By Thierry de Baillon
English version here.
Il était une fois une Marque. D’excellents produits avaient assis sa réputation et lui avaient permis de conquérir des marchés. Le marketing avait contribué a forger sa personnalité, que reflétait parfaitement sa communication, rencontrant partout l’assentiment des consommateurs. La Marque était devenue une marque globale.
Bien sûr, la Marque devait tenir compte des différences culturelles existant entre les pays où elle était maintenant solidement implantée, et des variantes locales de son marketing mix (publicité, packaging, objets promotionnels,…) lui permettait d’en tenir compte tout en consolidant sa personnalité globale.
La Marque développa sa présence en ligne. Site internet, e-commerce… Elle commença prudemment à adopter les médias sociaux, se mit à l’écoute de ses consommateurs et se joignit à la conversation. Mais comment, dès lors, continuer à répondre de manière satisfaisante aux attentes locales, alors que la conversation devient globale? Très bientôt, un SMS émis à Konakri aura autant d’impact sur la Marque qu’un billet sur un blog de Los Angeles, et les attentes de ces consommateurs seront culturellement différentes, portées par une culture et un environnement social différent. Comment donner à chacun la réponse personnalisée qu’il attend, alors que celle-ci sera reçue par tous de la même manière? Comment différencier global et local sans morceler et mettre en danger sa personnalité?
Les marques font aujourd’hui face à un challenge formidable, pour lequel nous n’avons aujourd’hui aucun élément de réponse. Elles apprennent à écouter, il leur faut maintenant comprendre, et répondre de manière adéquate. Nous n’avons fait qu’effleurer la surface de l’impact des médias sociaux sur les marques.
By Thierry de Baillon
A few months ago, several articles (like this one) pin-pointed the slow and deceptive growth of Facebook and Myscpace in Japan, compared to the overwhelming popularity of a local social netork: Mixi, explaining it by a so-called Japanese shyness in social media, or a lack of mobile-enabled services.
As a long-time Japan lover, what stroke me was that these articles, written by anglo-saxon journalists, somehow missed the point. Japanese are among the most social people on earth, mostly due to a demanding geography. They are also heavily socialized and present online, Mixi counting more than 15 millions members. Despite focusing on cultural differences, the articles fall short in explaining why services like Facebook or Myspace do not take off while Twitter got so popular in Japan in a very short time.
The 3 circles of relationship
We often refer to our relatives and close friends as our “inner circle” of relationships, while our professional contacts and loose relations reside in an outer circle, the frontier between both being quite fuzzy and lightly defined. For a Japanese, instead, the concepts of inside and outside are preponderant, and relationships vastly differ from a circle to another.
The inner circle is dominated by the concept of amae, which is proper to the Japanese mind, and which reflect an informal, albeit very empathic attitude toward each other. This is the place where strong relationships take place.
In contrast, the second circle is the place where all formal relationships occur, wether with professional contacts, or more distant friend, or even with the Japanese society as a whole. A strongly networked world made of reciprocal constraints and obligations, where trust is given as a collateral of social conformance. This is the place for giri.
On the far outside, where neither amae nor giri take place, is the rest of the world, dominated by indifference toward the other. Depending on the kind of relationships in play, the second circle can expand to the whole Japanese society vs the rest of the world, or contract to only encompass someone’s company or district.
Networking in a constrained world
One can easily see what values or behaviors are engaged when a Japanese deals with online networking. Protecting his inner circle is a fundamental need, and that’s why so many people are protecting their profile on Mixi, keeping the conversation private.
On the other side, publishing a profile on Facebook or Myspace involve claiming your identity while exposing it to the rest of the world diving deeply into a world dominated by giri. What would your boss think about you if he sees your profile ? How could you bear to manage relationships which engage giri and amae in the same place ? This is quite unconceivable for Japanese people. Anonymity is, in this case, a solution, but keeping a coherent false identity for a long time on Facebook is quite a challenge, wether for a Japanese or for a Westerner.
Twitter is quite a different and interesting case. If, on Facebook, you have to be somebody, on Twitter, you can be anything, a person, a brand, a rugby team or whatever you want, coherence is given by the context (or lack of), and you can tweet anonymously while maintaining close relationships with those you really care about. For the Japanese mind, Twitter is an open bridge between his inner circle and the far outside, where you don’t have to care about the image you give.
As different they might be, we can learn a lot from Japanese behaviors in our use of social media. More on that soon…. stay tuned! In the meantime, I would love to read about you remarks about how cultural habits condition our online behaviors.
By Thierry de Baillon
Version française ici.
Once upon a time, there was a Brand. It earned its reputation on behalf of great products and conquered a lot of markets. Marketing helped it to build its personality, and communication broadcasted and reflected this personality, encountering customers’ satisfaction everywhere. The Brand bacame a global brand.
Of course, the Brand had to take into account cultural differences between countries where it was now firmly established, which was acheived through local alternatives of its marketing mix (advertising, packaging, incentives,…) while fastening its global personality.
The Brand developped its online presence. Website, e-commerce… It carefully began to experiment with social media, listening consumers, joining the conversation. But how could it now keep on satisfactorily answering local aspirations, as the conversation is getting global? Very soon, a customer’s question texted from Konakri may have as much impact on the Brand as one posted on a blog in Los Angeles, albeit conveying totally different cultures and social environment. How will the Brand give anyone an individual answer, since everybody may listen and understand this answer differntly? How can the Brand make a distinction between global and local without partitioning its personality, sailing into dangerous waters?
