Community Guy – Jake McKee

Creating your own posse

A couple years back I was quoted in the book Primal Branding about my work with LEGO. Since reading the book, I’ve been fascinated with the concept that “every brand is a belief system”. I certainly felt that way about the work and product at LEGO, but I’ve wondered what happens when someone says “what about our toilet paper brand?”

One of my new blog finds, Wendistry reminded me of the core tenets of the Primal Branding concept, and I love the way she’s encapsulated the ideas.

CREED. Once we know where you’re from, we want to know what you’re about. Are you a good guy, or a bad guy? If you believe in capitalism, world peace, free markets, life after death, or Just Do It®, the consumers’ brain then compartmentalizes and categories you in a way where they know what to think about you. The creed is not your lengthy corporate mission statement. It’s what you want people to take away and associate with you in an instant.

ICONS. The Sydney opera house. The Statue of Liberty. The Eiffel Tower. The Forbidden City. All of these icons identify the civic communities in which they stand. Brand communities have icons, too. The swoosh. The polo player. The Coke bottle silhouette. The iPod. The Rolex. The Hummer. Icons establish a visual tag that extends beyond the song catalog, and helps members of the community identify one another. Think memes (”Stand Up & Stand Out” ppt; Slide 4)

RITUAL. Communities have things they like to do together. Run marathons. Chat over coffee. Beer fests. Knitting circles. Spring rites. Rituals are the patterns of our lives; the web of daily activities that bind communities together.

SACRED WORDS. Every group has a specialized vocabulary that identifies those who belong within the community and those who do not. Whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, computer geek, football fan, music freak, patriot, marketing director, or bricklayer, to belong to that community you have to know the words. In fact, how well you know the language establishes where you fit in the community hierarchy.

NONBELIEVERS. For every trend there is a countertrend. Hawks and doves. Guzzlers and Green. The sacred and the profane. Target marketing helps us narrowcast who our customers are, but there are always those people who do not want to be one of us; instead they’d rather be one of them… gotta love ‘em. There is pain in realizing some people do not want to be just like us, but there is also great opportunity: if we can identify a group of people who do not want sugar in their diet, we can create sugar-free. If we single out a group who does not want caffeine, we can invent decaf.

THE LEADER. This is the individual who set out against all odds and the world at large to recreate the world according to their own point of view. These are the Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Bransons, Oprah Winfreys and other front cover personalities at the macro level. They are the “Brand Setters.”

How to talk about your competitors

Josh started an interesting discussion in the beginning of April that I’ve been meaning to respond to. Basically he asks “Should you talk about your competitors?”

Here’s my problem. One of the other sacred tenets we’re supposed to uphold in the groundswell is to “be authentic.” I strongly agree with this – pretending to be something that you’re not is a big mistake, because you will be found out, and there will be a backlash. But what if you authentically believe your company’s products are the best? Shouldn’t you say so? Why give props to the other guys?

I think the question is the wrong one to raise. The question isn’t about whether or not to talk about your competitors any more than there’s a burning need to succinctly answer, once and for all, “What’s the perfect time of year to launch a new product?

The real question here goes back to one of building your persona as an employee and a communicator. It is about being authentic – not just in one conversation, but all day, every day in every conversation. When you become known for someone willing to be a straight shooter, both about your own company, your competition, and more importantly your own personal opinions, then you answer the question by default

When I was at LEGO, MegaBloks was our biggest (and main) competition in the building blocks market. People who knew me knew that I loved the LEGO product. They knew that I was honestly interested in seeing the business and the customers do good stuff. They knew what I liked and didn’t like about my own company. So when someone would ask my opinion on whatever Mega was doing that quarter, I could shrug, smile, and say “They have an interesting concept, although I don’t think it’s very well executed” and actually come off as… wait for it.. authentic. The latest Apple commercials (with PC and Mac) showcase this dichotomy brilliantly – they’re not mean to/about the PC, in fact they go out of the way to showcase a seemingly genuine friendship between the two. Yet, the message is clear: Apple is better.

Being authentic isn’t just “pretending to be something you’re not”, as Josh puts it. It’s about sharing who you are, what you think, and what you’re interested in enough that people actually believe what you say because they’ve seen you say it before in a way that they can’t help but believe. Giving props to the other guys (when and if they’ve earned them) helps show that authenticity

There is also a cultural element at play here as well. Find a way to help support the culture within your community such that the existence of the competition not only seems silly to existing customers, it annoys them to the point of wanting to change the purchase behavior of those around them. I’ve always thought that one of my biggest failings at LEGO was that I didn’t do enough to encourage the natural LEGO enthusiast’s desire to remain a “purist” (someone who only builds with LEGO brand elements, no clones). The company largely frowned on any sort of vocal negativity regarding the competition, and instead of keeping us above boards in the marketplace it instead gave the competition room to grow. When I didn’t make it clear that I thought LEGO had a significantly better product than the rest of the market and that being a purist was important, the community subconsciously took that as a sign that purity wasn’t that important

In the end, this question being disgust isn’t removable for the larger context of the business at hand. That said, the answer to the question is simple: Talk about the things that are relevant to the conversation, regardless of whether they’re completely comfortable.

OCRN: Community Netiquette: How to Avoid Stepping on Virtual Toes

The firehose of OCRN content has been turned on! The next whitepaper is has been posted, and this one is entitled: Community Netiquette: How to Avoid Stepping on Virtual Toes.

Most of us know that in the typical online community, it’s not kosher to post blatant marketing materials. But when confronted by other more nuanced issues, such as how to introduce ourselves (or our company) to a community, or how to react to someone calling us names, things get a little murkier. This guide shares some of the basics of conducting yourself properly when engaging on behalf of an organization within the existing Social Web, with tools and communities your company has created and especially with those it hasn’t.

Contact me if you’re interested in joining the network and I’ll get you introduce.