Is Brand Engagement Hot Air?

Some people struggle with the term ‘Brand Engagement’, they see it as another piece of marketing jargon. Indeed, the way it is used by the vast majority of marketeers, it is just another piece of jargon in the ‘bingo lingo’ dictionary of marketing phrases.

However, when delivered in the right way with the right audience, Brand Engagement can be infinitely more powerful than pretty much any other marketing tool.

Please let me explain by telling the true story of something ground breaking that occurred while I was running an engagement programme a few years ago.

The client was a major mobile telecoms brand and the audience was the retail staff employed by the network operators and vendors. This meant that our audience were in competition with each other as they represented competing retailers in a very crowded marketplace.

Our programme focussed on bringing each retail salesperson closer to the brand by providing them with product knowledge, a two-way dialogue, access to key brand personnel, industry insights and a reward catalogue of merchandise and experiences for achieving specific tasks, objectives and sales.

The programme was launched successfully and quickly became the industry leader producing an exceptional ROI. As part of the programme we utilised a closed Facebook group to provide both push notifications to the main web portal and also to promote conversation amongst the programme participants.

We would start conversations on the FB group about industry related topics to learn more about what the audience thought and would gather useful feedback that would be factored into upcoming activities to further improve engagement. We would also encourage conversation amongst participants on non-industry related matters as our philosophy was that while were using our platform our brand messaging would permeate into them. This approach proved to be very popular.

One day a participant posted the following message in the FB group:

‘Hi Guys, this is a bit weird, but I just wanted to share something on here. My Grandad passed away last year, and my Gran has had a tough time since. I know that she has a bucket list, so I decided to try to cheer her up by seeing if I could tick a few items off the list. One of the things she had listed was a Hot Air Balloon trip, so I cashed in my programme points and bought her a Hot Air Balloon Experience that we did at the weekend. I just wanted to say a massive thank you to <BRAND> for enabling me to do this for my Gran as she absolutely loved it, and we toasted a drink to Grandad as we floated over the spectacular countryside.’

The post soon gathered many comments and congratulatory messages from fellow participants in the programme. When we relayed this post to the client, he asked that we post an official message from the brand and sent a personal message to the participant.

We thought that this would be the end of the matter and congratulated ourselves on witnessing something great take place in the programme.

Then we noticed that many participants were asking for information on the contents of the ‘bucket list’.

After a short time, the bucket list was shared, and participants started picking up on specific items. This message was posted:

‘Hey, I see your Gran wants to ride pillion on a big motorbike, well I have a Harley and ride out with a local Harley Owners Club on the first Saturday of every month. Where does your Gran live as I’d be happy to come and get her if you are not far away and take her out for a ride with the group?’

 And another…

‘Hi, I am messaging on behalf of the Leeds store, and we saw that your Gran wants to see the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ show. We have pooled our points and have bought her a Ticketmaster Voucher so she can go and see the show in London. Will send the voucher over when it arrives. Say Hi to your Gran from all at the Leeds Store’.

And so it continued with 6 items being ticked off of the bucket list by donations and offers from follow participants of the programme.

As the programme management team, we could only watch in awe as a totally disparate group of retail staff from competing networks and vendors came together to assist an individual that none of them had ever met, simply because they were part of a community. A community established around a brand that they sold in competition with each other in their respective retail stores.

It goes without saying that if any customer walked into any of the stores that were actively engaged in the programme and asked any member of retail staff to recommend a product there was only one brand that would be suggested.

This instance is undoubtedly an example of ‘lightning being caught in a bottle’, it is unlikely to happen again and it would be impossible to manufacture. However, the power of a community working together is a phenomenal force and one that can achieve great things.

Engaging with your audience in the right way will mean that they engage with your brand.

When they are engaged with your brand they will sell your brand.

Brand Engagement (when managed correctly) is definitely not just Hot Air!