By Amy Dawson, Senior Vice President/Healthcare Account Director

When most consumers can walk out of a store and send a Tweet or Facebook post to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends every company should be on high alert. 

Call it what you want - a conversation, a buzz, or 24/7/365 action - but the social media phenomenon can make or break a brand, product or company in a matter of days, or even hours.

 Here’s an example: in less than 24 hours, I found these posts on Facebook:

• “Not happy with Delta! Why did Bill not get charged for his checked bag and I did? I’m even a FF member and he is not!! Grrrrrr”
• “Capital City Appliance customer service is completely inflexible and forgot that the customer is always, well, the customer! Beware!”
• “Dell’s customer service sucks.”

I didn’t even look at Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networking sites I use… who knows how many more I’d find.  So how can smart brands protect themselves from social media backlash and recession proof their business at the same time?

It’s Almost All About The Experience

A quote in a recent whitepaper from the Peppers & Rogers Group, “Winning on Service in an Uncertain Economy,” sums it up best:

“The good news is that those companies who are making an effort to build customer loyalty through exceptional customer service are finding themselves at least partially insulated against this economic backlash. In tough economic times, people like to deal with companies that genuinely care about them. We are more careful about what we spend and who we spend it with. Companies who have been mistreating, ignoring, or otherwise abusing their customers will suffer the most.”

As the report cites, succeeding in down economic times requires a renewed focus on creating an exceptional customer experience.

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By Craig Lerner, Director of Experiential Marketing

An important element in designing experiential marketing campaigns and events is the length of engagement.

To go beyond awareness, into understanding and delivering consumer action takes time. So instead of thinking about creative based on time (like a :30 spot) think about creating time. That’s the first step in thinking length of engagement.

Fahlgren LIVE meets a client’s target audience in life where they are most receptive to our message and where they actually raise their hands and say that they want to be part of the brand story - for a period of time. So when you can deliver an entertaining experience that the target chooses to be a part of, you can buy time. That’s a great responsibility and a great opportunity. You need to enhance their overall event experience while delivering a powerful brand experience - even a transactional experience (why not make the sale now or at least get them one step closer to a transaction).

This week, Fahlgren LIVE is launching an exciting new event called “Get the Good Stuff” - a game show experience that invites contestants on stage to test their automotive knowledge for a chance to win prizes while a crowd of event attendees gathers to watch.

Fahlgren LIVE Tour Manager Jared Nolan is the host and leads contestants through the game show. As he does so, the script, clues and improvisational banter all communicate key attributes of the NAPA brand to accelerate and deepen the relationship with this valuable audience. And since the brand awareness levels for NAPA are through-the-roof in this crowd, it’s all about delivering understanding to move the audience into trial and preference.

And by the way, “trial” is only a few feet away. Next to the game stage is the 1,800 square-foot pop-up store with great deals for that transactional experience I mentioned earlier.

This new live activation is the centerpiece of an integrated experiential campaign, now in its third year, aimed at turning the over 70,000 Goodguys Rod & Custom Association members and the nearly 2 million event attendees into loyal NAPA customers. And while the game show experience will provide excitement at 21 Goodguys events throughout the year, the overall business results will be driven from integrated tactics that include an in-store promotion, print advertising and public relations. NAPA uses sponsorships, promotional campaigns and events like this to support its Distribution Centers, retail stores and NAPA AutoCare Centers nationwide. It’s an opportunity to entertain wholesale customers and prospects while engaging consumers and drive store traffic.

Each staging of “Get the Good Stuff” keeps attendees in the NAPA brand story for 15-20 minutes.

Just imagine what your brand could do with that length of engagement. We’d love to help take you there.

By Katherine Zuehlke, Account Supervisor

As an Account Supervisor at Fahlgren, I’ve been a part of several campaigns for healthcare clients ranging from small non-profits to complex health systems. I have traveled from California to New York to Ireland for my clients, and I have learned about everything from hip replacements to minimally invasive prostate surgeries to cancer treatment.

