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Archives for 2010

Oil Companies Among The Best | FTSE 100 Website Reviews

Classic Oil Rig TrimThere are some business sectors for whom sustainability is a hot issue, and with oil spilling all over the Gulf of Mexico and Shell recently admitting it hadn’t done enough in the Niger Delta, oil producers are definitely among those with the greatest CSR problems in the world.

So perhaps it’s not surprising then to find that they have some of the most progressive CSR websites around.

One of the facets which leads to this conclusion is the sites’ interactive data provision.  This was pioneered a few years ago by Shell but, in a fine example of site content competitiveness, BP has also introduced its own set of interactive data tools as have several others.

However, if this innovation is left to one side, how else do the websites perform?  In a slight change to previous FTSE 100 Website Reviews, this one looks not just at two big hitters within the UK, BP and Shell, but also one from continental Europe, Total, and one from the USA, Exxon Mobil.

Interestingly, these are also respectively the fourth, first, sixth and second largest companies in the world, according to Forbes.  Will their websites reflect this?

BP

BP at present is all over the news because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and it’s interesting to note that other oil companies have not been shy in issuing press releases about what they think BP should be doing to “plug the leak”.

It’s unsurprising therefore to find that the BP site has a special “Gulf of Mexico response” section on its top level menu bar.  I have long bemoaned the fact companies rarely react to bad news on their websites, simply because it’s a perfect stakeholder engagement opportunity which should not be missed.

BP make the case for such bad news sections admirably, with daily updates, technical briefings, regional responses and all sorts of maps and data.  Admittedly there are few bad news stories worse than Deepwater Horizon, but then not every one needs such comprehensive coverage.  Just ignoring the issue, however, tends to alienate stakeholders, not engage them.

The company’s more traditional CSR section, headlined “Environment and society”, covers a wide variety of issues from traditional Environment management to Alternative energy and the “BP Energy Lab”.  This latter includes an energy consumption calculator, a fun energy quiz and the ability to share an energy fact with other website users.

The site, in BP’s green and yellow livery, is surprising on the eye rather than shocking, but with every page throwing up context sensitive links in the right hand column there’s more than enough to keep you interested in discovering more.

Total Experts Opinion — Henri Leridon

Shell

Shell is one of the few websites these days which does not have a main menu banner across the top of its pages.  Instead it has a more traditional breadcrumb trail and uses solely the headings in the left hand column to provide visitor navigation.

This can give the impression there is less content on the “Environment and society” site than there really is as, quite sensibly, the left hand menus contract as you move from section to section.  However the full set of section headings is presented in the page footers and visitors may navigate from there.

Interestingly, Shell maintains dedicated country-based independent websites (presumably based upon its operational locations).  Each of these conforms precisely to the Shell corporate layout but each has its own “Environment and society” content focusing upon the specific issues which that country faces.

The content isn’t allowed too far off the leash and most of the subsections refer the reader to the global site, for further information, and the company’s overall sustainability report.  However, this is a nice nod in the direction of acknowledging that different communities need very different engagement from a corporate multinational.

Like BP, Shell follows its corporate livery and has designed the site around the red and yellow of its logo.  However this is barely noticeable and the majority of pages are a simple and unobtrusive affair of black text on a white background with a splash of colour at the top.

Total

Unlike BP and Shell, Total’s website is not based around its logo colours.  Instead it uses a big bold frame to surround its content whose colour is determined by the section being viewed: for example orange for “About Us”, blue for “Investors” and green for “Environment and society”.

The sections the company uses approach the material from a slightly different angle to most. with two of the sections titled “contributing to host country development” and “operating in challenging environments”.  There’s even a section on socially responsible investment within the investors section.

Probably the most interesting part of their website though is the innocuously named “Expert infos” section.  This contains some brief Q&A sessions held with some French luminaries, such as the co-winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and the European Chair of Sustainable Development – Environment, Energy and Society at Collège de France.

A fair few of these are involved in Total operations in one way or another, so a small bit of salt needs to be taken with the information.  However by no means all of the detail is aimed at puffing up Total and it is refreshing to see information provided for information’s sake.  Very French, given the country’s tradition of philosophical discourse.

It is this slightly different approach to sustainability which draws you into the Total website, alongside the accessibility innovation of having most if not all of the website pages available in audio form as well.

ExxonMobil Corporate Citizenship Op Eds.

ExxonMobil

Exxon Mobil’s website is interesting for a number of reasons.  The first is that it has one of the most comprehensive corporate News sections on the web.  Press releases are not limited just to Investor Relations matters but cover all aspects of the company’s operations, ranging in May from the appointment of directors to the preparedness of Red Cross volunteers ahead of hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.

However these are just the tip of the iceberg.  The section also includes “thoughts”, “publications” and “features”.  Although these are not categorised, because energy and oil is very much under the sustainability spotlight practically all are relevant in one way or another.

In addition, the company’s “op-ed” section is categorised.  This holds an archive of all the opinion pieces the company has had published in a variety of  journals and newspapers, such as the New York Times.

