Steve Hershberger is the Principal and Co-Founder of ComBlu but his name first scrolled across my screen when I tuned into a web radio show called SocializingMedia which is hosted by Steve, Jonathan Salem Baskin, Blake Cahill and Sean O’Driscoll. (Sean’s company, Ant’s Eye View will ring a bell because they were last week’s Ad Industry Innovator # 11.)
Although they’re only on show #6 SocializingMedia has already had guests like George Neil, formerly of Apple and Motorola, now the CMO of Brunswick. Upcoming shows will feature thought leaders like Dawn Lacallade, formerly at Dell and now the Community Manager at Solar Winds.
I scheduled Steve’s interview to fall around the same time as Ant’s Eye View because seeing companies like ComBlu, Ant’s Eye View and Brains on Fire crop up next to one another you begin to realize the impact and scope that community engagement and consumer involvement has had on marketing today. The rules have changed and companies like ComBlu are early adopters in helping companies adapt to that change.
ComBlu’s specialty is creating community-based Word of Mouth programs by identifying customer evangelists and influencers, activating them (so they) impact loyalty and affinity and measuring that impact on sales, reputation or mission. ComBlu is all about ROI. The company has built and manages over 25 communities in 20 languages with over six million members.
What was the “aha” moment when you realized, “Our company needs to be doing things differently than we have been?”
About 7-8 years ago, we realized that there was a perfect storm that would be the catalyst for the way people sought information:
- Installed technology base and the emergence of social networkinng.
- Communications overload making it more appealing for people to ask their own trusted resources rather than search for information.
- The breakdown of trust in established institutions and channels; again a stimulus for people turning to each other for information instead of traditional sources.
This perfect storm was our “aha” moment. We knew we had methodologies to identify people with large social networks and who had a high level of influence within them. Because it was based on behaviors rather than traditional demographics, we realized we had lightning in a bottle. If our methodologies were properly applied, we could help companies find their best advocates and activate them as a powerful influence channel. We were way ahead of the marketplace, though.
What books are on your nightstand or great blogs on your Google reader?
- The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited by Emanuel Rosen, an update of a WOM classic
- All Consumers Are Not Created Equal by Garth Hallberg
- Guy Kawasaki: Short and sweet tidbits
- TechCrunch: A futurist’s playground
- Mashable: A quick overview of tools and techniques
- Web Strategy: Jeremiah Owyang blog—great insights into where social marketing is heading
- Groundswell: Forrester blog…lots of good stuff
- Conversation Agent: Interesting, longer pieces on a variety of content and conversation marketing topics
- Social Media Today: Good bullshit detector
Give me an example of marketing you think is brilliant and why.
- Liberty Mutual had done a great job. They started their “Do the Right Thing” positioning a few years ago and have evolved it now to include the Responsibility Project, which is a community that delves into ethics and societal behaviors. Quite interesting.
- Walmart’s current ad campaign is visually great and has highly resonant messaging for today’s economic times.
- UPS has a very engaging white board campaign and integrates it with online.
- Ford Fiesta has good integration of social and traditional media.
We’ve all read that the pitch/RFP process is broken. Many agencies aren’t even interested in competing in pitches. Do you see an alternative to this process?
Don’t wait until you need an agency to find one. Instead, build a community of really smart people who are your “advisory board.”
-Look to them for ideas and collaboration.
-“Cut” those who are territorial or afraid of offering up ideas because their competition might hear them. That does not cut it in today’s age of transparency and social collaboration. These people are more concerned with getting the largest share of the marketing wallet and not being part of a team focused on results and innovation.
When you need a specific project or ongoing counsel, build your own team from your community. An RFP is just a call to buy an existing team. Instead build a team of the best and the brightest who are equipped to collaborate. Match the team to the skills needed for the program.
What does the agency of the future look like?
McKinsey meets boutique:
Business acumen with executional excellence and agility.
Build shareholder value with measurable and sustainable results.
Bring influential stakeholders to the company; don’t bring the company to the marketplace.
Help companies socialize their workforce, their products and their stakeholder interactions across three nodes: Feedback, advocacy and support.
What do marketers need that agencies are not giving them?
A dashboard with teeth
Advocate activation
Customer engagement
Who do you admire and why?
Guy Kawasaki: Paradigm ditcher
Fred Reichheld: Game-changing metrics
Marty Collins: Visionary
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