Maybe it works, maybe it won't, but
that it becomes something that you know is reliable and works in always the same way.
Particularly, when there's a problem with the product,
which some people think really destroys your word-of-mouth marketing, but
it doesn't if you do it right.
If people find a fault in
the product or there's something that they don't like in well-organized word-of-mouth marketing,
you have this dialogue in which you can then solve a problem.
You can say to people, oh, it's not working for you?
Wow, that's interesting.
Tell us exactly how.
And focus their energy on the feedback rather than on going around and
telling everyone that the product isn't great, because people don't want to spread
as much negative word-of-mouth as marketers sometimes think.
There's this saying, people spread a good message to three people and
a bad one to ten.
Not quite true.
When people sign up for a project like that, when they apply
for the campaigns, people have to apply to our campaigns and are really motivated and
then they are somewhat disappointed with the product.
It's not that they're going to tell everyone, I was so excited and
now I'm sad.
They're going to come to us and talk to us about it and then we can say,
well, this is interesting feedback, the brand didn't know
this that people such as yourselves might have this problem with the product.
So, I think what we do has two specifics.
The first one is we have fine-tuned the mechanisms over a decade now and
we have such a heavy focus on the direct dialogue with people.
We don't just send things to people and hope for the best,
but we are in constant exchange with them and
I think those are the two elements that are most important for our work.
Yeah, but how does the process work?
When a company approaches you, so
you basically have a list of people belonging to a platform.
How does it work?
We have two fundamental approaches, either we use our own platforms.
We have TRND branded online communities,
where we have over 1.7 million members all across Europe or
we can integrate our technology solution into a platform of a client.
So a client sometimes has a website with a CRM database and
we can use those, as well.
And then what we start with is an invitation
to those people that we have preselected for this project.
Let's say on our own platform, we want to run a campaign in Spain.
Our Spanish team, our colleagues there have a database with I think over
300,000 members and they know those member, because they've been running
projects with them for years and we have profiles of these people.
They tell us what they like.
They tell us what they don't like.
So we make a preselection and then people have to actually apply they're invited,
they get what we call a ticket.
They have to apply and convince us and the brand that they're the right people.
So we're really turning things around rather than the brand advertising itself
to the consumers, the consumers advertise themselves to us and the brand.
And then once they're selected, we connect them with the brand,
we give them the product to share with people.
And we start this dialogue on the web, showing them that the brand is
really interested in what they have to say and these two things connecting
them with the brand and selecting them moves them into action.
They start sharing, they talk to friends, they say,
we hear the project is here I signed up for this a few days ago.
And while they do that, they have questions, they have insights,
they have ideas, they have doubts from their friends.
Those they send back to us and we help them.
We have this ongoing dialog throughout the project, so
that the people really feel like I'm a VIP in this process.
It's not the brand advertising at me, it's the brand listening to me,
speaking to me and helping me look even better in front of my friends with
this new product that I have discovered and that I can share with them.
And at the end of the project, we analyze all the data.
Our data collection is standardized, so we can then go to the client and say, look,
this is what happened.
Here's where your product is amazing.
Here's where people had input and questions.
Here's where there was maybe a few negative aspects and here's the conversations they
created and what their friends were saying, so that is really the process.
How are they rewarded, so people who participate in your campaigns,
do you reward the in some way or they just do it,
because they are willing to contribute?
That's a good question, because sometimes people ask us, well, you must be paying them.
Why would they send in photos and write reports about their activity and
fill out two surveys or three and write comments on the blog?
You're paying them, right?
No, we're not.
That is exactly the point.
The web has allowed us to actually see things that we couldn't see before,
that consumers are more motivated and more willing to do stuff for
brands than brand ever thought they were.
So by finding the right people who are motivated, by connecting them with a brand
in a meaningful way and also by giving them the product.
I mean, when you want to share a food product with people,
we want to give you that chance.
We want you to have the chance to try the product, so
they do get the product and 95% of the cases.
But other than that, no payment.
Because we want people to do what they do, because they like to and
not because they get paid for something.
That's fascinating.
And can you give us an example of a company in food or
beverage business that you think has organized or implemented a campaign,
which is particularly effective or successful?
Yes.
We ran two campaigns actually for a regional cola brand in Germany and
I liked this project, because for one, it was not one of the global players.
We work a lot with P&G or with Samsung or with companies like that, but
this one was a more regional player, Germany part of the Hausia group,
which is a beverage group in Germany and they ran a campaign for
a particular type of cola with us.
They were rebranding it, it was one variant one particular taste variant
of this cola that they're making, which was only available in part of Germany
in what used to be the former East
Germany, because that's where they come from, let's say, heritage.
They actually existed before the Iron Curtain fell and
the brand was then acquired by Hausia group and
they ran a couple of campaigns with us and it was interesting for a number of reasons.
One was there was a nice element in the campaign.
I said that we sent starter kits to people when they get the product to share with
others.
Here we actually sent cola bottles to people, which made for
a fairly heavy pack.
And we included in this pack, these little things that you usually get on airplanes
to cover your eyes when you want to sleep, but they were branded with the name of
the brand, Vita Cola and people were invited to use them for blind testing.