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Study: Popularity is Determined More By Peer Pressure Than Quality

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This morning I came across a fascinating study (via NPR) done by Princeton professor Matthew Salganik who attempted to learn why works of art become popular.  In essence, Salganik wanted to know if popularity was based more so on the actual quality of the art, or does social influence play a role?

To find the answer, Salganik surveyed 30,000 teenagers and let them listen to 48 unknown songs by unknown bands.  What Salganik did was divide these teenagers into one of two groups.  The first group would listen to the music and then rate the songs from one to five stars.  Then after listening to the songs and rating them, the person would then have the opportunity to download the song for free.  This was the ‘independent’ group.

The second group was called the ‘social’ group, and it was divided into eight smaller groups.  Each person in each of these eight groups follows the same process as the independent group.  They listen to the songs, then rate them and finally are presented with the option to download the song for free, or not.  The big difference is that with the social group, every member can see how many times every song has been downloaded by members of their group.  In short, they can see which songs are popular within their group and which ones are not, and they have this information available to them before they rate each song.  But they are only able to see the popularity of the songs within their group (of eight groups within the larger social group).  They can’t see the popularity levels for the songs in the other 7 groups of the larger social group.  Also, in some cases the songs are ordered based on popularity (most popular listed first) and in other groups the popularity of each song is shown, but the list isn’t sorted by popularity.

What Salganik found was that when participants were made aware of the popularity of the songs (but the songs were not sorted based on popularity) that the more popular songs were rated more highly.  When the songs were actually sorted according to popularity, this affect was magnified.  So the popular songs became much more popular and the songs that were lower ranked became even less popular.

Salganik appeared at the Thought Leader Forum in 2011 and explained in more detail some of his findings from this study:

There’s this idea that the more people can see what other people are doing, the more they’re going to find the best thing. But in fact, what we see is that when people can see what other people are doing, they start following people, who are actually following other people who are following other people. And this process of following can become decoupled from the underlying reality.

To give a concrete example from these experiments, there is one song, “Lockdown” by 52 Metro, again a song no one has heard of by a band no one has heard of. In one world, this song came in first. It was the most downloaded
song. In another world, this exact same song came in 40th out of 48. This exact same song competing against the exact same other songs.

But you can see to the extent that when we have these kinds of feedback processes, when people are following what other people are doing, slight initial fluctuations at the beginning can become locked in, and then that leads to
very different outcomes, even for the exact same song.

Isn’t that fascinating?  All of this points to a fundamental truth: We as human beings gravitate to that which other human beings have identified as being ‘popular’.  We trust each other and seek out input when we are choosing, especially when given a wide variety to choose from, as the participants in Salganik’s study were given.

The takeaway for your business?  That much of the purchase decision the average customer makes is simply based on feedback from other customers.  Which is exactly why your business should be embracing and engaging with its most passionate customers so that they can help connect with other customers before they make a purchase.

Remember, rock stars don’t have fans because they are rock stars, they are rock stars because they have fans.  If you want to be a rock star brand, you need to learn to connect with your most passionate customers in much the same way that rock stars do.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Since this study was rooted in music (where ‘quality’ is more subjective), does that mean peer pressure has less impact on the popularity of products such as say, travel luggage, where the criteria for what defines a quality product is less subjective?

Pic via Flickr user Gonzalo Baeza  

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Blogger Outreach: How Ford is Getting it Right

Last November, I replied to a tweet from my friend, C.C. Chapman. Given the choice, C.C. asked, would you prefer a free Tesla or a free Mustang. The replies came fast and clearly favored the Tesla, but I’m a muscle car enthusiast, so I replied that I’d take the Mustang.


That same day, I received a direct message from someone working with Ford, inviting me to an Orlando-area event for women bloggers.

Although late November is a busy time, I attended the event, and sat next to Chaun Avery, Orlando Regional Ford Lincoln Sales Operations Manager at Ford Motor Company. We talked about Ford’s new models, some of which we’d get to see later that afternoon. I casually mentioned that I’d be interested in an electric car, but didn’t want the hassle of finding an outlet to plug it in away from home. That’s when Chaun recommended I try the C-Max, which recharges every time you brake.

