Right Idea, Wrong Execution

In a recent issue of Sunset Magazine, there was an ad in the back for Huntington Beach from their visitor’s bureau. The ad showed a picture of a cute little girl with the headline – you tube Huntington Beach style. Below was a family drawing in the sand with the caption – text message and to the right was a father and son flying a kite on the beach titles – my space.

The concept was brilliant. Escape the mundane on the pristine shores of HB. What sucked was the execution. The images are scattered, the copy is too small and the overall design is way to busy for such a succinct concept.

The same happens in social media all too frequently.

Earlier this year, Skittles launched a social media experiment that, on the surface, was bold, innovative and a real step forward for the concept of consumer engagement. Other companies set up Facebook profiles and leave them dormant, offer exclusive content for email subscriptions and fail to deliver, or make a promise to consumers that go unfulfilled.

Strategies change, policies change, focus changes – but consumers rarely do. In the world of social media, the consensus is that “campaign” is a verboten term. Social media is a program. Albeit dynamic and fluid, it’s an ongoing effort that produces multi-layered results. If executed properly, your consumers will have input that ultimately precludes their disappointment.

The easiest way to avoid the wrong execution, we’ve found, is to plan, share our plan with active consumers, and then plan some more. Yes, we discuss what we want to do with consumers before we do anything. Gone are the days of top-secret, back room planning. To succeed today, you have to get down on the playing field and interact. No focus group or survey can truly take the pulse you really need to know. And, validating the idea only puts you at serious risk for the latter part of this post’s title – wrong execution.

Don’t get us wrong, you can execute bad ideas poorly too… 😉 But when good ideas are executed properly (check out Little Debbie), look out! Everybody wins.

If you’d like to try it our way, give us a shout.