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Do you want a marketing campaign all about you?
By: Andrea Mollett | 01/09/2012
We often fall into a pattern of thinking "it's all about me." It's easy to do. Companies and brands are capitalizing on that same thinking in marketing campaigns. Instead of marketing a product to the consumer, the campaign makes you and your relationship with that company or brand part of its brand identity.
A recent example was the Starbucks "Let's Merry" holiday marketing campaign. The coffee giant used "we" and "let's" to focus messages on the consumer and the consumer's holiday experience, instead of directly focusing the campaign on its Peppermint Mochas. This approach was used across all media, including the website, in-store displays and social media with tweets like "Let's keep celebrating! Buy 1lb of Christmas Blend and get one free at participating stores, Dec 29-30. (US & CA) http://www.starbucks.com."
This wasn't Starbucks' first foray into this style of marketing campaign. The company's 40th anniversary campaign earlier this year used slogans such as, "We've been thinking about you" and "For our 40th anniversary, we got you something."
Although the trend to focus a marketing campaign on the customer instead of the brand's, or product's, attributes went dormant recently, the concept isn't new. McDonald's used it for the Advertising Age #5 Top Advertising Campaign "You deserve a break today" in 1971. And Burger King still uses the Have It Your Way slogan it launched in 1973.
What other brands and companies have you noticed using a marketing campaign focused on you?
Posted in Brand Positioning, Reputation Management
Ashlyn Brewer says:
Mon, January 09, 2012 at 4:57:pm
Great post, Andrea! I definitely think these types of marketing campaigns are smart. We always hear that companies want to “put the customer first” in service, training, etc., so why not in their marketing campaigns?