USC Annenberg welcomed Edward Malthouse Tuesday for a lunchtime discussion on consumer engagement, social media and how they affect customer value and loyalty.
Malthouse is an integrated marketing communications professor at Northwestern University, as well as the research director of the Spiegel Center on Database and Digital Marketing at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
His work deals primarily with consumer engagement, but he said “we should probably stop using the word engagement,” or at least approach it in a different way. The term “engagement” encompasses several other ideas and strategies – such as marketing, branding and customer loyalty – and those are what people need to hone in on, according to Malthouse. Fostering engagement, and all that it encompasses, can be done by tying ads, promotions and other aspects of branding and marketing to “a goal in the consumer’s life.”
Social media contests are one of the methods Malthouse has examined along these lines.
As good and bad examples, he showed two contests held by Kit Kat. One was held during the Super Bowl, asking people to give Kit Kat their email address for a chance to win various football and Kit Kat themed prizes. Malthouse said this was a poor example because it has little to do with Kit Kat’s branding strategy, but also because it lacks meaning for the consumer and requires little engagement on their part.
He then showed another contest held by Kit Kat, where they chose a “Fan of the Month,” based on photo submissions of people “taking a break” with Kit Kat. Because the theme of the contest aligns with their branding strategy and it requires more engagement and co-creation from the consumer, it will presumably be more effective.
“You want consumers to elaborate on how the brand helps them achieve a goal in their lives,” said Malthouse.
Malthouse also discussed his study in which he looked at the Canadian Air Miles Reward Program and how tactics promoting a contest affected traffic and consumer engagement.
The contest, which took place around the winter holidays, asked consumers to share how they planned to spend their reward points on the website. Malthouse explained that while the contest style worked because the consumer is asked to elaborate and engage with site, but the company promoted the contest by spamming consumers with email blasts, which worked only briefly.
Another study Malthouse worked on looked at online and mobile grocery shopping. It compared a consumer’s ability to shop for groceries from their computer to the shopping capabilities that came with adoption of a mobile app. The study found that habitual products, like coffee creamer, sold better on the app, whereas products that require closer inspection, like frozen meals, sold better on the website viewed on a computer, which shaped what products are promoted on each platform.
When Malthouse opened the discussion to the audience, the conversation turned to the concept of true and genuine engagement and how to develop a strategy for it.
Malthouse said that a company needs to be aware of what value they’re trying to create for the consumer, adding that “with a clear strategy, the tactics will follow.”
Constantina Konugres, a junior Public Relations student, said she found Malthouse’s views on creating value and genuine engagement to be very applicable.
“As a fairly new PR student, I haven’t really understood the definition of engagement as a strategy,” Konugres said, adding that the talk allowed her to consider “how to engage your audience in non-gimmicky ways that don’t add value to your product.”
