How To Tap Into Social Norms to Build a Strong Brand

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How To Tap Into Social Norms to Build a Strong
Brand
In recent years there has been a necessary shift
in the way businesses advertise themselves to
consumers, thanks to the increasingly common
information overload experienced by the average
person. In 1945, just after WWII, the annual
total ad spend in the United States was about
2.8 billion (that's around 36.8 million before
the adjustment for inflation). In 2013, it was
around 140 billion. Don't forget that this is
just paid media advertising it doesn't include
the many types of earned coverage like search,
social, email, supermarket displays, direct mail
and so on. Alongside the growth in media spends
is a growth in the sheer volume of products
available, which is made possible by increasingly
sophisticated technologies for sales, inventory,
delivery and so on. What does this mean? Well,
simply that the strategy of 'just buy some ads
and sell the benefits' isn't enough anymore
you'll be lost in the noise. How can a brand
retain customers and create loyalty in an
atmosphere where everyone else has a better
offer? Through tapping into the psychology of
social relationships.
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Imagine that you are at home for Thanksgiving,
and your mother has pulled out all the stops to
lovingly craft the most delicious, intricate
dinner ever known to man. You and your family
have enjoyed a wonderful afternoon of socializing
and snacking on leftovers and watching football,
and now it's time to leave. As you hug your
parents goodbye, you take out your wallet. "How
much do I owe you for all the love and time you
put into this wonderful afternoon?" you ask.
"100 for the food? here, have 50 more as a
thank you for the great hospitality!" How would
your mother respond to such an offer? I don't
know about your mother, but my mom would be
deeply offended. New scenario You've gone to a
restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. It's the most
delicious dinner you've ever had, the atmosphere
is great with the football playing in the
background, and best of all, your server is
attentive, warm, and maternal. You feel right at
home. At the end of the meal, you give her a hug
and thank her for the delicious meal before
leaving. She calls the cops and has you arrested
for a dine-and-dash. And herein lies the
difference between social norms and market norms.
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Social norms vs. market norms
The Thanksgiving dinner example is one which I've
borrowed from a book by Dan Ariely, Predictably
Irrational The Hidden Forces that Shape Our
Decisions. Ariely discusses two ways in which
humans interact social norms and market
norms. Social norms, as Ariely explains, "are
wrapped up in our social nature and our need for
community. They are usually warm and fuzzy.
Instant paybacks are not required." Examples
would be helping a friend move house,
babysitting your grandchild, having your parents
over for dinner. There is an implied reciprocity
on some level but it is not instantaneous nor is
it expected that the action will be repaid on a
financial level. These are the sort of
relationships and interactions we expect to have
with friends and family. Market norms, on the
other hand, are about the exchange of resources
and in particular, money. Examples of this type
of interaction would be any type of business
transaction where goods or services are exchanged
for money wages, prices, rents, interest, and
cost-and-benefit. These are the sort of
relationships and interactions we expect to have
with businesses. I've drawn you a very rough
illustration - it may not be the
most aesthetically pleasing visual, but it gets
the point across
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Market norms come into play any time money enters
into the equation, sometimes counter-intuitively!
Ariely gives the example of a group of lawyers
who were approached by the AARP and asked whether
they would provide legal services to needy
retirees at a drastically discounted rate of
30/hour. The lawyers said no. From a market
norms perspective, the exchange didn't make
sense. Later the same lawyers were asked whether
they would consider donating their time free of
charge to needy retirees. The vast majority of
the lawyers said yes. The difference is that,
when no money changes hands, the exchange shifts
from a poor-value market exchange to an
altruistic and therefore high-value social
exchange. It is a strange psychological quirk
that 'once market norms enter our considerations,
the social norms depart.'
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Mixed signals when social and market norms
collide
In a book called Positioning The Battle for Your
Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout (originally
published in 1981), the authors describe the
1950s as the 'product era' of advertising, when
'advertising people focused their attention on
product features and customer benefits.' It was
all about the unique selling proposition (USP).
In this case, the USP is mildness "not one
