Image: yozz!
The other day, Steve Rothman over at his blog The Social Media Soapbox introduced me to this presentation by CMO Mark Addicks on how General Mills is embracing the Conversation online. It’s a really good presentation that I highly recommend, most of all because it’s a fine and very rare example of how an “old”, “traditional” company has made sense of and leveraged social media.
But the one thing that I love the most about Mr Addicks’ presentation is something that isn’t relevant to just social media but to all marketing – regardless of brand, category, discipline and what have you – namely this:
“We try to turn our brand into their brand.”
Brilliant. It’s what branding ultimately is all about. Not necessarily in the hands-on, interactive, conversational way but always in the emotional, sense-of-ownership respect. If a person starts thinking about your product or service as “my brand” – well, that’s damn powerful stuff bound to drive business.
3 responses so far ↓
Ludwig Jonsson // October 27, 2009 at 12:04 pm
That’s what it’s all about. Inspiring post!
Enormously vital for the companies to understand. The consumers are the ones positioning them. It doesn’t matter how much money you spend on communication if you’re not the ones you say you are.
However, if you connect them to the brand you’ve created a relationship that will last.
The consumers will use the social web to talk about their opinions whether or not you are there. So, why not take this opportunity and actually listen and converse.
Make the customers a part of the brand.
Idris Mootee om varumärken och branding | The Brand-Man // November 2, 2009 at 2:12 pm
[...] The best way to think about branding that I’ve heard of so far | Dan Landin [...]
Abstrakt musik kräver också noter - PlannerFed. // December 3, 2009 at 4:18 pm
[...] på General Mills har uttryckt det så bra — We try to turn our brand into their brand. (Tack Dan Landin för hänvisningen). Det är här morgondagens marknadsföringsmöjligheter finns och det är här [...]