To this day, social media is still the least-used method for interacting with customers. But there is hope for change. According to the current "IBM Global CEO Study 2012", CEOs assume that within the next five years social media will become one of the most important communication channels for customer contact. Only personal contact with customers remains even more relevant. For this study, IBM conducted personal interviews with more than 1,700 CEOs, managing directors and senior public-sector executives worldwide. Three central fields of action emerged for future-oriented companies: (1) a more open corporate culture should help to better leverage the potential of increasing connectivity, (2)
Customers should be treated as individuals - and no longer as customer groups or market clusters - and served with specific activities. In this context, social media gains immense importance as a customer contact channel, and (3) innovations through partnerships become a key success factor, all the way to entering other industries or completely new business models. Perfect, I think: insight number (2) suggests a shift in thinking in top management.
Good. So in five years everything will be better with communication. But how do CEOs communicate with their customers today? I found two nice examples that are completely opposite in their approach.
Example 1 "The printed word lives!": Ted Karkus (CEO of ProPhase Labs) includes a personal message with the cold medicine produced by his company (Cold-Eeeze) for customers with a runny nose. No - it is not just a message, it is a promise. A personal promise that the medicine works. For a company from the USA, the homeland of the most curious product liability lawsuits, a bold move. Maybe it is also meant to stimulate the customer's personal placebo effect. Either way: nicely done, and the main thing is that it helps.
Example 2 "Social media is ageless!": John Willard "Bill" Marriott (Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board of Marriott International) is, at 80 years old, a very diligent "executive blogger". In his blog "Marriott on the Move", he writes not only about interesting professional topics from everyday Marriott life, but also about personal matters. Bill has been asked repeatedly whether he really writes the blog himself, and he swears that 100% of the content comes from him. Nice - and a little help on the keyboard does not count anyway. Or would you say that your assistant is responsible for the content of company decisions just because they type the dictation?
Both examples are authentic in their own way - and that is exactly the point: brand authenticity as the "truthfulness of the proclaimed brand promise = value promise", communicated by the "guardian of the brand": the CEO.
