Social media is the new TV: Effective Brands and BBH Summit

At the summit in Hong Kong (events were also held in Shanghai and Singapore), founder and chairman of EffectiveBrands, Marc de Swaan Arons, noted some of the bigger challenges that global brands, especially those trying to break into the Asian market, are facing today. These included staying innovative yet relevant, raising awareness, "riding the social media platform", bringing old brands into a digital age, as well as staying abreast of trends.

The summit also highlighted some key trends as brands continue to move towards globalisation, including companies seeing an unempowered leadership thanks to social, disconnected pockets of excellence, and shifting roles and responsibilities within organisations.

As marketers grapple with these challenges, speaker Charles Wigley, chairman of BBH Asia-Pacific, recommended brands find a clear purpose and vision, while continuously innovating. They should also try to strike a balance between being a global and local player.  And in order to achieve this, marketers need to ensure that their companies are "branded from the core" and adhere to "one idea borne of universal insight or human truths".

“This ensures absolute consistency in branding driven from the core,” he said. But he added one warning: “any universal truth must also be rooted in the brand’s truth.”

While this all seems obvious, Arons pointed out that a lot of brands were not created to make money. "They started with purpose, but it gets diluted and the purpose gets lost as the company expands.” He notes that when a brand lacks clarity and loses focuses, brand equity begins to waver. 

Since creating this common vision and message is vital, marketers from the global level down to the regional level need to learn to listen to each other, in order to focus and align their goals. In fact, director of EffectiveBrands, Dorit Grueber urged brands to “empower and trust people. That’s the trick of successful companies, letting go and letting them do their thing”.

The summit also addressed a hot topic amongst marketers today – social media. While the medium presents exciting new opportunities, one of the key takeaways was how to assess if your brand is ready for a social media strategy.

“In this new era of social marketing, you need to ask yourself with the boardroom partners, HR… how close are all these people to the purpose of the brand?”

Looking to the more successful brands, such as Dell and Starbucks, the speakers emphasised that regardless of readiness every global brand today needs to be make sure a social strategy is in place, and organised as a function. “Where are these social marketers?” Arons asked. “Most organisations have a knee jerk reaction when it comes to hiring a social media person, but you should hire one now, creating a point of contact…This is like the Mad Men era with TV.”

Finally, engagement planning director of BBH, Darius Karbassioun said that at the minimum, in this social media age brands need to be seen to be listening. “Create an environment so that brands are seen to be creating interaction”.