How to use conversations for cultural organisations, a presentation for the 2011 Opera Forum in London.

1. A presentation
about common
sense.
Or: how being a cultural organization
makes you more conversation-worthy
than most big brands.
© InSites Consulting
Polle de Maagt (@polledemaagt) for Opera Forum London
Many thanks to Jourik Migom (@jourik)
Conversation readiness 1

2. Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.
I create impact through
conversations at a pretty cool
company called InSites Consulting.
We work mostly because we’re
committed to take research
forward, but brands like
Ben&Jerry’s, Nike, Heineken and
Philips agreed to pay us for it.
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 2

3. Never.
Ever.
Come to me with the excuse that it‟s
difficult for cultural organizations to do
marketing or advertising and to make
use of social media.

4. Diesel started doing musicals.
Diesel Musical.

5. Red Bull creates city hotspots and art competitions.
Red Bull started their „Rooms of Red Bull‟ and several photo and art competitions.

6. Heineken even used an opera in their viral movie.
Heineken “Classical Concert” turned into an instant viral.

7. Chanel started mobile art.
A great website by the way.

8. Some brands are really pretentious.
Artists not armies.

9. “
Advertising is the fee for being unremarkable.
“
Robert Stephens (GeekSquad)
© InSites Consulting
Conversation readiness 9

10. By essence, operas are remarkable experiences.
Remarkable experiences drive conversations.

11. So, this presentation isn’t about
advertising, social media or
marketing, but about common
sense.
About how my mother was always right.
About how applying common sense takes
you halfway to success.

12. “ “
Commit acts, not ads.
Leo Burnett

13. It is about being a decent citizen.
Technology makes it easier to put a spotlight on organizations that don‟t deliver or
even mislead. So be a decent citizen. Brands usually have difficulty to turn their
commercial intentions into credible acts.

14. It is about acting human.
Extremely personal messages by Old Spice.

15. It is about creating happy customers.
Even in a procedure-heavy company like Starbucks, there is room to put a smile
on customer‟s faces.

16. Over-the-top-delivery
Makes negative conversations
Over-delivery
Makes positive conversations
Expectation Delivery
Gives no reason to talk
Under-delivery
Makes negative conversations
It is about managing expectations.
Under-promise, over-deliver.

17. It is about managing expectations: under-delivery.
And yes, people will talk.

18. (…)
It is about managing expectations: delivery.
If you just deliver, there‟s nothing to talk about.

19. It is about managing expectations: over-delivery.
Penguin Books sends free books to influentials.

20. It is about managing expectations: over-the-top-delivery.
Freitag claims every bag is waved goodbye by several employees. Great idea,
great commitment, but over-delivering so much, people start to have doubts.
Photo: linolo

21. It is about capitalizing on the stuff you’re already doing.
Kay Mook gained the Antwerp Zoo 300K extra visitors and almost became
product of the year 2009. More at http://polle.me/ccjSNL

22. … and that really isn’t about age.
Internet usually has over 80% penetration.

23. What happened? Conversations
happened.

24. Ask yourself: what are your best customers?
The ones that pay the most or share the most? Monetary value versus conversation
value.

25. Although 80% of conversations are offline, online
conversations have huge impact.
Even these guys, a group of twitter and Facebook fanatics called „Young Scum‟
have a regular offline meetup. More at http://youngscum.com

26. Conversations are an indicator of movie turnover.
The more conversations, the more visitors.

27. Conversations are driven by exceeding expectations.
Great example: the small acts of fun that were planned by Volkswagen to prove
that putting a little fun in people‟s lives will change behavior.

28. You can actually plan for conversations.
Adidas, Nike and other brands spend a lot of time adding memes and cultural
references in their content, to make it more worth spreading.

29. Enough theory.
Let‟s see how we can make this work.
How can we use conversations to drive
your business?

30. You would typically want to
achieve three things:
1) Make it extremely easy to find you
2) Make it extremely easy to talk about
you
3) Make it extremely easy to buy

31. The easier to talk about you, the easier to find you.
Guess what opera is easiest to find in London?
Create something that is conversation-worthy.

