Beyond February 14: B2B marketing takeaways from Valentine's Day

Pink hearts photo from Freestock on Unsplash

When we think of Valentine’s Day, B2B is not exactly what we think of when we picture candlelit dinners, bouquets of roses, chocolates, gifts of jewelry. and stuffed animals and cards festooned with red and pink hearts. However, if you think out of the heart-shaped box, you can begin to understand that there are quite a number of parallels.

First of all there is the recognition of  important relationships. Sure Valentine’s Day is associated with romantic one specifically, though data tells us that for many people it is also  a day to celebrate their love for parents, children, friends, coworkers,  classmates, teachers, and even  pets. 

This doesn’t mean that you should be shoehorning your own B2B messaging into a heart shape when it doesn’t fit. Instead, think about how you can advance that relationship in authentic ways that relate to your client’s concerns. That means you demonstrate your commitment to meeting their expectations for your products and services. 

It’s the thought that counts for a gift, right? So is it enough to show you realize you are expected to buy something by picking up a gift conveniently set out on display at the drugstore on your way home?  No, the thought that counts is the one that shows you know what the person is about and what they’d like to get.  The question is: what expectations are in place and are they met? 

One interesting revelation from the National Retail Foundation (NRF)  data on holiday spending is the discrepancy that often occurs between the type of gift that people say they want and the percentage that say that is the type they intend to give. To apply this to a B2B context, you don’t want to disappoint your customers by failing to meet their expectations. 

So the first step, obviously, is getting to know them well enough to be able to grasp what they need, what their business goals and pain points are so that you can anticipate them in delivering the solutions. In other words, if you want to show you really care, you have to do better than just the token nod of a one-size-fits-all bouquet of red roses. 

What does it take to deliver on your B2B customer expectations? You have to listen to what they’re saying about  their current needs and wants. That’s not limited to what they tell you directly if you ask them for information in surveys; a lot of it is already out there. It’s possible to tap into the wealth of data, including the record of their purchases, how they place those purchases, what promotions they respond to, where they’re businesses are and where they wish to get to. 

All those data points feed into a complete view of the business that allows you to show you understand them. On that basis, you can build customized communication that is delivered the way they prefer it, whether that is via text, email, snail mail, a video chat, or an in-person visit. While one client may  love the in-person attention, another may consider it a drain on precious time at the office.

The takeaway from Valentine’s Day for building up a happily ever after relationship in B2B is the following:

1.Avoid the one-size-fits-all messages that will disappoint a large number of clients.

2. Put in the effort to get to know what they really want from you.

3. Deliver on those expectations and plan for how to anticipate their future needs and wants.

4. Repeat as necessary.

Acting on wrong assumption in pushing a one-size-fits-all attempt at communication when you should be personalizing doesn't show caring but a lack of consideration for what your recipient prefers. That can be as much a disaster as sending flowers to someone who is highly allergic to them or chocolates to a diabetic because you assumed that the popular choices are the way to go with everyone.

Related: True love meets marketing

Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke

No more boots for Ms. Green and other changes for M&M's candies

A major component of marketing is tapping into trends and  making an impression. When it works, these brand messages captures attention and show their relevance to customer concerns to increase feelings of loyalty. 

 But when the brand missteps, it embarrasses itself and risk alienating the very people it intended to court. Here are three recent examples from major brands that certainly had the budge to do adequate research before launching such campaigns.

Adidas' topless pics: branding boon or bust? 

On February 9, 2022, Adidas pinned a tweet with the hashtag #SupportEverything that included 25 pictures of women's breasts to demonstrates the range of sizes, shapes, and colors (though skin tones have no bearing whatsoever on the fit and support of a bra). Here's the tweet without the photos:

The brand posted the same photo to its Instagram, though there the breasts have a bit of airbrushing to achieve the digital equivalent of pasties. The overall reaction  on the Meta-owned platform was more positive than it was on Twitter, judging from the sentiments expressed in the nearly 3k quote tweets.

