BrandWatch by Michel Gutsatz

When Angry Customers Strike Back at Brands

For several years, on BrandWatch, I have defended the idea that the arrogance shown by luxury brands is no longer acceptable in the 21st century. These brands, in their race for development, have constantly expanded their customer base - for the last 20 years we have entered the era of what I call "Luxe Populi". This democratization of luxury has come at the expense of customer relationships and quality of service. These new customers have, for a long time, accepted the poor service, disdain or even lack of consideration of certain brands. However, the context is changing under the pressure of two factors: the consumers' / clients' consciousness of their own power ("consumer empowerment") and the use of the Internet as a tool to air their grievances.
Let me illustrate this, using two very different examples - both involving automobile brands:
In 2006, an American client of Mercedes, a marketing specialist, wrote a series of posts on the Internet telling of his troubles: "Mercedes - a case study on how to squander a great brand".  They are part of a series entitled "Worst Practices" where we find, for example, "Being in "HP Hell"", "Alaska Airlines Sucks! (WARNING: DO NOT FLY!)", "Why are companies thinking that it's OK to trick their customers?", "Bruegger's Wins Award for Worst Customer Service", "Why Is customer service at Starbucks consistently great - while The service at most other take-out joints sucks ?"... Just run-of-the-mill complaints that would have remained confidential - if they had not found a relay.

A few weeks ago, the Chinese owner of a Lamborghini Gallardo, furious about the problems he had with this car, decided to destroy it in public:

"In one instance, the Lamborghini wouldn't start, so the owner had it towed to the local dealer. Upon arrival at the service bay, the owner found that the car had been damaged in transit. No one would claim responsibility and the original non-starting issue still wasn't fixed.  The Gallardo owner attempted to escalate the issue within the Lamborghini family, ultimately trying to reach out to Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann. No response or solution has been offered so the owner has become decidedly frustrated. So frustrated, in fact, that he decided destroying his Lamborghini in public would be the best way to garner attention." (Source: Autoblog)

Two points are worth noting here:

• The car owner had it destroyed on "World Consumer Rights Day", saying, "luxury brands are exploiting China and not delivering the same quality and service as they do elsewhere in the world".
• The story gave rise to 180,000 citations on the Internet, and a video shot on the occasion and posted on YouTube was viewed 700,000 times...

These two stories have nothing trivial about them: they show how, in the space of 5 years, the Web has helped the development of consumer power - and that China may prove to be an expert on the subject. Luxury brands should make certain that they do not underestimate Chinese consumers.

 

Automobile Brands and Emotion

The recent Super Bowl gave us an extraordinary chance to see how vastly different the perceptions that automobile brands have of the relationships they wish to establish with their customers are.  There were eight of them this year, including, for the first time, all the 3 luxury German brands (Mercedes - BMW - Audi).  There were as many different brands as there were approaches in communication! But which brand had the most impact on the public? I propose a review of 5 of the 8 commercials in question - and a quick analysis:
Mercedes - which was participating for the first time - played the history and the "heritage" card: "ours is a brand that goes back a long time, one that has produced many wonderful cars" - all this was played out in a "magical" ambiance to showcase the latest additions of the company.  Quite poignant, but the climax was rather uninspiring.

BMW chose to feature the Crossover X3, (which they present as the first production-line car "built to order") - but there is only one thing that strikes us in this film:  that it is manufactured in the United States.  This message is perplexing: a German luxury brand, with its roots in German technology and engineering - and certain publicity campaigns in the U.S. that have become legendary ("The Ultimate Driving Machine" or the cult series "The Hire", which I spoke of on BrandWatch) - extols the virtues of American industry.  We shall see in a moment why this message rings hollow and lacks credibility.

Audi portrays itself as a challenger, free to use comparative advertising in the U.S.: the brand presents itself as an offspring of the "new luxury" that breaks away from the siren song of "old luxury", represented here by Mercedes. An ad that is caustic, amusing, and which will be remembered - but will it be ascribed to Audi?

Against these three luxury brands I would like to compare two mid-range brands whose achievements have been astounding.
Chrysler invented a new concept - which was immediately resonated all over the U.S. (the film was viewed more than ten million times on You Tube!):  "Imported from Detroit".  With the inspired help of Eminem - who grew up in Detroit - giving back its soul to this city (and measuring it against New York), the brand delves deep into its roots and creates a film that is intensely emotional (in a counterpoint to luxury). The words "made in ..." take on their full significance here ... and shows up what the BMW film really is: an artificial creation.

In the end, it was Volkswagen that created the event (Nielsen cited it as the winner among the 8 commercials for cars - it was viewed 35 million times on YouTube), giving us an intense emotional moment where a father - using a simple car remote - delights his son who, dressed as Darth Vader, is trying very hard to demonstrate his magic powers. Giving prominence to the family (one of the values of the brand), the mystique of triumphant childhood, and the reference to a contemporary mythical American hero, the German brand creates emotion.

We thus see that Chrysler and Volkswagen, far from the "fabricated" and rather intellectualized concepts of the three German luxury brands, have succeeded in creating strong emotion (very different in the two cases but always consistent with the values of the brand) shared by all of us - and which make these brands so appealing.

