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Brandon Murphy is strategist for 22squared, an agency who has driven Friendship Marketing initiatives for clients like Lincoln Financial and Buffalo Wild Wings.
The concept of friendship marketing was fairly new to me, so Brandon was kind enough to answer some questions about friendship marketing and how it can be applied to the world of internet marketing.
Virtual Marketing Blog: What is Friendship Marketing?
Brandon Murphy: It’s marketing brands the way people make friends. It’s not a channel or a specific piece of a marketing mix (like viral, WOM, TV etc.) and it’s not a scheme to trick people into thinking the brand is a friend. It‘s an overall approach to marketing that puts to use the principles of social psychology and the simple rules of friendship instead of the traditional marketing rules of awareness, persuasion and selling.
It’s a way for marketers to organize, understand and authentically take advantage of the change that’s occurred in marketing. The shift in power from marketer to consumer, the growth in social media and the flipping of the traditional purchase funnel. The goal of marketing has changed from convincing a great number of people to buy, to establishing a base of people who are willing to share the brand with their ever growing sphere of friends and like-minded people.
VMB: How does Friendship Marketing differ online and off line?
BM: In short, online channels hold the most potential for marketers to be a friend to customers because of the ability to add value to their lives with content and entertainment. Most importantly it gives brands the opportunity to start a recipricol dialogue with customers. It’s important to give customers say in the brand because a friendship is never one-sided. Online helps us invite them in and allows them to claim ownership of the brand.
At the core of our marketing philosophy is the Friendship Model. Its a research model and a construct that helps us understand three key things about a brand:
1) Are we a friend and if so, how good of a friend are we?
2) What type of friend are we and what role do we play in the customer’s life and
3) What stage is our friendship in?
The answers to these three questions helps us look at each communication opportunity uniquely. For instance, we may be trying to simply up our chemistry and attractiveness for a good first impression; or we may be trying to deepen the friendship in a specific way. Regardless of online and offline, we are trying to add value to the customer’s life with the communication in some way.
VMB: Do you see social networking sites like FaceBook and MySpace as a space for Friendship Marketing to prosper?
BM: That depends greatly on the behavior of marketers as those two social spaces evolve. That’s part of the reason we created the Friendship Model. Because the options for marketers to INTRUDE on the lives of customers are increasing. Which means that the intolerance for intrusion will also increase. The Friendship Model calls for marketers to have a meaningful conversation with consumers via sites like FaceBook and MySpace, not to find another way to inject our message into an unwanted, sometimes sacred, social space.
Right now, the best use of these sites is to fuel people’s ability to take over brands and use them as a point of commonality and conversation with each other. For brands, that means being selfless and embracing the lack of control of the medium. That means adding value that customers can grab and run with.
VMB: How would Friendship Marketing work across the blogosphere?
BM: In a similar way. The Friendship Model calls for marketers to have an open dialogue with customers. That means two things:
1) Participating and becoming a part of the conversation that’s already occurring and
2) Giving consumers good reasons to talk about you.
Often, this requires a brand to be more than a product or service, but to have a stance and a belief that consumers care enough about to discuss in the blogosphere. It’s difficult to befriend someone if they don’t have much depth of character and a belief system to agree or disagree with. So taking a stance on social issues or beliefs that are associated with the brand and it’s values is key to befriending consumers in the blogosphere. Also key is being transparent and open. It’s rare and customer’s appreciate it. Not being afraid to piss a few people off is a good thing. As long as the balance of consumer sentiment in the blogosphere is a positive thing, you want as much conversation as you can get.
VMB: After looking at several of the campaigns at 22squared, it looks like humor is a common theme. How does humor fit into Friendship Marketing?
BM: Ever had a friend that’s not funny? That you don’t laugh with? What a drag, right? People laugh together. Humor is core to any friendship. Same applies to marketing. Laughing is also a big icebreaker. One way to gauge chemistry between two people is how often they laugh together within the first few minutes of meeting each other.
Much of the broadcast advertising we do is designed to ignite chemistry between brands and people, since broadcast mediums are often used to introduce brands. But being funny isn’t the measure of good work at 22squared. It depends on the customer, the brand and whether it’s the right time and context for humor. Answering the question, “How do we add value to the customer’s life?“ is our key challenge and screen for our work.
VMB: Can you give us a brief step by step on how to plan a Friendship Marketing Campaign?
BM: I’m totally oversimplifying an ongoing process, but here goes…
1. Understand you’re the strength and nature of your brand’s relationship with current customers.
2. Define the socially relevant belief your brand stands for.
3. Identify opportunities to evolve the role you play in your customer’s life.
4. Find opportunities to create the types of interactions with customers that add meaning to their lives.
5. Equip and enable them to share them with others.
6. Measure the effect of your efforts by understanding the advocacy levels among your customer base.
VMB: What are a few things to avoid when starting a friendship marketing campaign? (ie. what old habits do we need to break)
BM: The most important thing to remember is that friendship marketing isn’t a tool to persuade consumers to be your friend. Dale Carnegie said it well: “You can make more friends in two months by being interested in other people than you can in two years trying to make other people interested in you.“
We have to unlearn the habits of interruption, persuasion and selling and focus on the intuitively simple rules of friendship: chemistry, empathy, transparency, reciprocity, shared beliefs and lifestyles, being an inspiration, being their advocate, keeping it fresh, staying in touch…all of the things that make for strong friendships. Marketing becomes a service, a way to be a more meaningful part of the customer’s life. That’s the best way gain brand advocates. And brand advocates is the best way to grow.
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