Category: Interviews

How to Bring CSR and Social Media Together for Good

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I had the pleasure of meeting Elisabeth Charles at The CMO Club Summit in LA this October.  As CMO of Petco she has orchestrated a number of innovative marketing programs to actively engage pet owners.  Learning that Elisabeth was on the board of HABRI, the Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative, I thought she would be a great person to discuss how companies can do well be doing good and extended these activities through social media.  Turns out, this time, I was barking up the right tree.

DN: Do you think being recognized as a good corporate citizen is increasingly important to a brand like yours? Why?
Good corporate citizenship is very important to Petco – it’s built into the fabric of our entire business. Everything we do is guided by our vision for Healthier Pets.  Happier People.  Better World.

We established our non-profit organization, the Petco Foundation, in 1999 and have since raised more than $80 million in support of some 7,500 local animal welfare partners across the country. Each year, we also help save the lives of more than 250,000 animals through adoption events in our stores.  Through the Petco Foundation, we also support spay and neuter efforts, animal-assisted therapy programs and humane education. Working hand-in-hand with the Foundation, our Petco and Unleashed by Petco stores serve as the first and largest national pet food bank in the country. Designated collection bins located in each of our stores allow customers to donate pet food that directly benefits pet parents in need in their local community.

As a company, we’re also increasingly adopting more sustainable business practices. We strongly believe that if it’s good for the planet, it’s good for pets and people, too.  Earlier this year, Petco became one of the only non-grocery store retailers to be recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an Energy Star Leader for reducing our energy consumption by more than 10 percent across our entire business. Additionally, our Planet Petco line of products offers pet parents the ability to choose high-quality, more sustainable products that utilize recycled and reclaimed materials and renewable resources. These are just a few examples of what we do as a company today. It’s an ongoing process and we’re always striving to do more in this important area of corporate social responsibility.

DN: Is there a fine line between “doing good” as a company and talking about it so much that is seems insincere?
You absolutely have to be sincere and authentic in what you are doing and saying, and you must also be fully committed, rather than doing something only half way. A company’s goodwill efforts should be far more than just a marketing campaign. For Petco, all of our “do-gooding” is centered around what we believe is the right thing to do. The programs we create and support reflect our company’s values and the passion our associates have for people and pets.

DN: Is there a particular Petco goodwill/charitable program that you are particularly proud of?
There are many charitable programs that we get involved in, so it is hard to name just one.  A newer program that really took off this year was our National Pet Food Bank program and our National Pet Food Drive. Just in the program’s second year, this year’s drive ran for two weeks (late October-mid November) in all of our Petco and Unleashed by Petco stores. During the national drive, we encourage customers to pick up an extra bag or can of pet food during their shopping trip, or bring unopened food from home, and donate it via the collection bins in our stores. Also for the second year, Hill’s Science Diet supported our efforts by matching 100,000 pounds of donated food during the drive. In just two weeks, we collected nearly 350,000 pounds of pet food – a more than 60 percent increase over last year – to help financially strapped pet parents feed their pets during the holiday season. The Petco Foundation Pet Food Bank is a year-round program, but it’s very exciting to see how generous our customers are during the national drive leading into the holiday season.

DN: I noticed you personally are working with an organization called HABRI.  Can you talk what and why you are doing this?
Petco is excited and proud to be a founding sponsor of HABRI, the Human-Animal Bond Research Initiative. Other founding sponsors are the American Pet Products Association and Pfizer Animal Health.  We got involved because we passionately believe that pets enrich our lives and we want to help generate formal, widespread scientific recognition of the positive role pets play in our lives.  HABRI’s mission is to support research, education and other charitable activities that validate the positive impact the human-animal bond can have on the integrated health of families and communities, by consolidating, organizing and sharing existing scientific research into the human-animal bond in partnership with Purdue University.

