Jeff Pontes

Jeff is Director, Digital Strategy at FUSE Marketing Group where he serves as a thought leader providing strategic direction to clients that are deeply rooted in consumer insights. The title may speak to his strategic planning efforts although it does not cover his extensive efforts in bridging the knowledge gap between technology and marketing.

Armed with a degree in Computer Science, Pontes' credentials include a mix of marketing and advertising expertise within digital strategy, market research, media planning and partnership acquisition, spanning over 10 years. His cross-discipline marketing communications experience was gleaned from working with clients in CPG, Retail, Consumer Electronics, Automotive and Pharmaceuticals. Jeff is a member of the CMA's Digital Marketing Council and has contributed to published materials through the association.

Consumers Are Ready But Is Your Brand Ready?

You have decided to build an online brand community and are now ready to get started. Before you begin developing a communication strategy and pulling the appropriate resources together, you will have to take a step back and evaluate what your company is ready for. In doing so, you will essentially save yourself some of the unnecessary headaches and aggravation that you would encounter if you were to skip the step altogether.

What is “social media”, “web 2.0”, “new media” and what is the ROI?

These are the questions that many in your organization may and will be asking. To present a comprehensive community development strategy to a team who may not be as well versed in the space will ultimately result in roadblocks, dilution of strategy and resistance that could quickly put a halt to any “knock ‘em out of the park” solutions that you may be able to put in front of them.

If they don’t get it, they won’t buy it.

Remember that the social web is growing rapidly and may be intimidating to some. The advertising industry is realizing a major shift and marketers are being forced to not only give up control to consumers but also to their subordinates who may be better versed in the channel and may be considered a threat to their own job security.

As a result, you may choose to follow these steps:

1. Conduct an organizational readiness test. Begin by assessing your current organizational culture. You can use this simple Readiness Quiz to help you identify existing gaps that may pose a challenge to your efforts while allowing you the ability to set realistic expectations to how quickly your vision can be realized.
2. Identify key stakeholders and understand their fears and concerns. To advance your mandate forward you will need the support and approval from various stakeholders across different departments. Due to the nature of the social web, legal, marketing, customer service and other groups will want to ensure their interests are being addressed. To neglect any one of them could result in costly delays and unnecessary friction.
3. Create an internal communication plan. You will need to define a champion who can lead this initiative and can see it to fruition. That person will be required to educate the various teams not only on the benefits of developing an online brand community but also on how it will impact their roles, department and the company at large.

   This will need to be a collaborative effort and will take time. Some will jump on board immediately while others will take time to come around. Patience, perseverance and consistent messaging will be the key ingredients to realizing success in this stage.

4. Identify and recruit champions. Similar to dealing with consumers, you will find your early adopters, influencers, mavens as well as your detractors when dealing with co-workers. Recognize who the engaged ones are and assign them a contributing role. Encourage those who are motivated to help as they will recognize the career growth opportunities and will serve as a much needed support in your efforts towards converting the cynics.
5. Define Rules of Engagement. This stage will require multiple departments at the table. Any action, role, responsibility as it relates to how employees, partners and associates engage online should be clearly defined. When someone posts a negative comment about the brand, how does the company respond, who is responsible for reaching out and where will the communication be made?

   Answering these types of questions will provide a feeling of comfort to parties throughout the organization and creates clear lines of responsibilities which will ultimately calm any concerns about job security should any issues arise.

6. Crawl, walk, run. Once you have been able to build a team with the appropriate top level support you may begin testing the waters. To jump into the social web with both feet right out of the gate may not be the best move while moving too slowly may result in a competitive disadvantage depending on the industry and category that your company plays in.

   Depending on your organization’s comfort level at this stage you will have to gauge how aggressive you should be at first before building momentum and handing control over to the consumers at large. Don’t forget to set the expectation that it takes time to build trust with your consumers although the payoff in the end will provide better business results if done properly.

7. Measure, learn and build momentum. At this point you will need to demonstrate quick wins while staying on track towards achieving the greater vision. Make sure to clearly define the key performance indicators and track them throughout the process. Such metrics could include engagement levels, net promoter score, brand sentiment, sales and even volume of brand chatter in social circles.

   These should be customized based on your objectives and should serve to provide a snapshot of how your communications are performing. Take what is working and build upon it while recognizing where the gaps lie so that you may work on filling them in.

   As you can see from above, the development of an online brand community involves much more than strictly creating a strategy to connect with consumers online. There are many moving parts with several different perspectives and interests that need to be addressed in order to move things forward. It truly needs to become a team effort to be done well!.

   Jeff Pontes

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Time to Talk Community

Communities can take on many shapes and can be formed for numerous different reasons. Some may share a common interest in bird watching while others may congregate to discuss computer programming techniques or even dating tips. Although, when discussing communities in the context of brands, trying to understand the motivations that drive consumer involvement becomes slightly more complicated.

What do you mean by “Community”?