It's true that some considered the move liberating. For example, Jezebel applauded the tweet in Adidas Frees the Nipple. 

The Barstoolsports blog response corroborates what I thought was the real game here: baring what is usually covered still gets a certain amount of shock value, and that is what the brand is exploiting in presenting the 25 pictures.  While the post celebrated achieving marketing goals, the comments in response were not at all the positive if you're after celebrating diversity in women's bodies. It is the inevitability of such reactions that makes some people feel this is not a positive step for women

On its own site, Adidas doesn't show any topless women. In fact, the embedded video (also on YouTube) that explains the problem women have in finding the right fit only shows braless women from the back, where the marks left from bras attest to poor fit.  

The braless pictures, on the other hand, are meant to make the very reasonable notion of making sports bras do more than serve as short tank tops into something almost transgressive. It's really not, and Adidas is certainly not the first brand to offer more bra fit choices than the standard 32A to 40D range of sizes.

My guess is the social media manager was told, "Do something to get people's attention," and the person decided this was pushing the envelope. For the "no such thing as bad publicity" school of thought, it's a success. But I believe that the brand did alienate some potential customers here, making it into a branding bust (pun intended) for a consumer brand with a very wide market base.

M&M's misses the mark when aiming for inclusivity

M&M's candies got a makeover in the name of inclusivity. But the public is not impressed. M&M’s announcement about the changes included this video:

The comments are probably not quite what they were expecting, or they would have disabled them to begin with, as I wrote here. 

 

Mars says it’s not just about candy but a larger commitment “to create a world where society is inclusive.”  The emphasis on women’s representation is what trickles down to showing the candies that have female identities wearing more sensible shows now than they have in the past.  

For example, Ms. Brown’s high heels have been replaced by sensible pumps. Ms. Green’s heeled boots are replaced by comfortable sneakers.

I’m all for comfortable footwear myself and gave up on high heels long ago, though I have to say, I don’t really believe that cartoon renderings designed to sell candies will have a direct impact on female choices. The representations of different types of people could add to the fun consuming candies but they really don’t direct people’s life decisions. 

Indeed, that kind of critique was raised even by those who are very much in favor of changing thing. The fact remains that fictionalized progress is no substitute for real progress. Then there's the other camp that is tired of brands' claims they’re saving the world through their products and marketing. 

Despite marketers insisting that people want to see their values reflected in brand messaging, claiming too much for a brand makeover can backfire. It’s clear that audiences are not nearly as impressed with the brand message as the brand is with itself, and that’s now a win.  

Coke missteps when hopping on the gaming bandwagon

Massively multiplayer online (MMO) are designed to be extremely engaging with life-like characters and details to make up an immersive environment. As I wrote here, they often center around epic battles between species that may be using highly advanced or medieval style weapons.

Coca-Cola brand decided to hope on this hot trend, using an MMO as the backdrop for the commercial it released on September 30, 2021:

Spoiler alert: drinking Coke doesn’t just revive the player; it gives the ross between an Orc and the Hulk character in the game enlightenment. He literally throws down his weapon and grasps the hand of his enemy is a show of solidarity that brings the whole world to the verge of shocked recognition. 

Everyone embraces peace and love to fit wit the tagline of “We are one Coke Away from each other.”

Coke

One of the comments on the video is from Kevin Sugrue who explains what the brand gets wrong::

“Lacks insight and understanding of esport gamers. This tries to approriate [sic!] the gaming trend in Coke's pursuit of regaining relevance among a younger audience. You compete in MMO games to help your team triumph over the competition; not to unite the entire world.”

Here Coke tried to plaster its “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and teach it harmony” jingle on a specific form of gamification culture that may just resent the intrusion. Those who are deeply involved in that culture consider it an epic fail for the brand.

On the flip side, we have examples of brands that seized opportunities to endear themselves to the public, as in the case of Audi's response to a loss on Wheel of Fortune.