I drove the car that afternoon, and already hated to give it up.

Chaun offered me an extended test drive, and after a few emails, I was at her office, signing some simple forms to borrow the car in a “blogger loan.” She came out for a test drive, explained the car’s features, and sent me on my way.

That was it. No hard sell. No sell, period. Brilliant!

Here’s what happened. I loved the car. My family loved the car. I tweeted some pictures of the car, including a disclosure that I’d received a free extended test drive.

People asked, enviously, how I’d managed to get an extended test drive. “I asked,” was the simple answer, although of course I happened to meet the right person to ask! I drove the car to work, and let my co-workers see it. I drove Kim Garst to lunch when she happened to be near my office one day, and let her check it out.

When Lynette Young came to Orlando, I contacted Chaun and let her know Lynette was in the market for a hybrid car and would probably love driving the C-Max as much as I did. Lynette and Chaun exchanged some paperwork, and I handed over my new favorite car for a week. (Of course, I got it back afterward.) Lynette loved the car, too. She even tweeted about it.

For marketers keeping track, this entire process has involved very little cost to Ford: one event, social monitoring, targeted outreach and a genuine passion for letting people try the cars.

And the smartest move on Ford’s part? No move at all. Hand over the keys, and let me drive the car.

Well played, Ford, well played.

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Brands, Stop Chasing New Customers and Ignoring Your Existing Ones

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Now is a good time to be in the market for a new satellite television provider.  The two main competitors, Dish and DirecTv, are throwing all kinds of incentives at you.  iPad minis, free DVR upgrades, free Visa cards.  Free, free, free.

The catch is, you typically have to be a new customer to take advantage of these offers.

It’s backwards, and it’s bullshit. When you reward new customers instead of existing ones you are training your customers that it pays to leave you.  Valuing new customers and ignoring loyal ones basically mocks your repeat customers.

Many industries do this, especially when the space is dominated by 2-3 competitors with very similar offerings.  Companies have to constantly offer new and additional incentives for new customers because they aren’t giving loyal customers any incentive to remain loyal.

Rock stars typically do the exact opposite.  Fans are rewarded.  Fans get special access, they get VIP treatment.  They typically get the best seats at concerts, they are the ones that get secret shows, they are the ones that get first access to new products and breaking news.  With rock stars, new customers are ignored in much the same way that many markets ignore existing customers.

I’ve talked about this before, but you build loyalty and create fans with rewards, not incentives.  Offering me products if I will switch to your company doesn’t win my loyalty to your brand, it simply gives me an incentive to take advantage of the offer.  I may have to sign a 2-year contract to get all the goodies, but if you have ignored me and my business, guess what happens in 2 years?  I will switch to your competitor, because they just offered me prizes and incentives for switching.

You are training your customers to leave you.

It’s not about offering incentives for new customers, it’s about offering rewards for existing customers.  Because referrals from happy customers is a far better marketing tool for you.

If the goal is to acquire new customers then you need to follow the rock star marketing model: Focus on delighting your existing customers, with the understanding that this will encourage your existing customers to become fans who will bring you new customers.   

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That Esurance Super Bowl Stunt and Finding the Real Value of Social Media

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So here’s the deal: Instead of buying a Super Bowl ad, Esurance bought the first ad AFTER the Super Bowl.  And they saved $1.5 Million in the process, then gave away that money.  If you wanted to win the cash, all you had to do was tweet the hashtag #ESuranceSave30 within 36 hours of the ad being aired.

AdWeek lauded the stunt as a huge success, and cited these results in making that claim:

• 5.4 million uses of the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag
• More than 200,000 entries within the first minute of the Esurance commercial airing
• 1.4 million hashtag uses in the first hour and 4.5 million in the first 24 hours
• 2.6 billion social impressions on Twitter
• 332,000 views of the Esurance commercial on YouTube
• 261,000 new followers on the official Esurance Twitter account—an increase of nearly 3,000 percent
• A 12x spike in visits to the Esurance website in the first hours of the sweepstakes

Does that look like a successful social media sweepstakes to you?

