• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, May 2, 2008

Advertising and promotions, whether in traditional media or online, play only relatively small roles in driving consumers to post content about products and services.

This is the somewhat humbling reality, according to survey data from Nielsen CGM/Homescan Buzzfacts. Asked what motivates them to post such content on a Web site, blog or message board, just 18% cited seeing a promotion for the product, 12% cited seeing an ad on TV or in print, and 7% cited seeing an ad or video clip on the Internet.

So what is driving product/service consumer-generated media/CGM? In two words, "product experience."

Over half (55%) of consumers said they posted because they had used and liked a product; 28% because they'd used a product and didn't like it, or wanted a refund; and 27% said they'd read a comment about a product on a site, blog or message board and responded to it.

Critically, "product experience" includes both the quality of the product and the quality of customer service, stresses Pete Blackshaw, EVP of Nielsen Online's just-launched Digital Strategic Services (DSS) group. Blackshaw kicked off Thursday's official division launch by co-moderating a Webinar on building brand advocacy through CGM.

"It's vital that agencies and marketers understand that when you put all the data in a blender, the root causes behind why consumers talk are product quality and process issues," Blackshaw said in an interview with Marketing Daily. "Advertising and marketing generate a certain amount of word of mouth, but by and large, brand reputation rises and falls based on the quality of the product and the service wrapped around it."

Marketers, he says, tend to "over-romanticize" the power of tactics like "sensational viral campaigns." Such campaigns, he maintains, do not necessarily create enduring, positive consumer brand perceptions, and they can also pose a risk.

"If you screw them up, you'll be punished through search," Blackshaw says, adding that brand/corporate faux pas of any kind--including contradictory statements from management--will also result in postings that pop up in searches not only by consumers, but the media and investors.

Given the "exploding referral spectrum" created by the constantly increasing number of social media/sharing applications on the Web--and the basically permanent "digital trail" left by positive and negative CGM-search and brand reputation are now symbiotic, he stresses. In fact, increasingly, CGM is being recognized as having the power to impact customer profitability and even brand/company value. "Brand perception is starting to leak into brand equity," Blackshaw says. "Consumer satisfaction is no longer enough. Advocacy is the key."

Blackshaw and DSS contend that everyone from top management to marketing/advertising, public relations, customer service, HR, public affairs and legal needs to be looped into the social media "listening pipeline." The reason: CGM is now vitally important to improving customer service, enabling quick response (including alteration of products) to customer feedback/complaints, identifying needs that present new-product opportunities, gathering competitive intelligence, and making C-level decisions on investments and even core business objectives.

Enter social media monitoring--one aspect of the services that DSS will be providing, along with analysis and consulting in developing corporate-wide strategic plans to manage brands' online reputations. A core focus will be the Nielsen Online "Brand Advocacy Quotient," or BAQ score, arrived at by combining CGM-, site- and survey-based data and using the Nielsen Online MegaPanel to determine the extent to which consumers are promoting or eroding a brand.

As always, some companies are already in front of the curve when it comes to integrating CGM/social media and using it for direction in marketing, product development and other areas. Wal-Mart, for example, is tying together community elements on its site (such as a customer reviews/ratings area) and in-store, as well as leveraging synergies created through traditional media exposure and the many social-networking channels now offered by those media.

What are the keys to effectively leveraging CGM to build brand advocacy? In a nutshell--trust, authenticity, transparency, affirmation, listening and responsiveness, according to Blackshaw.

Learning how to achieve and maintain those in today's tricky, consumer-controlled world should keep consumer product marketers busy for some years to come. But companies that are ahead of the curve are already reaping dividends, according to Jeff Zabin, research fellow at the Aberdeen Group, who presented results of new research on companies' use of social media monitoring and analysis during the Webinar.

Turns out that 84% of companies that are "best in class" at these capabilities and integrating them into decision-making and operations reported year-over-year improvement in customer retention rates (versus 20% of "laggards"). They also achieved similar advantages in improving return on media investment, ability to predict consumer behavior, and timeliness of marketing decisions.