Brands spend billions of euro/dollars every year promoting their brand and it’s value’s, all with the end purpose of getting us to buy their product/service. In simple terms, advertising is about persuading us to spend money. Before the internet, traditional advertising was the only mass means of shaping a brands perception. Brand owners loved it! They were in control.
The dawn of the Internet began to change all that. Brands no longer had control. Consumers where no longer passive receivers of a branded message. In fact consumers were moving to proactive influencer’s, controlling a brands perception.
Therefore it comes as no surprise when we read that 90% of online consumers trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust unknown users, 27% trust experts, 14% trust advertising, 8% trust celebrities (Econsultancy, July 2009, Erik Qualman, Socialnomics). So only 14% of people trust advertising!!! Wowwwww
WhoseView.ie and WhoseView.co.uk are playing a very active role in this. With close to 7,000 daily visitors and over 15,250 customer reviews, we have become the communicators of what a local business/brand stands for. IKEA for example, could spend millions on a TV campaign, but this could all be quickly destroyed as I place far greater weight on WhoseView members 33 reviews, than their TV message.
Take Brown Thomas, with 45 reviews. Irrespective of what Brown Thomas state in their communications, people’s perceptions will now be shaped by these 45 WhoseView reviews. Our reviews are not confined to WhoseView and in fact have a long tail affect, giving them significant influence. We feed all our reviews to Google Maps. See Brown Thomas page here on Maps. WhoseView and it’s members control the brand of Brown Thomas on the Internet today. That’s a bold statement, but it’s true.
Starbucks recently advertised heavily on Facebook encouraging people to visit their stores. Irrespective of how much free coffee or promotions they offer, when I see that 60% of 20 people would NOT recommend my local Starbucks in Dundrum, I simply won’t visit. As for that long tail, check out Starbucks reviews from WhoseView on Google Maps.
Advertising still has a role to play in building awareness of new products and services. However established brands and services need to embrace social media and invest resources and money into listening and learning what people are saying or thinking of their brand. Only then can we hope to grow our brand in the face of ever increasing competition.