single case of throat irritation!" (image Source)
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However, as the sheer volume of products on the
market increased, it became more difficult to
sell a product simply by pointing out the
benefits. As Ries and Trout put it, 'Your "better
mousetrap" was quickly followed by two more just
like it. Both claiming to be better than the
first one.'
They describe the next phase of advertising
(which hit its peak in the 1960s and 70s and
which we can probably all relate to if we watch
Mad Men) as the 'image era', pioneered by David
Ogilvy. In this period, successful campaigns sold
the reputation, or 'image' of a brand and a
product rather than its features. Ries and Trout
quote Ogilvy as saying that 'Every advertisement
is a long-term investment in the image of a
brand'. Examples include Hathaway shirts and
Rolls-Royce.
Rather than the product benefits, this ad focuses
on the 'image' of the man who smokes Viceroys
"Viceroy has a thinking man's filter and a
smoking man's taste. (image source)
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But yet again, as more and more brands imitate
the strategy of these successful campaigns, the
space gets more crowded and the consumer becomes
more jaded and these techniques become less
effective. According to Ries and Trout, this
brought the world of advertising into the
'positioning era' of the 80s, which is where they
positioned (hehe) themselves. As they described
this, "To succeed in our overcommunicated
society, a company must create a position in the
prospect's mind, a position that takes into
consideration not only a company's own strengths
and weaknesses, but those of its competitors as
well."
This one's all about positioning Winston's in
opposition to competitors as the brand with real
taste, as opposed to other brands which 'promise
taste' but fail to deliver. (image source)
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And yet, despite this evolution of advertising
strategy over the course of the 20th century, all
of these different approaches are ultimately
based on market norms. The 'product era' sells
you features and benefits in exchange for money
the 'image era' sells you on an image and a
lifestyle in exchange for money, and the
'positioning era' sells you on why a particular
company is the right one to supply your needs in
exchange for money.
Social norms and loyalty When does cheap not win?
When it comes to social norms. Social norms are
about relationships, community and loyalty. If
your sister is getting married, you don't do a
cost benefit analysis to decide whether or not
you should go to her wedding or whether the food
will be better and the travel cheaper if you go
to your next door neighbor's BBQ instead. If
anything, it's the opposite some people take it
to such an extreme that they will go into massive
debt to attend friends' weddings and bring lavish
gifts. That is certainly not a decision based on
monetary considerations. Therefore, if the
average brand wants to get out of the vicious
cycle of undercutting competitors in order to
gain business, they need to start focusing on
relationships and community building instead of
'SUPER CHEAP BEST LOW LOW PRICES!!' and sneaky
upsells at the point of sale. This is something
my colleague Tim Allen spoke about in a
presentation called "Make Me Love Your Brand, Not
Just Tolerate It". And this is what a large
number of recent 'advertising success stories'
are based on and it's the whole premise behind
many of the more recent trends in marketing
email marketing, personalization, SMS marketing,
good social media marketing, and so on.
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• Some of the most popular brands are the ones
  which are able to find the perfect balance
  between
• a friendly, warm relationship with customers and
  potential customers, which also often includes a
  fun, personal tone of voice (the 'brand
  personality') - in these interactions there is
  often an offering of something to the customer
  without an expectation of instant payback, and
• a strong product which they offer at a good
  price with good 'market' benefits like free
  returns and so on.
• One example of this is John Lewis, who have good
  customer service policies around returns etc but
  also offer free perks to their shoppers, like the
  maternity room where breastfeeding mothers can
  relax. One of my colleagues mentioned that, as a
  new mother, his girlfriend always prefers to shop
  at John Lewis over other competitor stores for
  that very reason. Now if this is purely a
  convenience factor for her, and after her child
  is older she stops shopping at John Lewis in
  favor of a cheaper option, you could argue that
  this is less of a social interaction and more
  market influenced (in some sense it serves as a
  service differentiator between JL and their
  customers). However, if after she no longer
  requires the service, she continues to shop there
  because she wants to reciprocate their past
  support of her as a breastfeeding mother, that
  pushes it more firmly into the realm of the
  social.