Related: Mary Poppins' Guide to Gamified Marketing

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Ryan George shows best and worst marketing practices

 If you If you are not familiar with Ryan George, then check out his YouTube Channels. Screen Rants, which offers commentary on films in the guise of pitch meetings in which spoilers abound, has nearly 8.5 million subscribers (and millions of views on his take on Spider-Man: No Way Home in which he reveals, among other things, how long it takes to watch five movies to get all the connections in this one).

The  Ryan George channel has 1.38 million subscribers. One of the recent videos on that channel contains fundamental points about the customer's experience. In What Shoppiong on Amazon Feels Like, he nails both best practices and worst practices for effective marketing. 

Best practice: conveying the sponsor message 

The brand paying George for the video is mentioned at the beginning but only very briefly. That means that even if you don't want to sit through an  extended description of the features and benefits SayMine.com boasts of, you will at least have heard of it. 

That's a win-win solution. By placing the more extended description at the end, he's removing the irritation people have from being forced to watch an ad before they get what they want, something that is not likely to make people develop more positive feelings for the brand. 

I touch on the downside of withholding content from your audience in Make your content as accessible as possible.

The brand still gets its spotlight with a brief mention in the beginning and in Ryan George's description of the video. Plus when he delivers the spiel about it, he does so in a kind of tongue-in-cheek manner consistent with the Ryan George brand. He delivers it in the guise of the "adstronaut."

Worst practices: irrelevance, keyword-stuffing descriptions, and information overload

Within the video, the role of Amazon shows an obliviousness to what the shopper wants and needs that highlight the worst practices of pushing products and services on the shopper that are irrelevant to his current needs. He's shopping for a chair and is not interested in video recommendations.

When he finally does get to see chairs, all of them are identical despite showing different brand names with variations on descriptions. Those of us who have shopped on Amazon know this is accurate but just to prove it, I'll put a screenshot from Amazon below:

Compare that with one of the ones in the video:

Content writers, take note! These product descriptions exemplify an SEO strategy that forgets about how the text sounds to  the human reader .

While all that may not overwhelm the shopper, attempting to make sense of the thousands of reviews may do so. That is also not an exaggeration. One of the chairs I checked on the site had over 23.5K ratings. 

Talk about information overload! A few hundred would be more credible and manageable than the huge number of reviews that certain products show on eCommerce sites.

Audiences loved this video because they could so relate as customers. Marketers and online sellers should pay attention because the humor here works because it is true. Turning off shoppers and losing potential customers due to bad practices is no laughing matter. 

Related:

Amazon uses snail mail for direct mail and Seeing stars

Make your content as accessible as possible

 

The certificates above show that I have just completed the HubSpot Academy courses on content marketing and SEO. I did pick up a few tips, but the best part of it was the feeling of gratification that my understanding of best practices from years of experience was spot on. Unfortunately, the businesses I sometimes worked for often deviated from such best practices.

Unlock those gates!

For example, I'm generally not in favor of gating good content. You want it to be read, so why create barriers to getting it read? I fully understand that you want to force people to give you their contact information to follow up with potential leads. However, as the course points out, you can encourage some kind of opt-in even without blocking the content.

Semrush, the online visibility platform, agrees that introducing a layer of friction -- even if it is as simple as entering an email address -- will turn away readers. That is not something you want to do in the awareness stage when you wish to attract as many eyeballs as possible.

"You usually wouldn’t start a relationship with gated content. You have to woo your readers first, showing that your content is worth their time and — later on — their personal information." - Semrush

HubSpot's course suggestion was to have the content accessible with an option for the reader to download it as a PDF. People will voluntarily download content they like to have available to read at leisure, particularly longer form content. My guess is that seeing things first the first time on a smartphone likely contributes to that practice even more.

Keep it simple!

