Tom Troja
Tom Troja, vice president of marketing for Pajamas Media, suggests that linear storytelling isn't the best mode for online, and that marketers need to get past their fear of letting consumers speak.
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Transcript: Tom Troja
The storytelling is changing, the idea of linear storytelling with a beginning, middle and an end, that's pretty much what advertising has been, or has aspired to. And it still is. There's nothing really wrong with that, but it's tougher to fit into the online world. So what we've seen with Myspace and YouTube, and text messaging is much more non-linear in the moment kind of communication, so that the brands really need to figure this part of it out. It's the big challenge right now to kind of morph or transform just having this linear story model where the brand is sharing emotion. And really what this is about is it now being a depth of taking emotion from the audience. And so the belief is that people provide the emotion, and what we're left with is this conversational marketing process or structure, and more importantly a mindset where you are actually, number one, believing that this is a good thing, because the people are talking to me and talking to the brand, and I want to create that conversation. I want to be able to channel it along the best I can. But again, it's sort of a transformation right now and we're at the beginning of that evolution.
The one that's a great starter kit is "My Cadillac Stories." It's a good example of a starter brand. My Cadillac Stories was able to ask people to join in and give their narrative to that brand. And I've used that example a couple times in terms of could be My Kodak Story, My Reebok Story because it allows the brand to begin this process. It's a nice kind of training wheels in a sense for conversational marketing that allows you to still be a brand, not that you won't be a brand later on, but the later on part is more conversation whereas this is still in the moment with the brand and itself, My Cadillac Story. And they did a great job bringing Tiki Barber in and bringing Joan Jett and having people that people could identify with share a very intimate story about their grandfather or their mother and how Cadillac affected their lives. And it gave people direction on how to do this. So it was a way for Cadillac to keep the narrative of their story going forward and allow their people to join in. I think the key for conversation marking a brand is the point of this is letting people talk about themselves. So it's not a focus group. It's people sharing My Cadillac Story. My grandfather drove his every year to Florida, so there is a family component. There's a performance component, a style component. Everybody's different, so the brand has to be able to take a step back and let people share their stories, share their identity and then from that, they're going to find their interest. And these natural bubbles of interest opens up. And that is where this gets interesting. That's where you see the opportunity. That's where the brand says, I didn't realize all these things about BBQs. So that is what I think you have to be patient to see uncover and that is kind of the best connection to a focus group that there is.
All the fear of what people are going to say about stuff - I think that's your best opportunity to change perception of yourself. And when there is something negative said: "The GPS system failed on my Cadillac and I got lost in Alabama," then that's when you bring in that expert to explain here's what happened, here's what we re doing to fix it, here are the steps we're taking…so the person who got lost in Alabama, they're ticked off, but 50 thousand people out there are saying, they're solving a problem, which is something all of us do everyday. And so the authenticity piece and transparency of if you can solve problems online and let people see it and it's reasonable, that's what's really going to help you down the line, and make people believe it and feel that they can trust you a little more, and that goes on over time.