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• Another thing John Lewis do for their fans is the
  annual Christmas ad, which (much like the 
  Coca-Cola Santa truck in the UK) has become
  something which people look forward to each year
  because it's a heartwarming little story more
  than just an ad for a home and garden store.
  Their 2012 ad was my favorite (and a lot of other
  people's too, with over 4.5 million
  Youtube views).
• But usually anytime a brand 'do something nice'
  for no immediate monetary benefit, it counts as a
  'social' interaction - a classic example is
  Sainsbury's response to the little girl who wrote
  to them about 'tiger bread'.
• Some of my other favorite examples of social norm
  interactions by brands are
• Red Bull Wings, which is an initiative from Red
  Bull where they monitor Twitter for mentions of
  things like allnighter and midterms and then
  send the tweeters a care package with free Red
  Bull to help get them through the night
• The MININotNormal campaign, in particular this
  'MINI Salutes You' video 
• JetBlue delivering a Starbucks coffee to a
  blogger on the plane
• WestJet creating this magical Christmas surprise
  for their passengers
• The catch is, you have to be careful and keep the
  'mix' of social and market norms consistent.

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Ariely uses the example of a bank when describing
the danger of bringing social norms into a
business relationship "What happens if a
customer's check bounces? If the relationship is
based on market norms, the bank charges a fee,
and the customer shakes it off. Business is
business. While the fee is annoying, it's
nonetheless acceptable. In a social relationship,
however, a hefty late fee--rather than a friendly
call from the manager or an automatic fee
waiver--is not only a relationship-killer it's a
stab in the back. Consumers will take personal
offense. They'll leave the bank angry and spend
hours complaining to their friends about this
awful bank. Richard Fergie also summed this
issue up nicely in this G post about the recent
outrage over Facebook manipulating users'
emotions in this case, the back-stab effect was
due to the fact that the implicit agreement
between the users and the company about what was
being 'sold' and therefore 'valued' in the
exchange changed without warning. The basic rule
of thumb is that whether you choose to emphasize
market norms or social norms, you can't
arbitrarily change the rules.
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A side note about social media and brands Act
like a normal person In a time when the average
American aged 18-64 spends 2-3 hours a day on
social media, it is only logical that we would
start to see brands and the advertising industry
follow suit. But if this is your only strategy
for building relationships and interacting with
your customers socially, it's not good enough.
Instead, in this new 'relationship era' of
advertising (as I've just pretentiously dubbed
it, in true Ries-and-Trout fashion), the brands
who will successfully merge market and social
norms in their advertising will be the brands
which are able to develop the sort of reciprocal
relationships that we see with our friends and
family. I wrote a post over on the Distilled blog
about what social media marketers can learn from
weddings. That was just one example, but the
TLDR is as a brand, you still need to use
social media the way that normal people do.
Otherwise you risk becoming a Condescending
Corporate Brand on Facebook. On Twitter too.
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Social norms and authenticity Why you actually
do need to care Another way in which brands tap
into social norms are through their brand values.
My colleague Hannah Smith talked about this in
her post on The Future of Marketing. Moz
themselves are a great example of a brand with
strong values for them it's TAGFEE. Hannah also
gives the examples of Innocent Drinks
(sustainability), Patagonia (environmentalism)
and Nike (whose strapline 'Find Your Greatness'
is about their brand values of everyone being
able to 'achieve their own defining moment of
greatness'). Havas Media have been doing some
interesting work around trying to 'measure' brand
sentiment with something call the 'Meaningful
Brands Index' (MBi), based on how much a brand is
perceived as making a meaningful difference in
people's lives, both for personal wellbeing and
collective wellbeing. Whether or not you like
their approach, they have some interesting stats
apparently only 20 of brands worldwide are seen
to 'meaningfully positively impact peoples'
lives', but the brands that rank high on the MBi
also tend to outperform other brands
significantly (120). Now there may be a
'correlation vs causation' argument here, and I
don't have space to explore it. But regardless of
whether you like the MBi as a metric or not,
countless case studies demonstrate that it's
valuable for a brand to have strong brand values.
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• There are two basic rules of thumb when it comes
  to choosing brand values
• It has to be relevant to what you do. If a bingo
  site is running an environmentalism campaign, it
  might seem a bit weird and it won't resonate well
  with your audience. You also need to watch out
  for accidental irony. For example, McDonalds and
  Coca-Cola came in for some flak when they
  sponsored the Olympics, due to their reputation
  as purveyors of unhealthy food/drink products.
• Nike's FindYourGreatness campaign, on the
  other hand, is a great example of how to tie
  in your values
  with your product. Another example is one of our
  clients at Distilled, SimplyBusiness, a business
  insurance company whose brand values include
  being 'the small business champion'. This has
  informed their content strategy, leading them to
  develop in-depth resources for small businesses,
  and it has served them very well.
• 2) It can't be so closely connected to what you
  do that it comes across as self-serving. For
  example, NatWest's NatYes campaign claims to be
  about enabling people to become homeowners, but
  ultimately (in no small part thanks to the scary
  legal compliance small print about foreclosure)
  the authenticity of the message is undermined.

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The most important thing when it comes to brand
values it's very easy for people to be cynical
about brands and whether they 'care'. Havas did a
survey that found that only 32 of people feel
that brands communicate honestly about
commitments and promises. So choose values that
you do feel strongly about and follow through
even if it means potentially alienating some
people. The recent OKCupid vs Mozilla Firefox
episode is an illustration of standing up for
brand values (regardless of where you stand on
this particular example, it got them a lot of
positive publicity).
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• Key takeaways
• So what can we take away from these basic
  principles of social norms and market norms? If
  you want to build a brand based on social
  relationships, here's 3 things to remember.
• Your brand needs to provide something besides
  just a low price. In order to have a social
  relationship with your customers, your brand
  needs a personality, a tone of voice, and you
  need to do nice things for your customers without
  the expectation of immediate payback.
• You need to keep your mix of social and market
  norms consistent at every stage of the customer
  lifecycle. Don't pull the rug out from under your
  loyal fans by hitting them with surprise costs
  after they checkout or other tricks. And don't
  give new customers significantly better benefits.
  What you gain in the short term you will lose in
  the long term resentment they will feel about
  having been fooled. Instead, treat them with
  transparency and fairness and be responsive to
  customer service issues.
• You need brand values that make sense for your
  brand and that you (personally and as a company)
  really believe in. Don't have values that don't
  relate to your core business. Don't have values
  which are obviously self-serving. Don't be
  accidentally ironic like McDonalds.

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Source http//moz.com/blog/social-norms-build-a
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