I also felt particularly gratified about another explicit guideline it gives that I've clashed with some clients over in the past. That is to use clear, direct language rather than jargon or what you believe is a very impressive vocabulary filled with the types of words students used to memorize for the SATs. It's a mistake to believe that you sound smarter by using big words, as the really confident person will explain even more complex topics as clearly as possible (think "explain it to me like I'm five").

I still remember what my composition instructor said about Winston Churchill, who was a highly capable speaker and writer. As the British Prime Minister during WWII, he didn't say, "The received communication from France is extremely unfavorable." Instead, he said, "The news from Paris is very bad."

The contrast to Churchill's direct and honest approach appears in Emperor Hiroshito's observation after the devastation of two atomic bombs, "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

Consider which statement you would consider more trustworthy as a source, and remember that when crafting your own content.

screenshot from https://app.hubspot.com/academy/21390613/tracks/15/377/2059

I took the liberty of grabbing a screenshot from the HubSpot video as proof of what I tried very tactfully to convey to a few of my recent clients. Unfortunately, they refused to get the point. In one case, they insisted they have to avoid using "layman" terms. In the other, they insisted that really smart people speak that way.

P.S. Semrush also corroborated that point in a tweet that went up just today. Here's the final step in its short thread on how to format your content for search engines & target featured snippets:

✍️ Finally, tighten up your page’s copy. Try to use short, direct sentences with language that isn’t too complicated. Good luck 👋

— Semrush (@semrush) February 9, 2022

Related:

Where HubSpot Messed Up

Think Marathon Rather Than Sprint When Planning Content Marketing

What Edison Can Teach Us About SEO

Churchill's Guide to Writing

7 Ways to Grab Customer Attention in Subject Lines 

CRO is Like Basketball 

Most Memorable Brand Slogans 

Metaverse marketing and NFTs for fashion brands

Fashion brands have embraced the metaverse to showcase their wares and offer their customers the chance to purchase digital versions for their avatars. Sneaker brands that appeal to young customers are a natural fit, and so Roblox now is home to both NIKELAND

 and Vans World.





Even exclusive brands are able to become more accessible to potential customers by inviting them to experience their wares in digital form at a price point most could afford. Gucci did that by introducing sneaker designs that exist solely in virtual form. The Gucci Virtual 25 can be projected onto your feet via augmented reality.


The shoe always fits when it’s virtual, as you can see in this video:






The Verge reports that the shoes that could be purchased for $12.99 from Gucci’s app can also be virtually worn on an avatar in partnered apps like Roblox and VRChat. In an interview with TechCrunch, Gucci CMO Robert Triefus said that it “has been redefining its approachability as it extends its reach to digital platforms like Roblox — which the company sees as an opportunity that’s growing too quickly to ignore.”

Luxury fashion is more affordable in the metaverse

The same kind of thinking motivated Ralph Lauren to venture on to Roblox to connect with Gen Z customers. As reported in FashionUnited, at this year’s National Retail Federation’s conference, Ralph Lauren’s CEO, Patrice Louvet, said, the metaverse offers “a fantastic opportunity to interact with younger consumers, to create experiences.”

He explained, “You can get into Roblox and get your avatar to have a virtual coffee at a virtual RL coffee shop, create a virtual outfit on Zepeto or visit the Madison store virtually.”

Those virtual outfit sales already exceed 100,000 units. Items listed for sale on Zepeto are priced in ZEMs, which is the platform’s digital currency; Charged estimates that those listed price range from $0.57 to $2.86 a piece.

While a couple of hundred thousand dollars in sales doesn't make a huge different in the bottom line of a major fashion brand, it shows that the cachet is strong enough to motivate purchases for clothes that can only be worn by digital characters. And that feeling of connection to a brand will likely lead to purchases of real clothes in the real world when those customers can afford them. 

Merging NFTs and wearable clothing

( To understand NFTs, see Nearly Everything You Wanted to Know About NFTs But Were Afraid to Ask)
On January 12, Gap launched its first collection of NFTs under the name Gap Threads. The offering is designed to tap into the heightened interest in digital art and gamified experiences, which also plays on the need to act fast due to the limited availability of drops, particularly for the NFTs in the rare category.



