Tag Archives: brand management

The Importance of Execution: Lessons from the Night of McDonald’s Giveaways

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Any idea is only as good as the execution. Which McDonalds found out on Thursday

Now, I love my creativity when it comes to marketing and communications. Especially when it involves bridging the online and offline worlds. McDonalds should have come up with a cracker of an idea.

For one night only, the fast food chain was giving out freebies including “Night In” apparel and accessories, including McDonalds-branded loungewear, socks, slippers, games, and more. All consumer had to do was order their food on the 19th of this month between 7:00PM until 3:00AM, online, via the call center or an app. All the surprise items were to be distributed randomly on a first come, first serve basis while supplies last.

Sounds good so far. They’d also gone out and promoted the campaign through influencer marketing, as well as via their own social channels.

So, what’s the problem I hear you say? Let’s go back to what I first spoke about, namely execution. If you don’t fulfill your promise, then consumers will get annoyed. And they’ll vent on social media. And there was ALOT of venting at McDonalds.

It gets worse for McDonalds. You know a stunt has failed when the UK’s biggest tabloid covers the story with the headline “Burgers and Lies”. And, on a side note, the response given to the Sun left me scratching my head; surely they could have promised to deliver items to all those customers who missed out (the response is below), rather than focusing on those who did get free swag.

“Thousands of customers received a surprise in their McDelivery orders last night, however we know how popular the limited edition merchandise has been and are sorry that some customers were disappointed not to receive any. This was the most amount of merchandise we’ve ever distributed in the UK and Ireland so we are delighted to see so many customers sharing their McDelivery socks and more on social media.”

How to Prep for Executions

Getting campaigns right takes a great deal of planning and experience. But there are a couple of basic pointers to bear in mind.

  1. Ensure that you have enough materials/gifts to go round. Look at previous campaigns, tally up the anticipated numbers of people who will take part, and order extra so you have a buffer. It’s better to have items left over at the end and your customers happy, than leave customers feeling as if they’ve been cheated (and the same applies to people – if you need more people for a campaign, then bring them in and train them up pronto).
  2. Clearly communicate with your consumers and partners. With this campaign, there were multiple partners involved, including call centers and delivery drivers from different companies. It’s clear that some of these drivers didn’t know about the campaign.
  3. Update these people too with new information. If there’s an issue with delivery and execution, let your call center staff and social media people know so they can proactively share information/share the correct information, rather than sharing incorrect information and making a situation worse.
  4. Treat every consumer as a person. Consumers aren’t stupid – they’ll see how social media accounts are basically copying and pasting responses to every single complaint. Don’t do that – respond like a person, not a bot. Consumers will appreciate it.
  5. If something goes wrong, do your best to fix it. There’s many consumers out there who didn’t get any free gift on Thursday night, and they’re still writing to McDonalds. Get them a gift, and do it asap. A brand can fix any issue, as long as they act quickly, sincerely, and proactively engage the consumer. If they don’t, that consumer will be lost.

That’s it from me for today. If you have any of your own tips to share on executions, please do send them across!

What do #brands do with #franchises when consumers get #socialmedia angry?

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A couple of recent events, both personal as well as public, have highlighted the challenges facing brands when it comes to franchises and customer service. Social media has given consumers the ability to interact directly with brands in ways which were never before possible. Today’s consumers expect a response from brands’ social media feeds, be it on Twitter or Facebook.

So what do brands do when they’re not in full control? How do brand communication teams deal with a consumer who is angry at a franchise? It’s an interesting question, especially for us consumers and comms professionals here in the Middle East.

A number of high profile examples have brought to light the limited scope for communications between consumers here in the Middle East and brands from locations outside of this region. The best case study would be the #noshaya Twitter-led campaign against the Kuwaiti-based retailer M.H. AlShaya. The call to boycott the company’s stores back in December was a response to AlShaya’s decision to stop providing cash refunds to customers throughout its stores.

AlShaya owns tens of franchises across the Gulf, including Top Shop, BHS, and H&M. It’s by far the largest retailer in the Middle East and thousands of Saudi consumers took to social media to vent their anger at AlShaya’s decision (for the full reasons behind the boycott please see this previous blog post).

After only a couple of hours of the campaign going live online activists started messaging the retail brands directly.

https://twitter.com/#!/Maialshareef/status/143021336778903553

Activists sent hundreds of messages to the official Twitter accounts of retailers who had franchise agreements with M.H.AlShaya. While I may be wrong (and I hope I am) I didn’t see a single response from these retailers. These retailers weren’t helped by promoting their own refund policies on their websites, most of which were much more generous that AlShaya and included cash refunds on returned products – the activists’ key demand.

Another consumer-led campaign which hit the headlines this week relates to a nightmare incident in Saudi involving a Toyota Landcruiser which was stuck in cruise control at a speed of 210 kilometers per hour. For those Arabic readers out there check out this harrowing news piece from Al-Hayat newspaper. #ToyotaCruiseFailSa has been a top trending hashtag in Saudi for the past two days.

Out of all the car brands in Saudi Toyota probably has the best reputation for reliability and customer care. Does Toyota rely on its distributor Abdul Lateef Jameel to step in a repair the public relations damage done (so far, there’s been little word from the distributor) or do they step in themselves to reassure Saudi drivers? The response of one Toyota Landcruiser owner is typical of those trending the topic on Twitter.

