This week’s
readings for my graduate course raised some important questions about the
effectiveness of strategic communication programs:
- Should
leaders in the field of strategic communication commit effort and
resources in measuring both tangibles and intangibles when evaluating
their efforts?
- How can
companies humanize themselves?
- How does
a strategic communication professional measure the impact of his or her
campaign?
When I first
read these questions, I wondered, what
are intangibles? I already knew the common definition of the adjective intangible, but I didn’t quite
understand what the word meant as far as strategic communication goes. After
reading the assigned articles for this week, I concluded that intangibles are those
innate qualities about a person or company that keeps people coming back or that
makes them run away. Dictionary.com defines intangible as “(of an asset)
existing only in connection with something else, as the goodwill of a business”
(Dictionary.com, n.d.). These things include such qualities as trustworthiness,
credibility, loyalty, and goodwill. It’s hard to measure these qualities, but
it’s not impossible for companies to put in the effort to measure them. What it
takes is effective communication and the strategic use of the tools that our
technologically advanced society has afforded us to humanize companies and to
create a conversational “voice” for organizations. I believe we can find these tools
in social media platforms.
When talking
about strategic communication, especially in our digitally oriented society, we
can’t avoid the importance of social media outlets and their propensity to help
organizations create a “voice” for their brands. One social media tool these
organizations can use is the blog. In “Organizational Blogs and the Human
Voice: Relational Strategies and Relational Outcomes,” Tom Kelleher and Barbara
M. Miller (2006) discuss the different ways that organizations can give their companies
a voice that doesn’t alienate their target audiences. They argue that companies
should “shift in approach from markets as targets to markets as conversations,”
meaning that companies should try to develop intimate relationships with their
audiences instead of trying to get their attention through sterile, practiced
methods (2006, p. 398). They can achieve this shift through using organizational
blogs, which the authors define as
…Web
logs that meet three criteria. They are 1) maintained by people who post in an
official or semiofficial capacity at an organization, 2) endorsed explicitly or
implicitly by that organization, and 3) posted by a person perceived by publics
to be clearly affiliated with the organization. (2006, p. 399)
By using
organizational blogs, strategic communicators can bridge the gap that is
evident between companies and their target audiences. They will be able to take
their companies from a level of inaccessibility to a personable one, because
these types of blogs help companies “convey some sense of human attributes existing
behind an organizational façade” (2006, p. 409).
Organizational blogs
give companies’ stakeholders and potential consumers an opportunity to
communicate with them on a level that will generate the audience and consumers that
the companies want while giving the stakeholders and potential consumers a
chance to share their experiences and suggestions with the companies. When
organizations provide this opportunity to its customers, they promote an
intimate company-consumer relationship that fosters a sense of loyalty, trust,
and faith between the two entities. Along with organizational blogs, companies should
also look into other forms of social media to help humanize their brands and to
create a conversational voice for their brands. Ford Motor Company’s Fiesta Movement
is an awesome example of how a company can use social media to create a more
intimate experience with its customer base.
Last week, I had
to submit a campaign analysis for my COM 6600 Communication and Influence course.
For this assignment, we had to “conduct an analysis of a campaign designed to
sell a product or service, promote an idea […] or influence people for or
against some behavior” (Hoppin, 2014, p. 1). Dr. Hoppin defined the term
campaign as “a strategic design of messages sent to one or more targeted
populations for a distinct period of time (2014, p. 1). I chose to analyze Ford’s
Fiesta Movement, which was an innovative marketing strategy that relied heavily
on social media to promote the company’s newest subcompact, the Fiesta. This
campaign analysis assignment helped me to see just how strategic communication
professionals measure the impact of their campaigns.
One of the main
features of a successful campaign is the methods of influence the campaigners
use to influence their audiences’ decisions. In the Fiesta Movement, Ford
employed members of the Millennial generation who were technically savvy and
who had a large following on their personal social media sites to test drive
the vehicle for several months. Over the course of the campaign, these test
drivers, or “agents,” reported on their social media sites their experiences
with the vehicle, which were all positive (Ford Motor Company, 2014). Many of
the agents didn’t want to give up their vehicles after the campaign ended. Through
using this particular set of test drivers, Ford used several effective methods
of influence, including reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social
proof, liking, and authority (Cialdini, 2009), to get the positive impact that
they wanted: awareness of the new vehicle, increased sales of the vehicle over
the years, and an awareness of its brand amongst the Millennial generation. They
also garnered several intangible assets during this campaign: loyalty, faith,
and trust in the brand. How did they measure these intangibles? One answer lies
in the videos the agents posted, which are available on the Fiesta Movement website and on the campaign’s YouTube channel.
The agents’ testimonials and videos helped Ford see that they had used the
methods of influence effectively and generated increased interest in and sales
of their new vehicle.
Using these
methods of influence, strategic communication professionals can measure the
impact of their campaigns by looking at how well or poorly their campaigns do.
If they use these methods poorly, they lose their audiences and potential consumers,
and they damage the credibility of their brands. If they use these methods
correctly, as Ford did, they will see increases across the board. So, how does all
of this lead to measuring intangibles? At first, I wasn’t sure, but then I
realized that through the agents’ blogs, videos, and social media sites, Ford
was able to see just how much of a positive impact its campaign had on its
potential customers. Its campaign exhibited all of the qualities that one would
want in a brand—credibility, honesty, goodwill—and brought the company tangible
results through sales and “likes” on social media sites. Ford’s target audience
was able to see, through the agents, just how relatable the brand was to its
consumers. In addition, the company was also able to show its audience how
solid and trusting the brand is through the personal and genuine experiences its
test drivers had during the Fiesta Movement campaign.
By allowing its
stakeholders and its potential buyers to take the reins during the campaign, Ford
was able to get the tangible and intangible success it was looking for with its
campaign. Strategic communicators can learn so much from this campaign, because
it showed how easy it is for companies to develop relationships with their
customers. This campaign also showed how easy it was for the company to
humanize itself through the words of its test drivers. Using some of the same
methods Ford used in its campaign, along with organizational blogs that utilize
a conversational tone, strategic communicators can build solid reputations for
their companies that aren’t built solely on structured, mechanical methods of operation,
but are also built on a more personal, human approach.
References
Cialdini, R. (2009). Influence: Science and Practice. (5th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Kelleher,
T. & Miller, B. (2006). “Organizational blogs and the human voice:
Relational strategies and relational outcomes.” Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 11, 395–414.