It is this thoroughness which pervades the rest of the company’s CSR offering, which eschews the European categorisation and is split between “energy and environment” and “community and society” sections.  Each neatly and succinctly keeps the section’s main headings and quick links in the left hand column with sitewide widgets in the right hand one and main content in the centre.

In total, a well presented site whose blue-grey design and mix of words and white space makes it easy to spend time on and investigate further.

Conclusion

It’s difficult to pick one site over another simply because different points of emphasis creates such a variety it would be manifestly unfair to say one way better than the other.

However, the oil extraction and refinement business has long been under the sustainability spotlight and if other companies wish to find out how to write the perfect sustainability website they could do a lot worse then scrutinise these.

Picture Credit: Classic Oil Rig by epredator from flickr under Creative Commons Attribution License, trimmed by Chris Milton.

Huge Growth Coming for B2B Social Media Marketing Spending

keyboard_computer_internetAccording to reports by Outsell and Forrester Research, social media marketing spending by business-to-business companies is expected to grow by 43.3% in 2010 and will hit $54 million in 2014 (up from $11 million in 2009).

Is your company ready for what’s being called the business-to-business social media marketing explosion?

Business-to-business companies are shifting marketing budget dollars to social media and online marketing quickly in order to leverage the opportunities the social Web presents, even though according to a November 2009 survey by Business.com (reported by eMarketer), 73% of business-to-business marketers who were using social media had less than two years of social media marketing experience.  That’s nearly 3 out of 4 people who really don’t know what they’re doing, but they’ll be getting more money to keep doing it.

Following is the breakdown of the change in social media marketing spending for several popular initiatives among business-to-business marketers in 2010:

  • Spending on social networking sites: up 43.3%
  • Spending on webinars: up 26.0%
  • Spending on search engines: up 17.1%
  • Spending on company Web sites: up 7.5%

I should point out that I’d argue that spending on search engines and company Web sites doesn’t necessarily equate to social media marketing spending in my book, so take that into consideration when you look at the results above.

Business-to-business social media marketing might happen on different branded destinations than business-to-consumer marketing and the type of shareworthy content a company publishes is certainly different, but the underlying principles and strategies of social media marketing still apply regardless of what you’re selling and to whom.  Just as with traditional marketing, you have to modify your placement and messages to match your audience.  In other words, you need to find your target audience online, and start and join the conversations that matter to them.  Until you take that step, your social media marketing investments can only take you so far.

Should business-to-business companies increase their social media marketing spending sooner rather than later?  Absolutely.  Why?  Because their clients and customers are spending time on the social Web.  Would you ignore those people if they were standing in front of you ready to engage in conversations that interest them?  No.  Then why would you ignore them on the social Web? Get out there, find your audience, and start interacting with them!

Image: stock.xchng

The May Wrap-up


Hummingbird

Follow-ups and afterthoughts . . .

1.  One post in May asked the question Can “Disability Humor” Really Work?  Boston Globe business writer Drake Bennett poses a related query in Who’s Still Biased?, an in-depth look at whether diversity training actually works.  The cited studies and quoted experts in Drake’s article seem to suggest that no one really knows—but the provisional answer is “probably not.”  There seems to be little evidence that companies with formal diversity training programs improve in terms of hiring and promoting women and minorities.  It even seems that compulsory and/or legalistic training can have a negative effect.

What does (or at least might) work better?  The best plan may be adding “more explicit measures like minority outreach, mentoring, and even old-fashioned affirmative-action programs like setting gender- and race-based promotion targets and making someone responsible for them.”

2.  Perils and Perks:  Government Online recounted both a cautionary tale and a happy story.  Here’s a little more news from the happy category:  New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., have all made a some key data sets available to third-party developers—and the result is an array of apps that sift through the official info and makes it more useful to users.  For example:  San Francisco Crimespotting offers a nice interface for exploring police report data.  And in NYC, a BigApps competition drew some inventive entries like Bookzee (enter the title of a book and the nearest public library with a copy will pop up on your iPhone).  Data access is not limited to developers, by the way.  Anyone can visit DC Data Catalog, NYC Data Mine and Data SF for serve-yourself downloads of permit records, purchase orders, code enforcement incidents, and more.

3.  Inside Unemployment looked at the experience of editor Dominique Browning, whose job at an upscale lifestyle magazine suddenly disappeared.  I think Browning’s book includes themes familiar to many people coping with unemployment, and offers interesting reflections on losing/finding work-life balance.  But I can also understand why the book has provoked some critical responses.  Carolyn See’s Washington Post review takes a rather sharp view of the book and its author, and although Browning defended herself in a recent appearance on the Diane Rehm show, it’s clear (from some of the negative emails received during the show, as well as comments on DR’s website) that people are very sensitive around the issue of unemployment.

Not much employment improvement in May—but things are not worse either.  Let’s keep a good thought for June.


(Many thanks to thefixer for this month’s just-for-pretty photo:  a ruby-throated hummingbird, caught in mid-flutter.)


Luxury Brand Gimmicks – Do They Really Work?

Luxury brands commonly use gimmicks to give their brands a little something extra that the commoner brands simply can’t compete with. Often these gimmicks are completely unnecessary and don’t add any real benefit at all, but they do appeal to emotional triggers that the luxury brand customer responds to.

