The Local Brands Are Doing It, But Are They Doing It Right?

Digital is inescapable; it’s either you jump into the bandwagon or you lag behind the competition. Unfortunately, only a very few of the local brands have a digital presence. If they do, these are purely concentrated on the social media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. There is nothing completely wrong with this. In fact, it is commendable on a country where the nationals spend more than 53 hours per week socializing on these platforms.

For emphasis, did you know that about 63% of all Filipinos think more positively about a brand with profiles on social networking sites? Filipinos join brand communities for three main purposes namely 1) learning more about a particular brand (92%), 2) getting advance news about the brand and its products or services (88%), and 3) sharing brand appreciation with other people (85%).

Let’s trace experiences in relation to local brands’ effort to implement a digital marketing strategy.

 

Disclaimer

The following accounts is the first-hand experience of the writer. It doesn’t, in anyhow, attempt to mud-sling any of the mentioned brands; it is not the goal. Rather, the goal is to determine how the local brands, through these examples, are mapping out their digital strategies.

 

The oh so good experience

Such experience came as a surprise. Presumably, all KFC branches have announcements regarding the survey at the counters. You may not notice the announcements at first although discerning consumers will surely regard them. The uninitiated may only pay attention upon looking at the receipt. Here’s an example:

 

Hitting two birds with one stone

The KFC survey is very applaudable because of the double win. First, it gets people to share their experiences online 3 days after the purchase in exchange of a free gift. Second, the people can only get their hands on the free gift if they make another purchase and it is only valid for 14 days.

[Based on the receipt, it is valid for 14 days from the date of visit although it didn't include any information whether from the date of the visit on the store or from the date of the visit on the site. There might be a bit of confusion here, and a first concern for me.]

Another concern

Upon presenting the receipt with the validation code, the cashier just looked at it, get the free gift, which is a brownie, by the way, and handed back the receipt and the gift. While a free KFC brownie is always appreciated, there is no sort of validation on the part of KFC.

 

Anyone may write a five-digit validation code so they can get their hands on the freebie. The cashier didn’t even write the validation code on a logbook the way they would do when a consumer buys with a discount card (i.e. senior citizen’s ID).

What if 20 KFC patrons presented an accomplished receipt? That means 20 brownies less the inventory, and the staff will be questioned for the missing items. No, you cannot just say 20 people walked in and presented their receipts. Where’s the proof? Where’s the documentation? That’s the loophole.

Yet another concern

Another thing, in the Facebook announcement, again, while freebies are always welcome, there is no brownie in the picture. Yes, that’s a minor concern, but this is another loophole – the lack of synergy.

For someone who already saw the survey announcement on Facebook, he or she would know what to expect when he or she goes to the store to redeem the free gift.

There is a complaint on Facebook. Here’s a screenshot.

To be fair, we didn’t experience such a problem when inputting the unique survey ID on the field. It would feel really good if KFC will address the issue immediately.

Side note: KFC is on Facebook since 2010. KFC updates its page at least once every day.

 

The forg-otto-ble experience

Moving forward, this experience also came as a surprise, but not necessarily in a good way. The order was made on September 20th. Here’s the screenshot.

Because there is no email received from Otto regarding whether the orders are ready for pickup or not, we decided to drop by at the nearest store, the pickup location. It was already September 25th.

Long story short, upon presenting the printed order receipt, the staff got confused. They thought we are just confirming if the items are available so we can make a purchase if these are available. They got more confused and suspicious when we told them that the items are already paid online through their website.

One of the staffs quipped, “Ano’ng website? (What website?)” We did what every good digital native would do – inform them that yes, Otto has a website and you can order items through the site and choose the pickup store option to pick up the purchased items on the chosen branch.

So, the Store Manager, we supposed, called another branch and ask how they should proceed because it was the first time that they’ve encountered a customer who purchased items online. When the Store Manager got back to us, she said that the person she talked to has never encountered an online purchase as well. Uh-oh.

My concern

It’s not the fault of the staff. They shouldn’t be blamed because they shouldn’t be blamed. They are not even aware that their company has a [or had (re)launched its; not sure about this] website.

Don’t get me wrong because the staffs are so accommodating and friendly while on the store and thereafter. The Store Manager sent me an SMS after 3 days that the items are ready for pickup. We had to replace one item and the Store Manager guided us on how to return the item.

For Otto, the only question is if you can invest to rebrand, paying Coco Martin as your endorser, how much would it cost to invest in your people? An email will do, telling your people that ‘Hey, we have a new website. Do check it out!’

Evidently, onboarding is not in Otto’s vocabulary. The staffs at the Antipolo store are so amazing so, don’t make them look stupid (apologies for the lack of a more appropriate term) in the eyes of your customers.

Side note: Otto is on Facebook since 2014. Otto updates its page at least once a day.

 

The key takeaways

1) Synergy

When tying traditional with digital, make sure that all the aspects are the same. It is part of branding that is ingrained to the very purpose of going online. As such, anything you post on your Facebook page establishes expectations that form the reasons why people choose to buy from you and not from your rivals.

When you deviate from those expectations, it may backfire. And the emotional connection established initially will dwindle. A lack of synergy may not necessarily lead to losing that customer’s loyalty. However, this is a possibility especially with the gradual emotional disconnection.

Keep on forming expectations and deviating from those and you will realize the eventual disconnection and thus the loss of loyalty.

2) Onboarding

In light of digitalization, getting the people on the same page is critical. Organizational members can only be effective when they understand what’s going on particularly on the processes.

Digitalization comes with new roles and responsibilities. Each of your employees needs to learn their new roles to be efficient. Without role clarification, they will feel incapable of performing their new responsibilities.

These are just the author’s experiences and two cents.

 

Source: ThinkItCreative | GMA Network