July 2020 - Savvy Creations

Let’s be honest, we’re all human and we’ve all made mistakes. Some are the big type, some are the small type and some are the “I forgot my lip balm today” type. They can conjure feelings of guilt, embarrassment and can tinge your cheeks an unflattering shade of red. Yet, these mistakes usually pave the way for us to learn and move on.

Unfortunately, if you’re standing at the helm of a business, any mistakes that are made are a little harder to face internally and to gracefully leave behind you. This is because your mistakes are publicly scrutinised online through the accessible medium of negative reviews.

Though we wish everyone could forgive, forget and leave a review on our Facebook page praising our efforts, the reality is that sometimes we make mistakes and people will speak out about them. A negative review is far from ideal, in fact one negative review is shown to drive away 22% of prospective customers. However, the way in which you manage and respond to this review can significantly improve the perception of your business.

Respond quickly:

If you see a negative review, you should respond promptly. Leaving it is like leaving a parasite and allowing it to infect the reputation of your business. Some businesses choose to reach out privately to negative comments (through social media direct messages) to provide a more personalised, in-depth response. However, a prompt public reply should also be provided acknowledging the mistake and outlining what is being done in response. This ensures other readers know you are taking positive action and are responsive to all feedback.

Responding with haste will narrow the window of opportunity for individuals to view the negative comment in its isolated form and improve your chances of gaining new customers. Ideally, no one will see the negative comment without your empathetic, apologetic response tethered to it.

Don’t Delete:

It may be tempting to delete the unflattering or incriminatory words of a disgruntled customer, but this will do more damage to your reputation. You may gain new customers through the absence of the negative review, but you’ve lost a customer and any future customers they could have referred to you. By deleting their comment that they took the time to leave, you are communicating that their feedback is not valued and that you don’t intend to improve on whatever they found dissatisfying. If you delete it, you are simply adding fuel to the fire.

In the unusual circumstance of inaccurate reviews (pertaining to products or services you do not provide) or that resemble a misleading or fake review (made by competition, a former employee or someone who has never been an actual customer), these reviews can and should be removed.

Empathise:

Often, you won’t agree with a review or perhaps what went wrong was completely out of your control. For example, when there are shortages of a certain product in a clothing store due to a sudden spike in demand, this is not exactly an avoidable situation. However, it is important to try and understand why the customer has posted what they did and how they might be feeling.

Imagine if someone had been saving up to buy an item of clothing and comes in-store to buy it only to find there are none in their size. Now, imagine that due to the upcoming line of clothing this item would no longer be in production. Understandably, they are disappointed. You may want to frantically explain the facts of the situation to justify the circumstances, but it is far more important to understand the customer’s feelings and show you care. You can explain without disregarding their experience, making excuses, or avoiding responsibility. This is far more likely to achieve a successful outcome.

Be Polite and Professional:

What’s worse than a negative review? A negative review accompanied by a rude, dismissive response. This is a recipe for a tarnished reputation.

It is imperative to remain polite and professional when addressing customers, but especially when responding to a customer who is unhappy with your product or service. This is your opportunity to make amends and prove your quality as a business and therefore, this should never involve insults, slander or flippancy.

A professional format for your response could look like:

Introduce yourself/greet them.
Thank them for their feedback.
Apologise for the negative experience they had.
Explain if there had been a misunderstanding (do not avoid responsibility)
Outline what their concerns are and (if possible) how your business will change/avoid future occurrences like this.

Learn:

As mentioned above, there are ‘mistakes’ that are beyond your control. If a negative review brings to your attention an area of your business that could be improved (through employee development, improving phone/website service, technological developments, altering prices etc.) this feedback could be invaluable to the progression of your business. View negative comments as opportunities to learn, grow and gain insights that ensure future reviews are positive.

I’m sure you’ve heard how important branding is for a business. It is hailed as the make or break of a business which has the potential to grant you longevity in your industry or leave you trailing in the wake of your competitors.

But what does effective branding look like?