DN: Goodwill activities seem to translate well into social media.  Have you found this to be case and/or how do you see good will programs evolving next year?
Absolutely.  We actively use social media (especially Facebook) to engage our fan base, which is now nearing 600,000 likes, to support our charitable causes.  In general, we find that goodwill posts and campaigns featuring authentic stories perform very well in social media.  Positive campaigns with an altruistic call to action perform remarkably better (up to 100 percent more feedback) in user interaction on social properties than promotional campaigns or transactional posts. Human interest stories and, of course, anything to do with pets, are the second most shared and clicked upon posts/tweets/videos.

In October, we hosted our first ever National Adoption Reunion Weekend. Fans online were asked to submit stories about how their adopted pets had changed their lives and were given the opportunity to raise funds for the Petco Foundation through Foursquare check-ins. The social portion of the campaign performed very well, driving the most organic Twitter growth and retweets for a campaign we  have seen to date, the most views on a non-commercial video on YouTube, more than 57,000 photos uploaded on Flickr and more than 3,000 likes across three blog posts. Needless to say, we were very pleased with the results.

DN: I’m a big fan of Pedigree’s “dogs rule” campaign and their pet adoption program.  Have you partnered on “good will” programs with any of the brands that you carry and if so, what are the advantages of this approach?
Every month, we host a National Adoption Weekend when adoption events are held in all of our stores across the country. Each monthly weekend event is sponsored by one of our vendor partners.  We’ve also joined forces with several of our vendor partners for in-store fundraisers to support mutual charitable interests, including Blue Buffalo for Pet Cancer Awareness and Natural Balance for National Guide Dog Month.   I think programs like this are a huge win-win when we are able to work together to help improve the lives of pets and pet parents, and when we all know the funds raised are going to important work that we mutually care about.

CMO Insights: How To Make the Most of Marketing Partnerships

Posted on by Drew Neisser

After the initial success of Small Business Saturday in 2010, American Express elected to open up the program in 2011 to other companies who supported small businesses.  Designed to create a Black Friday-like effect for Small Businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, one of the brands that joined in the fun was Optimum Business, the B2B arm of Cablevision.  Here is my interview with Stephanie Anderson, Vice President, Marketing & Advertising, Commercial Markets at Cablevision, with some great advice on how to make the most out of marketing partnerships.

DN: What is the best case scenario for a marketing partnership?
The best case scenario for a marketing partnership is a having a common customer, goal and market. It is also important that money never change hands between partners – no referral fees, no reseller incentives.  Partners do not write partners checks.

DN: The Optimum Business Benefits program seems like a win/win/win for your brand, your partners and your customers. Are there any risk or downsides to marketing partnerships?
The Optimum Business Benefits program is a win for our brand, partners and customers.  It is important to choose your partners wisely because they become an extension of your brand so you need to be very sure before you agree to partner and market that partnership.

Risks tend to come if you haven’t chosen a partner carefully or your goals are misaligned. That’s why it’s crucial to consider: Can they offer something unique to your customers? Do they stand for the same things as your company and program?  Do they have the same values?  You need to remember that if your customer has a bad experience with one of your partners, it reflects on your company.

DN: Are there any tricks to making the most of a marketing partnership? Why do some work better than others?
Yes!  Making the most of any partnership requires clearly identifying common goals from the outset, measuring success consistently and holding each other accountable. You must regularly communicate with your partner about progress, challenges and next steps. Leave out this necessary component and the partnership simply won’t work.

It’s also important to know your partners well. You should understand where they fit both within their corporation and the industry as a whole.  From a broader perspective, you might be able to provide additional value through the creation of a partner advisory network to give them a collective voice and solicit new ideas.  This will come in handy when there are challenges to overcome. Never meet a customer or a partner for the first time under difficult circumstances – know your partners personally.

DN: Would you recommend that other marketers consider joining this kind of multi-brand program and if so, what should they do to get the most out of it?
Companies interested in joining a multi-brand program should be vocal and outgoing in terms of marketing support for the program.  The best part about multi-brand programs is that you can align with, not only the lead brand, but other companies involved and create new opportunities, offers and messages.  We have seen some of our biggest successes from grassroots activities and campaigns and recommend that all of the participating companies really engage to get the benefits.  Get in the field, get your sales people to understand the value from the beginning and make it a part of their sales training and their sales programs.  And, of course, it is important to check in, measure and build relationships.

