WOMMA/Summit - Day 2: Brand Fans: Your Best Asset or a Train Wreck?
This panel is focused on discussing the concept of, and the engagement with "Brand Fans". How do you listen? How do you bring them into the brand experience?
Brands
* Moderator: Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
* Jeff Sinelli, CEO, Which Wich
* Angela Vargo, Manager of Product Development, Southwest Airlines
* Christine Hight, Director of Consumer Research, Hilton Hotels
Brand Fans
* Jamie Clear, Brand Fan, Alli
* Ken Davenport, Owner, Davenport Theatrical Enterprises, Inc.
P&G has said that 50% of innovation will soon come from outside the company.
Hilton entered the brand fan interaction process by starting with a small, 4 month trial using Communispace with three research activities per week. The initial assumption was that they'd run out of thing to talk about. But the community members actually came back with more ideas, thoughts, discussion points on their own. This community started to form around topics separate from the "research" portion driven by Hilton.
One of Hilton's realizations was that there are preferences and there are contracts. A special pillow is a preference, a non-smoking room is a contract. (This was one of those things that seems obvious in the light of day, but until "outsiders" bubble it up, it's not brought out in the light)
Southwest first launched into the "listening" process with their blog. They've wrestled with listening to the brand fanatics when their opinions may differ wildly. They listen to the fanatics, but they have to be smart about the way they implement suggestions and drive their business.
The Southwest blog driver is actually from the Product Management team, which she says makes a lot of sense given the nature of the blog feedback and the charge of the Product Management team.
Ken says that there are two unique problems:
* How to brand an industry as a whole
* How to listen to people talking about your specific product
He doesn't do everything the fans ask, but he'd "be crazy not to listen".
Christine: When you ask for feedback, be sure to be prepared for frank, honest discussion. Angst has been clarified about the fact that the lower end brands give free wireless access while the "full-service" hotels don't. Close the loop - feed back solutions to the community, even if there's not an immediate solution.
There are good ideas and there's bad ideas... how do you separate the two?
Angela: Customers complained about the fact that Southwest hadn't released a specific holiday travel scheduled so Southwest posted a blog entry that gave a technical description about the "why". The customers went nuts! To them it was a personal issue - people wanted to book their trips to grandma's. The technical description made the customers irritated rather than informed.
Are we in a honeymoon period for these customer communities? If community members aren't getting answers to their questions, they'll quickly disappear or become even more jaded towards your company. Product communities are new and exciting to the members, the biggest question is not how to get them there, how do keep them engaged.
Why do you participate?
Jamie: "I was there from the beginning I want to help out and stay involved."
To Angela: "Do you screen the various internal bloggers to find the best person to write content?"
Answer: "Yes."
Hilton's community team has little daily interaction with the PR team, unless there's a specific crisis issue. They'd like to do a better job of funneling insights back into PR and other teams.
Hilton has to retire people from their Communispace community in order to keep things fresh. They wish they could retire those folks to a "retirement community" (so to speak), but there's not enough funds yet.
