“Brand evangelists are like allies:” Starcom MediaVest’s Finnegan

Sean Finnegan, chief digital officer, Starcom MediaVest Group spoke about the dichotomy of control that brand owners face in today’s age where technology allows consumers to initiate a two way conversation with brands which comes with its own risks. Finnegan began his presentation with an example of user generated content that was created centered on Coca Cola. The viral is a short spoof on Coke wanting to sell the idea of “their story” to consumers and inviting a character called Dusty to their headquarters in Atlanta. Dusty created a little viral that got tremendous hits on social media sites, hence the invitation. Finnegan explained how instead of getting offended as many brands may be prone to do, Coke played along with the viral, realizing that this was a way in which they could continue to have Coke talked about, albeit in a way that consumers wanted to indulge in. 

Using the example of Yin and Yang as a philosophy, Finnegan demonstrated the dilemma that brand owners were in today. While on the one hand, they wanted control over the brand message as was the norm in the past, they wanted to be able to reach out to consumers through the digital medium which allowed them deeper engagement and reach, but which exposed them to the risk of consumers interpreting the brand in a way that allowed them their expression of the brand, one that may not necessarily fall within their brand image. Finnegan was of the view that although putting brands out there in the digital world, exposed them to a certain amount of risk, he believed that the benefits of such a deeply engaged interaction far outweighed the negatives. He explained that in tdoay’s times digital marketing helped maintain the balance between the need to deliver scale and penetration and the need for one on one conversations. Among some of the suggestions that he made was asking brand owners to spend time researching their brand’s status on Google. He suggested that brand owners checked on the first 15 pages of Google constantly, in an attempt to understand how the brand was perceived among consumers.

His advice for companies was to find ways and means of finding and rewarding consumers who could serve as evangelists for their brands.

“Brand evangelists are like allies for brand owners and can help reach brands out to places that they may themselves not be to reach out to, themselves,” explained Finnegan.

He was also of the view that the communications industry needs to restructure the business in a way that allows them to keep abreast of the pace of change in the environment today. He concluded his presentation with a cautionary tale about brands interrupting a conversation that consumers may have with a brand in the digital space because they feel they do not have control over the situation. Citing the example of the tremendously popular Scrabulous application on Facebook that eventually got Hasbro, Mattel taking legal action against the makers of the application, Finnegan pointed out that although eventually another application was created to replace the original one, it never made the kind of impact that the first one did.