What’s the difference? We should begin by defining both an online community and a brand community as follows:

online community: is a group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as email, internet social network service or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes. (Wikipedia: online community )

brand community: A brand community is a community formed on the basis of attachment to a product or marque. Recent developments in marketing and in research in consumer behavior result in stressing the connection between brand, individual identity and culture. (Wikipedia: brand community)

According to the definitions above, an online community is focused on how people form and nurture relationships online while a brand community is all about why people/consumers choose to affiliate themselves with a particular brand. This distinction is very commonly overlooked and may be a key reason why many brands who attempt to build a strong following are unsuccessful in doing so.

Consumers are not inherently associated to any one brand. They build an affinity to them when they feel a connection; a certain passion for something that the brand values embody or represent. To simply build the infrastructure to allow consumers the ability to congregate and communicate with each other without understanding what they may be passionate about would result in an environment that lacks cohesion.

The 50th Anniversary Party

Use the example of a 50th anniversary party. John and Sally have been married for 50 years and have a large network of friends of family. They’ve decided to have a large catered event with live entertainment and are thinking about who to invite. Since it is such an exceptional milestone, they thought it would be nice to have an open event where anyone could attend.

In theory it sounded like the event would be a gallant affair yet how would they spread the message to let people know about the occasion? The message would be sent to family and friends as well as to strangers looking for an enjoyable night out. To some the concept of free food sounded appealing while others were looking forward to a night of dancing or even the prospect of meeting an eligible bachelor that they could click with.

Now the question is would people attend because of the couple who were celebrating their milestone or for the freebies that had nothing to do with them at all? If the couple were to host subsequent parties in the future, would people continue to attend and possibly bring their friends along with them? They might, although what would be the common thread that would connect everyone together? What similar interests would people share who were attending these events?

The same could be said for the creation of online communities. To create a series of tools (“freebies”) enabling consumers to congregate online without providing the common thread upon which they may have a unique experience would be similar to inviting people to the party as mentioned above. When developing communities online it’s important for brands to identify the theme or values that will not only connect those who participate but to also bring them closer to the brand.

CCM Takes a Shot at Online Communities

Take CCM Hockey for example. In speaking with Ross McCracken, Senior Brand Manager he mentioned that hockey fans are a very passionate group and that they have a natural tendency to organize themselves and form groups online. CCM recognized this and has been leveraging the web to form meaningful relationships with their consumers since the late nineties when they would respond directly to consumer enquiries via e-mail. Their level of responsiveness and shared passion for the sport allowed them the ability to establish the foundation of an online brand community which has continued to grow and evolve ever since.

Although ROI is not currently being tied back to their online community initiatives, the organization recognizes the power that the social web brings not only to their marketing communications but also in their focused product development efforts. “Key influencers are a big part of our success,” says McCracken, “we look to them to provide valuable input into our new product innovations while helping to create excitement for them when they become market ready. Our communities have enabled us to build a stronger relationship with our consumers while simultaneously positioning our brand as a category leader”.

CCM has done a great job of listening, communicating and connecting passionate hockey fans with the brand, although Ross states, “we still need to do a better job at linking all of our approaches together. The web is constantly changing and we’re continuously looking for ways to keep up with the times so that we can remain relevant to our consumers and be perceived as a trusted partner who understands their needs.”

The organization has embraced the medium and has developed a corporate culture where virtually everyone in the office is involved in social media at some level, not necessarily all working on the brand, albeit, the first step truly is about understanding the channel before being able to realize its full potential.

Is Your Company Ready?

Organizational cultural readiness is a critical success factor for any company seeking to leverage the power of the social web and this is where I will begin my next topic...

By Jeff Pontes, Director – Digital Strategy, FUSE Marketing Group

Once Upon a Time

Every story begins with one word; and with this, I begin to tell mine. This is my first of what I expect to be many more entries as a contributor to the CMA blog. It will be a place where I will seek to share and gain knowledge from the marketing community at large.

As a member of the Digital Marketing Council I am tasked with supporting the association’s efforts in closing the knowledge gap that exists in the marketplace as it relates to the digital realm. The space is changing so rapidly that it becomes difficult for marketers to keep focused on all of the moving parts while translating it back to how it impacts their business. Understanding these inherent challenges, I will attempt to address some of the pressing issues and look to shed light on how to tackle others.

Traditionally blogs are based on the views of one, the contributor, yet I will seek to incorporate industry guests when relevant and possible. Their inputs and perspectives will provide valuable insights within the context of true case scenarios aimed to provoke thought and spur dialogue. I will be leveraging social media where appropriate to gain insights, feedback and contributions from other industry professionals and will serve as the content facilitator and filter to ensure that readers are able to gain value from the content being delivered.

The first topic of discussion will be how to develop successful online communities. With the explosion of social media and technologies enabling consumers to evangelize and share their views with their peers, marketers are looking for ways to nurture and build off this type of consumer behaviour which has resulted in an increased demand for the development of consumer based communities online.

As much value as they may provide the challenge of understanding and developing one raises a series of questions such as:

1. What is a community?
2. Why does my brand need one?
3. What type of community should we create?
4. What resources are required (financial, human, technology, etc.) and who will be responsible for managing it?
5. How do we create one?

I will be providing different perspectives into the answers to these questions over the next several posts with input provided from conversations with industry leading brands. I encourage you to participate in the discussion and to become engaged.

I look forward to creating a great story with you!

Jeff Pontes, Director Digital Strategy, FUSE Marketing Group