Promo - March 2009 - (Page 30)

Continued from page 29 reason to own the rest of the colors.” THE IMPORTANCE OF LISTENING These are tough times for marketing and promo tactics that can be labeled “experimental.” Efforts to reach customers through all channels are being held up to a return-on-investment yardstick, and many that can’t demonstrate an immediate bottom-line impact are being dialed back, at least during the downturn. But brands like Sharpie, Home Depot, Walmart, Molson and the CPG properties of Procter & Gamble are going ahead with social-media campaigns in spite of the economy. In fact, difficult times might in themselves provide a rationale for opening up the lines of communication with a brand’s consumer advocates. Nick Ayres, interactive marketing manager for Home Depot, told a corporate blogging conference last month that his company got involved in social media with the strategic aim of differentiating itself from its home-remodeling retailer competitors. “We got to a point where our brand was not as differentiated as it used to be,” Ayres told the Chicago BlogWell meeting. “We built our brand 30 years ago on world-class customer service and home-improvement know-how. We employed ex-plumbers and exelectricians in the aisles who could tell you not only how to use the products, but everything you’d need to complete a project.” But workforce realities eroded that expert contingent among Home Depot’s floor staff, with negative results. In March 2007, a blogger on MSN Money posted about a bad experience and lamented the chain’s decline in expert service. That post got 7,000 equally negative comments in two weeks and elicited an apology from the Home Depot CEO. “This really showed our executive team not only the power that social media has, but the energy that surrounds our brand,” Ayres said. Customers weren’t neutral on the brand: They either loved Home Depot or hated it. So about a year and a half ago, the chain began strategizing its “Digital Orange Apron” social-media effort, with three aims in mind: recapturing those customers who might have been turned off, connecting with new homeowners who might not yet have any established loyalty, and engaging staffers, particularly those in-house experts in Home Depot’s 2,000 stores who serve as keepers of the do-it-yourself tribal knowledge. Last year, Home Depot decided it could use social media to provide real value to customers by publicizing its natural-disaster prep-and-recovery abilities via a Twitter page. The company had already built these capacities into its logistics after 1992’s Hurricane Andrew, Molson swapped a former blog with no focus for one that highlighted its official community work and the unofficial involvements of its 3,000 employees. Coast in late August last year, getting the word out to Twitter followers faster than any other medium could. Home Depot used Twitter to spread pre-disaster prep tips from its corporate guides. After Gustav and then Hurricane Ike, the chain also used Twitter to advise customers on stores that were temporarily out of the most needed supplies, such as bottled water and plywood, saving those customers a useless and probably dangerous store trip. The company was also rigorous about keeping marketing messages out of the Twitter channel at these times of distress, even arguably relevant ones. and was typically the last retailer out and first back in when disasters struck. The company even maintains a hurricane command center at its Atlanta headquarters to plan response. “There was a huge opportunity for us to take that internal knowledge and use tools like Twitter to spread that knowledge more effectively,” Ayres said. For example, his Internet team was able to tweet the decision to keep 20 area stores open around the clock for the two days before Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf “We weren’t using Twitter to sell products,” Ayres said. “No tweets about how the Home Depot at Sixth and Jones has four power generators and you can get them for $29.99. We were not at all pushing a hard sales message.” In terms of possible results, while Home Depot’s Twitter campaign may have produced some incremental sales, that was not the primary aim, Ayres told the blogger group. “We wanted to give a face to the 30 March 2009 / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / Promo http://WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - March 2009

Promo - March 2009 Contents Editor's Note No Lumps Sampling by Surprise Legal Check Smartphone Shoppers Taxes and Twitter New Rules of the Road Commentary In Your Face Phones and Flash Social Studies The Agency Center Resource Center Peer-to-Peer Index of Advertisers

Promo - March 2009

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