Brands are nowadays facing a really big challenge, for which we have no answer yet. They learn about listening, they now have to understand, and to answer accordingly. We are just scratching out the surface of social media impact on branding.
By Thierry de Baillon
Of the numerous oxymorons flourishing on the web today, one is particularly disturbing for me: the Personal Brand. First coined in 2003 in a book from David McNally and Karl Speak, “Be Your Own Brand: A Breakthrough Formula for Standing out from the Crowd”, the term is today omnipresent in marketers and social media guys mouth. But, as branding is not a game and reflect a complicated reality, assimilating yourself to a brand can lead to serious disillusion or misconception.
Not all brands are created equal
Not all brands are created to sit at top of the pyramid. Initiation brands, for instance, shine at being dumped after some time, and prosper quite happily with that. Despite Fabergé being a long-term luxury brand, Brut 33, one of its best-sellers, is clearly aimed to young people who abandon it for more sophisticated fragrances. Very few people want to excel at initiating others, while being forsaken for larger expertise, despite there would be an important need to fulfill.
Sell or tell ?
Brands have one, and only one, ultimate goal: selling. And each and every move they make, every story they tell, is aimed at this single commercial reality: selling more, selling better. Brands must listen to customers, engage with them, build a whole experience for them, but it won’t change what they arre created for. On the other hand, even if you have to earn your life, to find a fantastic job, even if your ultimate dream is to become a multi-millionaire mogul, you are free to learn, interact, enjoy other people’s company, make some mistakes, for free. Men and women are social animals, not commercial artifacts.
Context or content
Brands have to position theirselves. Competition is harsh, and they have to find and maintain the right context to promote their products and services. Top-of-mind notoriety and maximal exposure are great brands values. But what makes big brands do not necesary makes happy people. Of course, you will benefit from self-promotion, notoriety and influence will increase your pride. Valuably. But content is what makes drive people, not context. And as you gain popularity, you will trigger jealousy, resentment and over-reaction from people with as valuable content as yours. Increasing wisdom and influence is not a commercial competition, and mustn’t be considered so.
If Siva was a brand
He would be able to handle as many services or products a brand has to manage. For range of products, services line and brand extensions are intrisic part of a brand’s life. But you aren’t Siva, and you can only handle a very small range of things at a time. You have to concentrate on what you do best, and stick with it. Nothing bad at it, but if you were a brand, you would slowly die of not being able to expand your grasp of the market you adresss.
So, stop about being a brand. Be bold, be trustful, insightful, useful. Be yourself.
By Thierry de Baillon
— English text below —
L’état français donne 4 milliards d’euros aux constructeurs automobiles. Je ne discuterai pas ici du bienfondé du soutien à cette industrie, bien que les voitures qui roulent dans nos rues sont souvent fabriquées en Corée, en Chine, bientôt en Inde… Mais du poids de ces groupes sur l’emploi. Combien s’agit-il de sauver d’emploi avec ce soutien? Soyons généreux, et admettons 100 000. Cela met le prix du travailleur-sauvé-du-chômage à 40 000 euros.
En période d’euphorie économique, les géants de l’industrie ne créent que peu d’emplois, tandis que de multiples PME naissent, se développent, investissent, innovent. Le tissu économique des pays occidentaux est majoritairement constitué de ces 2,9 millions d’entreprises qui, en temps de récession, sont les premières à mettre la clef sous la porte, faute de trésorerie, faute de crédit, faute de support réel.
40 000 euros. Une entreprise de 5 salariés a-t-elle la possibilité de trouver 200 000 euros pour survivre à la crise actuelle? Je doute que les banques répondent par l’affirmative. L’économie s’écroule, l’heure est aux réseaux, à l’agilité, à la transformation, et nos gouvernements répondent en perfusant les mastodontes. Tout reste, hélas, encore à faire…
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The French government recently decided to give 4 billions euros to car manufacturers. I will not debate here the merits of supporting this industry, even if the cars that drive on our streets are in great majority manufactured in Korea, in China, soon in India… I am writing about the influence of the car industry on employment. How many jobs will this bailout save in France ? Let’s be generous, let’s say 100.000. This puts the price of the saved-from-layoff-worker to 40.000 euros.
In euphoric economic eras, this giants only create few jobs, while many SMEs are born, grow, invest, innovate. In downturn times, these 2.9 million small to mid-size companies are the first to put the key under the door for lack of cash, lack of credit, lack of real support.
40.000. Has a 5 employees company the opportunity to find 200.000 euros to survive the current crisis? I doubt that banks will provide them such amount of money. The economy collapses, time has come for networks, agility, transformation, and our governments choose to put industrial giants on a drip. Unfortunately, everything is still to be done …
By Thierry de Baillon
il aura fallu une invitation de Yann Leroux sur Twitter à un travail de traduction collective, et des liens vers ce blog à partir des billets qui en ont résulté pour Emilie Ogez, Mario Asselin, Lilian Mahoukou, Florence Meichel et Hubert Guillaud pour le tirer de sa torpeur.
“Sonnez en cas d’absence”, ce titre a donc une seconde fois trouvé sa justification. Ecrire est sans doute une pratique aussi jubilatoire que douloureuse, comment s’en passer ? Le temps de dépoussiérer tout ça, peut-être d’installer WordPress, et nous voila repartis pour de (j’espère) longues aventures.
En attendant, vous pouvez toujours me suivre sur Twitter!
