Proper Communication

Our own Valerie Wolfe is a big fan of Advertising Age columnist Jonah Bloom’s perspective on word-of-mouth. Sometimes she’ll quote him loosely in social situations, other days you can catch her breezing through the halls with an article in hand nodding intently in agreement. So, because I respect Valerie’s opinions and because I want to be totally cool around the office and talk-the-talk, I picked up Bloom’s article in the February 13th Ad Age.

At Liquid Intelligence, we help foster increased brand volume through proper communication with the use of Influencers; so, I was right there with Bloom when he said “in today’s world, “the question for marketers and agencies is less ‘what single message do we want to send?’ and more ‘how do we get people talking about our product, learn from what they say and tap their conversation to inform other communication efforts?” Our marketing philosophy echoes the same sentiments; rather than communicate a static message to consumers, we work with Influencers who are already close to a particular brand, and together we develop the best ways to communicate honest brand stories and opinions to consumers. As Bloom implies, successful communication-based marketing (on a ground level) requires that companies identify what questions are being asked, and how to answer them in a way that resonates with the listener.

Reminds me of a story. A while ago, someone outside (way outside) of the business sphere found out that I worked at a beverage marketing firm, and asked me about marketing for the beer industry. “So what do you guys do, specifically?” he asked, of course, very generally. (For those wondering the same question, hang in there.) I’d been in similar situations before…“what is your thesis about,” “why does man exist,” etc.…and the conversational transition from loose pleasantries to weary logistical regurgitations makes for somewhat of a buzz-kill; the fact-based information overwhelming, the medium ineffective.

I could explain that Influencers are a personality type, Influencers are those who try things because they are new, Influencers make up 8% of the North American population, but how do these facts really translate to the guy in front of me with the Wicked Quick shirt on, drinking Makers on the rocks while straining to hear me over the sounds of Lust for Life ripping through the bar? He doesn’t care about the science behind Influencer Marketing anymore than he cares about the Smirnoff Ice special down the street; and that’s not saying he does or doesn’t need to, it’s just not that relevant to his lifestyle—even if it is relevant to the brand looking to increase sales.

Eventually, his intended inquiry surfaced: he wanted to know about what we did for Pabst. This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked about Liquid Intelligence’s P.B.R. campaign, so I had the answer down, easy. Before thinking it through, I launched the spiel, “First, we identified the influential people within some of the grassroots movements,” it began. I was into it for about 5 minutes, when suddenly a Sabbath song came on… and he signified that he’d heard enough from me by walking away mid-sentence to do pull-ups on the door frame near the emergency exit. I was caught off-guard. So, I wasn’t as captivating as I’d thought? Was that his way of digesting the layers upon layers of sophisticated marketing insight I’d just unveiled? Should I start working out?

I’ve since realized, over the course of several Influencer Marketing campaigns with Li, that people are, at all times, choosing what they want to listen to. As it turns out, you can hold someone’s attention with information they perceive irrelevant for only so long, generally until they find something better to put in their ear. Just like people choose a genre of music to embrace, or a radio frequency, they choose specific channels of communication through which they’ll accept information, those which are interesting to them… and those that sound good.

To expand on that, even if you have a great story, it won’t translate unless you communicate it properly--and to communicate it properly, you need to know, first, what information resonates with your audience and, second, the proper channels through which to communicate it. If I were transported back one year to the same bar, facing the same question, I would tell Jared about the local bands that came to embrace Pabst, and the concerts (Independent Music World Series, etc) we organized with people around the city--most of people he probably knows. I’d even tell him about the flukes, or the unplanned; muddy rooftop parties in the rain that lasted until 4 AM, the slacker party which never got a solid date pinned down, the impromptu wedding at a tattoo parlor in Baltimore. All of it is colorful, all is relevant, and all add to the story behind the brand…and it is the back-story that prompts someone to embrace a brand… ultimately increasing brand volume.

These days, when talking with my friends who aren’t pursuing interests in the marketing arena, the facts behind what goes on at ‘the factory,’ are neither captivating nor relevant. For such parties, I communicate the Influencer concept along these simple lines: “You know Mike, he’s an influencer,” or, “Nika is an influencer.” Through this relativity-based explanation, the basic framework is conveyed without having to incorporate lengthy facts or impotent adjectives; extraneous information that wouldn’t stick with this group.

It’s utilizing pre-established groundwork to tell a story in a compelling way. Even though, on a pop-level of the marketing industry, Influencers are occasionally described as ‘cool’ people within their communities, should I phrase that to some of my non-industry friends I would not only be leaving them with an intangible, I’d also be opening myself up for scathing ridicule. Most likely they’d gather around to laugh at the prospect of corporate America really knowing who is ‘in the scene;’ since, as far as they’re concerned, the only scene that truly exists is their own.

So, what LI considers proper communication doesn’t mean manufacturing information that is easier to swallow, or manipulating information to fit a mold. It just means identifying your audience and delivering communication from within their world (or from within the world in which your audience strives to exist); it’s a strategy that works because it can only be accomplished if the speaker himself legitimately operates within said environment. Which makes it honest and authentic. I like it because it’s not in the twisted, brain-mining vein of some of the marketing agencies trying to sleaze around today.

That said, what does communication have to do directly with marketing? Evvverything. As Jonah Bloom says, “today the most important communication is not the marketing monologue but the dialogue that takes place.” Around these parts, we like to think of a brand as a concept or a story, as opposed to an absolute statement. And while there are a million ways to communicate an idea, only a few will resonate with the target audience; finding out what’s appropriate for, and the best way to communicate your brand is the sort of challenge we fly with.

-LR