Social In A PR Silo

SPEAKER_01 1:04

This show is all about mistakes. Um and you talked a little bit about your role in Lexus. Wanna tell us a bit about one of your mistakes that you've you've been a witness to?

SPEAKER_02 1:16

So I'm gonna

Chasing Engagement Over Strategy

SPEAKER_02 1:18

be I'm gonna pop out here. It's not necessarily a mistake I've done, but I think it's a mistake we made as a business. Um and that I think that we a number of years ago, and I think we've changed it now, but I think we got social roles. Um and so when I look back on it, I just think, wow, you know, why didn't we do something about that? So we had a social team based, we still do actually in the business, actually reporting into um PR department, and it acted as a silo within the business, didn't align with the brand strategy. Lexus or Toyota

Cheap Clicks Versus Commercial Value

SPEAKER_02 2:05

and weren't aware of you know our objectives or target audience, certainly not aware, you know, following what our sort of brand codes are or anything like that to make us look like Lexus and Toyota, and sort of went down this path for a long time of sort of making lots of content which really sort of didn't fit with what the brand was doing or where it was going. And furthermore, the team had this objective of um wanting to be the most engaged automotive brands on social media, and I was like, okay, that's kind of interesting. And I was like, Well, are we sure about that? Because for me, there's a kind of challenge around it. It's like, well, they're like what? And I said, Well, consumers don't care about brands, they don't want to engage with them. You know, essentially, we're by saying that we want to be the most engaged, essentially, you know, are we essentially overstating our importance as brands in consumers' minds and lives? And and so, you know, think about what manifests from working like that is we're sort of chasing the wrong thing. And okay, we're having conversations with people, but it's about stuff which isn't relevant or of of no commercial value. So, you know, there were posts about zodiacs and and what's your favourite audiobook and which is your favorite steering wheel. I mean there's no commercial.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I've asked myself a lot of times which is my favourite steering wheel. Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

But it's cheap. What you're talking about there is some cheap engagement for the sake of engagement, which which is fine if you're just measuring engagement in a silo.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

It's it's pineapple on a pizza or pineapple off a pizza, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

There was a phase in social of um everyone sharing cat videos about eight years ago, wasn't there? Cute cat videos, which did amazingly for engagement, but if you sell if you're you know if you're Range Rover sport or Apple, it's no good at all to you.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

For me, I think that's a mistake. It's just like yeah, you'll get the engagement, but uh I don't think there's any commercial. I think you know a great example of this is the you know the Queen's Death when lots of brands start composting ridiculous things about old high and all that you know it's just silly.