Augie Ray has an exhaustive analysis of the social sharing results Esurance saw from this stunt, and is critical of the rush to laud these results as being a sign of a win:

I am deeply disappointed to see Esurance’s Super Bowl sweepstakes results widely celebrated. Six years into the social era, I thought we had reached a certain point of social media maturity where we realize that fans and followers are not leads and that relationships are built through shared values and meaningful interactions. I naively thought that we had turned a corner, with widespread understanding that winning in social media occurs by providing great experiences that build long-term relationships and not with campaigns that yield short-term spikes of activity. I was wrong.

It’s easy to look at the results and be wowed.  But as Augie pointed out in his post, let’s not lose sight of the fact that these engagement figures are based on Esurance giving away $1.5 Million dollars.  I’m betting any of us could do the same thing on Twitter and get a shit-ton of new followers.

Augie also points out in his post that ESurance has already lost 15% of the followers they gained from this stunt.

And to me, this is the key point.  How well does Esurance convert these new followers and visitors into customers?  A 12X spike in website traffic is significant, as long as those visitors didn’t simply go to the site for 15 seconds because of this sweepstakes, and then never return.

On the other hand, if Esurance found a way to stay engaged with those new website visitors, then that does have value for the brand.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the people that engaged with the brand immediately after the ad likely had no loyalty toward the brand, they just wanted to win the cash.  So while the ‘eye-popping’ social engagement numbers look good, they are the social media equivalent of farting in an elevator.  It gets everyone’s attention…till the doors open up and then everyone moves on with their lives.

The ultimate success of this stunt will be dictated by how many new customer relationships are created as a result.  If Esurance built into this ways to leverage the new exposure into an ongoing relationship, then the chances of this stunt being a success increase dramatically.

My guess is they (and their agency) are thrilled with the extra ‘pr value’ they got from this.

What do you think, do the above results make this a successful initiative in your mind?

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Why Context Makes Word of Mouth Marketing So Powerful

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Tomorrow I’ll be speaking in Birmingham to the Alabama Banker’s Association, presenting Think Like a Rock Star.  One of the points I’ll be making is the power of your fans utilizing context in their word of mouth.  We all understand the power of word of mouth, and there is a raft of research that proves that a product recommendation from another customer is considered more valuable than a marketing message from a brand.  We know this.

But what we often don’t appreciate is the power of context as it applies to word of mouth marketing.  When customers market to each other, they tailor their message to make it more appealing to others, based on their knowledge of the person they are talking to.  This is incredibly powerful, because your friend likely understands your wants and needs better than the brand that’s trying to win your business.

For example, a bank might be rolling out a new mortgage offering it wants to promote, but you know your friend is looking to buy her daughter her first car, so lower rates for auto loans is more important.  A fan of the bank would promote it to the friend with the daughter based on that context, understanding that the friend isn’t interested in a mortgage or re-financing their home right now.

Here’s another example that I’ve witnessed multiple times on Twitter.  I’ll be chatting with someone and we’ll start talking about my book and I’ll mention they should read it.  They will respond with something like ‘Thanks, I’ll check it out!’  Then a few minutes later, a friend of their’s will tweet them and say something like ‘I’ve read Think Like a Rock Star and it was great!  It would be perfect for your company, you should buy it!’  Then the person will say they are going to buy it.  My recommendation (as the author of the book) wasn’t enough to convince them to buy it.  But when their friend steps in and endorses the book, and adds context to why it would benefit them, that clinches the sale!

The end goal for your brand is to communicate a relevant marketing message to your customers because the more relevant the message is, the greater its chance of converting into a sale.  But sending relevant and customized messages to every customer would have exorbitant costs, which is why brands send a few select marketing messages out designed to reach the mass market.

