“Branding for Digital Media” GCI: Beauty industry need not to be afraid of beta culture

GCI is one of my industry references. Yesterday I had a chance to read the Branding for Digital Media article by Aniko Hill. I was really excited to see the topic being reviewed in more depth and Aniko provided some very good points and tips for successful digital marketing. However, after reading it a few times, I was very worried that this February feature may give the industry the wrong impression about social media & marketing. I’ve been in the beauty and digital industries for many years and I do my fair share of reading and writing but I was extremely surprised about some of the points raised in the article.

"Tropicana’s rebrand, spearheaded by ad giant Arnell Group (which also did Pepsi’s recent face-lift), had all the pieces in place for success. Most projects that come out of reputable agencies for large clients have comprehensive strategy, a long design process and thorough focus group testing before the product hits the shelf."

 

Tropicana example was used in a way that makes social media the culprit and Arnell the victim. Ad giants make mistakes and are perhaps one of the most alienated from the changes and benefits brought by social media. Furthermore, according to a post by Jym Edwards on bnet.com, this was the third flop by the uber agency, not to mention that the Pepsi redesign received its own fare share of criticism. Perhaps, their biggest mistake was relying so much on their expertise and traditional way of doing things and not using enough social media tools to test their new packaging concept. Many companies are embracing mass collaboration/crowd sourcing in their product development processes and package testing is one of the easiest applications of this concept (check Jovoto, a platform that allows people to submit, review, rate and vote on creative projects). 

 

"Unless you have a solid understanding of the art of branding, you can unwittingly damage your brand very quickly without even knowing it."

 

It is not so definite like that. According to Jeff Jarvis, an industry expert, we live in a constant state of beta and "there is no such a thing as perfection". Social media tools allows us to try new things and update them as we learn and improve. In my opinion, as long as there is transparency and honestly, online audiences are much more forgiving than the boardroom.

 

"Digital marketing is still a very new discipline, and navigating this world can be overwhelming for brand owners."

 

Digital marketing is not at all new. I built the first Hispanic minisites for Redken, L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline and Lancome back in 1999. The problem is that most digital departments have spent the last few years managing complex website platforms and failed to keep up with the arrival of Web 2.0. Yes, navigating the new social media world can be overwhelming, but companies need to realize by now that things have changed and the social web is here to stay. For example, a handful of the most valuable brands today were built without the uber agencies and are pure online players: Amazon, Google, and Zappos to name a few. So how is this so new? 

Our industry relies a lot on traditional agency approaches to communication. When the popular Super Bowl ads (Doritos and Google), are not produced by any large agency, but by new processes like crowdsourcing it is clear that the traditional agencies need to review their approaches in a rapidly changing communication environment. Holding traditional branding in such high regard may leave the industry with the same challenges faced by large agencies.

 

If all larger cosmetics brands fail to step in, experiment and learn the new rules of the game, there are lots of smaller and mid-size brands who will do. Check a few examples of successful social media strategies on low budgets: askelf.com, purplelabnyc.com, orglamix.com. At this point, fear of the new environment and lack of speed is our biggest obstacle.