When first hearing this question, it seems almost insurmountable. There is too much that goes into successful branding to summarise and convey it all in one coherent answer. But I’ve since come to the realisation that to understand effective branding, it’s better to show rather than tell…

…And what better way to show this than through a little company called Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola was founded in 1892 and from the get-go they firmly established brand values tethered to instilling happiness and community among consumers. From this point, Coca-Cola built an empire that continues to thrive over 100 years later all due to their consistent and effective branding paired with the company’s adaptable relevancy.

With that being said, let’s take a deeper dive in to how Coca-Cola’s branding made it one of the most iconic, successful and recognisable brands in history and answer the question on everyone’s lips: what does effective branding look like?

Brand Voice

Coca-Cola has an unshakable brand voice that has stood the test of time. A brand voice encompasses the words and language you choose working in tandem with selected images and other visuals which produce a brand personality. The brand personality is infused into the core of what your business projects to consumers. It makes your brand identifiable.

Coca-Cola’s brand voice is achieved as they approach all of their marketing material with the goal of projecting a persona that is positive and down-to-earth.

Their language they use can be classified broadly as light, kind and joyous, as if a friend is talking to you.

Their imagery varies greatly in terms of the subject matter, but the mood presented is always similar whether it’s celebratory, exciting, cheeky, youthful and/or fun.

They are true to their brand identity in all of their marketing content as in some shape or form they are always showing the happiness found in life.

Brand Slogan

Coca-Cola uses their slogans to leave the main message of the brand in the consumers mind. The slogans are typically used in marketing content to reinforce this core idea over and over again of what the brand is all about.

Coca-Cola has gone through an array of slogans (understandably, I might add, due to their long life as a company). Some examples include:

o Coca-Cola… Makes Good Things Taste Better

o Have a Coke and a Smile

o You Can’t Beat the Feeling

o Official Soft Drink of Summer

o Open Happiness

A common thread amongst all these slogans is that the company isn’t talking about the product, they are focused on the feeling the product evokes in people. It plays up the benefits of the product, not the features.

Coke also uses these slogans to evoke a positive feeling about the brand—associating joy, holidays, smiling and general happiness with their product.

Brand Story

Storytelling has always been a way for humans to connect. If a brand has a good story, a narrative that audiences can connect to, people are more likely to engage with their products. Coca-Cola has built a cohesive narrative for themselves which runs through most of their advertising and continues to draw people in. Coke is always presented as something that unites people,

encourages sharing and brings about joy (rather than just being a delicious fizzy drink). This is their story.

The Senior Manager of the marketing team at Coca-Cola has explained that there are four archetypes that they use to build this narrative where Coke is either the object of desire, embodiment of an attitude, social connector or functional offering/benefit.

No matter the means through which they go about telling this story and the specific role Coke plays in it, the overarching narrative about what Coke delivers is consistent. With consistency, over time this narrative becomes intrinsically known by the audience, whether they realise it or not.

Brand Associations

I can say with an unwavering sense of confidence that whoever is reading this blog right now can picture the Coca-Cola logo clearly in their mind. The reason this visual is able to be conjured so easily for us is because the company has been consistent and repetitive. The logo featuring distinct cursive writing and the colours red, white and black used in all of their marketing content is so strongly associated with the company and brand that it eventually reached a point of global recognisability. Even slogans that Coca-Cola has used tend to stick around for a couple years and become associated with the brand and company identity. In 2009 “Open Happiness” became the official slogan for the company and remained this for seven years. The phrase became uniquely linked to their brand and helped with recognisability to the point that anytime anyone says this phrase, Coca-Cola will spring to mind.

Though effective branding is clearly dependent on finding and sticking to your business’s message, values, look and voice, it is vital not to get too rigid in the everchanging world around you. You must remain relevant.

Coca-Cola has maintained a consistent brand identity but has adapted over the course of its 128 years. They have remained topical and used popular culture to their advantage time and time again. For example, the Open Happiness slogan stemmed from a time of great economic recession whereby the brand remained consistent to their identity but moulded it around a global issue. Additionally, due to climate change and environmental activism reaching new heights, Coca-Cola broadened their values (and thus, brand identity) by placing an emphasis on sustainability and recycling.

Hopefully, that helped answer the question: what does effective branding look like?

Turning a Negative into a Positive: How to Handle Negative Reviews

Effective Branding: A Case Study of Coca-Cola