The Humanization of Brands
Jeffrey Stier
June 8, 2011

Every brand. Every industry.

Change is scary, but…

Don’t Hide from Change:
Understand and Embrace it
Fundamentally social media is
about expressing choice:
“What I believe”
“What are others thinking”
“Give voice to my preferences”
Since influencing choice and
creating preferences is the
fundamental business of
marketing, social media is
important to brands---even if they
haven’t really figured it out yet

Don’t Hide from Change:
Understand and Embrace it, cont.
It isn’t about media.
It’s about communications and
connecting.
It’s not about social media.
It’s about social
connecting

To Social
Connect must
understand:
1. How social platforms are
changing the
relationships between
customers and brands
2. What customers and
targets are doing now
3. What they’ll be doing in
the future

1. How Social Platforms Are
Changing the relationship

People Are Talking
Are You Listening?

A plucky Millennial said:
“…it’s not B2B or B2C, I think it’s
going to be C2B.”
From her perspective,
it’s
customer to business; a
consumer demand driven
economy.
For those born in the Golden Age
of marketing, who had no choice
but to be “marketed to”, it’s still a
profound paradigm shift. To her,
it’s natural and obvious.
Something brands must take to
heart.

What does this mean for the future?
 No going back to
controlled streams of
carefully crafted
communication
 Listen to customers,
respond to their input,
improve their
experience, make it
easy for them to
promote your brand
 Brands that heed their
customer’s voice and
take immediate action
will exponentially gain
share from those who
don’t. Those that
don’t…

What does heeding the voice mean?
This
begins
when a
brand
respects
each
customer
as a
human
being

The Humanization of Brands
Two things consistently in
my reading over the last
week are:
1. Digital info/content
overload
2. Consumers are craving
realness. They’re
suffering from a lack of
human touch in the
digital world.
Marian Salzman
"futurist and PR maven,” Dec 2011

Saya Weissman
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
New York Times
New online social service Grubwithus
isn’t about collecting online
connections and contacts; it’s about
getting strangers together around a
dinner table so they can enjoy food
The
and good conversation.
service’s aim is to
help people use a
social media site to
actually be social in
real life---who would have
thought.?

The More Things Change…

The More They Stay the Same
• Technology is an
enabler, not an
end state
• Can’t take
humanity out of
people.
• Can’t take the ME
out of SoMe

What Does It All Mean?
Take Aways:
• People socially connect
peer-2-peer
• Peoples relationships with
brands is peer-to-peer
• Brands MUST connect
peer-2-peer: emotions,
empathy, authenticity,
AND…
• Storytelling.
It’s fundamental to human
DNA---been that was for past
10,000 years and will be that way for
next 10,000

Contact
Contact
Jeffrey Stier
jeff@blurts.com
917.561.6403
A micro-voice publishing utility for
infusing the passion, nuance and
authenticity of the spoken word into
the social conversation
Marian Salzman, Euro RSCG, Ann Mack, JWT, Jeffrey Pulver, Francois Gossieaux,
Image and content credits: Human 1, Kellye Crane, Crane Communications