The Groundswell and KLM Airlines Take Off

Conversations with strangers across the world? In real time? In the form of a holograph? Sign me up! KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has revolutionized the idea of embracing the groundswell. "Make the customers an integral part of the way you innovate", suggest Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff in their book (p. 183) KLM  encourages people waiting in airports around the globe to have meaningful conversations with each other. They share travel and culture stories holographically. Isn't that the coolest thing? Check it out!

The age of Donald Draper's sleek catchlines is no more. We cannot stress this enough. "The internal groundswell is all about creating new ways for people to connect and work together" (p. 226) the book elucidates in the light of case studies like Bell Canada and Blue Shirt Nation. But don't be fooled, every company adopts its own unique strategy. Coercion from the skyscrapers of Madison Avenue is the marketing of yesteryear.
Can we assume this is how Don Draper will react?



In the age where the groundswell is growing by the minute, every brand should be ready for a transformation. No one can escape it. There is no formula for thriving in the groundswell but Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff keep reminding us, "It's about relationships, not technology"

Five steps we can follow for success (p. 212)

• Start small: We need to pick our battles strategically! 
• Educate our executives: Let's make everyone use the technologies themselves. Perhaps an internal blog? For the summer, I interned at the advertising agency Sunny Side Up in India and found that they use innovative project management technologies like Basecamp and Monday to bring employees across cities together on various tasks. They're actually fun to explore. 
• Who runs the strategy: Yes, it makes a difference to choose people who really have a passion to make a difference for the company! 
• Agency and technology partners working together: Both need to invest time and resources 
• Long term plans: Let's ask, what's our plan for the next step? 

How much more can we grow and transform in the groundswell? Like Lindsay Lohan and Cady Heron says...

Yes, you know it! It's an infinite realm of possibilities out there! And brands are just getting starting. Unilever's real beauty Dove campaign and Salesforce's IdeaExchange are two prominent examples among thousands of others. 

KLM Dutch Airlines has definitely "taken off" with the groundswell. They have embraced the groundswell in creative ways. Aside from their idea to connect people in airports through holographs, they also used a great activation idea to raise awareness of their airline in Germany. 46% of the people they asked didn't know what it was. 

"ein Restaurant" or "eine Bank" or even "ein Radiosender" were the responses they received. So, they simply transformed into what people thought they were. Whether KLM food served like a restaurant, KLM flight tickets in ATM machines and KLM music, no one can forget that they really are an airline! 

See for yourself: 

We live in a world that is turned inside out by the groundswell mentality. "When the groundswell surrounds you like a cocoon," say the authors of our textbook (p. 235) "When you breath it like air and depend on it always, the world will feel very different." 

Meanwhile, let's ask companies how they're doing in the groundswell and most will say this...

Thank you loyal readers, for tuning in to this week's update on Simrants: Social Media Edition. It has been great sharing my penny's worth with you. 

The Groundswell, Spilling the (Chai) Tea (Latte)

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, from Forrester Research, immaculately bring out the nuances of the groundswell. In chapter 1, they emphasize that the world has changed due to social technologies and it is an irreversible change. “It’s a completely different way for people to relate to companies and each other”. Still #shook from the paradigm shift? Keep reading to delve deeper into the groundswell phenomenon.

There is no escaping the groundswell. In chapter 3, we see the diagram of the Social Technographics Profiles – how we are all part of the groundswell ladder. We belong to one of the groups (in fact, the text mentions how a consumer only needs to participate in one of the activities at least monthly and they’re part of the group) 

To understand the groundswell in context, let’s #SpillTheTea or spill the Iced Chai Tea Latte with soymilk, extra ice, no sugar, two (and a half) pumps of vanilla. Or a Trenta, no foam, 5 shot, half calf, no foam, pumpkin spice latte with no foam at 210 degrees. 

I mean, let’s look at the text in relation with a very popular example – Starbucks. According to the authors, “You cannot ignore this trend. You cannot sit this one out. The groundswell trend is unstoppable, and your customers are there”. Interestingly, this article on The Wise Marketer explains how Starbucks decided last year to build relationships with customers who are not part of Starbucks Rewards. And this, in turn, increased the membership to Starbucks rewards, by 11%, pretty smart, huh? According to the text, it’s the perfect way to embrace customers or integrate them into the way business works. 

Also, check out their #MorningYes Campaign video (only 30 seconds, but worth a watch) 

No matter how overwhelming the groundswell may seem, it’s crucial to understand it. Our authors tell us how the only way to thrive in it is to develop an understanding of how it works. A metaphor that I found to be very apt was of jujitsu and how in this martial arts form, we really have to know how bodies move. In the case of the groundswell, "concentrate on the relationships and not the technologies", we will have mastered groundswell thinking. And we will have gotten a step closer to world domination, sounds like a win-win to me. 

The acronym POST conceptualizes the process to tap into the groundswell: 

·     Access your customers’ social activities 

·     Decide what you want to accomplish 

·     Plan how your relationship will evolve

·     Decide which technologies to use 

There you go, you are a groundswell expert now! Go and thrive in the socially connected world. Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff acknowledge that things will go wrong. But this is what they say to that; “Go back to POST, because diagnosing how something is going wrong is the first step to fixing it”

Thank you for tuning into this week’s update on Simrants (Social Media Edition) 

As always, hope you all are having the best day!

Simran