All of these experiences comprise the best part of my job - telling my clients’ stories in meaningful and impactful ways. The story of Riverside Methodist Hospital stroke patient Sarah Lancaster is one I’ll never forget.

We were in one of our brainstorming meetings with the client, which are always open and honest to uncover the best stories which in turn inspire entire campaigns. In this particular meeting we learned about Sarah who, thanks to Riverside’s exceptional and innovative Merci Retriever stroke care, fully recovered from a serious stroke and went on to travel to Egypt just months later. 

The Power Of Storytelling

After the campaign began and Sarah’s story was out in the community via powerful television, print and web advertisements, we heard another great story — a woman who suffered a stroke went directly to Riverside Methodist Hospital. After she too recovered completely from her stroke her family asked her, “Why Riverside?”

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By Alaina Sheer,

In a day and age when consumers are equipped with the ability to share their experience with hundreds, if not thousands and thousands of others almost instantly every brand should be focusing on every interaction with every customer.

Take this video, which has been viewed over 250,000 times, as an example.

There are several other videos on YouTube from people lucky enough to find themselves on a flight with this Southwest flight attendant. Each is taken by the passenger, posted on YouTube when they get home or as soon as they land - depending on the technology they own, and then the video’s link (URL) is shared via social networks like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, e-mail or blogs.

The message from Southwest is clear: here’s proof that we care about your experience on our airline and we have nothing to hide, so please pass it on.

The lesson to brands should be just as clear: improve your product, improve your customer experience and, above all, give your customers something worth talking about - be interesting.

You’ll find that the more unique your customer experience the more people will share your story for you.

By Amy Dawson, Senior Vice President/Healthcare Account Director

I’d like to welcome Alden Schutte to our blog as a guest author. Alden is a brand strategist with Fahlgren’s healthcare group and brings a wealth of experience to our agency. For more than 35 years, his belief in the power of simple, meaningful brand stories has meant big results for his many clients. 

What’s your brand story? 

By Alden Schutte

Over the years we’ve asked that question to executives of all types of brands - including companies and organizations - and what continues to surprise us is the inability of most to easily deliver a succinct answer.

One of the most basic ways we make sense of our lives, our world and our place in it is through stories. It’s also true with brands. Brand stories that connect are always written around a strategic foundation, building each subsequent chapter around a powerful core idea or truth.

At Fahlgren, our brand stories succinctly sum up a client’s unique product or service benefit and why it matters to the target audience. However, before we can determine the core idea, a lot of research, market intelligence and analysis must take place. So how do we craft a brand story that’s coherent and compelling?

Our brand stories revolve around Brand Truths, Insights and Inspiration.

Truths: First we determine the essence of the brand and why it exists. We look to understand why someone would make the decision to purchase the brand or product and why it’s different or better than anything else in the marketplace.

Insights: We work to isolate the most meaningful and provocative brand truths about your consumers’ behaviors’, your category and your company. As blogger Peter Merholz says, it’s not who your customers are, it’s how they behave. Along the way we discard a lot of strong ideas to let the most powerful insights shine through. Insights that provide inspiration for concise creative solutions that work in concert with brand goals and objectives

Inspiration: The insights allow us to derive the inspiration for great strategy, audience segmentation, messaging and engagement. We develop a simplified creative message that turns desire into action. Our current campaign for Riverside Methodist Hospital has generated a 149% increase in patient visits since it began last year.

We believe that the best way to communicate a brand’s reason for existence is through storytelling. Stories, as we’ve all learned over the years, help us understand and work to clarify our lives.

Our stories drive a brand’s interaction with its selected target audiences, generating awareness, consideration, trial and purchase. Our brand stories work to create repetition of the selling process, leading to long-term brand loyalty, growth and profitability.

By Bill Black, Vice President, Account Director