Author: Sarah Welstead

So, as my Twitter feed fills up with endless tweets about the vapidity that is Pinterest, I can’t help noticing that marketing types aren’t talking a whole lot about this week’s debacle involving the Susan G. Komen foundation and their funding of Planned Parenthood.

For those of you who haven’t been following the story, here it is in a nutshell:  Susan G. Komen For the Cure, the organization which brought you the ubiquitous ‘pink ribbons’, raises something like $400 million annually for cancer-fighting-related causes.  This year, they were slated to give $700k of that to Planned Parenthood, an organization which works to “…improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and abilities of individuals to make informed and responsible choices.”  Pro-lifers in the US interpret this to mean that Planned Parenthood ‘promotes’ abortion; pro-choicers see Planned Parenthood as a vital resource for disadvantaged women who are most in need of assistance.

Last week, Komen announced it would pull their grant to Planned Parenthood.  The religious right was thrilled, because they saw it as a victory for their agenda.  But the left-wing internet blew up, and Komen not only reversed its stance but parted ways with Senior VP Karen Handel (a former gubernatorial candidate who was outspoken in her desire to defund Planned Parenthood), who was widely believed to be the architect of Komen’s initial move to withdraw their Planned Parenthood grant.

This is really all about politics and religion

Most of the mainstream media is carefully skirting the issue, but let’s be honest here:  The whole furor about Komen, Planned Parenthood and Handel is all to do with politics and religion.  And these days, especially in the US, politics and religion are inextricably intertwined.  

And here’s where Komen has just done itself a huge amount of damage.  In a matter of days, they’ve gone from a fairly neutral, non-profit, friendly-pink-everything organization to one which has managed to antagonize both the left-leaning, less religious camp (by withdrawing their support for Planned Parenthood) and the right-wing, conservative Christian camp (by reversing their decision and getting rid of Handel).

Komen has now become both political and religious, and it’s already causing huge problems for the brand.

They’ve made it okay to boycott pink ribbons

I don’t know about you, but when I saw pink KFC buckets of chicken and pink M&Ms, I had to wonder if the whole pink ribbon campaign had gone too far – should we really be eating more fried foods while telling ourselves that we’re helping women’s health?  And I had heard rumours about how the Komen foundation was more interested in selling pink stuff than they were in actually finding a cure for cancer.

But I wasn’t about to stand up and start criticizing pink stuff, because I’d look like a misanthropic luddite who didn’t appreciate awareness or research or, even worse, was somehow ‘against’ supporting women with breast cancer.

It turns out I wasn’t alone, however, and the events of the last few days have opened the floodgates.  The blogosphere is abuzz with commentary – from the left, the right, and the alternative-living types – all of whom are not only angry with Komen’s moves this week, but who are also getting more vocal with their criticisms of Komen’s practices around inflated salaries, questionable product endorsements, and relationships with pharmaceutical companies.

 

A brand misstep of New Coke proportions.  Or at least Netflix.

Two weeks ago, I would have said that Komen was one of the most successful non-profit brands in the world, and in fact could compete with for-profit brands in terms of top-of-mind awareness and loyalty – they’ve raised something more than $1 billion in less than 10 years.

Today…I don’t think Komen is going to collapse overnight.  There are too many people with too much emotionally invested – and too many brands with too many runs and events and products invested – in Komen-related programs for the whole organization to implode in the next five minutes.  But if their bottom line hasn’t been cut in half in the next 18 months, I’ll be greatly surprised.  I only hope that that money finds its way to other cancer-fighting causes.

^{This is the control panel for a Winnebago.  But I thought it was a nice metaphor for having your social media channels managed from one central, delightfully wood-panelled, location.}

These days I find myself doing a lot of social media consulting, usually helping small businesses start using social media.  And the first question I’m always asked is:  “What social media channels should I be using?”

