FRANKthoughts

The new ad for ANZ is starting by showing us “a bank” that is very good at ignoring their clients. I really like the lady actress there – she’s so good you’d think she’s working at your branch! The script is so clever, so bizarre and almost too real. Then, in the last five seconds, the ad becomes somewhat like science fiction.  It shows us the ANZ way – a guy/girl (they switch depending on customer’s sex) is welcoming the customer to the branch with a smile and the tag-line “we live in your world”. Wow, I’ve been a client of ANZ for the last seven years and NEVER was I greeted by anyone there. The result? the ad leaves you with the bitter taste of “no truth in advertising” while reminding you that “living in your world” means treating you the same but with a new logo.

But the ad isn’t the only thing broken. It’s the brand communication strategy that needs fixing. If you’re going to claim to be “living in my world” why don’t you have something about it on your website? in branches? How about having a real person helping people out on twitter?

It has been a good seven months since we launched Nuffnang a blog marketing community into Australia.  Nuffnang’s Asia Pacific blogger network currently comprises over 100,000 bloggers. Nuffnang Australia has attracted over 700 top Australian bloggers to our community.

Our blog community gives us a strategic advantage in providing brands, social media agencies, media agencies, creative agencies, and PR agencies a one stop solution to connect with bloggers.  We have provided measurability to blog marketing campaigns where clients used to count Technorati and Google Blog search as their only tools to find the best bloggers for their campaigns.  We have demonstrated our ability to implement campaigns in a few days that previously used to take months. Some notable clients that have engaged Nuffnang Australia include ANZ bank, Village Roadshow, Seek Volunteer, and Destination Gippsland.

Building a blog marketing community takes time. We’ve travelled around Australia to organise blog meet ups. We’ve met bloggers that are attracting over 10,000 blog views a day – eclipsing many magazine readerships such as Harpers or Madison. We’re constantly surprised as each fantastic blogger leads us to another even bigger blogger. Our goal is to build a lasting and trusting relationship – ultimately we have built a community of over 700 members. As part of our next growth strategy, we will look at further improving our connections with our blogging community. There will be structural changes to Nuffnang’s touch points (more to come) to better the experience (because it matters!) and a drive to increase our community members.

Meanwhile, we have also been tracking great research coming from Forrester and leading social media strategist Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang. It’s interesting to see the trends in brands in the U.S. engaging bloggers in different ways… here is a comprehensive list of sponsored conversations by Jeremiah.

A Running List of Sponsored Conversations

Here is Forrester’s report on the 3 common ways to market with bloggers – something we’re already achieving successfully through Nuffnang.