social media content and replaces it
with relatable personal storytelling that loyal customers always click-on, want
to join-in and celebrate, sales will follow. “Great content - the right content
– is a slow burn that is a long-term strategy to build loyalty and
consideration,” Cassidy notes. “ (Content Marketing)
Cassidy believes that marketing
audiences’ appetite for sharable content will evolve and deepen. While current NB
customer contributions to NB’s Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter images
are of customer shoes or feet in shoes, NB expects to evolve its social media content
beyond “mindless slideshows and lists” to incubate more personal stories and
organic content, campaigns and collaborations so that people in the NB
community create real-time, high-quality, and unexpected content and
conversations, especially on NewBalance.com. (Content Marketing) Cassidy, who has a media/print
background that featured long-form stories, feels that sharable community-created
content stories−those that can be tracked by audience behavior metrics like Favorites,
Forward to a Friend, Social Media Sharing and Uploads−will become important
again in media tactics driving brand engagement.
Going beyond NB’s person-as-content
creator marketing strategy that resolves the “Content vs. Conversation is King”
polarity through evolving brand website content to embrace conversational
storytelling, comes Dr. Bob Deutsch’s conception of a final digital marketing transformation
on the horizon, which he terms “person-as-brand” that recognizes the modern technology
world where everyone wants to liked, looked at, followed, and bought-into.
Deutsch believes social media marketers must switch from a broadcast strategy of
selling the brand’s informative and entertaining story to entering through
empathy, the ongoing self-narrative a person embodies already. “Brand attachments
are realized from what a person feels, not from what a person knows,” according
to Deutsch. (Deutsch)
To form audience attachment,
marketers must broach familiarity, so that a person finds the brand relatable and
feels relieved that the brand doesn’t require them to deal with something new,
as well as appeasement, so that a person believes they are understood and
valued so that trust develops. Long-lasting and stable emotional attachments
require a marketer to do something very unfamiliar to copywriting: challenge
the audience’s narrative about themselves. Paradoxically, the message must
challenge the audience member’s self-narrative so that they believe the brand
will help them realize something about themselves, which is present but latent.
This sense of self-expansion allows their familiar narrative, to be
reconfigured. According to Deutsch, “Self-expansion isn’t just a business
driver, it’s a life driver.” (Deutsch)
Cassidy’s 2015 New Balance’s content
marketing strategy provides three key insights that can be applied by digital
marketers of both large and small entities. These include the following:
- Think of Facebook, now that they have removed organic reach from business Pages in an effort to promote paid ads, and other social media platforms as a funnel to drive audience to your website presence so that you control the information, develop data analysis and retain insights for future campaigns. (Schneider)
- Build profiles on social networks when you know your target customers use the platform and you have the skills and resources for high-quality platform development. Audiences understand that small entities can’t be on every platform, but will form a negative impression of an entity that builds a platform but lets it lapse from inactivity. (Charman-Anderson) Like NB, start with one social platform with the highest concentration of your target audience that is expected to increase revenues or brand awareness and development new platforms only when it makes business-sense. While digital marketing bloggers are quick to tout the demise of Facebook or hail the emergence of Instagram, don’t be afraid to be a late-adopter of new platforms while exploiting refinement of those channels that are proven winners for your organization. (Price)
- Stand for something that relates to your brand history and culture. In 1906, NB began business as the New Balance Arch Company selling arch supports to professionals like waitresses and policemen who worked all day on their feet. New Balance retains 25% of its current shoe manufacturing in the US. NB’s “Made in the USA” models, including personal customizing and the annual Walt Disney World models, distinguish the company from competitors Nike and Addis and are featured in NB content and event promotions. (Smith)
Charman-Anderson,
Suw (20 January 2015) Five social media myths debunked. Charman-anderson.com
[Blog] Retrieved from http://charman-anderson.com/2015/01/20/five-social-media-myths-debunked/
Content
Marketing All-Stars(1 December 2014) Content Marketing All-Stars:
Patrick Cassidy of New Balance. News 360. Retrieved from http://contentmarketingallstars.com/post/104078137437/content-marketing-all-stars-patrick-cassidy-of
Deutsch,
Dr. Bob (16 December 2014) For Success In Social Media, Conversation Is Not
Enough—You Need Narrative. Fast Company [Website] Retrieved from http://www.fastcocreate.com/3039565/for-success-in-social-media-conversation-is-not-enough-you-need-narrative
Price,
Michael (21 January 2015) Here's How Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2015.
HuffingtonPost.com [Website] Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michaelprice/heres-how-social-media-ma_b_6488116.html
Schneider,
Laura (21 January 2015) More Face To Face, Less Face To Facebook - Reclaiming
Your Brand In 2015. Hypebot.com [Website] Retrieved from http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2015/01/why-newsletters-will-always-trump-facebook-pages-.html
Smith,
Geoff (15 January 2015) 3 Tips for Keeping Consumers Loyal and Engaged in 2015.
B2B: Business to Community. [Website] Retrieved from http://www.business2community.com/loyalty-marketing/3-tips-keeping-consumers-loyal-engaged-2015-01125253
No comments:
Post a Comment