THE IMPACT OF STUDENTS’ CREATIVITY ON BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL MARKETING COMMUNICATION OF A BRAND IN SOCIAL MEDIA

DOI: 10.24308/iass-2014-147

New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria

Abstract

The influence of social media marketing is increasing and the marketing departments now plan it as an important part of their integrated marketing communication. The focus of the online communication is not only on the corporate website but also on the brand presence in social media (primarily in Facebook and YouTube but also in Twitter and Pinterest). At the same time it is a relatively new communication channel and the marketing experts are still gaining expertise in the field. Moreover the marketing departments have so many tasks that there is a great danger of underestimating the seriousness of building the brand image in social media. These are only few of the reasons why most of the companies outsource the online communication to freelancers or digital agencies.

At the same time students could be a valuable source for the companies. They have theoretical background but their creativity is not limited to the corporate guidelines and standards. Even if the students do not have any experience in the marketing field, they are open-minded and could come up with successful solutions. Besides most of the students are heavy users of social media in contrast to the marketing experts who consider social media as a “job task”. This could be a great opportunity for the students to gain experience and to practice what they have learned. This will give them an advantage when they apply for marketing positions and will help them in their future work as advertising experts.

Although this partnership could be really useful and valuable for both sides, there is a great deal of challenges and milestones that should be faced. The companies could be disappointed if they receive creative ideas that do not match their expectations, whereas students could be discouraged if they do not see the implementation of their ideas. The success of this project depends on the clear methodology – a set of methods of work and rules for both parties. The concept of building an online platform for cooperation with clear briefs and instructions for both parties is part of the project which I will present.

1. Introduction

In the recent years various important changes influenced the way customers think, behave and choose their preferred brands. The main ones are the increasing penetration of Internet, the growing information resources, the advance of the technology, the increasing usage of home computers and smartphones. These developments have resulted in new ways marketers can communicate with consumers and interact with them in order to build a strong and successful brand. Most of the brands continued their live on the Internet in order to be relevant to the changing market environment. The changes were happening fast and the consumers adapted them quickly and willingly, faster than some of the marketers could develop their professional skills to evolve the brands accordingly. Another challenge is that the traditional marketing tools and tactics cannot be applied directly to new media. This discrepancy resulted in the business need of new approaches to brand building.

The goal of this paper is to examine the possible ways in which students could collaborate with companies and could contribute to the development of a successful marketing communications in social media. The focus is on social media because on one hand it is the most interactive communication medium, the channel through which consumers and brands have direct communication thus making it one of the most challenging marketing tools. On the other hand the increasing importance of social media for the brand development has intensified the need of finding new creative and effective strategies. One of the possible sources of inspiration for the companies is the University. Students could be a source of ideas and relevant proposals because they have no previous experience with traditional media rules, they are open-minded and have significant social media experience. Special attention is paid to the possible obstacles and their solutions in order to develop a fruitful partnership for both parties. Although the methodology presented in this work could be implemented by students of marketing, advertising, media, etc. it is emphasized on the impact that students studying semiotics could have because of the extensive use of sings in social media and the power of storytelling to provide meaning to the brand.

2. Social media

Social media is a broadly discussed topic and there are many definitions and research done about it. One of the descriptions is presented by Giorgi Bagaturia and Margaret Johnson: “Social media is a collection of online platforms and tools that people use to share content, profiles, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media itself, facilitating conversations and interactions online between groups of people.” (2014:6) Customers become media themselves. The focus is on interaction, the exchange of thoughts, preferences and signs. The essence of social media is to serve as an online platform where people relate to other people or to brands. In brief people interact with brands in social media in the following ways:

- Provide feedback: express their positive attitude towards the brand or share their negative opinion or experience with the brand.

- Learn more – about the product, its usage, its distribution, current promotions, etc.

- Join brand fan communities: be part of a like-minded community sharing same interests/taste.

- Participate in activities – games organized by the brand, events, etc.

- Leverage promotions and sweepstakes.

Customers could be inactive and make no interaction with the brand or they could participate in online activities with the only intention of winning prizes but this is not the communication and relationship which the brand wants to build. The primary goals of social media marketing are to build a relationship with customers and prospects and to influence their behavior in an effort to increase brand awareness, strengthen brand loyalty, increase sales or achieve other business goals. Some of the key characteristics of the customer – brand communication in social media are:

- Interaction: social media encourages the sharing, commenting, voting, tagging, etc.

