outsource your marketing, outsource your ethics

Perform a Google search for the Avenger controller, made by video game controller manufacturer N-Control. Doing so will query a variety of sites containing information about the device. The search will also include stories about how a marketing firm contracted by N-Control nearly destroyed their brand.

When N-Control outsourced their public relations to Paul Christoforo at Ocean Marketing, they had no idea they were about to enter a PR nightmare that has forever tarnished the name of N-Control and the Avenger controller. While the actions of rogue egomaniacs can never truly be foreseen, N-Control should have known the dangers of letting their brand image be controlled out-of-house.

As attorney Eric Turkewitz says, “outsourcing marketing = outsourcing ethics.”

Managing a brand is more than deciding the colors on the packaging, or keeping your marketing message consistent. Brands are constituted via hundreds of moving parts, including every facet of the organization. From the ease of getting to customer service agents, to the copy on the packaging — everything a company does feeds into its brand image.

When marketing is outsourced, so are the ethics. And, if brands don’t keep a constant eye on the marketing, it can’t possibly ensure that the marketing tactics are within the ethics of the brand. This is why Popehat.com added to Turkewitz’s maxim, saying that one also outsources their “reputation” with their marketing, as N-Control saw in the worst way possible.

Outsourcing happens. Nearly every product that has been manufactured (outside of the lonely, wooden toy maker in a rustic Prague neighborhood) has used outsourced parts or labor. However, outsourcing a highly visible brand component, such as marketing or public relations, is a completely different story.

While not every instance is going to turn into Christofoesque nightmare, it has the potential to if not carefully monitored and managed. The Internet is fast. Christoforo’s infamous emails were sent on Dec. 26, 2011. The next day, they were on Penny-Arcade.com, one of the most highly trafficked sites in the nation (ranked 1,006 of US sites by Alexa.com).

The word “blindsided” does not even begin to describe what happened to N-Control. But, by handing the branding keys to a little man with a big ego, N-Control opened the door for this to happen, and was crippled when it came to responding.

The lesson here is to outsource what you need, but be wary about doing so with crucial elements to your brand’s image. All it takes is a few emails to cripple a brand.

the importance of social media awareness

Much has been written about the need to monitor your brand’s online reputation. In fact, an entire niche industry of “online reputation management” has been born from the concept. And, without a doubt, it’s an important part of any online marketing strategy. However, just as important is your brand’s “Social Media Awareness.”

There is more to monitoring social conversation than managing your brand’s reputation. The key to social marketing is joining the conversation, not changing it. And if you don’t know what the conversation is, your brand can’t become engaged with online consumers. Worse yet, you’re missing out on a treasure trove of insight into the relationship your brand has with consumers.

“We learn a lot from our customers, and our Facebook pages really help us to do that,” says Bic USA’s VP of Marketing, Traci Gentry, in an interview with DM News. Gentry says that Bic regularly “mines” social media conversations in order to understand how best to talk to consumers, as well as sharing the information with other marketing channels to make them more effective, such as keywords in paid search.

However, before you can join the conversation, you must first determine what that conversation is. Randy Hlavac, a social marketing expert and CEO of Marketing Synergy, Inc., calls this the “Social Media EKG.” It involves taking a measured look at the ongoing social conversation. Before engaging consumers, brands should determine what the online market, or community, is saying about its products, company, and competitors and what specific terms are they using in those conversations, as well as the tone. Do consumers have a negative impression of the brand, or a positive one?

Hlavac also says it is also important to determine the same in social conversations about competitors, which can help your brand to position itself better.

The information that you can learn from the Social Media EKG will help you join in the social conversation, and begin engaging with the online market for your brand. While you cannot change the conversation, you can help steer it in a positive direction.

Several tools exist for the purpose of monitoring the social conversation about your brands. Three popular tools are Radian6, Social Mention, and Technorati. These tools help you measure and investigate the conversation about your brand, which you can then use to form a social media plan to help engage with the online community.

"Social Mention allows me to see where the conversation is happening online, and provides insight into the discussion — whether it is positive, or negative,” says Spencer Broome, a marketing coordinator at MediaFiche. “It helps me to determine the reach of the response, as well as the keywords, or tags involved. From there, I know how to react."

And, knowing how to react is the name of the game for brands. From new products, to responding to complaints, to engaging with consumers in order to strengthen brand loyalty, everything starts with an awareness of the social conversation about your brand.