Arnold on ethical marketing

CHRIS ARNOLD

Two weeks ago we got a call at Creative Orchestra from the BBC asking if we’d appear on Watchdog. Oh my God we thought, have they finally rumbled out internet stair lift scam or our dodgy holiday apartment share scheme? No, they wanted us to do the old ‘advertising guru’ bit and give advice to some disgruntled consumers about dealing with Virgin Media. I do love how everyone is always called a ‘guru’. A friend of mine who runs an ad website was called into a big American TV channel and asked to comment on some marketing story. In a panic he called me, “I have no idea what to say, I’m just reporting it on my site”. We put together a script and the following day there he was on the TV as a ‘marketing guru’.

Recently we’ve done quite a bit for the BBC, including two programmes on how to sell rubbish food and one on selling breast milk. These programmes are fun to do though seeing it from their side it’s quite different. However, the power of these programmes to influence consumer opinion and their effect upon brand reputation is very powerful, many times more than ads.

Watchdog have received hundreds of complaints about Virgin media so the 3 people in the programme really were the tip of an iceberg. They all tried writing to Richard Branson because the consumer sees him as a consumer champion, what they don’t know is there is a nasty little department of Hobbits in between called ‘customer service.’ There are more than 200 companies worldwide that bear the Virgin name and though Branson doesn't run them all (I do wonder if he even knows what most of them do) the whole brand relies on his reputation and a commitment to customer service. So no surprise the customers were miffed when they didn’t get any customer service, just the usual disclaimers, negative responses and the usual lie about data protection issues. Boy that term has become so abused as an excuse for everything. I was recently told off in a shop for taking a picture as “it breaks data protection laws”. What! I doubt the security guard could pass an 11 1plus let alone has law degree.

It is still amazing that in many companies the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. One deparment gets the customers in, builds the brand and grows the reputation. The other upsets customers, treats them like rubbish and blows the reputation. That is a very expensive way to run any business.

In defence of Branson we did point out he probably would support the customers if he knew. So how do you get to him? Well he starting in music, so how about a song?

We suggested a Dave Caroll (United Breaks Guitars) style song & film on YouTube. It’s had over 5 million views of just one of the many postings, not to mention endless PR coverage. Bad ad for United, great for Dave’s career, his song is now on the Apple iTune store.

As usual, 2 hours of filming for 15 seconds of fame, bit like advertising really. The result was a song written by comedy musician Mitch Ben and titled ‘Virgin Media bills to dead people’. It’s not quite reached 5 million yet though it would have been seen by that number on Watchdog, so how much bad advertising for Virgin Media was that? How much would they now need to spend to reclaim their lost reputation. Many millions.

So one department, customer service has managed to screw up the reputation of a multi million pound spending company. I bet the marketing department must feel like going out and shooting the lot of them, well that’s if they could get hold of them on the phone instead of the usual answer, “please wait you call is important to us.”

An interesting and final point. Have a look at the BBC Watchdog site and at the comments – most have had to be removed due to the strong feelings of those posting them.

If you don’t listen to your customers they simply won’t have any to listen to. Common sense really, but then sense is rarely common.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/2009/09/virgin_media.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8HmOJWWfY

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ethical-Marketing-New-Consumer-Economy/dp/0470743026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252663866&sr=1-1

www.ecoethicalmarketing.plus.com