But your satisfied customers are the link that gives other customers those relevant marketing messages that convert into sales.  This is exactly why word of mouth works.  And when you connect with your satisfied customers, you empower them to better communicate relevant selling points for your brand, to other customers they come in contact with.

Real business benefits from connecting with your biggest fans.  Look back at your own experiences and think about what has worked for you, are you more likely to purchase an item based on seeing a cool commercial, or hearing a recommendation from a friend you trust?

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Your Brand Is the Sum of the Stories We Tell About You

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Facebook has just launched an elegant mobile reader/app called Paper.  Facebook is trying to position the app as less of a reader and more of a way for users to share and create ‘stories’.  Jay has a great write-up on the direction Facebook may be heading with the app.

Over the last few years, our ability to create content and weave multiple medias has increased dramatically.  Our smartphones are becoming computers that are far more powerful that the klunky desktops from just a few years ago.  The ability to create pictures, high-definition video and text has all been fused into a small item no bigger than our hand.

While our ability to tell stories via digital content has greatly increased, many brands are still missing what an opportunity they have in letting customers speak on their behalf.  It’s scary for many brands, I get it.  You spend millions in carefully orchestrated marketing messages designed to communicate specific points to a mass market.

What you miss is that we don’t care about that.  Well we do, but not to the degree you think.  Every customer has their own connection to your brand.  Many customers have complete indifference to your brand.  Some have slight levels of affinity and loyalty, and a select few are raving fans.

We are all telling stories about your brand.  And if you don’t connect with us, we will tell the stories on our own.

But if you do connect with us, two important things begin to happen:

1 – We begin to understand you, and the story you want us to tell

2 – You begin to understand us, and the stories we want to hear

The thing to remember is this:  While most of us have the ability to tell stories about your brand, most of us don’t have any desire to.  Unless we either love you, or hate you.

And again, either way it pays to connect with us.  If you connect with your fans, the customers that love you, those fans will work with you to make sure they tell the story about your brand that you want other customers to hear.  Read that again until you understand just how important that is.

On the other hand, when you connect with your fans, they will come to your defense against customers that are telling negative stories about your brand.  Truly a win-win situation.

Keep in mind that when you empower your customers to tell stories on your brand’s behalf, your customers tell your brand’s story in their own voice.  This is incredibly powerful because customers respond more to a message that’s delivered in a voice they recognize and trust.

Their own.

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Brands, You Have to Build Your ‘Trust’ Muscle

Steve Jobs was probably the greatest business orator and speaker of the last 50 years.  Jobs had a wonderful talent for delivering amazing presentations and captivating an audience.

With that in mind, watch this short video of Jobs prepping for his first on-air appearance in 1978:

Isn’t it interesting to watch a fidgety and obviously very nervous Jobs say “You need to tell me where the restroom is too, because I’m deathly ill, actually, and ready to throw up at any moment.”  Then he adds to someone off camera “I’m not joking!”

Yet 40 years later in 2007, he was delivering the presentation to launch the iPhone, considered to be one of the greatest business presentations of all-time.

Experience is a wonderful teacher, and it molded Jobs from that fidgety computer geek in 1978 to a polished professional that became the gold standard for delivering compelling business presentations.

Today, we’re asking brands to do something equally scary on a scale they’ve never had to before: We are asking brands to trust their most passionate customers.

One of the things that struck me the most while writing Think Like a Rock Star was to delve into the differences between how rock stars approach engaging with their customers versus how brands do.  While many brands are reluctant to connect directly with their customers and give them any control over messaging or promotion, rock stars literally view their customers as marketing partners that they trust to act in the rock stars’ best interest.

This graphic explains why:

InteractionsInteraction leads to Understanding which leads to Trust which leads to Advocacy.  Rock stars are constantly seeking interaction with their fans, because they not only want to better understand their fans, they want their fans to better understand them.  Because rock stars know that when their fans understand them, they can then trust them, and advocate for them.  Also, since rock stars understand and trust their fans, they know that these fans will act in the rock star’s best interests.

