The Big Winners Are the People- Global Brands Realizing They Can't Outsource Direct Relationships - Tom Troja

At the recent ANA Masters of Marketing sessions in NYC big brands like Coca Cola Unilever and Anheuser Busch outlined how much things are changing They described their new course based on today39s reality of people with a loud voice and showed they are far along in execution to harness this power of the peopleThey made clear that they have made a dramatic turn and are midway on their new courseamp8230 pointing at building direct relationships with people Each of these global brand leaders shared how they are embracing people as partners in their global growth and how social has become a key component of their success These gentleman had more to say than can appear here this is what stuck in my earJoe Tripodi CMO The CocaCola Company spoke about getting comfortable losing control and building a path to help Coke loyalists become advocates Stating that advocacy for your brand is the highest level of marketing he declared that people are becoming a brands strongest allies and an extension of their sales forceJoe spoke about Coke implementing an enterprisewide social strategy stating that quotwe have no choice it is what people wantquot He spoke of how Coke is engaging the market through positive communications with quotCoke Happinessquot offering a brand promise of fun freedom and refreshment that resonates the world overTo do this Coke is becoming an agent of positive change in the world and leading a cultural dialogue between people helping people share a Coke and activating Coke employees worldwide to come together and embrace change in a new way Joe finished with an App that let you buy a Coke for random people all over the world showing smiling strangers connecting around their Cokes and Coke machinesChris Burggraeve CMO AnheuserBusch InBev spoke about how beer is the world39s original social network helping real people to connect in real life for thousands of years and turning complete strangers into best friends forever AB is using all social network making them meaningful and creating a directtopeople channel filled with content that is relevant to themAB builds the line quotGrab some Buds39quot into everything they do and links it back to social media thereby pulling people in to build relationships They have changed their thinking from seeing a person as a target to a mindset in which true consumer empathy understanding how people see themselves their hopes emotions fears and aligning with them to be a positive force in their livesNow the focus is on quotFans Firstquot 30 million fans and growing Fans are people who have elected to enter into oneonone dialogue and AB is building a social beer eco system always focused on Fans First to drive positive brand health into the futureMarc Mathieu SVP Marketing Unilever amp8211 Spoke of a fundamental shift to purpose driven marketing that is changing the corporate culture at Unilever quotWe are embracing the vision and reality of a sustainable culture so we can have a world of abundant resources where 9 amp189 billion people live sustainably This is about promoting a world of optimism quotMarc is calling for a quot39Reinvention of Marketing39 by putting people at center as human beings not targetsquotHe spoke of marketing and the TV show Mad Men39s tag lineamp8230 quotWhere the truth liesquot That he understood the word play and asked do we really want to keep lying He challenged all to think through what will work in a social world where people see through lies easily quotSocial gives no choiceamp8230 adopt or diequotMarc noted that digital opens the door to everyone to be a marketer and they are moving fast to build their advocate base on three pillars putting people first creating brands with purpose and rebalancing the logic and magic of marketing Unilever will promote the idea of pure water of sustainable food of good health and democratize the idea that all people should have access to theseNEW TIMES DEMANDS NEW THINKINGThese brands are on the right path They are helping people talk about themselves in relation to the brand They are making deeper more meaningful connections around what is important to people They are understanding what is missing in people and helping them find what is truly meaningful to them related to the brand That is how you build relationships and create passionate brand advocatesThe words Happiness Purpose Empathy are exciting to hear from the folks with the budgets who will determine the direction of marketing They are putting into practice what we have been saying for years that quotyour brand is no longer what you say it is it is what people say it isquotWhen people have your megaphone when 85 of all video39s on YouTube about Coke were not created by Cokeamp8230 you have to figure out a way to get comfortable not being in control The way is to create and make available a Conversational Identityamp8482 a deeper more meaningful and fully formed social personality that will help people relate and share a positive message about your brandHow you think about marketing matters how you think about people matters your vocabulary matters Talking about targets campaigns conquest consumersamp8230 all send messages to your team and partners that nothing has really changed and we can all wink and nod our way through thisamp8230 that TV will bail brands out in the end Those days have ended The new day is truly based on power to the people orchestrated around a recognition of our basic humanity and its pretty awesomeMost recently as the founder of the Social Symphony Tom has weaved social tactics in concert with CRM 20 social strategies with Colgate Cadillac Kraft Gallo Reebok and others and has spoken about these subjects at iMedia Brand Summit IAB Social MITX and OMMA Social Tom can be reached at TomTrojaTheSocialSymphonycomRead all Tomamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at the Social SymphonyCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

The Big Winners Are the People- Global Brands Realizing They Can't Outsource Direct Relationships - Tom Troja

Author

Publish date

Channel

Archived in

thomas troja

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

The Big Winners Are the People- Global Brands Realizing They Can't Outsource Direct Relationships - Tom Troja

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

thomas troja

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 10: Political Spending) - By Carl Mayer

The payment was successful

Cookies

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership