The Social Communicator's posterous http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com Most recent posts at The Social Communicator's posterous posterous.com Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:14:00 -0700 Back to Basics: observing the core for an essential consumerism http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/back-to-basics-observing-the-core-for-an-esse http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/back-to-basics-observing-the-core-for-an-esse
 French market research leader CSA and the marketing agency ‘H’ delivered yesterday the results of their first yearly Essence Observatory (Observatoire de L’Essentiel).

A crowd of Parisian marketers were gathered on the first floor of the Tour Eiffel; CSA and H illustrated how they decoded and measured essence, a new fundamental consumerism criterion. 15 criteria of essence were outlined, and 120 brands, across 12 different industry segments have been tested and ranked by consumers in France, according to these criteria. It took 4 focus groups and 2000 online surveys.

Following the recent repetitive economic crises, in fact, it has become crucial for brands to recreate value according to consumers’ real expectations. Other forms of consumption are emerging, as consumers are more connected, and therefore better informed, and more exigent. Purchasing decisions are less spontaneous, more pondered and centred on the notion of what is really essential.

The Observatory grouped the 15 criteria of essence in 4 families:

  1. EXPERTISE (know how): Positive, Trustworthy, Exigent, Coherent, Long-lasting
  2. EVIDENCE (commercialization): Universal, Accessible, Simple, Honest
  3. EMPHATY (interaction): Useful, Proactive, Attentive
  4. ETHICS (level of engagement): Engaged, Generous, Transparent

The weight in function of the relative importance of each family was then calculated and the percentages are somewhat surprising:

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        • EXPERTISE 43.9% (46.9% for the 50/60 yrs old)
        • EVIDENCE 25.8% (29.4% for the 35/49 yrs old)
        • EMPATHY 23.19%
        • ETHICS 7.09%  (9.8% for the 18/34 yrs old))

The fundamental importance of the concept of ‘essence’ however is recognized by 80% of respondents across all demographics and socio economic. All of the 120 brands tested, were then ranked on a scale of 1 to 10.  Only 9 brands made it above the score of 6! The lucky winners and 2011 French essence champions are:

Google, E. Leclrec, Decathlon, IKEA, EDF, QUECHUA, AUCHAN, FNAC, Picard.

Consumers’ personal attachment to the tested brands was measured as well, and a clear correlation between the level of attachment and the perception of its essence was found.

What does that means for communicators and marketers?  Not only we are dealing with an ever rapidly changing environment, but, an increasingly global competition, pushes onto the market a schizophrenic offer, as varied and eclectic as ever. The example of the orange juice brand Tropicana was cited, present in the supermarket chains with no less than 17 varieties of orange juice under the same brand! Coming back to the bare essence, to the core value proposition of a product or service seems to be a smart strategy. Brands that will successfully reflect this notion will not only survive but thrive in the next phase. We look forward to finding out which ones they will be in the next edition of the Observatory next year!

For French view of the event and more details, you can check the H agency Facebook Page and the WebAngelist blog.

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/heOujM3YMLOem Claudia Vaccarone The social communicator Claudia Vaccarone
Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:52:00 -0700 10 things I learnt at Eurocomm 2011 http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/10-things-i-learnt-at-eurocomm-2011 http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/10-things-i-learnt-at-eurocomm-2011

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  1. “In the (old) analogue world, everything was private until we made it public. In the (new) digital world, everything is public until we turn it off.” Mark Comerford, Digital Media Guru, citing the example of old times private diary writing vs. broadcast blogging.

2. “The network is replacing the individual as the basic unit of communications.  Thanks to  mobile technology we are constantly in contact with our network and info is trans-sent from network to network. If you can’t enrich the life of the network with your message, you can’t access it.”  Mark Comerford, Digital Media Guru 

 

     3.  “Mobile telephony reaches where social media doesn’t yet.” Silvia Cambié, author of 'International Communications Strategies,' talking about tools such as Speak to Tweet and Bambooza, used during the Jan. 25th revolution in Egypt and during the Arab Spring to communicate despite the government disruption of the network.

 

      4.“Facebook and Twitter still don’t reach the rural areas in Egypt, but can be instrumental   in recruiting advocates who can still physically reach these areas and spread the message orally.“ Ashraf Amin, Chief Editor, Al Ahram Newspaper (Egypt) 

 

     5. “Content is king. But context is empress. The contextualization of the information is really crucial.” Mark Comerford, Digital Media Guru, illustrating this by saying that the bowel status of his far away family members is important to him, but might be irrelevant to network members on his twitter feed! 

