Reputation management in the digital space: challenges and opportunities – Ad:tech Sydney

Ad:Tech Sydney: http://www.ad-tech.com/sydney
Host: Brett Walker, Speedwell eBusiness Solutions (far right)
Panel: Roger Sharp, Cadbury; Myrna Van Pelt, Hill & Knowlton; Jeff Richardson, The Online Circle

This session started with Roger Sharp and Jeff Richardson telling the story of Cadbury getting into social media. It was good to see them build on eachother’s stories and reveal a few strategies along the way rather than skirt over what happened in a simplistic fashion. Myrna Van Pelt ran through a Canon case study while Brett Walker went through the Grill’d case study (burger chain that distributed a 2-for-1 burger offer with no Ts&Cs and managed it badly at first online).

Key takeouts

• Don’t obsess over the technology; focus on the people
• Not every person and every mention needs to be dealt with but they do need to be analysed
• You don’t necessarily need to go head-on against the most destructively vocal
• Arm the silent majority and advocates with the facts
• Proactivity is key but it’s hard to respond as fast as is usually merited

Favourite quote

“Even with the base of a good reputation you still need to move pretty quickly – it can be killed over night“ Roger Sharp

Roger Sharp, Cadbury and Jeff Richardson, The Online Circle

Cadbury had an early trigger to get involved with social media: a Facebook protest group demanding Cadbury remove palm oil from chocolate bars despite being one of the most trusted brands around – “We under-estimated the problem” Roger Sharp

Why we got it wrong
1. We were too complex: We are a big complex organisation – globally, regionally, locally – the supply chain is complicated; it took us some time to do a fact check to know absolutely the details and facts behind our position
2. We under-valued online conversations compared to traditional media: We felt that we knew mainstream media communication tools and because this conversation wasn’t playing out in the mainstream media, it wasn’t quite as important
3. Having the facts without explaining them in detail doesn’t shift opinion: We had actually sourced the ingredient sustainably and that our arguments were valid, correct, ethical – none of which really shifted opinion online

• Roger mentioned that Cadbury suffered financially due to this protest but couldn’t go into specifics
• What saved Cadbury as an organisation: having an open mind; “We didn’t pretend we had all the answers”
• Used social media monitoring tool to find out the depth of Cadbury’s issue
• The social media communities can be very creative – in a positive and negative way – eg people were putting their protest onto the shelves in stores as fake price tags then spreading photos of them

Lessons

• Whatever you think you know is going on… maybe you only know the half – find out more
• Learn how much data is available
• There are advocates for most brands – find them and work with them

Two typologies
Promoters, passives, detractors – detractors were silencing the promoters
The uninformed, trolls, frauds, the silent majority

The strategy
We needed to work out how to empower the silent majority to engage the detractors

• The Uninformed – inform the uninformed
• Trolls – shaping their identity by trying to be seen as a battler against a big company – take control of the conversation covertly – empower the people who are genuinely interested, give them the facts
• The Frauds – there were people creating new personas online for the sole reason of attacking Cadbury – they didn’t care about the fact; they just wanted to drive passion and be a nuisance

Instead of social media fragmentation, create social media centralisation – Cadbury: choclovers.com.au – this was where we put all the information; the detailed information you can just put on Twitter

Data and numbers are something that board-level executives can understand even when they don’t necessarily understand social media

How a client can be helpful
According to Jeff Richardson

• Understand the need for strategy and balance
• Support ONE strategy over 100 tactics
• Provide well organised information
• Give clear direction on issues that matter

Brett Walker

• Having a great community doesn’t make you bullet-proof
• No matter how ready you are – you’re not ready to move fast enough

Myrna Van Pelt

The main takeouts from Myrna’s Canon case study were:

• Link what a brand is about to what people are interested in (in the Canon case study it was charity)
• Content is key
• PR is great to build campaign momentum

The Twitter stream: #atsyd1

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Tagged as: Brett Walker, Cadbury, Hill and Knowlton, Jeff Richardson, Myrna Van Pelt, Roger Sharp, Twitter, Van Pelt