Apple Spreads Relationship Brand to Future Generations
May 25, 2009
I’ve written many times on Corporate Eye about Apple as one of the best examples of a relationship brand around. The brand started out as a cult brand, but today, is one of the strongest relationship brands with loyal brand advocate customers around the world.
Apple knows its customers are loyal and hopes to ensure that loyalty is passed onto the next generation. To do so, Apple has launched a series of Apple Camp workshops at its retail stores in the U.S. The workshops are for children ages 8-12, and each 3-hour session will undoubtedly teach participants how to do some really cool stuff on their Macs. The workshops will be held in all Apple retail stores, but kids can only participate in 2 classes each — ensuring the Apple brand can be experienced by the masses.
According to The Register, classes are filling up fast. It seems Apple parents are thrilled to be given the chance to let their children become Apple brand advocates, too, and since parents have to attend classes with their children, the family’s relationship with the brand can also become a bonding experience. Very clever, Apple. Read more
British Petroleum Oil (BP Oil) Gets it Right
May 24, 2009
Having vision when it comes to foresight in economics is very important, whether you’re in politics, business or even religion. It’s not always about who’s right, but more often about what’s right. And when you get it right…
I frequently get those annoying emails from well-meaning friends and peers, giving digs on Obama and politics. They generally poke fun at what he’s doing or how he’s doing and why he’s doing it. I usually don’t even read them or if I do, I don’t take them seriously. After all, politics is a sensitive subject for many, and discussing it can open a heated and never-ending discussion.
But, what is interesting to me is one of the political views that President Obama had about clean, sustainable energy and how it can affect our future. Most of our energy sources as a nation and around the world is transported 
in and often directly linked to questionable agencies or organizations with ulterior motives. While the consumer is screaming for better, more cost effective ways of attaining resourcesful energy, businesses that deal in this industry are also calling for more cost effective ways of handling it. Of course, this is ultimately important in the corporate sector as well, and I found that BP Oil is one of the responsible corporations and is doing their part to ensure clean energy.
Reently, they’ve constructed a wind farm in the Midwest for gathering and producing clean energy. Criticize them? Forbid! Now while I respect other’s political opinions, I can’t help but laud companies like BP Oil who are doing their part to make sure that we enjoy clean energy. BP’s efforts will do several things:
- create more jobs
- increase positive communications between business to business and to consumers
- provide clean, sustainable energy
No, everything is not great and wonderful when it comes to issues like these, but I think too often we concentrate on the wrong thing or are focused wrong and place too much emphasis on what doesn’t count. What do you think?
H&M: taking responsibility
May 22, 2009
Browsing H&M to see if I could buy a voucher online (I can’t – only in stores), I inevitably ended up in the corporate pages “just to see”, and found something rather interesting on their CSR landing page.
This is the CSR Manager answering questions in a ‘column’ – which she’s been doing since February. It’s not quite a column, although it does convey corporate opinion; it’s not quite a blog, though it does express personality; it’s not quite microblogging, either. It may even be achieved technically by RSS.
The technology doesn’t really matter – or only in that there isn’t really a conversation going on, and whatever technology they’re using at the moment wouldn’t allow that. What does matter is that the person responsible for CSR in that organisation (Ingrid Schullström) is showing their face, taking responsibility, discussing issues and responding to questions – presumably, questions that have been emailed in.
She gets a name-check on the corporate organisation page too, as responsible for Environment and Corporate Social Responsibility. That is unusual – good for H&M.
So what next for H&M; will they feel able to remove the timelag between emailed-question and posted-reply by allowing a blog-style comment and reply? Or even a microblogging connection? I know it takes a lot of time and effort, and is a significant step (from which it might be difficult to retreat) but it would be very interesting to see.
Proud of your website? Win some recognition in the CorpComms Awards 2009!
May 22, 2009
Are you particularly proud of your online communications this year? Is your corporate website or your online annual report the envy of your sector? Do your stakeholders, from investors through to employees, only have good things to say about them?
Grab some internal and external recognition for both you and your hard-working team by entering one of the online categories in the CorpComms Awards 2009. They are:
- Best corporate website
- Best online annual report
- Best understanding and use of new media
The awards, run by CorpComms Magazine, are now in their fourth year. They aim to ‘commemorate the exceptional work and creativity of this most dynamic of industries’.
The closing date for entries is Friday 10 July 2009, and no entries will be received after 31 July 2009.
The awards event will be held on Wednesday 25 November 2009 at the Park Lane Hotel, London.
For more information, including additional categories, contact details, entry forms and dinner bookings, visit the CorpComms Magazine website.
PETA Advertising Strikes Out Again
May 22, 2009
I’m not a fan of shock advertising (I think it’s a cop out most of the time). I’m also not a fan of PETA advertising and marketing. In fact, I’ve written about my opinion related to PETA advertising before. There are so many examples of PETA’s misguided marketing strategy (remember sea kittens or the banned Super Bowl ad? I could go on and on.), but an outdoor billboard that PETA recently resurrected in the U.K. is yet another reminder of a marketing strategy gone awry (and that still has no clue how to connect with a broad audience). Check it out below.
The PETA brand suffers from an exclusive message (and I don’t mean that in the “special” sense of the word — I mean the opposite of “inclusive”). The PETA brand message is, “You’re either with us or against us.” There is no half-way with PETA. In the 21st century where relationship brands are becoming more and more important, this is the wrong strategy for PETA (or any other organization that wants to grow) to follow.
I also think that PETA suffers from delivering messages that aren’t believable. One of the most important elements of marketing and copywriting is crafting messages that consumers will actually believe. Gone are the days when consumers took words like “free” at face value. The same can be said of extremist messages like PETA’s ‘meat makes kids fat’ message. The masses don’t believe it.
I do believe there is merit to many of PETA’s fights, but extremist, exclusionary marketing is not helping the brand. Check out the comments on this article from Brand Republic to see what people are saying about the billboard.
Your thoughts?
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