dominos | Direct Marketing Observations

I was reading an editorial by Jonah Bloom of Adage titled, “In a crisis, don’t get too distracted by Twitterati” in which he essentially says that social media people are the one’s that fuel the fire when brands screw up.

To which I might say, “What’s wrong with that”?

In the social media sphere, yes the mob mentality does it exist. And when things go awry for brands, bloggers and the Twitterati alike, will flock to the subject and beat it to death- points taken and noted. I get that.

But…

Saying that Brand marketers can’t respond to the Twitterati and or bloggers “because of the incredulity and self importance of their wailing”, couldn’t be further from the point.

The problem is, brands are afraid to engage. They are afraid of putting a face to the brand, and they drag their feet. When in actuality they have the perfect vehicle to be proactive-social media. But instead they are still sitting around deciding whether they want to engage their users/consumers using social media.

What are you waiting on? A crisis?

Don’t blame the promoters and champions of social media for the mistakes that a brand makes. And don’t blame them for the mistakes that a brand continues to make after the fact.

Social media pundits, champions and promoters are just as quick to ask why a brand has not done something, as they are to point out when a brand does something great as well. In fact Peter Kim provides a huge list of companies enagaged in some aspect of social media. A positive.

Beth Harte just did an awesome post on a Dominos franchise that’s getting it right…another positive.

But I suppose that get’s overlooked since it’s an inconvenient truth.

Can I get an amen? OK maybe it’s too soon in this post to ask for that. But really, I could not help but to think about the shitstorm that has happened over the last 7 days with Dominos and Amazon, and that maybe companies big and small, might want to take the time to better understand how they go about branding themselves either using social media or not.

I know, we’re not talking about a branding issue here. Or are we?

You see, it’s not so much how they brand, but rather, how fast, or the pace and the speed in which they do it. The reason I’m thinking out loud about this, is that I’ve now watched in 3 very high profile cases (Amazon, Motrin and Dominoes) how quickly large brands have moved to incorporate damage control via certain media channels, formats and vehicles- which led me to postulate-

Why don’t they move this fast in branding in general, controlling the brand or creating and shaping the message? What’s holding them back?

I suppose we can sit here and be quick to criticize or answer that question by stating a) If they are moving too fast then they must be trying to shove the message down out throats, and grab market share. And of course we know that’s not cool with their core audience, the blogosphere, social media pundits, marketers and the Twitter mob, etc., etc., etc. Right?

Or… We could criticize them for moving too slow and missing the boat and of course that’s not cool with their core audience, the blogosphere, social media pundits, marketers and the Twitter Mob…Right?

So they can’t win.

But what strikes me is this. Have you ever heard this statement? “You never know how fast someone can run until they’re running for their life.” Which always begs this question: Why don’t they run like that all the time?