ExperienceCurve by Karl Long

Last wednesday, February 15th Guinness (a generally forward thinking and creative marketer) launched a blog. As opposed to the usual puffery and inauthenticity that can be associated with some of the “Corporate Brand Jobs” that pass for blogs, Guinness is a surprisingly conversational, authentic affair. In an effort to try and quantify what they have done right, i’ve got a little mini review that covers the four aspects of the blog that I think are important for engaging customers via blogs:

• Language - tone and style
• Design - branding, look and feel
• Content - what is it about
• Participation - interaction & co-creation

Language

Written a conversational tone, the blog eschews much of the language of the marketeer for a more engaging, inclusive, and even confessional tone at times.

C’mon, when was the last time someone at a big company admitted that something innovative they were doing was a bit scary? The result of this is the blog fulfills the goal of being an “engaging conversation” that others can participate in.

Design: branding, look & feel

Guinness Chalkboard Logo

What is more down to earth and more “Guinness” like than a pub chalkboard? Well maybe not in the States, but the chalkboard metaphor serves the brand and the blog beautifully. This is a very good example of the “brand integrity” that stems from focusing on what it looks like, feels like etc. it all rings true and nothing feels out of place.

Content: tell us something we don’t know

It’s early days, but the content so far is pretty interesting, and gives out background information. I particularly like the storyboards and scripts from some current campaigns. But then again, I’m interested in marketing and advertising. The point being, they are sharing things that are not common knowledge and could be characterized as “opening the kimono”… a little.

Participation: Is it a conversation?

Not all blogs require participation, but a marketing blog that is trying to engage its audience in a more meaningful way beyond the broadcast metaphor has to have it. In many ways blogs have participation and co-creation built into their DNA with trackback & comments, and this is where many big brands fail. Many marketers and brand managers that treat their brand a monolithic entity that is only built though tightly controlled communication, are often terrified of what customers might say. The Guinness blog gets a B+ for participation, as they’ve hobbled trackback and comments are human moderated, which takes away some of the conversational aspects of the blog.

On the plus side the Guinness is up front on their comment moderation and explains in detail why it must moderate everything that shows up on the blog.

That sort of explanation certainly humanizes the problem. I don’t want them to lose their jobs either, and it also gives me a little empathy for them as blog pioneers in an enormous company. I mean, lets put it in perspective; this is a huge company, and I can’t even imagine the hoops these guys probably had to jump through to get this blog out there. So kudos on that front.

Global Brands and the Challenges Facing Officially Sanctioned Blogs

What works well for “global micro brands” can be a bit of a problem for global big brands. As the Guinness blog is an “official blog”, and not an employee sideline, it is severely constrained by the various rules and regulations surrounding marketing alcohol. The biggest problem of course is that if you are in the USA, and you’re honest when answering the questions on their landing page, you will not get to the blog. You will get an “Access Denied Landing page”. The Guinness Blog is getting totally hammered for this by a lot of people in the US, and in fact my main reason for writing this piece was to hammer Guinness for it, until that was, I lied, and got to read the blog, and though “hey, this isn’t bad”. Especially as the first post I saw was a post explaining all the legal and corporate responsibility reasons for having it.

There is a very unfortunate phrase on the “access denied page” that is “Now Leave the Guinness site”, meant I’m sure as guidance, comes across as “Get Lost”

In the words of Gaping Void

Emphasis Added, I think that’s a meme right there, I’m tagging it.

Anyway, with all the rules and regs with marketing alcohol, couldn’t they have got round it with Scobleizer equivalent for Guinness, or would that be considered too much of a shenanigan?

Doh, Emily at How to Blog pointed out that I didn’t link to the Guinness blog, well here you go.

Anyway, Cheers,

Karl