99% of the time, my answer is the same:  Start with the trifecta of Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

“I get that I should be using Twitter and LinkedIn,” they say.  “But Facebook?  Isn’t that just for personal stuff, like friends and family?  I don’t want the world to see my family pictures.  That’s not appropriate for my business.  And Facebook can’t help build my business anyway.”

When you’re a small business, you are your personal network

The thing is, when you’re a small business owner, much of your business is going to come from your personal network.  Your sister-in-law, the guy you shared an office with 10 years ago and still keep in touch with, the neighbour you always hang out with on Friday nights when your spouses have other things to do – these are people who are often in a surprisingly good position to refer you, your business and your product to others.  And they’re likely to be surprisingly enthusiastic about you.

In fact, they’d probably recommend you to more people more often if they could remember what you do and that you’re doing it – and that’s where Facebook can help.  

For example:  The other day, a friend from grade school posted a note on Facebook about how she was having trouble with her nanny.  I don’t speak to her on a regular basis, and she lives in another country, so without Facebook I wouldn’t have known that she was having an issue.  As it happened, my cousin-in-law, who runs a babysitting business, had just posted a note about how her company can help find nannies in that area.  So all of a sudden I was able to connect my friend with my cousin-in-law’s business.  

It wouldn’t have happened on Twitter (since my Twitter feed is too busy and my grade-school friend isn’t on there anyway), and it definitely wouldn’t have happened on LinkedIn (since ‘trouble with nannies’ isn’t the kind of content that tends to find a place on LinkedIn).

If you aren’t linking Facebook to your professional profile, how will these kinds of connections happen?

Stop worrying about the invasion of your personal life

Guess what?  The convergence of your personal and professional life has already happened.  If you’re a small business owner who’s been out there doing small-business-owner things like meeting people, attending events, publishing articles and making contacts, your personal life isn’t a mystical secret.  Anyone with 30 minutes and some basic deduction skills can find out a lot about you, and can probably find a whole heap of photos, too.  

This is a good thing.  You want to be accessible; you want to turn up in Google searches.  The more findable you are, the more credibility you have.  And unless you’ve been a complete idiot, and posted a whole slew of photos of yourself doing jello shots off the naked torsos of strange men, attaching your Facebook profile to your personal brand – and associating it with the company you lead – isn’t going to be a problem.

When you’re too private, people wonder why

The other day I wrote about how authenticity and transparency in advertising isn’t as popular as the gurus would have you believe. However, where they’re right about transparency is when it comes to personal branding, and when you’re a small businessperson, personal branding is everything.  

Before you ever get into a meeting with a new client, someone in the decision-making chain is going to Google you.  If they can’t find much information about you, they’re going to assume you’re not as prolific, influential or important as you want them to think you are.  They’re simply going to wonder why someone who calls themselves an ‘expert’ only has 3 search returns.  Facebook can increase your searchable content volume while you’re building up your other channels – and that can be a big advantage.

When Kim Kardashian’s marriage dissolved after 72 days, I wrote a blog post about how it was likely to do serious damage to her brand. 

Well, it’s true that she’s not as visible in ShoeDazzle ads as she used to be, Skechers has replaced her with a bulldog for their new ad campaign, and the comments sections of gossip websites are filled to bursting with requests to stop posting about this “no talent” family, but, sadly, ‘Kim and Kourtney Take New York’ just got record ratings this past weekend. 

So perhaps the brand implosion hasn’t (yet?) happened.  But why?

Because she’s using ‘Kim and Kourtney’ as an extended self-redemption commercial, and the editing is fantastic.

The Kardashian editing team has always been hard-core:  In Season 6, Episode 12 (‘Trouble in Paradise’), they did a seamless job of editing Kim’s original comment of “When I married a black guy, my father didn’t speak to me for 3 months…” to the much less damning “When I married a guy, my father didn’t speak to me for 3 months…”  (Watch the episode here:  the comment happens about 5 minutes from the end.)

But the post-divorce editing has been inspired.  The Kris Humphries reaction shots alone – yawning, staring into space, gazing hopefully at his smartphone while string theory is being discussed around him – are doing more for Kim’s erstwhile reputation than any soft-serve halfwit Barbara Walters interview could.