Infiniti recently launched an ad campaign for the 2011 Infiniti M that is filled with luxury brand gimmicks.  Do you want a car with an air conditioning system that mimics the gentle breezes of a rain forest?  How about a wood-grain dashboard sprinkled with silver dust?  You can get both in the new 2011 Infiniti M.

Unfortunately, the pixie dust version that enables your car to fly is not yet available, although that would actually be useful, unlike the silver dust.  Alternately, you could buy a bottle of Goldschlager and pour it over your dashboard to infuse it with real gold flecks.  But I digress.

Check out the commercial for the 2011 Infiniti M below to see for yourself.


So back to my original question — do gimmicks in luxury brand messages really work.  Do they really motivate consumers with high discretionary incomes to choose one brand over another?

It would seem that the answer is yes, when those gimmicks target those emotional triggers related to being a leader, keeping up with (or staying ahead of) the Joneses, and so on.  Most of these gimmicks are fairly short-lived though, and brand managers have to come up with new ones fairly frequently to keep the attention and interest of the luxury brand consumer.  It’s an interesting difference from non-luxury branding.

What do you think?  Do gimmicks truly work in luxury branding or have they become laughable to not just the masses but also the target audience they’re trying to appeal to? Leave a comment and share your opinion.

Brand Messages Affect Just 1 in 10 Purchase Decisions

laptop_web_searchA new study from Alterian (via eMarketer) reveals some statistics that are actually not all that surprising if you’ve been following my posts here on Corporate Eye for the last year or so.

According to the survey, only 1% of respondents (made up of Internet users from the United States and the United Kingdom) never compare products and services before making a purchase.  The results of the survey were as follows:

  • 51% always compare products and services before making a purchase
  • 44% sometimes compare products and services before making a purchase
  • 4% rarely compare products and services before making a purchase
  • 1% never compare products and services before making a purchase.

And of those people surveyed, 71% said they look for as many sources to find information as possible to ensure the information they find is accurate.

However, the above findings are not the most interesting from the Alterian study.  The far more interesting information comes from responses to who respondents are most likely to trust for advice when researching a product or service.  In answer to that question, only 13% said they trusted what a company says about itself or advertising or promotional features.  The results of the survey were as follows:

  • 40% trust friends and family
  • 28% trust professional reviews on Web sites, newspapers or magazines
  • 19% trust reviews from people “like you” on Web sites
  • 8% trust what the company says about itself
  • 5% trust advertising or promotional features

This is not the first time these type of research revealed similar findings.  Back in 2007, I remember writing a piece about research conducted at that time that showed consumers trusted advertisers and companies less than they trusted friends, family members, and even complete strangers who wrote about products and services online.

In other words, the findings from this survey are not new, but they certainly do add to the growing pile of evidence that supports shifting marketing budgetary investments away from traditional advertising and toward new media conversations.

What do you think?  Has your company made the budget shift to actually gain favor with consumers where their eyes, ears and trust are?

Image: stock.xchng

Be Careful with Blog Outsourcing

 

320px-Smiley-sceptic.svg

I recently had some dealings with a company that sells business websites and blogging services.  An established company with a reasonable client list—so I was surprised by the fact that their plan doesn’t seem all that excellent.

Situation: The provider company needed some guest posts in order to fill the pipeline for a client blog.  The client (a mid-sized company, not a start-up) is in a technical field that requires some moderately specialized knowledge on the part of the bloggers.  I happen to know something about the field, so they asked me to suggest four topics to write about.

Here’s the first catch.  They didn’t tell me the name of the client company, just the topic areas.  I sent along four pretty good ideas, which they professed to love.  Apparently, however, they did not notice (or did not know) that one of my proposed topics concerned a product that belongs to a direct competitor of their client company.  So they okayed a topic that would have been quite a poor choice for the blog.

Second catch.  I was told to leave my posts in a queue, and the blog editor would provide images.  Which turned out to be true–but not exactly in a good way!  Most of the posts had small, rather outdated-looking stock photos.  And some of the posts had the same photo.

Third catch.  Most of the stories had a generic by-line.  I.e., “Posted by the [Client Name] Team.”  I’m personally okay with being anonymous, but it’s hard for a blog to establish credibility if it looks like a string of unowned news bytes.

During my brief involvement, I received no communication at all from the editor–and if there was a plan or philosophy for the blog it certainly wasn’t apparent to me.  Here’s the final catch, though.  They paid in the top tier of market rates, at least for my contributions.  Which probably means they are charging the client somewhere near top rates.  And the product they are providing seems . . . well, not “top” quality.  Or at least not so far.

Takeaway: There may be some very good reasons to outsource a business blog, especially when the goal is to provide industry-level content rather than company-specific content.  “Inside Acme Widgets” should be written by Acme insiders, but “All About Widgets” or “Widgetmania” might be done as well or better by professional bloggers.  Outsourcing is not the same as offloading, however!  Give the vending company detailed directions and monitor their work carefully if you want to end up with a good blog.

 

(Thanks to ArséniureDeGallium for the delightfully “skeptical” smiley.)