Tag Archives: Kansas City

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Boulevard Brewing Company: A Social Media Case Study in Leadership, Transparency and Doing the Right Thing

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Thumbs Up

 

On February 23rd, I attended a great social media networking event hosted by Ben Smith and Social: IRL.  The Taste, Tweet, Meet With Boulevard Brewing Company event was exceptional.  

But, it wasn't for the usual reasons that I found this event so enjoyable (i.e., the personal camaraderie of social networking connections in Kansas City, the privilege of personally meeting these wonderful people sometimes for the first time, etc.).

Julie Weeks, Marketing Communications Manager for Boulevard Brewing Company, gave a fantastic presentation on the social media strategy and community building efforts of Boulevard Brewing Company.  

Her talk focused on the social media phenomenon around Boulevard's Chocolate Ale. Here's her presentation with a hat tip to Eric Melin and the Spiral16 Blog:

 

Boulevard Brewing Co. Social Media – The Tale of the Ale

View more PowerPoint from Spiral16

 

Leadership Lesson #1: Be Transparent and Directly Address Difficult Questions

Julie directly addressed the recent product recall of Boulevard's Chocoloate Ale.  She had the courage and guts to: 

  • Explain how the company discovered the problem
  • Share how they're working to solve it
  • Discuss how she's continuously informing Boulevard's customers / fans about this ongoing process

She openly fielded numerous questions.  Plus, she patiently spoke with individual attendees about specific questions after concluding her presentation.  I was one of those folks (more on that later). 

Julie openly sharing this presentation and Boulevard's ongoing efforts in addressing the Chocolate Ale product recall demonstrates:

  • "We've got nothing to hide"
  • "We're working hard to address the problem"
  • "We will keep you informed"
  • "We're listening, We're listening, We're listening"
  • "We made a mistake.  Please accept our apology."

And, speaking of an apology …

Leadership Lesson #2: When You Say You're Sorry, Mean It 

Don't Cram Rehearsed Corporate Management-Speak / Public Relations-Speak Down Our Throats.  Julie's presentation included the following YouTube video with John McDonald, Founder and President of Boulevard Brewing Company, and Steven Pauwels, Boulevard's Head Brewmaster:



 

Why This Apology Is Genuine.  Why It Is Human.  I asked Julie whose idea was it to produce and publish this video on the Internet.  She said it was hers.  And, she convinced Boulevard's top two leaders of immediately and publicly addressing this communications crisis.

"Speak From Your Hearts."  The reason why this video resonates with me and Boulevard's many fans is because it's genuine.  Julie told me McDonald and Pauwels did this video without a script. 

Her only instruction: "I need you guys to speak from your hearts."

If Boulevard's fans and consumers don't consider this video a genuine and heartfelt apology (and it comes from the firm's highest leadership), I don't know what is.

Every Fortune 500 CEO in America could learn from McDonald's and Pauwels' plain-spoken example to inform its consumers of bad news (and the subsequent actions to make things right).

Otherwise, not only do you lose consumer trust, but also the CEO may find himself / herself pushed out.  Just ask Richard Weldon — now the former CEO of Johnson & Johnson.  Due to multiple product recalls at Johnson & Johnson, Mr. Weldon is stepping down as CEO in Aprl 2012.  

Weldon talked about Johnson & Johnson's apology and how it was working to regain consumer trust in May 2011 during an interview with Geoff Colvin, Senior Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine.  Unfortunately, repeated and multiple product recalls over a two-year period upended Mr. Weldon's otherwise outstanding career (he was regarded as one of the most respected leaders in the pharmaceutical industry before these product recalls):



 


Closing Thoughts

Pride In Your Organization.  Pride in Your Products.  Pride in Your Community. Boulevard Brewing Company is a Kansas City Community Crown Jewel.  And, I'm proud to not only be a HUGE FAN of their beers but I'm also a HUGE FAN of Julie Weeks and Boulevard's leadership because of their actions.

(In the company's Chocolate Ale Refund Announcement, Boulevard states the following in the first sentence)  "At Boulevard Brewing Company, we pride ourselves on our attention to detail."

(Around time stamp :25 of the YouTube Chocolate Ale Announcement from John McDonald) "We're a proud brewery and we want to do the right thing …"

A Vital Kansas City Civic Principle.  Boulevard Brewing Company embodies a vital Kansas City civic principle:  Kansas City is a proud community built and driven by the resourceful and creative entrepreneurial spirit of people like the John McDonalds, the Henry Blochs, the Ewing Kauffmans, and the J.C. Halls:



 

And, that entrepreneurial spirit continues to thrive because of the leadership of people like John McDonald, Steven Pauwels, and Julie Weeks.

Hang In There Julie!  As I conclude this post, I know Julie Weeks is working today, tomorrow, and how ever long it will take to address the Chocolate Ale situation.  She takes TREMENDOUS PRIDE as Boulevard's online ambassador.

Julie, if you see / read / monitor anything remotely negative about Boulevard Brewing Company, please remember these four (4) things:

  1. Your social media friends and colleagues are rooting for you
  2. You're doing a fantastic job as Boulevard's Online Ambassador!
  3. Keep Doing What You're Doing
  4. Go back and read #1 – #3

 

Photo Credit by Sarah Reid via flickr

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5 Takeaways from Valeria Maltoni: Rethinking Business in the Age of the Social Consumer

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Number 5

Ben Smith, the leader of Social IRL, is one of the most valuable and generous members of the Kansas City Social Media Community.  His hard work and dedication delivers outstanding and valuable educational content via hosting social media conferences in our region.