32. The smarter your online presence, the easier to find you.
Being where people are.

33. The smarter your online presence, the easier to find you.
Creating a smart platform.

34. The easier to share, the easier to find you.
So, what happens when you offer free stickers to a crowd?

35. Activate your audience to recommend you.
Every customer that leaves Florence‟s B&B Il Giglio d‟Oro is asked to leave a
recommendation at Tripadvisor; it is now ranked #1 of 364 B&B‟s …

36. You would typically want to
achieve three things:
1) Make it extremely easy to find you
2) Make it extremely easy to talk about
you
3) Make it extremely easy to buy

37. Observe Facilitate Join
The three pillars of conversation management.

38. Observe: Learn what your consumers really want.
This should be worrying: less and less interest in the “opera house” if we have a
look at Google searches.

39. Facilitate: Helping people helps.
Exceeding customer expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63% recommends)
and falling below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

40. Facilitate: Make it easy to experience in real life.
Banksy‟s tour in Berlin.

41. Facilitate: Let people show how they feel.
Damien Hirst‟s show in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum invited people to tell their
story http://www.fortheloveofgod.nl

42. Facilitate: Let others make it better.
Dutch Incubate festival let‟s people participate in their plans, strategies, guidelines
and site.

43. Facilitate: Create reach.
What if you could just broadcast in cinema‟s or even online?

44. Facilitate: Create reach by 3D?
What if you could just broadcast in cinema‟s or even online?

45. Facilitate: Do things that are worth sharing.
Think how you can make your customers talk about you. KLM highlighted their
Facebook fans of the day on Facebook.

46. Facilitate: Look for stories within your organisation.
Every company has it‟s stories and ambassadors, like Nike‟s Ekins. Capitalize on
these stories and turn your employees in an army of ambassadors.

47. Facilitate: Give your customers something to talk about.
Ambassadors just want to tell other, so help them! Choqoa support fans by giving
them chocolate bars and highlighting them in their newsletter.

48. Join: Everything your company does is communication.
Products, packaging and customer service are more genuine than marketing. So
leverage that, like KLM did with their KLM Surprise campaign.

49. Join: Co-create your opera?
Why not let consumers help to build a better opera?

50. Join: Co-fund your creative idea?
Wouldn‟t it be great if we could turn Times Square into Art? That‟s the idea behind
ts2as.org

51. You would typically want to
achieve three things:
1) Make it extremely easy to find you
2) Make it extremely easy to talk about
you
3) Make it extremely easy to buy

52. Make sales easy and easy to share.
Make it easy to subscribe of share your content via twitter, Facebook or other
social buttons. Example: http://polle.me/ij19j4

53. Bring your sales where the customers are.
Bring the sales where your clients are.

54. Leverage the power of social commerce.
Groupon is one of the smart promotions platforms.

55. Create sales promotions that are worth sharing.
The difference between “50% discounted” and “because we love you, we have an
extremely interesting experience you HAVE to see”.

56. It’s really simple:
Act human.
Build upon the things you’re
already doing.
Think conversations.
And on top of that: here‟s some structure
to help you out.

57. Observe Facilitate Join
The three pillars of conversation management.

58. Start with observing and listening.
There are simple tools to observe what consumers are doing. Via, Quora.com,
search.twitter.com or more advanced tools. But what about customer emails?

59. Facilitate.
Ben & Jerry‟s crowdsources their marketing plan and icecream flavors via an
online platform with brand fans.
Photo by jason.dsilva

60. Join.
Helping helps. Exceeding customer expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63%
recommends) and falling below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

61. Use pilot projects to learn and change.
Telenet launched a beta product to let consumer help them eventually create a
better product. Think in intrinsic, learning and change KPI‟s.

62. Be maniacal about measuring and tweaking.
Measure views, clicks, but even more important: your return on investment.
Extremely simple, but effective: the Net Promoter Score.

63. You can forget most of the things
I said in this introduction.
But please, remember these 3 things.

64. 1) Use common sense to drive
conversations.
Capitalize on the things you are already
doing.
Act human.
Create happy customers.

65. 2) Conversations are driven by
exceeding expectations.
Do more than people expect.

66. 3) Use conversations to make it
extremely easy to find you,
extremely easy to talk about you
and extremely easy to buy.
Driven by conversations.

67. Half of being successful is
showing up.
What will you be doing in the next 48
hours to make this happen?

68. I hope I showed some
common sense.
If you liked it, please share my
story.
Send me an email at polle@insites.eu
or find me on twitter at
@polledemaagt.
Find the presentation at
http://polle.me/operaforum11