A short live-stream monologue by TJ Walker (with brief host interjections) arguing that social media has fundamentally changed how advertising and public-sector branding succeed or fail. Using the 2016 Rhode Island tourism-slogan backfire as a central example, Walker explains that slogans must be immediately defensible in public and authentic to the audience; he recommends crowdsourcing/testing slogans on social platforms and emphasizes that customers ultimately define a brand. The piece closes with practical advice to involve the public and avoid imposing gimmicky messages.
Chapters
Is social media changing the nature of traditional advertising?
Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with TJ Walker.
In early 2016, officials in the state of Rhode island rolled out a new slogan for their state for their tourism campaign, their state branding. Here was their new slogan, Rhode island cooler and warmer. What do we think about that? Now, a lot of people thought that this was confusing, silly. It was widely mocked and ridiculed everywhere in social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it. The officials who came up with this were mocked and ridiculed and within days, the state's chief marketing officer resigned. Basically hounded out of the office, hounded out of the job because of pressure from social media. Now, this was not always the case. Traditionally, when it comes to advertising, the beauty of advertising is you can just say whatever you want. You don't have to make it quotable or an interesting soundbite for the media. You can just state exactly what you want your customers, consumers, the public to think about. Virginia is for lovers. Now, if that slogan had come out in this day and age, I think it might have been mocked, ridiculed as well. But that came out many, many decades ago, before social media. And now it's sort of ingrained into the public consciousness. One of the big tests that I think anyone who is in charge of advertising slogans should think about is can we say this with a straight face in front of 10 people and then not laugh or seem profoundly confused? Because if we can't do that, that's going to mean big trouble in social media. More in a moment.
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How about this for an ad slogan for the state of Rhode Island? Life's small pleasures are the best Playing off of small. Now that's something I spent a grand total of two seconds thinking of. And I'm sure someone else thought of it before, but there's some slogans you can say where you can understand how someone can understand the point you're trying to get across. Doesn't seem too cutesy, too gimmicky, and yet plays to the strengths of what the state is about. Rhode island, obviously a small state. People can relate to the fact that life is often Full of small pleasures. My daughter's smile to me means a lot more than a fancy meal these days or an exotic vacation. Believe me, I'm not holding myself out as an advertising maven. The point I want to get across here is anyone who's operating in the public sphere, and certainly if you're using tax dollars, you really hold yourself up to mockery and ridicule. If you don't get this right, you've got to look at it from every single angle. And one of the things I would recommend, test a bunch of slogans on Twitter, test them on Facebook, get input from people. This is the sort of thing that's often best crowdsourced. And forgive me, I, I didn't get a chance to talk to this director of marketing in the state of Rhode island because that person's gone. So perhaps they did some of this. But something somewhere sure did backfire. There's an extra layer of scrutiny now that simply did not exist in the past. There's an extra safeguard. You, you cannot just take an idea and ram it down people's throats and expect them to accept it anymore. If they think you're trying to sell them a bunch of bs, it's too easy for people to communicate back with you. That's what's so different now. For so long, advertising was completely a one way medium. This big company, this big government entity takes a big bag of cash, drops it off at this TV network or this radio network, spends a lot of money producing one ad and then pushes it all out and just bombards people repeatedly until that message sticks in. And if you don't believe Choosing Mothers, choose Jif Peanut Butter, it just doesn't matter. You don't have a say so in the matter. Because big companies and big government entities and cooperative milk does a body good, doesn't have to be a big corporation. There are lots and lots of ad slogans put out there by public entities trying to transform public opinion. California Raisin Board, you name it. The challenge for them now is they have to do something that when the public hears it and they want to talk back to you, what they say back is going to be positive or neutral. To me, that is the real test. Ideally, you come up with some slogan that makes people say, yes, that's right, I can relate to that. That is a good thing, that is relevant, that is fair. You want people, if they're going to be talking about your ad slogan, to be adding to it in a positive way. But if everything is mockery and silliness, and saying, this is stupid. You're not going to be able to withstand the pounding. We're all human beings, folks. And at some point, no matter how thick our skin is, we crack exceptions to Donald Trump. But we're not being political here today. Okay, folks, but most people, if they are pounded day in and day out by the public and mocked and ridiculed, they just can't take it. And that's why you see them resign or quit or get fired, because the scrutiny is just overwhelming. You don't have to let it get to that point.
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A great deal of discussion is spent talking about people's brand branding. I mean, you see all these seminars and events for people about how to brand your company, and you have one person. Consulting shops spend inordinate amounts of time trying to build a brand. I am of the believer that, yeah, it's nice to have a good logo and your webpage should look fine and having business cards is fine, but ultimately your customers tell you what your brand is. When Mike Bloomberg started his media company, it had. I even forgot what the name is. It was some sort of long, complicated, you know, computer consulting, business machines, blah, blah, blah. And what happened was his customers associated him with the company. He was out speaking everywhere. They just called it the Bloomberg. Bloomberg are using Bloomberg. And after a while, the public, the Wall street customers he had at the time constantly refer to his company as Bloomberg. So he changed the name of his company to Bloomberg. And I think that is a good lesson for a lot of people. You really don't get to decide what your brand is. At some level, the public, yes, you can influence the graphics and the logo and you can come up with a theme or a tagline or a slogan. But it needs to be authentic. It needs to truly resonate with people at some level. That's always been true, but now it's really true. When you try to cram something down people's throats that just seems obviously gimmicky, silly or trite, like this, we're cooler and warmer. You just leave people scratching their heads. Only now they can do it visibly, loudly, in front of the whole world. And there's just no reason for that. My recommendation, crowdsource things like this. Don't assume your idea is best. Crowdsource it. Have people vote on it. Get the public to buy in. If you're a public entity, like a government agency, do that and you won't end up having to resign five days later with angry people with pitchforks at your doorstep. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. May all of your presentations and communications in life be a huge success.
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