I often think about social responsibility and how brands can stand out these days. I firmly believe that instead of governments, the private sector should be the main driver of social change (a combination of doing good and doing well). Social media enables people to share their opinions and advocate. Brands are trying to figure out how to use social media in order to create meaningful conversations. These conversations will be created, shared and multiplied if they are rooted in causes that are relevant and dear to their fans/advocates (shall we no longer call them customers or consumers?). 

So I was very glad that at the recent WWD CEO Summit (May 2010) there was a panel discussion about digital marketing that brought up the concept of relevancy to our industry. Panelists included B. Bonin Bough, global director of digital and social media at PepsiCo; Jory des Jardins, president, strategic alliances, and co-founder of BlogHer Inc.; Kevin Kells, national industry director of consumer packaged goods at Google Inc., and Fred Mossler of Zappos.com. 

The highlight, in my opinion, was introducing the audience to PepsiCo’s Refresh project, which is giving away $20 million to sponsor community projects driven by individuals, not organizations. PepsiCo reallocated budget from its Superbowl opening ad position into this effort in order to build relevance in the eyes of the consumer while promoting the health of its brand.

Here are some interesting quotes from WWD article Digital Directive that covered the panel, June 06/11/10: "Bough (from PepsiCo) observed, “When people are having conversations about our brand online, are they mentioning these attributes — a brand that I can’t live without, a brand that I know supports my passions?”He continued, “What it was really about was, can the brand stand for something, can we remind people that a soda can make a difference and, even more, that your choice makes a difference? Kells of Google added, “Relevancy is tied to effectiveness. That’s where I think in the next decade, the conversation has to switch.” He added that the industry has been too hung up on efficiency. The best way to grow the top line, he asserted, “is to be more effective. The way to do that is to be more relevant at the right moment for the right outcome.”

Brands like MAC have connected and created relevance through many ways and specially with Viva Glam. Most of the other beauty companies support breast cancer. However our beauty fans/advocates are dealing with a wide variety of interests, needs and wants, that brands could tap into to connect and create relevance. Why don’t you ask them what they care about before your next campaign?

Credits: Photo by Harvey Bilt, WWD.com

Insight by Andrea 

Temptalia, part of Glam.com features amazing sneak previews and cosmetics reviews with a strong focus on M.A.C. Interestingly, it divides the content between M.A.C and non-M.A.C products. Founded by a 22 year-old student from San Francisco, Temptalia has a strong following with posts receiving hundreds of comments.  It has over 4700 followers on Twitter, having more than quadrupled its number of followers since January 2009 according to Twitterholics.com.

Check out the latest review for MAC Love that Look Collection for Fall 2009. Posted on 5/31and already received 202 comments. The post is pretty much pictures of the line with a brief description of the shades. Great shades by the way!