- Two-way conversation: the brand is not broadcasting as it does in traditional media but is an active side (in the best case) in the conversation with the customer.

- Transparency: most of the conversations are public.

- Continuousness: the communication is ongoing and in most of the cases it is in real time.

- Engagement: the ultimate goal of every brand is to engage the customers with the brand and enhance consumers' connection with it.

In social media the brands need to understand why customers are behaving in a certain way and what are their primary needs in order to build and effective communication with them. In 2013 the global media agency UM presented the results of a 7-year survey conducted in over 65 cities which investigated the social behavior in media. As a result 5 real human and fundamental needs underpin the customers’ social media behavior and the values they are seeking in the communication with the brands:

- Diversion is the need state that most drives desirability for brands. 40% of people who say they want entertaining experience from brands say that these experiences make the brand more desirable.

- Recognition is the key need state for making consumers loyal to brands. 65% of people who want brands to respond to their complaints say that it makes them feel valued as customers when they do.

- Progression is the key need state for encouraging people to spend more time with a brand. 37% of people who want brands to help them develop their own skills and abilities want to spend more time with the brand as result.

- Relationship is the key need state for driving recommendation. If a brand enables someone to help others they are also more likely to recommend it to others.

- Whereas to drive sales a combination of Recognition and Learning is key. Educating people about the product whilst at the same time listening to their own needs makes consumers far more likely to buy the product.

Fig. 1. UM survey reveals the social needs of customers in 65 countries which the brands should take into consideration in order to meet the customers’ expectations

One of the main messages for the marketers is that they need to find a way to reveal the needs of their customers, understand their motivations in order to provide them valuable conversation in social media that could have impact on their behavior.

3. The challenges for the companies

Effective use of social media can bring opportunities for the brand – build image, increase sales, improve customer relationship management, etc. But it is also a challenge which needs careful planning and deep analysis. Social networks are powerful media but their characteristics differ from traditional media and that is why developing an online strategy taking into consideration all the specifics is essential. Set Godin says “The Internet is the first medium invented in 100 years that wasn't invented to make advertisers happy. The connection between running ads and making money is broken, probably forever.” (2014) In order to build successful brand communication you can’t interrupt the consumer with advertising anymore, you have to attract his attention, find a way how to keep it and make them talk about the brand.

Besides skills developing the online brand presence requires time and effort. Small companies might not have the resource. The marketing departments of big companies have so many tasks that there is a great danger of underestimating the seriousness of building the brand image in social media.

4. Students as effective source of ideas

Students could be a valuable source of ideas and inspiration for the companies. They have theoretical background but their creativity is not limited to the corporate guidelines and standards. Even if the students do not have any experience in the marketing field, they are open-minded and could come up with successful solutions. Besides most of the students are heavy users of social media in contrast to the marketing experts who consider social media as a “job task”. This could be a great opportunity for the students to gain experience and to practice what they have learned. This will give them an advantage when they apply for marketing positions and will help them in their future work as advertising experts.

4.1. The main benefits of the collaboration with students for the company:

- Enthusiasm: if the students are well motivated they can contribute to the project with their passion and enthusiasm which can lead to inspiration.

- Unspoiled creativity: the students can come up with creative ideas because their mind is not limited to past experience with the brand or corporate guidelines. That is why they can think out of the box.

- Cheap or even free source of ideas: this is a great opportunity for the company to receive valuable information about their target and competition from all the research work of the students. On top they will receive ideas and solutions with almost no efforts or investment from their part.

4.2. The main advantages of this collaboration for the students:

- Experience: the focus is on the real market experience they will gain working on real projects.

- Opportunity to work in different fields: the companies will have different products, targets and goals. This will help the students on one hand to gain expertise in different areas. And on the other to find out what will be interesting for them, in which field they would like to continue their career.

- Self-confidence: when they see the results of their work, the implementation of their ideas, students will increase the trust in their own abilities.

5. The importance of students’ semiotic background

Students studying semiotics have the ability to inspire meaningful changes in the online marketing of a brand or to build an effective strategy of online brand development. Semiotics is one way of analyzing and exploring the communication in social media – the images, the symbols, the specific language used in every social media. Exchanging signs is the primary way of communication in social media. Choosing the most appropriate ones for the specific brand communication is essential for the success of the brand positioning. Having the theoretical background of how to interpret sings and how to analyze different code systems used by the customers is very important. One of the keys to success is to get the attention of the customer and reach with them on emotional level. People do not care about the brands and their messages, they care about themselves and their needs. That is why they are willing to connect with brands that talk like them and look like them (or the way they want to talk and look) and that give them something valuable. This requires deep knowledge and understanding of the consumers’ behavior and expectations.