CMO Insights: Making Your Brand Mobile-Friendly

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I caught up with Ted Hong, CMO of Fandango, at The CMO Club Summit in LA this year.  Ted is a super sharp guy and has done amazing things for Fandango, having launched their nationally-recognized Bag Puppet ad campaign.  And while I guessed that mobile was important to them, I had no idea how it had literally transformed their business.  Consider the fact that this Thanksgiving weekend, 23% of Fandango’s movie ticket sales came from mobile devices (including mine!)  So as you read this interview, be sure to ask yourself, are you ready for mobile and the transformational impact it will have on your business?

DN: I was delighted to be able to use my Fandango iPhone app over the holidays to buy movie tickets while in a cab.  Can you give me a bit of background on the Fandango app?
Mobile has changed the way that people go to the movies and has sparked a huge change in the way we do business.  Since the company’s founding in 2000, Fandango has always been looking for ways to make the moviegoing experience more convenient for consumers.

In some ways, you could say our mobile roots started out in the IVR space with our toll-free phone number, 1-800-FANDANGO, launched back in 2003. We were pretty early in launching our WAP site on several carrier decks in 2005, and our WAP site was iPhone-optimized in 2007. Mobile represented about one or two percent of our overall ticket sales at the time.

The big sea-change began in March 2009 when we launched our iPhone app, and it was an immediate success. We saw more than 1 million downloads in the first 90 days. Within six months, we tripled the percentage of tickets we were selling through mobile.

Today mobile devices and tablets contribute more than 20% of our ticket sales. Consumers have downloaded our apps more than 20 million times across various platforms. We’re seeing 10 million visits per month from mobile devices and tablets, representing 40% of our overall traffic.  On Thanksgiving weekend, we saw 23% of our ticket sales on mobile devices, contributing to our best Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the company’s eleven-year history, and a 60% year-over-year increase in mobile ticket sales from last Thanksgiving.

DN: Can you give me an overview of Fandango’s other mobile-related marketing activities?
After our iPhone app launched, we pursued apps on every important platform, including Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 7. Tablets are big for us – we’ve designed apps for the iPad, the Android tablet, the Kindle Fire – with tablet-specific features like “The Pulse,” which offers a real-time visual representation of our hottest ticket sales at any given moment. We’re also on connected devices like the Samsung Smart TV, TiVo and Vizio.

We aggressively market our apps on Facebook at www.facebook.com/fandango and on Twitter @Fandango. Our latest marketing campaign on Facebook has been the “Anywhere Everywhere” Sweepstakes, where fans can answer daily movie trivia questions for a chance to win some of the most popular consumer electronics that offer our apps.

DN: How important is mobile accessibility to Fandango’s business. Has this changed over the last couple of years?
Mobile has fundamentally changed our value proposition. If you are untethered from your desk, you can now take Fandango on the go. Previously, if you were at your home or at the office, you had to decide then which movie you wanted to see at that time – but thanks to mobile, you can make that moviegoing decision closer to showtime.  In order to be more helpful in that process, we added the “GoNow” feature to our mobile apps. “GoNow” allow you to easily check out the nearest theaters and nearest showtimes for the movies you want to see.

In addition to our mobile site and ticket-buying apps, Fandango has been rolling out other innovations, like our paperless and eco-friendly Mobile Ticket product, allowing fans to redeem their tickets on their phones via a mobile barcode scanned by the theater’s ticket-taker. We recently launched our Mobile Ticket program at more than 1,000 Regal Entertainment Group screens, and we have plans to provide this convenience to more than a thousand additional screens in several months to come. Before we launched the iPhone app, we would see consumers buying their tickets about four hours before showtime on average. Now it’s closer two two hours – and it some cases it’s just a few minutes.

