November 8, 2013
NEW YORK - A study conducted by Social@Ogilvy and revealed at ad:tech New York 2013 examined how brands can drive advocacy for products and services through social media, but showed a disconnect between research and marketing teams.
Social@Ogilvy’s “2013 Global Brand Advocacy Study” session looked at what and why consumers share on social media across 22 brands in multiple categories. The study looked at seven million brand mentions in the four major markets of Britain, the United States, China and Brazil to highlight the gap between customer satisfaction and social network sharing.
“Often, when you ask survey questions for a study, you have to figure out what to ask first,” said Irfan Kamal, global head of social data and analytics at Social@Ogilvy, Washington.
“But when we listen, we hear everything the consumer is saying and sometimes things we wouldn’t have thought of,” he said.
“There is a disconnect between research and marketing teams because what drives satisfaction is customer service and experience, but that doesn’t always translate into things that are talkable.”
Brand advocacy
Individuals surveyed in the target countries had similar responses when asked why they share products and services on social media. These responses included sales, experiences, quality and a favored brand that needs more exposure.
When consumers share their personal feedback, the publicity for a brand feels authentic. Reviews are a driving force of product awareness and recommendations by peers drives traffic.
The study broke advocacy into two categories: casual and passionate. A casual advocate “likes” or retweets brand content without commentary, while a passionate advocate gives an enthusiastic response either by word of mouth or online comments.
From left to right, Social@Ogilvy's Mr. Bell, Nestle's Mr. Blackshaw and Social@Ogilvy's Mr. Kamal
Among the surveyed categories, hotels, skincare, fashion retailers and coffee brands had the highest number of passionate advocates. The largest drivers of advocacy was product features followed by cost/deals, advertisements, benefits and customer service.
For luxury brands, customer service is vital, especially among retailers, to drive traffic, maintain allure and keep consumers in-store and engaged (see story).
However, among the surveyed countries, customer service was not a driving force behind passionate advocacy. In all markets, characteristics of features are mentioned the most while ads generate the least conversation.
Interestingly, in China, the country that boasts the highest level of brand advocates, ads were the biggest driver for skin care products. For Brazil, cost/deals across all categories was more important to consumers than features, likely because of the country's high taxes.
Mind the gap
To close the social advocacy gap, brands can take advantage of five steps recommended by Social@Ogilvy.
The first, know and focus on your fan’s true advocacy because brand scores vary depending on location.
Second, identify and use your brand’s differentiated advocacy drivers to target consumers.
Third, for global relevance, emphasize product features.
Fourth, move beyond the metric of sentiment to track advocacy levels. To track advocacy levels brands should go beyond positive, negative and neutral, and think about what they want to ask consumers.
Lastly, brands should encourage and enable advocacy everywhere. Brands can accomplish this by mapping customer’s journey and making it easier to advocate.
Got advocates?
For luxury brands, advocacy may not be necessary among all market sectors since many heritage brands rely on their on image and DNA, but it can be beneficial nonetheless.
“With some luxury brands, they sell themselves so there’s a sense of ‘Do we really need to do this, is it important?’” Mr. Kamal said.
“But I think the way you pursue advocacy is much more personal,” he said. “Your profile and understanding of consumer interests and how you appeal to these groups is important.
“Although tweets and likes are useful, building a rich experience that shares and creates conversation is most beneficial.”
Final take
Jen King, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York
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