Gap tapped Brandon Sines, the artist behind Frank Ape, for the initial collaboration.



Gap courts the digital collector with loads of FOMO.



To up the FOMO component and retain the brand identity connection, it also is dangling “the unique opportunity to own a limited edition, collectible Gap hoodie.” That’s a real hoodie you could wear, not just a digital one. But that requires earning one’s way through the more common and rare NFTs to unlock the epic category.



Gap was also riding on the popularity established by Brandon Sines, the creator of Frank Ape. “Community, creativity, and self-expression are core values in Sines’ art, which embodies positivity and equality, and aligns with Gap’s values of modern American optimism,” declared Gap.




Simplicity must not be one of those values, though. You can’t just buy what you want but have to follow the rules in place for completing a collection. Gap has to clarify some of those points on the FAQ page.
How do I complete a collection in Gap Threads?

A collection is considered complete when you collect a combination of 4 different Common NFTs and 2 different Rare NFTs from a series. Once you complete your collection, you fuse your Common & Rare NFTs to create a collector’s special NFT. Possessing a collector’s special NFT unlocks access to purchase an available limited-edition Epic NFT & IRL merch designed by artists.



The rare metallics already sold out their first day, so anyone who intends to catch one of the epic Frank Ape drops had better be poised on ready at the stroke of nine on January 19. Gap had great success with its limited-edition Yeezy offerings, and it, undoubtedly, expects to meet with similar success with its digital offerings.


The collections will likely prove to be a good short term investment, as these kinds of things do increase in value while NFTs retain the interest of an engaged fan base. Whether NFTs will retain their value over the long term is still a matter of debate. Some compare owning an NFT to naming a star -- a kind of vain ownership in two sense of the word.

"Wheel of Fortune" Loss is a Big Brand Win for Audi

Not everyone gets to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. But Audi did in giving a car to the "Wheel of Fortune" contestant who lost that prize due to a technicality. 

Here’s the clip of the fateful decision that launched thousands of tweets and the hashtag #GiveHerTheQ3:

The public booed that decision as unfair and used the hashtag #GiveHerTheQ3 on social media.. Of course this came to the attention of the manufacturer of the car in question, and then the company won over many hearts and minds by using the same hashtag and saying it would make it happen. 

That Audi tweet  generated 3,543 Retweets, 735 Quote Tweets, and  33.1K Likes. It also generated a string of positive reactions from both existing Audi customers and those who said they would now consider it for their next car purchase. Read more in Audi Turns a Loss into a Win.

Dr. Seuss adds a word to the dictionary

In October, Merriam-Webster announced that it had added 455 words. Many of them come from new terms associated with the pandemic and some from general popular culture. My favorite is this one:

"Oobleck : a mixture of corn starch and water that behaves like a liquid when at rest and like a solid when pressure is applied. Oobleck gets its name from the title of a story by Dr. Seuss, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and is a favorite component in kids’ science experiments." 

This is almost like seeing the book Frindle come to life. No spoilers. If you haven't read it as a kid, you could still read it as an adult. 

This is not the first word coined by Dr. Seuss to make it into the English language. The word "nerd" first appeared in If I Ran the Zoo published in 1950.. He used it rather like Lewis Carroll used Jaberrwocky -- a made-up name for a made-up creature. 

And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-troo
And bring back an It-kutch, a Preep and a Proo,
A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!

In 1951, the word had already taken off with th emeaning that we assign it today. Merriam-Webster recounts:

  Newsweek carried an article about the latest slang that includes the word nerd. "In Detroit," it notes, "someone who once would be called a drip or a square is now, regrettably, a nerd, or in less severe cases, a scurve."

 Unfortunately, the book that book is among the 6 that are no longer published pictured here:

. 

Related: The literary origins of robots