And this weekend’s episode had a nice setup scene in which Kim tells her mother she’s having ‘doubts’ about the marriage.

The scene is supposed to take place in Dubai, two weeks before Kim officially announces her divorce, but it’s happening in a car with darkened windows – it could have been shot any time.  But watch closely:  When the camera cuts away from Kim, they’ve inserted additional audio in which she sounds much closer to divorce, and much more ‘conflicted’ about the situation.

I’m sure there are all kinds of other creative editing tricks being used here – I don’t watch the Kardashian shows all the time, and these are just a couple of examples which struck me as the most glaring.  But I continue to be kind of stunned that (a) no one else seems to notice this stuff and (b) no one on the Kardashian production team has had the kind of life crisis that prompts them to come forward and say, “You know what?  I don’t care if I never work on a Ryan Seacrest production again.  I just can’t be a part of this any more…” – and then spill the background details.

I do love a great infographic.

Just because this is a rant doesn’t mean there isn’t a point.

Christmastime always seems to bring out my latent crafty-craft tendencies, and this year is no exception.  I decided to make these chocolate-covered marshmallows on a stick:

^{(I seriously need a better camera than the one on my phone.  Come to think of it, I need a new phone.)}

I’d probably make stuff like this more often – put anything chocolate-covered on a stick and you’ve got a high-perceived-value kind of edible – but it generally takes me the whole year to steel myself to do them.  Not because they’re hard to make (they aren’t), but because getting the sticks and the melting chocolate and the little bags requires a trip to Michael’s Craft Store, and I can’t bear to even contemplate that more than about once a year.

This is what the lineup at Michael’s looks like, all the time:

Okay, this isn’t a photo of Michael’s. But you see how there are, like, a zillion people in line?  That’s what Michael’s is like.  

Today, I was the 33rd person in the line, and while it took me only 7 minutes to select the items I needed, it took me 23 minutes to get from the back of the line to a cashier.

And all I could think was:  If I’m limiting my Michael’s shopping expeditions to once a year because I can’t stomach the thought of waiting in line, how many other people are doing the same thing?  

I have similar thoughts about Winners and Tim Horton’s:  There are plenty of times when I pass a Winners or a Tim’s and decide against going in because I can see the line is 10+ people deep, there are only 2 cashiers working, and I know that by the time I’ve been in line for more than 11 minutes, I’m going to need to go on beta blockers for sudden-onset high blood pressure.

How much does this cut into revenue?

It’s at times like this that I wish I was one of those behavioural psychologist researcher types who specialize in retail behaviour, because I would really like to know how much my – and I’m assuming I’m not alone – reluctance to enter certain stores ends up cutting into the bottom line.  

How many people, running a little late for work in the morning, bypass Tim’s because they don’t have 15 minutes to wait in line?  Does Winners lose business to other clothing stores because people like me can’t face spending 45 minutes combing through the racks followed by another 30 minutes waiting for pay for them?  I know these stores have to balance cashier wages against purchases, but is a cashier:customer ratio of 2:10 really the most cost-effective in the long run?

Customer experience isn’t just about friendly salespeople.

Winners, Tim’s and Michael’s all seem to be leaders in their categories, and maybe they don’t worry too much about the business they may be losing.  Maybe they can’t worry about it, because it’s impossible to measure.  After all, as I said the other day, people in focus groups lie when they’re asked about purchasing decisions, so it’s easy to dismiss the “I spend less money at your store than I would if you had faster checkouts” claims of someone like me as false ultimatums.

On the other hand, Winners, Michael’s and Tim’s spend lots of money on advertising, so they must want more business.  Once you’ve got good brand awareness – which all 3 of these chains do – then your marketing is really about keeping yourself top-of-mind so that people purchase more stuff, more often.  But when staying top-of-mind can’t conquer people’s reluctance to shop in your store, you might want to reallocate your marketing budget to staffing, or even process engineering.