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In 2018, Wendy’s, an American fast-food brand known for its witty social media presence, launched its annual ‘National Roast Day’, where it spends the day roasting other brands and consumers on Twitter — with their consent. It’s some enjoyable, good-natured ribbing.

Closer home, Zomato and Blinkit posted a meme earlier this year featuring two hoardings, playing off a popular Hindi film dialogue. The one for Blinkit said, “Doodh mangoge, doodh denge” (ask for milk, we’ll deliver milk), while Zomato’s said, “Kheer mangoge, kheer denge” (ask for kheer, we’ll deliver kheer). Soon after, other brands jumped on this ready trend, adding their own versions of the same line. Animall.in chimed, “Doodh aur kheer ke liye bhains [buffalo] listen.” Netflix quipped,”Friday mangoge, Wednesday listen.

The making of a moment
Brands speaking to each other — on hoardings, platforms like Twitter or via memes — is an eye-catching, low-cost and quick way to garner engagement. As a spokesperson from Zomato and Blinkit’s marketing team says, “They [memes] can be an effective way to tap into existing cultural trends and conversations, and can help to create a sense of relatability and shared understanding with audiences.”

However, jumping in on a conversation is easier said than done. As Abraham Varughese, CCO, Digitas India, puts it, agency and client teams need to have their ear to the ground. “By that, I mean not just social listening but being connected to culture,” he says.

Ashit Chakravarty, managing partner at Dentsu Creative India, believes if the overall ‘moment’ doesn’t fit a brand’s tone of voice, objectives or social personification, then it’s best to stay away from the banter.

Unspoken rules of engagement
When one thinks of social media banter, the brands that come to mind — take Zomato, Netflix, Swiggy, Durex, Oreo or Tinder — are often brands that cater to tech and internet-savvy millennials or Gen Z consumers. When contacted, Netflix, Mondelez India and Tinder declined to comment on the trend.

Like every good thing, there are rules for brands banter, although unspoken ones. For Reckitt’s Dilen Gandhi, regional marketing director, South Asia – Health and Nutrition, it’s important to “filter and identify the conversations our target audience is part of”. Evaluating the perfect fit from a brand lens is critical to ensuring better consumer connect, he says. Reckitt owns Durex, the male condom brand known for its cheeky social media persona.

Some brands and categories have personalities that naturally lend themselves to social media participation. But it might not be worth the trouble for brands with serious personalities to stray into a funny conversation for that one spike in consumer engagement.

“Don’t venture outside your brand personality to be part of a short-lived trend. That one ‘me too’ engagement is not worth it,” warns Kartikeya Tiwari, NCD, Kinnect. “Does your brand and its marketing team have the ability to take a joke on them? If not, don’t play this game. Because no one’s safe when the internet is bantering,” he added.

Relevance is probably the most important parameter for a brand to have a point-of-view on a trend or news headline, says Varughese, adding, “People are not looking for every brand to opinion about everything.” Unless they’re brands that are deeply rooted in the zeitgeist, Varughese says, citing Amul and Red Bull as examples in this context.

Cheesy wars
One of the most famous examples of this was the ‘burger wars’ of 2017. The internet was divided about where the cheese should be in the burger emoji. Apple depicted the cheese above the patty, while Android phones showed them below. KFC India started the war with its own take, soon followed by cheeky replies from Burger King and McDonald’s. Another recent example was IKEA opening its store in Bengaluru. Brands such as Domino’s, Cult.Fit, MakeMyTrip and Sunfeast Dark Fantasy, among others, jumped in with witty replies, offering their services.

These examples point to one thing: Social media often doesn’t need to be just about clever tweets. It can be on Instagram and can have videos or memes as well.

Behind the scenes
A brand’s relevance on social media depends on how soon it participates in a trend. However, it takes a village to build a brand. Even some deceptively simple repartee involves coming up with a clever line relevant to a brand, its ethos and personality, designing the creative, getting internal approvals at the agency or marketing team level if not both, among other steps. All of this involves multiple people, their opinions and availability.

Tiwari believes that the best social media jousting occurs impulsively — in the first 30 minutes or so. “Those are the ideas that feel naturally fun and not over-processed. You can see a lot of brands taking part in trends with concepts that have clearly gone through 23 rounds of changes. Not only do they arrive late on the scene, but they cut a sorry figure.”

So, how do brands ensure that a conversation opportunity isn’t lost in a loop of approvals?
“A typical approval loop would defeat the entire purpose. “Many brands invest in teams that are dedicated to creating reactive content and managing the process end-to-end with minimum oversight,” says Varughese.

Gandhi believes a brand has a maximum of four hours of turnaround time, right from identifying a trend to developing the communication and putting it across to the audience. “Having a strong in-house digital team that is aware of the brand guidelines makes us agile and highly responsive with approvals, sometimes taking less than an hour,” he adds.

WhatsApp groups play a big role here, making the process much nimbler. Chakravarty says that too many layers in the approval process can be counter-productive. Tiwari says the sign-offs can sometimes go very high, especially in startups. “These are the posts that get noticed a lot, so brand heads are keen to ensure safety and quality of the content. A lot of startup founders are very involved with marketing and tend to look into these matters.”

Is it effective?
“It [social media banter] is an essential tool for brand-building. When consumers follow the trail and start creating content, that’s when we know that the campaign is a success,” said Anna Ohlin, country marketing head, IKEA India.

Ultimately, though, the bottom line is about the company’s bottom line. How much does cheeky banter contribute to a company’s long-term brand-building efforts?

“Social media, if done in an organic way where it isn’t a force-fit, becomes an integral tool to build a brand’s equity and garner positive word-of-mouth. “Being a part of everyday conversation in your users’ life goes a long way in brand building,” surmises Gandhi.

When done right, it is one of the effective tools in a marketer’s toolkit but can never replace long-term brand-building. “It doesn’t work for a majority of brands,” believes Tiwari. “It’s a fleeting temptation that brings short-term rewards for the brand.”

Banter guardrails
Do
Understand the context, audience and subculture of the trend
Take a genuine interest in your consumers’ interests
Maintain an authentic, unique brand voice consistently
Say something great or don’t say anything at all
Evaluate if the conversation is of interest to the audience before joining

Don’t
Jump on moments that don’t resonate with your brand
Ride on sensitive subjects
Be inauthentic with your banter

How to find the perfect blend of performance and brand marketing?

By striking a coherence between performance and brand marketing efforts, firms can multiply their profitability by converting probable prospects into loyal customer bases. This will help the company to deliver precise target campaigns for better reach, recall, and engagement with prospective buyers. It’s only when both performance and brand marketing align, the company will realize the desired results on key performance indicators (KPIs)

  • Published On Feb 8, 2023 at 08:01 AM IST

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