To steal an iconic quote from the captain in Cool Hand Luke, “What we've got here is... failure to communicate.” Ok so this series of posts isn't here to focus on the empowerment implicit in the famous line. In modern times the line is (according to the Wikipedia entry) “an illustrative mockery of the principle behind it; the allocation of blame or fault for refusal to agree with or accept a powerful nemesis”.

Few people would disagree that the vast majority of companies are experiencing a failure to communicate with their markets. And this is giving rise to large levels of resentment. Hellopeter was after all probably founded based on this assumption – trying to encourage/force companies to respond. However, an integral part of the quote is the presence of a nemesis (could also include another cool quote from Snatch right about now but I'd start getting carried away). After my first post Smith expressed his wish to vent his frustrations on South African businessmen adopting an “us vs. them” stance by putting a frozen barracuda to good use.

As seen by BP's example, simply dictating your position to your market won't make you into a leader anymore. You need to be the romanticised leader – down in the trenches with his men, sharing a joke with them, understanding their concerns, allaying their fears and tackling their problems. And most importantly, realising that your direction and goals are not chosen solely by yourself, but by your consumers and other stakeholders as well.

So how do you as a respected executive do this? You step down from your pedestal and you dive into social media. How many times is your brand spoken about online? Probably hundreds of times a day, and each one of these blog posts or forum threads affects your reputation. Now it's probably impossible/infeasible to respond to every single one of these comments (and to be fair consumers probably do want some space to have their say without you jumping straight away into their personal space) but keeping track of them should give you an idea of where your company's reputation stands. And you should at least respond to the more critical or manageable references to your company. Some can be dealt with directly such as by writing a comment on a blog post, others may even convince you of the need for a change in strategic direction.

Marketing is far too often seen as “selling at any cost”. Whilst I won't deny (neither will Todd Defren) that selling does form an inseparable part of marketing it is not (or rather should not be) done at any cost.

The selling of a product or service has the capacity to profit both the seller and the consumers. A large part of resentment arises from the fact that the distribution of the profits is normally slanted in favour of the seller. Where truly profitable marketing occurs is when marketers sell something of value and then communicate that value. Sounds simple. So simple in fact that one expects the vast majority of people with little or no business education to have an inherent grasping of this very basic concept.

Yet so many marketers with their MBA credentials aren't trying to maximise their advantages with regards to this discipline. Doubts and disappointments about the values of products and services are constantly being raised amongst bloggers and forumites. These disappointments should provide marketers with the perfect opportunity to pick out the weaknesses of their offerings and what they should do in order to better them. The doubts can be addressed immediately while the topic is still relevant in the consumer's mind.

Hellopeter and a few other sites have recognised the truth of this and have tried to establish a platform for the addressing of these issues. Their execution for the most part has been far from perfect, but with the help of companies they should provide avenues for corporates to engage their consumers in the direct market. For now it's all too easy for a company to score brownie points by responding with little effort and truth. However, as the entire procedure becomes more established and customers become more knowledgeable about companies' activities on these channels the corporates will have to use this as a genuine opportunity to illustrate their initiative and willingness to take their relationship with their market to the next level.

What could be better for a company's reputation than to convert one of its loudest critics into a fan? Imagine the credibility this would give to a brand's marketing. And social media is the place to do this. It is probably the place where consumers have the loudest voice, and where they are the most reachable. To have such vehement critics so easily accessible is an advantage not to be ignored.

There's too much opportunity for corporates to ignore engaging their stakeholders online. It presents a more easily manageable relationship at their fingertips. And trust me, speaking for the majority of consumers, I want companies to sit up, listen to what I have to say, and respond.

Web 2.0 is here. Making use of it is simple. Taking advantage of it is imperative.

Imagine if BP had listened to its naysayers about its Hornchurch initiative and reacted accordingly. The marketing statement that it was aiming for had the potential to be one of the most enduring statements in recent marketing memory – a vision for the future that BP could have strived for hand-in-hand with its market. Instead it has fizzled out into the Greenwash annals.
What we need is for the companies to manage their own reputation – take the plunge, take the initiative, and take the rewards.