DN: Do you expect mobile marketing (including advertising) to become a greater part of your mix in 2012 and if so, why?
Yes, because the audience is going in that direction. Advertisers are aware that mobile is a great way to reach a large, sophisticated media-and-tech-savvy audience. With Fandango’s multiple apps across various platforms and huge traffic, it’s a unique opportunity to get in front of an audience of influencers making their purchasing decisions.

DN: Since Fandango offers a highly functional WAP website that works on any smart phone, do you still need to offer phone-specific apps?
We’ll continue to support both the mobile site and our apps.  Some people are app-people and some are mobile Web-users. The apps can offer more bite-sized information and some consumers find them easier to use. Fandango’s iPhone app has recently garnered the 5-star customer rating – the highest possible ranking among customer ratings – in the iTunes App Store. On top of this, the company won three Webby Awards for its apps earlier this year. So clearly the apps are working well for us.

With an app, you are able to get the benefits of promotion in the app marketplace, if your company provides a unique value proposition.
But the advantage of the mobile site is that it shows up in the “Search” results, which allows immediate access to information and services without having to download something.  So there are benefits to both.

CMO Insights: Short-Term to Long-Term Successes

Posted on by Drew Neisser

While doing homework for another article, I ran across a recent study by IBM called “From Stretched to Strengthened” that offers insights into the challenges facing CMO’s around the world.  The study is well worth reading, especially if you are a CMO, and stresses a number of important themes including the needs to:

  • Deliver value to empowered customers
  • Foster lasting connections
  • Capture value, measure results

After reading the study, I reached out to IBM with some follow up questions and got in touch with Yuchan Lee, General Manager of IBM’s Enterprise Marketing Management business.  I think you will agree that Mr. Lee has smart things to say about measuring ROI, using social media for research, the importance of having a clear “corporate character” and finally, the need to think long-term when it comes to customer relationship building.

DN: Is ROI the right metric for CMOs or just one of many important metrics?
It is the most important, as reflected by our CMO Study. Other than a metric based on reflecting customer up-take (e.g., revenue, satisfaction level), which most companies already measure, marketing ROI is essentially the highest level scorecard for an organization’s ability to efficiently and effectively allocate its resource to hit marketing goals.

DN: Why do you think so many CMOs struggle to demonstrate ROI?
The heart of the challenge is the nature to which marketing activities influence buying behavior, and how behavior manifest itself over time. Measuring ROI in marketing involves sifting through tons of noise in the data to connect all the pieces of evidence that influenced the purchase behavior.  This is an inexact, statistically-based science that, until recently, was too hard to tackle.

DN: Why do you think marketers have been so slow to embrace research via social channels? (i.e. only 14% mine blogs)
Before a company embraces a social channel, it must first believe it has to.  This requires a shift in strategy based on the realization that consumers are more in control and the company is losing its grip on branding.  In my experience, this shift is scary to many companies and many are slow to realize it and to turn this realization into action.  Furthermore, even if one is ready to take action, the newness of engaging social networks makes it challenging to know where to begin.

DN: Why should marketers expand their research horizons beyond traditional channels to things like blogs?
We believe traditional marketers need to expand not just research but all areas of market and customer engagement as well as demand generation to the social channels.  That’s where the center of influence for purchase decisions is and will continue to be. That’s where detailed, real-time, and unfiltered market feedback data can be best gathered and analyzed, and ultimately where the brand of a company will truly be reflected in the future (if not already!).

DN: What’s in it for the more proactive marketers who are mining new digital data sources?
Additional data, if incorporated properly, allows a company to know what is relevant to its customers — potentially down to the individual customer level.  We believe the ability of a company to deliver relevant communication in sales/marketing/services is the basic ingredient to a successful customer relationship and a prerequisite to staying in business.

DN: A lot of marketers pay lip-service to their corporate values.  Will developing a clear ‘corporate character’ really deliver competitive advantage?
Having clarity on a company’s corporate character is a necessary but not sufficient element of success.  It must be followed by execution by the organization, every day, delivering a consistent customer experience that is aligned with the corporate character.  The true reflection of the corporate character will come out quickly, most likely in social media.

