Well, I had a great time at MIX08. The session I thought went really well, and the feedback from people who were there was really good.
The session is now up at:
http://visitmix.com/blogs/2008Sessions/C03/ and this is also the place to give your feedback. This is always welcome, and in fact, it's pretty much required! We always encourage brands to listen, intently, to what their customers have to say about them; whether or not that feedback is directed directly at them, or at a wider community.
Listening these days is a required skill. The brands who we feel we can't get through to are the ones we tend to slag off. Whether it's as simple as not being able to get through to the call centre, to having an insight into their business, that you simply can't see the logic of that brand not adopting, the frustrations and turn-off factor that result are incredibly damaging.
The ones that listen though, give us an incredible amount of satisfaction and delight, and make us feel vested in them. Being 'vested' in a brand goes much further than simply liking them - it means becoming an advocate for them, and having incredible empathy and sympathy for seeing them doing well.
At Conchango, we undertake trends research a few times a year, and the last one of these with our partner The Future Laboratory revealed some attitudes from consumers that back this right up. The values and attitudes that they are looking for in the brands they love, include things like 'empathy' and 'openness'. This means not covering up when things go wrong, and eliciting feedback, and doing something about that feedback to make the offering much more empathetic to consumer goals and attitudes.
This is something that is only really borne out in the long term though - so new companies like Virgin America need to keep it up. It's also something that brands who have been around a while can turn around to their advantage, even if they don't have a history and heritage of being this way. Big names like Gap, Amazon, BMW, L'Oreal, Pepsi and others who may be sitting on their laurels should be thinking this one through...
I look forward to 2008 being the year of the listening brand!
But back to the point... go give some feedback!
http://visitmix.com/blogs/2008Sessions/C03/