Kenneth Cole and Nestle fall into the trap

It all began on February 3.  On Kenneth Cole's Twitter feed, a tweet, signed by the creator himself (or, at least, "an authorized person"), read:

We were in the midst of the Egyptian revolution. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered daily in Tahrir Square demanding true democracy ... and in the thick of it, the American fashion brand diverts this movement for its own marketing. This tweet travelled around the Internet, prompting both outraged comments, and messages of approval. Suddenly the virtual world was split: On one side were those that said the tweet was in the worst possible taste, criticizing the irresponsible brand, on the other were fans (mostly American), who found the message amusing and reaffirmed their commitment to the brand.

Kenneth Cole, after admitting (half-heartedly) that he did not wish to offend the Egyptians, finally posted an apology (just as discreetly) on Facebook -

March 2010: a year ago there was another battle between Nestle and Greenpeace (the story is well related and analysed on ReadWriteWeb in French). In this instance, Nestlé showed an appalling un-professionalism. For a long time Greenpeace had been denouncing the attitude "of Nestlé sub-contractors who, to produce palm oil essential for food processing, do not hesitate to ransack Indonesian forests and destroy the habitat of many protected species". Faced with the silence of the group, Greenpeace launched a Web "attack" by deflecting the KitKat logo, creating minisites and posting a film on You Tube.
Nestle's (or their PR agency's) reaction was very careless: they summoned them to withdraw the film, arguing that it infringed their intellectual property rights. This was what triggered a form of general mobilization on the Internet and attracted media attention: Nestlé was accused of censorship. Greenpeace, simultaneously orchestrating a media campaign, called on its militants to post messages on Nestlé's Facebook page by replacing their profile photo by that of the altered logo:

Nestlé removed the posts and responded haughtily - without any attempt at dialogue with Internet users. The uproar was such that it ended up by apologizing:

This "commando" operation by Greenpeace was successful:  a month later at the shareholders general assembly Nestlé announced a programme to combat deforestation and Peter Brabeck, Nestlé's Chairman, sent a letter to Greenpeace with details of the group's commitments.
These two interesting examples, like all the others listed by Jeremyah Owyang, show that brands cannot escape the notice of Net surfers and that they have to professionalize their Web administering by:

• Equipping themselves with a genuine "social contract" to handle their relationship with the Web
• Appointing a Community Manager, responsible for communicating with Internet users … therefore paying them real attention, and
• Being willing to apologize when a mistake is made

They will thus prove themselves as responsible, give no reason for criticism – and even forestall the attacks… that (surely) will happen one day or another.

Three Lessons on the Power of the Internet

The beginning of 2011 has been exciting for the observer/actor that I am!  The Internet is proving how powerful it is, and I would like to draw three useful lessons that brands could draw from this as well.

• The resignation of a German Minister: Karl Theodor von und zu Guttenberg, the Defence Minister, was accused of plagiarizing a large amount of material when writing his Law thesis. Using the help of the search facilities of the Net, users discovered that it related to 324 of a total of 393 pages. An interactive website "GuttenPlag Wiki" conducted the investigation. Dubbed "Baron zu Googleberg," the resigning Minister saw dozens of lawsuits for "breach of copyright" filed against him.
• The dismissal of a star designer: "Today, because of the particularly odious nature of the behaviour and comments made by John Galliano in a video released Monday, Christian Dior has decided to suspend him and a dismissal procedure has been initiated against him". John Galliano was therefore fired by Dior following the publication of a video shot on a cell-phone by The Sun ... and posted on its website by the British tabloid.
• A Tweet from a customer:  Normand Boulanger, Canadian journalist (read the story on Rue89), waited interminably to be served at a Nespresso boutique in Montreal. After waiting for 30 minutes, he sent a Tweet to Nespresso in the U.S.:
  

"The store manager came down about twenty minutes later and asked me what happened. So I told him my story. The server then came up to me and said, "you tweeted that you were badly served".  I replied, "Yes".  He said that Nespresso Switzerland had called and that he risked losing his job because they are very strict about the service".  He had sent his Tweet to Nespresso in the U.S. - and Nespresso Switzerland had telephoned the boutique!
Lesson N°1:  Important people (and brands belong to this category) are constantly under the public eye.  Whenever a question arises and whenever an "out-of-the-ordinary" event occurs, the Internet mobilizes itself: each small compromise, omission, error, is relayed around the world.  Of course, plagiarism is universal - and for years it was very difficult to prove. Today the Internet has become an instrument at the service of accountability: we are responsible for our actions, and our shortcomings are immediately identifiable.
Lesson N°2:  We are entering the Age of Responsibility. Individuals as well as brands need to have ethical attitudes, to return to their values, to make them meaningful ...
Lesson N°3:  Ground reality - in this case the boutique, because of its irreducible human dimension, falls far short of the ideal the brand strives for.  The contrast between the rapid flow of information via social media and slow communication on the terrain results in a potentially explosive situation:  Brands will soon have to address the question of bringing the two into line.