The Arabic translates as, “I haven’t used the cruise control since buying the car because of this story.”

To ask again, when do brands step in to protect their brand value? How or what do they agree with their franchise and distributor partners as to who is responsible for what? Social media has changed the communications sector in ways that few could have envisaged. One short but interesting article online has found that consumers who contact the brand via social media are much more likely to expect a response to their queries. Check out The State of Social Marketing 2011 – 2012 by Brian Solis

I wonder how many of us in communications are taking note of what is happening around us before the same thing happens to the brands that we are entrusted with?

The power of social media in Saudi – How consumers took on Almarai and won

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The past year has been one of transformation across the Middle East. What has happened on the ground has been mirrored online. Today fewer people out there across the Arab world would deny that the internet will make a difference.

The Arab Spring as it has been labeled by the media has affected the way that consumers interact with brands and their products/services. Arab consumers, particularly young consumers, are much more willing to voice their frustrations and concerns online. If pushed, they will also take on brands and coordinate their actions with others online in what could be dubbed concerted campaign-like actions.

We’ve seen a number of examples of consumer-led action in 2011. There’s been the widely publicized #Qtelfail campaign which highlighted how unhappy both foreigners and Qataris were with Qatar’s government-owned telecommunications firm Qtel. Then there was the #VodafoneShokran hashtag which was used by Egyptians to criticize the global telco for its decision to turn off its network during the Egyptian uprising.

Even Saudis have gotten into the habit of getting online to flex their consumer muscle. On July 3 the largest dairy producer in the Middle East Almarai raised the price of a two-liter bottle of fresh milk from seven to eight Saudi Riyals and reduced the size of its one Saudi Riyal laban from 200ml to 180ml. The company had justified the price hikes by pointing to increasing costs for raw materials, packaging and higher wages.

Saudi consumers went online to protest at the price rises. Those on Twitter used the hash tags #mara3i, #StopMara3i to voice their concerns, noting that other diary companies had not raised their prices. A Facebook page calling for a Gulf-wide boycott also attracted hundreds of followers.

Boycott-related images posted on Twitter internet included a photo of Almarai-branded laban bottles in a store overlaid with text reading “Let it rot.” Another picture, from a Saudi Twitter user, featured a bottle of Almarai laban with the caption “Go to Hell My Friend – Saudi Citizens.”

“Usually, companies raise their prices if it suffers losses,” said statement written on a Facebook page set up to boycott Almari’s products. “Well, this is absolutely not the case for Almarai, one of the biggest Saudi companies in terms of revenue. Why does it want to raise profits? Is it willing to form an economic empire at the expense of the crushed citizen?”

Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published a few of the thousands of comments published online. “They exploit us by increasing prices and consumer protection doesn’t turn a hair,” Abdul Aziz Al Qobeishy said on “together to face the greedy Marai.”

Another Facebook user, Yasser El-Harbi, said “Go on people and AlMarai will remain an unforgotten lesson for vendors in different sectors.”

The outburst and consumer backlash was so pronounced that the Saudi Ministry of Commerce stepped in. The Minister himself issued a decree to force Almarai to revoke the price rises which the company duly did on the 11 July.
In a written statement Almarai defended its initial decision to raise the price of its products.

“In compliance with the resolution issued by the ministry … Almarai is taking the price of its two litre fresh milk and laban pack sizes in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the level that prevailed with immediate effect,” the company said on its website the day after complying with the ministry’s ruling.

“However, Almarai believes that the rationale and justification for the price increase is still valid. We will continue to work with the relevant government authorities to address this issue.”

What’s so striking about the Almarai incident is that it took less than eight days of anger to surface through sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs or discussion boards for the Saudi authorities to take action. Almarai is listed on the Saudi stock exchange and its founders/owners include the Saudi Royal family.

It’s even more remarkable when you consider than hardly any traditional media outlets had covered the story prior to the ministry’s decision. That the ministry took notice of the thousands of Saudi consumers who had vented their anger online is an indication of how powerful social media has become.

Contrast this to the decision by Coca Cola and Pepsi to raise the price of a can from one Riyal to one and a half Riyals several years back. Despite a consumer backlash which was led by traditional media outlets such as newspapers the Ministry of Commerce did not step in to rescind the price rise.

I feel in part that social media has become a much better barometer of consumers’ feelings than traditional media in countries like Saudi Arabi. The Almarai boycott is a simple example of this.

What Almarai also proved is how bad Saudi firms are at communications and public relations. Rather than reaching out to consumers the company acted as if it was immune to criticism. The company’s CEO talked to a business news channel, MBC Al Arabiya, rather than talking to his customers. Almarai issued statements to the Saudi stock market rather than getting people online to start a discussion with disgruntled consumers. The company failed to talk with Saudis who buy its products and was duly punished for ignoring them.

Following the boycott Almarai has set up a communications department, in part to tackle reputational management issues as well as crisis communications. However, I’m not optimistic that if Almarai does try for a second time to raise prices the company will be ready to tackle the backlash. For that to happen, the management needs to understand that they have to reach out to consumers, talk with them both online and offline, and understand their concerns. I hope I am proved wrong.