True Groundswell Energy, This Coke is a Fanta

Have you heard derogatory terms to refer to people belonging to the LGBTQ+ community? In USA, a common term is “They play for the other team”. It is subtle, but definitely hurtful! In Brazil, the term is This Coke is a Fanta. Based on this, Coke started a campaign that definitely energized the groundswell. They began to fill Fanta into Coke cans. Soon, people were sharing, making their own Coke bottles with Fanta and there was even fake merchandise! Check out this incredible groundswell phenomenon.

According to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in their book (Chapter 7), a technique to energize enthusiasts is to create a community. David the Agency (who started the That Coke is a Fanta Campaign) used an even cleverer technique, they marketed to a passionate community that already exists, the LGBTQ+ community. 

We have read various case studies about tapping into the groundswell. Like HP used the blogosphere to reach out to their client and eBags tracked their reviews and ratings to improve their customers’ experience, more organizations are looking to get into the minds of the customers and give them exactly what they need. The first step to this is going back to the Social Technographics profile. It’s finding where your target audience is. And being there. It’s also about analyzing which stage of the marketing funnel your audience is on. 

This image shows a simple view of the marketing funnel and how to bring customers into the funnel. Then the strategy depends on which part of the funnel they are in. According to the book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, there can be four possible problems

·     An awareness problem: The right people don’t know! 

·     Word-of-Mouth problem: People need to converse with each other about the brand 

·     Complexity problem: The marketing message might be too difficult to understand 

·     Accessibility problem: The right people can’t be reached at all!  

So, yes, it means really probing into who your audience is, where you can find them and how you can build your strategy. Meanwhile, your audience is like... 

Let’s look at a recent example that people have been talking about. Yes, it’s about Forever 21 declaring bankruptcy. In the early 2000s, Forever 21 was all the rage. Why did that change? It’s because, there has been a fundamental shift in the priorities of young shoppers. Deciding to close around 350 stores worldwide, Forever 21 will really have to focus on listening to the groundswell. The Washington Post breaks down the priorities of young shoppers in this article. It’s all about sustainability and “fast fashion” of the past is no longer the buzz (“Understand how the buzz is shifting”, the book advises). 

According to Charline Li and Josh Bernoff, “Listening is likely to change the power structure of your organization. That’s incredibly interesting, because the entire dynamic of Forever 21 is about to change! They need to really hone in people’s skepticism towards clothing that have a short life span and have adverse effects on the environment. 

Anyway, this portion of our reading delved deep into creating a groundswell strategy. Right from listening to the groundswell, talking (as opposed to shouting), energizing the groundswell and helping it support itself. 

Something interesting to end on, whenever I'm not having a best day, my roommate always says "Trust the process" (Thanks Sarah!) and I think this so aptly applies to the groundswell phenomenon as well as our lives. 

As always, thank you, readers, for checking out this week's update on Simrants: Social Media Edition.