Most brands never start on this path because they don’t seek to have those interactions with their customers that are freely available thanks in great part to the rise of social media tools.  If brands would interact more with their fans they would begin to understand them more, which leads to trust, which leads to advocacy.

Which is also a two-way street.  When your brand purposely shuts itself off from your customers, you are also restricting the customers’ ability to interact with you, and then to trust you as well as deadening the chances of having that customer advocate for your brand.

And here’s why it’s an unfounded fear:  Because when you interact with your customers and they understand you they also trust you.  So not only will they advocate for you, they will also spread your message and trust you to spread the message that you give them.  This is what so many brands misunderstand about their fans, they believe their fans will spread a message that’s inconsistent with their ‘messaging’.  Instead, fans will want to work with your brand to make sure they are spreading the message that you want them to.

But it starts with your brand taking the first step to reach out to your customers and trusting them if you want them to trust you.

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The Greatest Marketing Lesson: Passion Trumps Control

We all want to be rock stars, even brands.  Because rock stars have fans that love them like this:

Fans that so passionately love their favorite rock star that they literally break down and start crying when they talk about them.  And brands don’t have that. Except, when they do:

So if we accept that brands can have fans that love them just as passionately as rock stars do, then the question becomes why don’t more brands have such devoted fans? 

When I started writing Think Like a Rock Star, the question I wanted to answer is why so many rock stars like Lady Gaga have fans that love them, while most brands do not.  I expected to learn that rock stars simply have an innate advantage when it comes to creating and cultivating fans.

In fact, I learned that rock stars aren’t doing anything to create and cultivate fans that brands can’t do.  Instead, the answer to why rock stars have fans and brands don’t lies in what brands aren’t willing to do.

The Greatest Marketing Tool Ever Invented

The rock concert.

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I just love this photo.  Look at those smiling faces!  Happy people in the audience, and on the stage.  Everyone happy, happy, happy.

Think about what a rock concert is.  It’s a way that rock stars have created to:

1 – Give a special experience to its biggest fans (that helps validate why they are fans to begin with)

2 – Sell that experience to its fans

3 – Sell merchandise to its fans

4 – Bring its biggest fans together in one place and connect them to each other

That fourth and final point is what makes concerts so valuable to rock stars.  Sure, the ticket and merchandise sales create a huge direct benefit to the rock star, but bringing all those fans together is an incredible driver of positive word of mouth for the rock star.  Think about it, thousands of people that share a common interest are placed in the same area for several hours.  What are they going to do before and after (and during) the concert?  Interact with other fans and talk about how and why they love their favorite rock star.  It helps validate why they are fans, and when they leave the concert, those fans will feel better about being a fan of the rock star and by extension better about themselves.

In essence, the fans are marketing for the rock star.  Those fans are going to go home and tell all their friends about what an amazing experience the concert was and they will encourage their friends and family to attend a concert as well.  So the simple act of connecting fans to each other is incredibly powerful.

And it’s backed by facts and science.  First, there are a plethora of studies that word of mouth is a more effective and trusted form of communication than any type of communication that originates from a brand.  IOW if you want to sell your widget to my friend Tim, the odds are that my telling him to buy your widget will result in a sale long before your commercial will.

Additionally, science backs the power of letting passionate people spread your message.   Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute concluded that it only takes 10 percent of a population holding an unshakable belief in order to convince the majority to adopt that same belief.  In fact, the scientists found that this will always be the case.  This study speaks to the power of letting your most passionate fans spread your message.  It’s no coincidence that two of the most popular business case studies for building fans (Maker’s Mark, The Fiskateers) both have elements built into it that connects fans to each other.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the average brand won’t trust its marketing messages with its most passionate customers even if that brand understands the business value of positive word of mouth.  Because even though most brands understand and appreciate the power of word of mouth, they value and covet having control over the marketing messages they send their customers even more.

So then the answer to why rock stars have fans and brands do not goes back to simple marketing.  But not so much the message itself, but how that message is conveyed to others.

