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Examples of people who understand social media and how to use it effectively.

JCPenney, Twitter, YouTube and Viral Marketing

Found in: Effective Use Of, Retail, Tips for Using, Twitter, Use of Social Media
Wednesday
November 26, 2008
5 Comments

JCPenney has unveiled an intriguing viral marketing campaign called “Beware of the Doghouse”. The concept is simple: Men should get the “right” gifts for their spouses in order to avoid being put in the doghouse. There’s a website and a four minute video out there supporting this campaign.

The campaign is also supported by a Facebook tie-in that some feel is a poorly executed social media strategy. I tend to agree on this one – I’d rather see retailers put their effort into making lasting relationships with their customers, rather than gimicky Facebook apps.

However, I can’t completely fault JCPenney for their social media efforts as the retailer has also unveiled a Twitter account that, so far, seems to be a very effective use of the service. The account (@askJCP) was started last week and there seems to be a real person behind it (rather than a marketing script). Yesterday, there were a lot of Tweets about the Doghouse viral video, which does seem a bit forced and contrived. But there’s also some helpful information about the retailer and I hope they continue to engage people on Twitter and attempt to make solid relationships.

I should also point out that JCPenney uses Youtube to broadcast a weekly run down of the hot items and promotions in-store. Their channel is updated weekly and the commercials are well produced and informative. I believe the retailer started these broadcasts with the Back to School season.

I’m interested to see how the viral video plays out. I personally found it funny and remarkable well produced. So far, it’s getting some reaction on Twitter but people generally see the humor in the video. But frankly, I wonder if JCPenney had any second thoughts about rolling out their campaign so shortly after another major brand has such a nightmare on their hands last week.

Last week, the people being the ibuprofen Motrin unveiled a viral video campaign that most people agreed missed the mark. Reaction was quick and fierce and turned into a PR nightmare for the company.

I am enthused by JCPenney’s use of social media, social networks, and other available web applications. I hope that marks a long term commitment on behalf of the retailer and all of this doesn’t disappear after Christmas.

Here’s hoping other retailers continue to hop on the social media bandwagon and aim to connect with their customers online.

Handbag Planet Using Social Media to Launch Retail Store

Found in: Branding, Effective Use Of, Tips for Using, Twitter, Use of Social Media
Tuesday
October 14, 2008
2 Comments

Handbag Planet is a new store that is launching tomorrow and they are using social media to promote their site launch. They’re giving away 24 handbags over the course of the launch day and entries to the contest are gained through posting about the site to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.

The contest and social media campaign must be working as word of mouth seems to be strong on various networks. A search on Twitter returns 6 pages of results while a Google blog search returns close to 3,000 mentions. I’d assume that the positive word of mouth could lead into positive first day sales. If they also offer good customer service and a strong product, they can hopefully convert some of the first day customers into repeat customers.

I’m very interested to see how this plays out, how the website looks, and how their long term prospects look. I’ll sure be looking at the site tomorrow to check it out and, of course, with this blog post I wil hpefully win my fiancee a new handbag. It’s a win-win for all of us.

Retailers: your customers are talking, why aren’t you listening?

Found in: Customer Service, Effective Use Of, Strategy
Monday
January 15, 2007
2 Comments

Last week, Paul EcEnany posted about his unpleasant experience at Kohl’s (see: Hurricane Kohl’s at Hee-Haw Marketing). As a shopper, he wasn’t pleased with what he saw when he walked around the store. He didn’t just leave the store and vow to no longer shop there, he took photos with his cameraphone and went home to blog about it.

Oh how the times have changed.

In this generation, we’re now used to real-time access to everything. The Internet keeps changing the way we go about our daily routines. If you had an unpleasant shopping experience in the past, you would be resigned to phone calls and word of mouth. Maybe not much has changed, except phones have been replaced with e-mail and blogs and chatrooms allow your word of mouth to go from your neighbor to the world.

How come major retailers aren’t reacting to this quicker?

Paul’s tepid e-mail response from Kohl’s corporate is a great example of why retailers need to adapt their thinking to put themselves into positions where they can communicate with customers more efficiently. After Paul wrote his post, links have appeared all throughout the blogosphere, including Seth’s blog and Brand Experience Lab. Tomorrow, David Polinchock from Brand Experience Lab is part of a forum, Strategic Branding Influence, at the National Retail Federation trade show, and he’s using Kohl’s as an example.

Mark Collier has a great post over at Daily Fix called Where Are The Community Evangelists?

He says:

If Kohls had a community evangelist, s/he could have discovered Paul’s blog post, and then reached out to him, and served as a facilitator to make sure that Paul’s experience, and his concerns, were voiced to Kohls’ management. That way, the “right people” could have been made aware of the condition of the stores that their customers are visiting, and then addressed correcting those issues. Finding out about such problems from a community evangelist sure beats finding out about them as a member of the audience of the keynote at a National Retail Federation conference.

When are the big retailers going to learn and adapt? I don’t see any major American chain retailer using the web to effectively build customer relationships. Of course you can click, buy, and get your goods. But I don’t see anyone embracing the consumer online as well as they could be. I hope that this case can be a wakeup call to Kohl’s and others in the industry.

Listen to your customers – not only the ones who take the time to fill out the web survey that gets printed with their receipt.

In the interest of full disclosure – I work for Kohl’s. I work at the store level, far from any place that would give me the authority to comment on how or why Kohl’s is publically handling the situation like this. I do not write this post as an employee of Kohl’s, I write it as a consumer who is not entirely happy with the disconnect between retailers and their consumers online.