The Power of Consumers: How Their Voices Outshine Brand Messaging

What comes to your mind when you think of Spirit Airlines? 

Relaxed? Friendly? Fun? The most successful airline on earth? 

This isn't what came to your mind? Shocking. 

Well, this is how Spirit Airlines describes itself. Their mission is to "Deliver the Best Value in the Sky and Be the Most Successful Airline On Earth!" They say they are "relaxed, friendly, fun and playful when we should be. We always care about getting our Guests and Team Members there, safely and reliably." Now let's take these statements and look at what consumers have to say...

There are plenty of these memes on the internet, these are just a few. Spirit Airlines is a perfect example of the concept discussed in Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, "Your brand is what your customers say it is." A brand can market and advertise however they want, but at the end of the day, it is consumers who will shape a brand's perception. Like Spirit Airlines, they see themselves as delivering the best value, fun, playful, safe, etc. Whereas when looking at consumers' opinions, Spirit is most well-known for how they charge extra for everything, how the flights are very cramped, and how they are just a risky airline to fly with in general. And all of these negative memes and reviews strongly outshine the mission Spirit has set for itself. 

Now, what can brands do when consumers' voices are louder than their own? 

Well, the first step is to listen. 

Luckily, the groundswell loves to share their opinions, essentially giving free advice on how better to run your brand. Instead of getting defensive and angry, it is important for brands to listen to the buzz, and reflect on it. One thing that is very important to note, is that you will only hear from people who are willing to talk. "So listening to the groundswell comes with a huge caveat- you'll gain new insights, but don't assume that the people you hear from are representative." (Groundswell) Usually with reviews, you'll hear from people who either have really great things to say or really bad things to say, so this makes listening to direct consumer reviews sometimes difficult. However, brands can use private communities, and brand monitoring for more accurate listening techniques. Brand monitoring is a great tool to use to listen to consumers; you'll hire a company, they'll do very in-depth listening across many platforms, and deliver this information to you in a neat summary. This kind of listening really helps brands understand what their brand stands for. As much as they think they may know, consumers have the final say. And identifying the differences between your message, and what is being said is key in developing strategies. 

Okay...now that brands have listened, what can they do next? 

Talk!

Listening is only half of the battle...if a brand only listens, and doesn't talk back, what was the listening for? Before discussing how brands can talk with the groundswell, it is important we understand the difference between talking and shouting. Advertising is an example of shouting. The goal of an Ad is to reach as many people as possible and drill information into their heads. Talking, on the other hand, is different from this. Talking is a conversation, it involves listening and responding, and a blog is a great way a brand can talk with the groundswell. There are many steps for brands to create a successful blog but they really boil down to determining people and objectives, determining a goal, developing a plan, and being honest. (Groundswell). 

An example of a brand that does a great job of talking with the groundswell through a blog is a brand called Outdoor Voices. Outdoor Voices is an apparel brand, creating products for "doing things daily", such as walking the dog, going for a run, having fun with friends, etc. They have a strong focus on getting people to move their bodies in all kinds of ways, so they have a blog to reflect this. Their blog is called The Recreationalist and it features all things moving your body related. The founder of the brand, Ty Haney, understands the importance of this community as he states "While a lot of the engagement happens offline, the community wants to have a place to engage when they can’t show up to an event." Whether it's sharing hike recommendations, guides to touring different cities, interviews with different people about specific activities, etc., all of the content shared aligns with Outdoor Voices' mission. However, they are not pushing their products on these consumers; they genuinely care to share these messages, and in turn, this could lead consumers to purchase their items, as they have a banner across the top leading to the Outdoor Voices page. Similar to beinggirl.com as discussed in the book, Outdoor Voices strived to create a blog on topics people were actually interested in rather than just selling a product. The Recreationalist feels like a little community of people who enjoy discussing the things they love. 

So, the things we can take away from this post are: your brand is what your customers say it is, listening is the first step to growth, and transitioning from shouting to talking is what can actually lead to change.