 

    6. ”The difference between the “likes” and the “love” in social Media is the engagement factor”. Aurelie Valtat, Online Communications Manager, Eurocontrol.  

 

      7. “Communicating on Social media brings a blurring between the personal, functional/professional and institutional roles.” Aurelie Valtat, Online Communications Manager, Eurocontrol.  Communicators need to be ready to assume this psychologically and adapt to this new change.

 

    8. “Beautiful narratives that don't match reality are dangerous. Must be clear of what you cannot do; better than un-kept promises.” Florian Westphal, International Committee of the Red Cross’ Deputy Director of Communication and Information Management.

 

    9. “Transparency and protecting your sources are not mutually exclusive, common sense and contextual understanding can go a long way.” Mark Comerford's tweet of Florian Westphal, International Committee of the Red Cross’ Deputy Director of Communication and Information Management. 

 

    10. “ROI is the financial value of changed audience behavior vs. cost of communication” Angela Sinickas, Sinickas Communications.

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/heOujM3YMLOem Claudia Vaccarone The social communicator Claudia Vaccarone
Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:19:00 -0700 Eurocomm 2011 (Part II): Detecting Value & Twittering Ashes http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/eurocomm-2011-part-ii-detecting-value-twitter http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/eurocomm-2011-part-ii-detecting-value-twitter

EuroComm 2011 took place last week in Turin, Italy. Over two day over 100 international communications professionals gathered to listen to the contemporary leaders and discuss the challenges they face in an ever changing society and industry.

In the ideal setting of Villa Gualino, overlooking the whole city of Turin and facing the Alps, we heard from high calibre communicators such as Stephan Dujarric, director of News and Media, United nations, about the need to find creative solutions to increasing budget cuts and ongoing compelling communications needs. He illustrated how the UN has been Bartering  for Effective Communications.

Monica Poggio is Head of Corporate Culture, Identity and Communications at Unicredit, Italy’s top banking group and the result of the integration of several Italian banks that began in the 1990s and continued for more than a decade adding banks and operations in Germany, Austria and Central and Eastern Europe. The Group has now more than 160,000 employees and 9,500 branches serving 40 million customers in 22 countries from Italy to Kazakhstan.

Monica illustrated how Unicredit in 2009 created OneNet, an internal social media platform, in order to support the complex task of maintaining a consistent message across several countries, time zones, cultures and organizational layers, as well as accelerating internal processes.

They developed a gradual internal system, allowing employees to create individual pages one hand and build communities on the other, giving visibility to their individual competences and know-how, as well as increasing senior management understanding and involvement.

In terms of governance Monica claimed “It takes a village!” The centralized project management approach has shifted toward a hub & spoke model. “The need for consistency and guidance is constant, but diversity has proven to be a true richness in content outcome,” added Monica. “We discovered that Internal Social Media empowers corporate identity and culture and supports change management,” she said.

She also suggested that traditional ROI should not be the only metric use to evaluate internal social media, while the strength of the relationships built is the real differentiating factor; IOR (Impact of Relationship) is therefore a better suited evaluation tool.

Paolo Cederle, Unicredit’s Head of Group operations and ICT, underlined how implementing OneNet  required a shift in mentality, from vertical to horizontal, but how peer to peer has been embraced positively by as many as 50% of the employees. More than 500 spontaneous blogs, at all hierarchical levels, have spurred as a result, bringing new ideas and helping the innovation trajectory.

31 active communities spread across 11 countries, 171 topics discussed, 1400 proposal are some of the metrics that resulted in 10 concrete new bottom line affecting projects developed. The social approach forced the organization to ask itself: who are the real enablers?

Lessons learnt included:

  • Several functions should “own” social media efforts in an organization: IT, communications, Management, etc.
  • Strong commitment from top management is necessary
  • The community manager’s role is key
  • This internal effort allowed Unicredit to test and experiment in a safe environment what the group envisions already to create for their clients.  The objective is to offer a co-design and co-delivering model to its customers in a relatively short term.

 Aurelie Valtat, online communications Manager at Eurocontrol, shared also her lessons learnt during the ash cloud crisis last year, following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano.