If we accept that the average customer views another customer to be more credible than the average brand, then we also must accept that the average customer views marketing messages from another customer to be more credible than marketing messages from the average brand.

What you gain in control, you lose in credibility.  We talk about how brands need to build ‘relationships’ with their customers, but healthy relationships are built on trust.  If your brand doesn’t trust its customers, you probably won’t keep them very long.

Pic via Kmeron

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How to Mobilize Your Brand Advocates Through Storytelling

With the decline of traditional media and it’s effectiveness, brands have been turning to brand advocates to get their message across to potential customers.

Brand advocates are existing customers of a brand who are the biggest fans of that brand and who are passionate about the brand and its products. They don’t need an incentive to spread their love and ignite a word of mouth (both online and offline), because they are emotionally invested in brand’s mission and its story.

Neilsen’s 2012 survey of global trust in advertising found that 92 percent of respondents trust recommendations from people they know, and 70 percent trust consumers’ opinions posted online. And this isn’t the only data point that speaks to the power of advocates. At BRANDERATI we have put together a deck of the 26 stats marketers should know about advocacy that you might find interesting.

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The most powerful thing about organic advocacy is the story behind customer’s experience. And because the endorsement is not paid for by the brand, and the story is something others can truly connect with, it becomes a great motivator in getting others to act on the endorsement. Advocacy, done right, becomes true influence. And influence is what impacts behaviors. Because the ultimate goal of marketing is to not just to tell a great story, but tell a story that would make people want to get to know a brand and buy the product. And that’s what advocacy is all about.

Many brands have been turning to customers, asking them to tell their own stories and putting their own fans center-stage. By giving their most vocal advocates a platform to share their own experiences the brands are effectively turning their brand love into authentic influence. Brands are able to spark engagement around real stories from real customers in real-time, thus massively increasing the reach of their message and driving impact to company’s bottom line.

Let’s take a look at several examples.

Buick

Buick wanted to change perception of its brand, and they thought the best way to do this was to ask their own advocates why they love their Buicks and to share their stories. In only a few weeks, Buick advocates had written over 1,600 love letters and 16% of advocates had shared them on Facebook. The individual stories were magnified, thanks to the brand power of Buick – individuals were given a corporate platform and their stories reached further than they would have on their own.

 EkaterinaPicBuick.jpg

Google

One marketing problem that faces a brand like Google is that, although it is a truly massive, global brand, it is very hard to represent their services in a visual way. To give their marketing a human quality, Google asked customers to tell their own stories of the ways in which Google had changed their lives, their organizations or their businesses.

The results were commercials that were inspiring, touching and emotional – quite a feat from a software company. This one from Mark Kempton, whose survival of the Queenland flooding depended on his rescuers using Google Maps, has been viewed over 5.5 million times on YouTube, and brings an individual story to a global audience.

Weight Watchers

EkaterinaPicWWFor Weight Watchers, sharing customers’ stories is about inspiring others and giving credibility to their diet plan. They use celebrities for many of their campaigns, but they also give a platform to their ‘ordinary’ fans who have used their plan to shed the pounds. Their website, magazine and marketing all feature many stories of real people who have lost weight through Weight Watchers – so you can find someone just like you to use as a role model. The company is always on the look-out for success stories so that they can provide a constant stream of positive messages to inspire their customers through their online and off-line channels.

 

 

Conclusion

To tell customers stories effectively you need to connect with fans and ask them to tell you about the difference your product or service has made to their lives. Sharing their story widely can help their individual tales reach a much larger audience than they would ordinarily. Your brand platform combined with your customers’ inspirational stories can lead to a winning combination of advocacy and influence. But to do so effectively and in a sustainable way, you have to build authentic relationships with your advocates and fans long-term. Without that you will just create another short-term marketing campaign, whereas what you are really looking for is inspiring a movement around your brand, your mission, your story.

