Silver Surprise & Delight from BA

For many of you frequent fliers out there this no doubt is old hat. For me, a happy surprise from a brand. Yesterday I got a nice mail pack announcing I was now a Silver member of the BA Executive Club. Whoo-hoo.

It was an unexpected upgrade. Although I love me some miles, tracking how many I need for status levels in the different airline systems was never a priority. So this made me think about how much the surprise part adds to the delight.

For a piece of member comms, it was quite upscale in design and paper weight. Plus, they include two extra cards with straps to go on your luggage. That's the magic part because now I can swan through the fast track check in or hang in the lounge in spite of my lowly coach ticket. Well done BA. Sure I earned it, but it feels like a gift. I am quite fond of Virgin, but between my BA Amex card* and my new Silver specialness, this classic mileage junky is falling for the loyalty scheme that shows me the most love.

Look for me twittering in the lounge

(*shameless former client product plug) 

Social PR

Everybody's buzzing about Social Media these days. Even if most companies aren't sure what to do with it.

Might be less palatable for the paid media centric among us, but it makes more sense to me to call it Social PR. Because isn't it simply about having a relationship with the public?

And the not so secret key to success is to participate the way people do. Less press release; more conversation starter. Hardly new thinking, but very hard to find brands doing it right. (If you have a favorite example, let me know.)

I've been admiring Whole Foods. They're active on twitter, which lets them talk one on one with folks, plus offer links to their group blog, flickr sets and vodcasts (a tweet link = a micro-release). When the floods hit Texas, Whole Foods HQ used twitter to tell customers what stores were closed, as well as share concern for their homes and let them know the WF staff was ok. They have won me as a brand fan and I don't even shop there.

What makes this an even better story in my eyes is that Whole Foods is also an example of a blogging faux pas. Back in the day, the CEO famously used an anonymous screen name to post comments on forums. Cleared of any financial wrong doing, he learned his lesson and the brand is now a best practice case study. Clearly a crisis PR story with a happy social ending.

Follow me on the hunt for more social brands on twitter 

Slurs, Lies and Brand Tags

As my ulcer-making anxiety over this American election increases with every new twist of truth from the shameless McCain campaign, I can't help but wonder what lasting damage this neo con noise is doing to brand America. Because while repeated lies can't literally become truth, they can certainly embed into a reputation.

I had to think about this in a different way this week at work. I was preaching (as usual) the power of social media on brands, using examples like consumer review site Ciao and the inventive BrandTags.net.

But what happens, someone asked, if a competitor goes on these sites and falsely slurs our products?  Sure, the answer was easy. That an online community tends to self-police; they'd out the troll or ignore an obvious plant.

And I do believe that. But it is not really that easy to protect a reputation from malevolent accusations. We are just lucky maybe that marketing is less prone to pathological liars than politics. 

For more election obsession, follow me on twitter

Be a Curator, not a Custodian

If you love words, but (like me) are spelling-challenged, it is fun to try the Thesaurus as an extra and educational way to double spell check. (I also use Google as a spell checker, which is more common than you'd think.)

It can start an unexpected brain thread, as it did when I looked up "steward" —as in brand steward — and found these synonyms:

guardian, keeper, custodian, curator

Many agencies folks rightly consider themselves brand stewards in partnership with our clients. But what exactly does that mean?

As a brand "guardian", your job would mostly be to keep that brand safe. Virginal even. Be a Guardian Angel.
The synonym "keeper" reminds one of a zoo professional, and so simply keeping your brand alive (and on a leash) ticks the box. While a "custodian" might be expected to just keep it clean.

Now, it seems to me that "curator" is the synonym to strive for. Because their job is to keep the collection interesting. Prune the mistakes. Acquire new pieces. Discover fresh talent. This is a job that sounds like fun.