When individual countries begun shutting down air space for security measures, Eurocontrol was blamed unjustly in the press and had to react fast. With Eurocontrol’s website crashed due to the massive access of travellers stranded worldwide, Twitter and other social media platforms emerged as ideal tools to still communicate and inform constituencies in real time. On day 2, already several thousands of followers were asking questions on Twitter about the short term and the long term forecast of the situation. Eurocontrol had a visibility of about 6 hours forward. Aurelie Valtat braced her 3 laptops and 2 smart-phones and kept busy for several days and night, replying to all those inquiries. She energetically highlighted the need to be very human in these specific crisis communications actions: being available and responding rapidly to the concerns of the passengers with a personable approach, vs. a voiceless organization, proved to be a winning strategy.

“In social media, the difference between the number of “likes” and the number of “loves” is the engagement factor, “claimed Valtat.

Interactivity is really key, and the nature of the information shared should be concrete and useful. For this purpose, the Social Media officer should be de facto present in the crisis room and be informed, just as much the social media channels need to start being included into the crisis communications plan.

“Momentum really builds up when mainstream media relies on social media outlets for content,” recalled Valtat.

The future of social media, according to Aurelie Valtat, lies in mobile applications and widgets. However, she stressed the importance to have several trustworthy team members trained to utilize these tools properly, so that in case of a crisis the burden is equally spread within the team. “There is an inevitable blurring of personal, professional and institutional identities on social media,” said Valtat. Women seem to be better apt since their innate sense of empathy transpires through the medium.

She also stressed the negative impact that certain lurking activities entail: companies creating the Twitter account and leaving it inactive don’t realize how badly this reflect on their image.

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/heOujM3YMLOem Claudia Vaccarone The social communicator Claudia Vaccarone
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:38:00 -0700 Back from EuroComm 2011 (Part I): The Power of Impact http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/back-from-eurocomm-2011-part-i-the-power-of-i-0 http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/back-from-eurocomm-2011-part-i-the-power-of-i-0

Stephanedujurric

It was hot: in every sense! EuroComm 2011, the IABC two-yearly regional conference, took place in sunny and warm Turin, Italy last week, with a 30°C unexpected temperature heating up the discussions! Hot speakers flocked in from global locations, and over 100 international communications professionals listened carefully and exchanged views.

 Keynote speaker Stephane Dujarric, United Nations Director of News and Media, opened the floor on Thursday, April 7th, describing how he has been dealing creatively with increasingly smaller budgets by bartering for effective communications. The UN brings to the table its global outreach and goodwill aura in exchange of 4 main currencies:

  

  1. Participatory media

Recognizing that “the power of traditional mass communication vehicles remains very strong despite new and social media outlets,” Dujarric described how the UN reaches out to content creators in the entertainment industry to integrate its key messages in films scripts, whether it’s Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood (Nigeria’s film making hub).The objective is “to reach an unusual audience with important messages,” as in the case of  the US TV series Ugly Betty’s episode shot on the UN’ campus and dealing with the theme of malaria, a subject not so popular among the under 30 demographic segment.

 

     2.  Advocacy journalism

The UN is not a traditional news organization, however, it has identified an opportunity to create content  by supporting large networks with limited presence outside their countries in gathering local footage internationally,

Web based news platforms need to be filled and updated constantly, this generate lots of video footage demand: the networks need the video from global locations but don’t have the staff to produce it locally.

The relaxing of publishing standards provided an opportunity: “10 years ago ABC would not air content not produced by ABC. Nowadays editing and curation has softened,” claimed Dujarrac. The UN approached the manufacturers of the FlipCam™, now part of Cisco, and bartered 40 of their cameras in exchange of the affiliation with UN. Cameras were sent to 40 countries, not just to the UN communications officers, but were given to innovative Project Managers who could capture images form the field to illustrate the real impact that ongoing projects had on real lives. “You need to help the people who do the work EXPLAIN their job!” explained Dujarric. “The objective was to gather human centric stories, about the impact that the UN programs were having on actual people,” he said, underlying one of the main recurring themes of the conference: the increasing need for communicators to demonstrating the impact of their activities.