 

033Ekaterina Walter led strategic and marketing innovation for brands such as Intel and Accenture, and is currently a co-founder and CMO of Branderati. She is an international speaker and author of the WSJ bestseller “Think Like Zuck: The Five Business Secrets of Facebook’s Improbably Brilliant CEO Mark Zuckerberg” and co-author of “The Power of Visual Storytelling: How to Use Visuals, Videos, and Social Media to Market Your Brand.” You can find her on Twitter: @Ekaterina or her blog: http://www.ekaterinawalter.com/.

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How to Staff and Structure to Become a Fan-Centric Brand

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First, please read this post on 10 Things to Remember When Creating a Brand Ambassador Program.

This post is based on the framework that I introduced in my book Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies That Turn Customers Into Fans.  So if you already have a copy, this post relates to Chapter 9.  The framework discussed in this post is independent of  whether or not your company has a brand ambassador program.  It can work with or without one.

There are two many teams to focus on creating and inter-relating:

1 – The Brand Advisory Panel.  This is an internal team within your brand made up primarily of select employees.

2 – The Customer Advisory Panel.  This is an external team made up primarily of selected customers.

The key is that both of these groups have their own responsibilities, but they also work together and are in constant contact.

Core Responsibilities:

Brand Advisory Panel:

  • Working with the CAP (Customer Advisory Panel) to ensure that it receives all relevant information from the brand
  • Works with the CAP to ensure a flow of feedback in both directions
  • Works to distribute all relevant customer feedback from the CAP within the brand to make sure that the feedback is distributed to the areas within the brand that are best suited to act on that information.
  • Works within the brand to create a structure so that employees that connect directly with customers are able to collaborate and share ideas
  • Responsible for educating employees on how to properly communicate with customers, including handling complaints, etc

Customer Advisory Panel:

  • Ensuring that the brand hears and understands the voice of the customer
  • Works with the BAP to ensure a flow of feedback in both directions
  • Provides the BAP with all relevant feedback from customers, including complaints as well as praise
  • Receives feedback from the BAP based on previously provided feedback from the CAP as well as new information, and communicates feedback to customers as appropriate

Basically, both groups are designed to encouraged a flow of feedback and information.  The CAP connects with customers directly and receives feedback from them.  This feedback is then relayed to the BAP.  The BAP then takes that feedback from the CAP and distributes it internally within the brand as appropriate, and/or supplies the CAP with feedback based on its feedback.  By facilitating this flow of information from the brand to the customer and vice versa, both brand and customer has a better understanding of each other.  Which means the brand can more effectively market to the customer, design products and services it is more likely to purchase, etc.

How to Staff the Brand Advisory Panel and the Customer Advisory Panel

To a great degree, the size of both the BAP and CAP is a direct function of the brand’s resources.  There are a few considerations regardless of the available resources:

1 – There should be at least one employee who is a member of the CAP and there should be at least one customer that is a member of the BAP.  For example, you want a brand employee to be a member of the CAP so that employee can work with the customers that are a part of the CAP to give them the brand’s point of view.  Likewise, you want a customer to be a member of the BAP to ensure that the voice of the customer is heard and understood by the BAP at all times.

2 – If you have a dedicated Brand Ambassador Program, the BAP will oversee this program.

3 – Customers who are selected to the CAP should be considered at minimum part-time employees and should be compensated.

I cover this process in much greater detail in the book including a breakdown of the exact employee roles on both the BAP and CAP, and how to vet potential customer candidates for the CAP.

But the main points to remember if you want to create a similar structure for your brand:

1 – Create an internal (brand-side) and external (customer-side) group, each of which is responsible for collecting feedback from the brand/customer and relaying it to the other group, and vice versa.

2 – Have a specific feedback flow within your brand, so that your brand can take feedback from your customer group and communicate that feedback internally to the area within your brand that is best suited to act on that feedback.

3 – Work with your customer group to ensure that the brand’s point of view is understood and relayed to the customer, and vice versa.  Again the overarching goal of this structure is to facilitate the flow of feedback and information between the customer and the brand.