Ben attracts and brings globally-recognized social media thought leaders to Kansas City (that's no understatement).  On February 9th, Social IRL hosted Valeria Maltoni, a foremost digital media authority and author of Conversation Agent (one of the the most consistently ranked top 30 global marketing blogs on the Ad Age Power 150).

Important Note: You can access my unformatted Google Docs notes from the February 9th Social IRL conference by clicking this weblink.   Please inform me in the comments or tweet me if you have access problems.

Here are my five (5) takeaways from Valeria's outstanding and thought-provoking presentation.

1. Understand and Determine the Organizational Focus 

Start With Your Organizational Focus.  You have to pick the organizational capability or competence that will drive and differentiate your company's brand and business outcomes:

  • Apple: Innovation
  • Virgin: People
  • Procter & Gamble: Research and Development 
  • Coca Cola: Distribution

Valeria demonstrated how organizational focus impacted each company's share price.  And, the data showed how executing that focus is linked to long-term financial performance.

2. Focus on Your Brand Promise

Valeria defines a brand as:


"The sum of promises, promises kept, and the unbounded expectations market."

Delivering and Executing the Brand Promise are Crucial.  Why?  The stock price represents public trust / confidence in your brand.  And, that public trust / public confidence determines the discount or premium to "trade" with individual consumers.  Higher consumer trust / confidence means a higher premium for your company's goods and services.

Or, it can reflect a lack of trust / confidence.  See the stock price performance of Yahoo, Microsoft, or Eastman Kodak.

3. Prioritize and Focus on the Differentiating Brand Asset(s) Driving Your Consumer Trades

Brand Assets are Your Unique Consumer Trade Currency. The digital age redefines the brand assets most valuable to individual consumers before, during, and after the point-of-sale.  The Internet's real-time speed coupled with one or more of following brand assets is a killer combination:

  • Reputation
  • Knowledge / Information / Data
  • Relationships
  • Influence

Ticketmaster Prioritized Knowledge / Information / Data.   Therefore, organizations need to pick the brand asset they will focus on for their unique trades with individual consumers.  For example, Ticketmaster focused on knowledge / information / data to better inform consumer decisions (i.e., local-centric information, fan reviews, personal buying history suggestions, etc.) by making that brand asset easy to share (i.e., Fan Reviews are easily shared with a single-click via Twitter or Facebook).

Financial Outcome:  Each "share of information" results in a $5 increase in incremental revenue.


4. The Unmet Social Media Opportunity: Empowering Individual Consumer Filters and Feedback Loops 

Consumer Filters, Feedback and Intent.  Valeria defines consumer intent as:

  1. Providing the right information at the right time when someone is making a decision (and that decision may or may not be a "buying decision")
  2. The consumer's perception of value inherent with the brand promise
  3. How the consumer defines the "wisdom of the trade" (i.e., was the time spent gathering information / data a worthwhile investment)

Therefore, influencing how the consumer defines the "wisdom of the trade" is vitally important.  This is why brands need to focus on consumer "filters" and "feedback loops":

Consumer Filters:

  • Culture
  • Language
  • Values
  • Beliefs
  • Attitudes
  • Expectations
  • Intentions

Consumer Feedback Loops:

  • Evidence
  • Relevance
  • Consequence
  • Action


5. Ford Motor Company Case Study in Leveraging Brand Assets, Filters and Feedback Loops 

The Ford Case Study.  Valeria believes brands need to do more in making individual consumers more influential.  We still don't do enough here.  

The process for making consumers more influential can be systematically achieved (e.g., there is a process):

* First, prioritize, and focus on the business problems most vital to your organization.  Example: When Scott Monty became head of social media for Ford Motor Company, he focused on corporate reputation.  This brand asset choice was particularly important when the entire auto industry came under fire for receiving government bail-outs.  

Ford leveraged social media to permeate the strategic position that it was the only domestic automaker who chose not to receive receive government financing.  

See this example of how Alan Mulally, CEO, positions Ford as different from other US automakers because Ford is "requesting access to bridge financing just in case something bad happens" versus "receiving direct government assistance."  (see 2:26 to the end of this video).



 

 

* Second, after addressing #1, pivot your social media marketing strategy to focus on consumer filters and feedback loops that can grow a product / service:

Increase the Influence and Reputation of Your Influencers (see 1:39 to 2:52 of this video describing Ford's succsssful Ford Fiesta Social Media Campaign):



 

* Third, continue actively demonstrating "we're listening, we're listening, we're listening."  Watch how Scott Monty and Alan Mulally work together in answering and responding to consumer tweets.  It's a brilliant public relations play:



 

 

Conclusion

Hear from Valeria Herself.  A HUGE shout-out to Eric Mellin and Robert Madison of Spiral16 for publishing and sharing this great interview with Valeria on the Spiral16 Blog.




 

 

Other great Social IRL presentation content included:

Ashley Mahoney's SocialIRL Recap.  Check out Ashley Mahoney's blog post, Social: IRL Conference in a Nutshell.  She does a great job summarizing key points from other presentations I didn't address in this post.

Important Note #2: My lack of notes during specific presentations wasn't due to a lack of interest (far from it).  During the conference, I received an important client email requiring immediate action (so I missed some of the presentations).

That meant piecemeal, back-of-the-room listening (i.e., Kevin Magee, Director of Sales at Expion, shared some great insights on the current / future implications of localizing and managing social media marketing efforts but I was unable to take detailed notes).

 

Link to Photo Credit by Paul Downey via flickr