DN: Your report emphasizes the need to “foster lasting connections.”  Is this goal in conflict with the typically pressing need to deliver short-term revenue?
No.  In our experience, being relevant and adding value to the customer in every communication and interaction is the common denominator for forging a lasting connection with the customer AND the ability to drive successful short-term revenue.  After all, long-term success is made up of series of short term successes!

‘Tis the Season to Do Well by Doing Good

Posted on by Drew Neisser

‘Tis the season that people and brands start to think about doing a little good for others.  Lynley Sides, CEO of a philanthropically-oriented start-up called The Glue Network, has a plan to help brands do well by doing good all year round. She makes a compelling case for CSR programs noting that, “People are nearly twice as likely to buy or recommend a product if it’s affiliated with a cause they care about.” Here’s my interview with Lynley.  I think she is on to something really good!

DN: What are your goals for The Glue Network?
The Glue Network is the first to elegantly combine giving with digital media to deliver bottom line results for companies (greater return on marketing spend or greater return on company giving) and to be a catalyst for good in the world. Our two primary goals are:

  • Deliver business results for companies. Today, corporate giving groups are under tremendous pressure to deliver business results beyond goodwill — we deliver that.  Marketing groups are seeking authentic (non-gimmicky) ways of engaging with their consumers and stakeholders that not only deliver more clicks but deeper relationships and a positive image — we deliver that.  Small companies are especially challenged to accomplish these things due to limited resources — the Glue automated platform delivers the same results for a company / program of any size.
  • Be a catalyst for good:  Success with #1 means companies will spend more this way — more results for them + more good for the world.  Also, as individuals are engaged in giving at younger ages, they give more over the course of their lives and influence more giving from others.  Through the individuals a company engages with their Glue program, we encourage future good (giving, volunteering, social entrepreneurship).

DN: Do you think a lot of brands are looking to do well by doing good right now given the challenging economy?
Yes, this is absolutely a hot topic for business right now because there are 2 competing factors at work.  Despite the challenging economy, companies (not just big ones) face higher expectations from consumers/stakeholders for social responsibility and the lowest levels of satisfaction in history.  But also (as supported by a recent study by The Conference Board), as these economic pressures persist, what doesn’t improve the bottom line is in the end not sustainable.  So, if companies don’t figure out how to give back and have that giving drive value beyond goodwill or a golden halo, it will cease to be justifiable — which would be a missed opportunity for business and a massive loss for the world.

Companies that aren’t feeling the pain of this challenge are either the few that are far ahead of the curve, with social responsibility deeply engrained in their businesses in ways that create value, or have not yet faced this reality because they continue to look at marketing and giving separately.

DN: There are so many ways for brands to “do good,” why should they align with The Glue Network?
Glue does more than they can do otherwise and we make it far easier for them.  People are nearly twice as likely to buy or recommend a product if it’s affiliated with a cause they care about.  However, when a company makes a charitable gift, the nonprofit may fit with their brand and help a good cause — but necessarily, it’s not the one most of that brand’s customers would have chosen.  To drive greater business value, companies need to create cause-based experiences that allow consumer choice and provide rich, social experiences.  Voting campaigns by brands like Pepsi, Chase, Gap, Target and more take a step toward this but could do more to deliver engaging experiences and tie the experience back to direct direct business results.  And they aren’t feasible for smaller companies to pull off.

Glue’s automated, closed loop platform enables cause-based social marketing programs of any size that create deep engagement, multi-point brand/cause associations, high sharing rates and a closed loop brands can use to drive new customers and rich data.  This is a unique and powerful combination.

DN: What makes you confident that the “goodwill” generated by TGN will translate into ‘good’ revenue?
Companies don’t need Glue to create goodwill.  But when individuals are given rich options and the power to choose (not just vote but choose), they become personally attached to their choice and to the company that enabled them to make it — and more inspired to share the experience with their friends and support the company in the future.  That’s not just our opinion.  Our user data blows away industry average rates for sharing and clicks — meaning we’re inspiring the users (the company’s customers), giving the company access to those customers’ friends and colleagues (highly attractive targets), and enabling them to directly drive new customers and revenue from that base PLUS develop new customer data which all companies know to have value.