Since internet marketing makes extensive use of symbols (both in the form of text and visual elements), semiotics is a very effective tool for interpreting it. As Kress and Robert Hodge state: “Each producer of a message relies on its recipients for it to function as intended” (1988:4). Customers may receive the brand message but they decide how to interpret it, to comment it and to pass it on to their friends and acquaintances. Social media makes it easy for customers to express their opinion, to share information with thousands of people and thus have impact on the brand image. The brands are not in control of customer’s opinion and perception as it was in traditional media. Customers build their new social personalities online and need to relate to brands which appeal to them. If the brands build an effective image they become part of this personality. They pin their photos, retweet their messages, share their photos as a way of identifying their social style. That is why analyzing the process of meaning-making and identifying the possibilities for creating the brand mythology is essential for developing a successful online strategy. For their analysis students could practice what they have learned about social and cultural semiotics, the way of creating significations in the specific digital environment of social media. In their work students will have to find the socially accepted meanings in the specific business areas, to analyze the signs used by the customers to identify their needs and the way they design and interpret meanings.

6. Possible problems

Although this partnership could be really useful and valuable for both sides, there are challenges and milestones which should be overcome. The companies could be disappointed if they receive creative ideas that do not match their expectations, if they are not relevant for their business or if they do not comply with the initial brief. Students could be discouraged if they do not see the implementation of their ideas or if the company modifies the initial idea too much. The success of this project depends on the methodology – a clearly defined working process and rules for both parties.

7. The solution – an interactive online platform

One way of overcoming the obstacles is by building an online platform where the company and the students can communicate with each other and complete all the steps needed for the development of the project. This platform will help all the participants to have clear guidelines what they should do, how they can do it and the respective deadlines. The focus is on clear rules and interaction between the participants. The main features of this website are:

- Brief template

- Useful information for the students to help them generate ideas

- Online sharing tool for brainstorming

- Rating system for the assessment of the ideas

- Project passport: additional information and ideas

- Profiles of the students

7.1 The first step – the company brief

The first step is to do a complete and precise brief which will be the starting point for the students. The most important tasks of this brief is to answer the following questions:

- What will be the communication about – product, service?

- What are the main benefits of the product/service?

- What are the goals of the communication?

- How will they be measured?

- What are the obstacles of achieving them?

- Who is the target?

- What do you want them to do/think?

- What are the budget and timing?

The client has to fill in an online brief form which consists of the following fields:

- Company name

- Field of industry

- What will be communicated: description, main advantages and weaknesses

- Target group – who they are, what they do, how, when and why they buy the product

- Main competitors: who they are, what are their weaknesses and advantages, how they communicate

- Objectives of the communication: to build a page (profile), to develop an existing page (profile), to run a successful campaign in social media, etc.

- Measurement: how will the success of these goals be measured

- Difficulties: what are the obstacles which stand in the way of achieving the goals until now

- Examples of previous campaigns: successful and unsuccessful examples, any relevant background information

- Guidelines of the company: mission, vision and values, tone of voice

- Communication plan: will there be any other support – online campaign, blog article, etc.

- Budget

- Timing

The brief must be written by the product manager (brand manager) or the marketing manager. There must be one person from the company who will be the contact person for additional questions. He will have to answer the questions of the students which may arise during the work process.

7.2 The process of students’ work

When the company submits the brief, the students assess the task – if it is rather interesting for him/her, if it is rather not interesting or they do not have opinion. This must be done because everybody has personal preferences and they usually affect the creativity. After that a coordinator divides the students into groups in which there must be people who are excited about the topic and who are not that involved.

7.2.1 Debrief

The groups have to fill in a template with more information. The main questions which the students should answer are:

- What do customers think about the company/product?

- What is the most valuable thing related to the product for the customers?

- Who is the target customer – how does he look, act, talk, buy, etc.? How many buyer personas are there?

- Who are the main competitors – how do they communicate with the prospects and is there something useful which we can adapt?

- What is the main challenge for achieving the goals, what was not done right until now?

- How can they be achieved?