Media from the countries were given access to these stories (e.g. Indonesia elections) and videos were then repurposed on Youtube channels and on FB. “With just a 50$ camera the reach was tremendous,” added Dujarric, stating that the UN has become just like a journalist, a news content providers for real news outlets.

 

     3.   Hybrid journalism

The UN Development Program is headed by Helen Clarck (New Zealand ex prime minister). She was featured in a video interview staged with a BBC correspondent in NY, hired to moderate the conversation with Helen. These video were called “Facebook conversations.” Questions were sought among FB fans beforehand and then integrated in the interview, and allowed for a humanization of Mrs. Clarck’s image.

“We thought the procedure had a journalistic legitimacy into a global communication PR effort,” explained Dujarric. The video collected had 10K views.

 

4.  Celebrity

“Stars just love working for free!” Dujarric said. Celebrities are ideal goodwill ambassadors from different fields (royal families, sports stars, actors etc)

UNDP has been mostly associated with sports figures, such as Zidane and Ronaldo. They do field visits and lend their image for posters and ads. Zidane insists that the whole supply chain of the Public Service Announcement is on a pro bono basis to be truly effective.

Dujarric explained how the Millennium Development Goals have been an important tool for UNDP and illustrated their ‘8 goals to kick out poverty’ campaign, where a wide array partners converged to produce a compelling video featuring soccer legends Zidane and   Drogba to highlight some of these goals.

The clip was then shown on 45 networks, but was also picked up by unusual media outlets such as Thai airways and the LA County buses!

 

“The key to the success of these programs has been honesty and integrity,” said Dujarric. “Always put the issue before the logo: the issues are more important. The audiences we deal with are much sophisticated today, people sniff out the bull! This system of partnership and bartering has worked well: the actual result is that, by partnering, you create a network of goodwill. You have to nurture the long term proposition and make sure all parties involved get a share and walk away with a sense of satisfaction,” he concluded.

 

Dujarric recognizes that new technology is making communicators’ job spin: the choice of platform in an ever-changing environment can be truly challenging.

The UN is very top down bureaucratic organization, where it is not easy to introduce new communications vehicles and peer to peer and participatory media. Commenting on the recent Spring of Arab World he underlined the subtle yet significant difference between a revolution vs. a regime change. He reminded the audience that the importance of social media outlets lies in the conversations that sparked within the networks, and international organizations have to spark those conversations that will hopefully lead to positive change.

Concerning social media and the different technological platforms available, he advised to let the dust settle, before embarking in costly and complex programs.

He stressed the risk of DIY communications on these platforms (employees, non professional communicators) and the importance of an internal toolkit and guidelines, to anticipate the chance of delicate information leaked out inappropriately, even if communicated on a personal capacity

Stephane Dujarric left a captured audience with three key advices, for successfully moving onto the next phase of communications:

1. Always tell a compelling human story: people do not want to hear from companies, but from people. Make the start of the story about people.

 2. Hire smart people and get out of their way! Impossible to stay on top of all the tech changes. Give them the strategic framework, and let them do what they are experts at

3. Always be good to your interns!! 20 something’s are knowledgeable and might turn out to be your peers of bosses very fast!

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/heOujM3YMLOem Claudia Vaccarone The social communicator Claudia Vaccarone
Mon, 04 Apr 2011 06:42:00 -0700 Eurocomm 2011: Passion still lives in Turin! http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/eurocomm-2011-passion-still-lives-in-turin http://thesocialcommunicator.posterous.com/eurocomm-2011-passion-still-lives-in-turin

The 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy showcased an ambitious tag line: "Passion Lives Here!"

As I am getting ready to attend Eurocomm 2011 in Turin, Italy later this week, I cannot but recall the intense passion for international communications I experienced while negotiating and coordinating an Olympic sponsorship for my company with the 2006 Torino Organizing Committee (TOROC).

Passion still lives in Turin, and this week hundreds of international communications professionals will gather in the first historical capital of Italy, to listen to their contemporary leaders, to exchange views with international peers, to network and grow. Under the organizing umbrella of the European chapter of IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators, the event boasts a phenomenal roster of qualified speakers.

I will blog my impressions and takeaways from the event. For a closer look at the program, visit the IABC EME site: http://europe.iabc.com

 

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http://posterous.com/images/profile/missing-user-75.png http://posterous.com/users/heOujM3YMLOem Claudia Vaccarone The social communicator Claudia Vaccarone