The Glue platform is flexible enough to fulfill numerous business objectives spanning customers, partners, and employees.  But for any audience, a Glue program delivers significantly higher business value for the cost than comparable traditional digital media, loyalty, or giving programs.

DN: What kind of commitment are you looking for from brands?
Very little.  We’re committed to making robust Social Cause Marketing feasible and justifiable (through business results) for every company.  We’re like a Salesforce.com <http://Salesforce.com>  (sophisticated CRM for all) or Eventbrite (anyone can be an event organizer) — this December, businesses from small local startups to one of the largest tech companies are creating greater value from the same holiday gift spending through Glue.  For brands that want to create larger programs with a more integrated, branded experience, we can do that too.

This ease and flexibility is made possible by the robust platform we’ve developed with an extensive back-end that enables campaign and non-profit project management.

DN: What can companies do quickly to harness the spirit of the holidays to increase customer loyalty and attract new customers while doing good?
Companies of all sizes spend on gifts and branded merchandise (a $17 billion industry), many of which wind up in landfills and few of which the recipient finds meaningful or worthy of telling people about.  Instead of mugs or gift baskets, give a Glue gift which has meaning for the recipient, does good in the world, and generates free PR for the business in the form of social media recommendations — for the same cost and minimal effort. Contact info@thegluenetwork.com

Final note:  Lynley Sides is CEO of The Glue Network and has spent her career bringing groundbreaking new products to market. She’s passionate about digital media, social ventures, running, skiing and the fight for global human freedom. You can follow her @LynleySides.

Blogging Insights From an Expert

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Jeff Jarvis became a legend when he took on Dell publicly for their service failings several years ago.  Some consider this the tipping point at which the balance of power shifted from marketer to consumer leading to the social media revolution.  Dell might also identify the crisis Jeff created as the catalyst for becoming a service-centric organization.  Jeff was one of the speaker’s at this year’s Pivot Conference and the only one to venture into the crowd causing many to actually look up from their iPads at least momentarily.  Of all the speakers I interviewed, Jeff wins the award for being the pithiest–a characteristic this blogger truly appreciates.  Jeff speaks 20-30 times a year and if you happen to see him on the agenda, make a point to go listen, learn and converse with him.

DN: Is it harder to engage an audience than it was 5 years ago before WiFI connectivity was a conference mandatory?
Not at all. Quite the contrary.

DN: At Pivot, at least 3/4 of the audience seemed to have a laptop or iPad open while you were speaking. Do you find yourself wanting to say, hey turn those devices off and pay attention?
Absolutely not. Some of those people are tweeting about the talk; others are reading others’ tweets in the so-called Twitter back-channel. And those who are doing neither are being nice enough to occupy themselves and not visibly yawn.

DN: Would it be worth trying to get the audience to shut down their devices momentarily while you speak?
Not at all. The lecture, as a form, is bullshit. See: http://www.buzzmachine.com/2010/04/18/this-is-bullshit-my-tedxnyed-talk/

DN:  Knowing that your audience is on Twitter while you speak, are you thinking while you write your speech—gee that line will make a great tweet?
No. I have always tended to talk in tweetese.

DN: Do you get any feedback from these events and if so, why kind of adjustments have you made based on this feedback?
Some things I can change: saying “uh” or “right.” Some things I can’t: I pace.

DN: Finally, tell me a little about your latest book and how you draw from it in your speeches?
Public Parts is about the value of publicness, the power we all have no with a Gutenberg press in our hands. A speech is another means of being public but what I enjoy most about it is not the speech but the conversation, when I go into the people formerly known as the audience (credit: Jay Rosen) and play Oprah. In Public Parts, I start to speculate about such talks being the basis of my next project. A book, if it comes out of it at all, would be a byproduct then.