The required fields are:

- Company information: what is the company known for, how the customers perceive it

- Product information: what do the customers say about it, what is the image, which features could be used to build the product story

- Target information: attitude, verbal and visual sings they use, how can we reach and engage them

- Digital footprint of the product: what is the online presence of the brand

- Competition information: the signs they use, their communication, campaigns they have organized, the customers’ opinion about them

- Best practice and common mistakes from the same industry field

- Main challenge of the communication

- Insight: how will we overcome the obstacle

- Social media strategy: which are the most appropriate social medias for the communication/campaign and how we will use them

For every point of this additional work on the brief the groups must assign responsible person and set a deadline. They could ask the representative of the company additional questions which the client receives on his email. For this research the students have 2 days.

7.2.2 Brainstorming

After collecting all the necessary data the groups start the brainstorming. They think of different ideas how to accomplish the goals of the communication. The online platform will have a section with useful information about different brainstorming techniques. The brainstorming can be done in person or online via sharing tools.

Every group uploads information about the 3 ideas which they find best – short description and an argumentation how the idea will help the company to accomplish the goals. They can upload visualization or reference. For this stage the groups have 3 days.

7.2.3 Assessment

All groups vote for the best 3 ideas – they can give three, two and one point. They can also add remarks to the ideas and make suggestions how to improve them. The groups have 2 days for this stage.

The coordinator selects the best 3 ideas. The criteria are the selection of the students and the personal judgment of the coordinator which ideas meet the goals of the company. The role of the coordinator is needed – he has to be experienced and to be the mediator between the company and the students. It will be best if he has marketing experience so that he will be aware of the company needs but at the same time will help and inspire the students.

The coordinator and the groups whose ideas are chosen have to prepare a presentation. It should show the client why and how the selected ideas will help him achieve his goals, how they can be implemented, what is the budget. This stage requires 4 days. The best way is to present the idea personally to the client.

The whole process can take up to 14 days but the timings are set upon the requirements of the company.

The company can have access to all the ideas that were generated during the brainstorming for a certain period of time. It is recommended that the responsible person from the company gives feedback in the online platform about the selected ideas and the decision if they will implement them or not and why. This feedback is essential for the development of the students and the experience they gain.

7.2.4 Gamification

In brief gamification is the implementation of game elements in non-game situation context. “Individuals naturally (based on the inherent reward structure of nature) strive for achievement, and when rewarded, will continue to strive for more and greater levels of success” (Chapman 2012:2). It is a powerful motivational tool which can not only stimulate certain behavior but can also increase the satisfaction of the task. It will be used in this online platform to motivate and to engage more the students. Every student will have a profile with the ideas his group has generated, the points they have gained and if they were approved by the company. There will be different levels of points which will be rewarded with badges. The score of the students will be shown on the home page. The best performing students could be rewarded with grades that reflect their final exams. This will be an additional motivation for the students to give their best in the projects.

8. Conclusion

The markets are constantly changing – technology development affects the way customers and companies interact, the oversupply makes it essential for the business to find a way to effectively reach the target, the growing popularity of social media changed the expectations of the customers – they want brands that are active, consistent, helpful, brands that build long-term relationships. Understanding the customers is the key to meaningful brand performance in social media – how they convey meaning, how they use signs, how they interact with brands. The new market requires new sources of ideas and inspiration. This new source could be the partnership between companies and students. Not only business could help the universities offer market-oriented education and prepare the students for their future job but students could help them perform better. Their creativity, knowledge and enthusiasm could be the key to problem-solving business issues in social media. Building an online platform for collaboration could be the key to meeting the expectations of both students and companies.

9. Reference

BAGATURIA, Giorgi & Johnson, Margaret. 2014. The Impact of Social Media in Marketing Management. Journal of Business. 3(1). 5-13

CHAPMAN, Patrick. 2012. Gamification and Game Mechanics Made Simple. Nordic Book Group

GODIN, Seth. 2014. Seth Godin on What Marketers Are Getting Wrong.http://www.inc.com/abigail-tracy/seth-godin-marketing-is-not-about-paying-for-attention.html (last accessed: 6 January 2015)

HODGE, Rodger & Kress, Gunter. 1988. Social Semiotics. Cambridge: Polity

UM Cracks the Social Code: Global Survey Reveals Social Habits of Consumers in 65 Countries. (2013) http://news.umww.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=1491 (last accessed: 2 Feb. 2015)

ZARELLA, Dan. 2009. The Social Media Marketing Book. O'Reilly Media, Inc.