Case Study: DryBar

Case Study. 

Ladies, have you ever heard of drybar? Well if you haven't, maybe you know the founder Ali Webb who was just invited to Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards?  She is the founder of a wildly successful startup called - you guessed it - drybar. The concept for the startup was a place that women could get really good blowouts (their tag line - "no cuts, no coloring, just blowouts"). Sound mildly crazy to completely impossible/unfeasible - well try telling that to a business with long lines and that is now opening locations around the country. 

Dry Bar Engagement Strategy. 

This post is going to analyze their marketing success - which really looks at how flawlessly they communicate both their value proposition and their core beliefs. To keep this post clean we are going to be using the my own egyptian analytical framework, which is weird I know - but stick with me. 

Develop an ideology.

Peace, Love and Blowouts. That pretty much sums it all up.  Behind the yellow hair dryer, the company has produced a very unique view point and experience, which drives their engagement strategy. They even went so far are as to publish a video of their 10 core values - a type of exercise and publication I believe every company should go through. Why does this impact marketing/engagement - it completely streamlines the decision making process. If you approach marketing/engagement as a medium to construct added value to things (as drybar as done amazingly) - then you need to define goals, methods and approved communication styles. 

Establish a story.

drybar has done a very good job of that - they even released a video explaining the drybar experience. As every good marketer knows, a hair salon should not focus on the scissors but the environment in the salon. Indeed the "bar experience" story has been very well established. When you walk in you are greeted with a "menu" (with the services they offer) and cocktails. This story has been physically manifested as the menu indeed looks like a real restaurant menu. The story of "haircutting" has been completely thrown out the window - to drybar's advantage. 

Condense into symbols.

See the little upside-down yellow hair dyer from way above - her name is Buttercup. This company has also done a great job in the usage of symbols. Take their distinctive mascot - Buttercup - who is prominently displayed at every location. The symbol is a good use of color, personality and visual identification. Furthermore the "menu" of hairstyles are boiled down into archetypes - symbols that assist in the decision process. Women can choose to get the Manhattan or the Cosmo. In the "restaurant design" of their shops you can see the minimalist esthetic, which is white and their symbolic yellow. This narrow design choice is very specific and fully realized to every aspect of the experience - making it highly visible and recognizable. 

Maintain narrative.

This menu style experience insures that the bar narrative is maintained and that it ties back into the company's story and ideology. I can't really talk about the company's online or social media campaigns - I have not performed a thorough analysis of them. 

Engage & rumorize.

This would require more information - and more analysis of their social media usage - how interactive they are online - how hard they publish creative content to drive conversation. 

However this little image (left) I found is exactly what I am talking about - engagement pieces that drive word of mouth marketing. These pieces have to be big (in size or some  other characteristic), they have to be bold, they have to be eye-catching and they have to hold true to the system of symbols.  I would say a giant yellow hair dryer fulfills those requirements. The cherry on top, the kicker, the engagement piece to really promote brand vitality and strength. 

50 Tweets = Ability to Scientifically Predict Personality and Buying Behavior.

I will be saying this till I'm blue in the face - linguistics is a great tool to impact marketing, branding and segmentation. What you say - more specifically how you say it, describes a lot about your own personality. This article I found suggests that just by capturing 50 tweets companies can analyze and predict what products or services you are more likely to buy.  

But how? Let me describe a little bit of the science behind tweet psychology. 

The Secret Life of Pronouns: What Our Words Say About Us

By James W. Pennebaker

"The quick foxed jumped over the mean lazy brown dog."

Ok. Now, you ready? This is going to be very, very, very hard. Pay attention. Please keep reading this sentence a bit, maybe this word "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" - I just need you to get further down this paragraph so you can't see the first sentence. GOOD - Don't look up! Now, how many non-verb/subject/adv/adj words were in the sentence about the fox from above. If you said 3, you're a super-freak - No, JK, you are normal however the point of this exercise is to demonstrate the transient nature of pronouns (and all other words that aren't verbs, adjs, advs or nouns for that matter).  Your brain is programmed to strip away this non-essential information like meat from a bone. Pronouns and all of these filler words (because, that, we, up, therefore, she, besides, however) are parsed out of normal conversation and forgotten. Your brain remembers the: Who, What, Where, When and Why - the meat. 

When in doubt, follow the crazy people

Pronouns and Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc are filed in two completely different sections of the brain. One way to prove this is to study the effects of brain damage and speech. There are actually two different types of studied medical injuries that are a result of brain damage in two separate parts of the brain - the two injuries would speak thusly: 

“You know, that stuff where those things move up and down and even though things come out”

— Patient Bud Abbott

“Mary knows keyboard keys help people print documents”

— Patient Lou Costello

You'll notice that Bud Abbot has a hard time using anything but "filler words" (pronouns, prepositions) while Lou Costello  can't seem to find one single filler word - he only uses proper names and verbs. This is because Bud Abbot has received damage to the Nouns/Verbs/Adj/etc processing center of his brain while Lou Costello has received damage to his filler "social words" processing center.  

Twitter pronouns are key to marketing

So, now we agree that filler words, compared to nouns and verbs, are contained in different boxes in the mind? Would it surprise you to hear that pronouns and fillers are kept in the very front, youngest part of the brain - the "social" box? (which makes sense as they are social referents). Nope? Moving right along, how you use these social referents tells us a lot about how you live in a social world. For example, do you use the "I" pronoun more than the "we" pronoun? DID YOU KNOW - men use the pronoun "I" slightly more often then women, while women use the pronouns "You /He/She" slightly more often than men.

So users that tweet "s/he" more often and use causal words (because, cause, on account of) are more likely to be rational, logical, social thinkers - who would obviously gravitate to a certain kind of product or experience. Now the game is over. BAM, once the company has you profiled they can market to you more effectively.

Research has already shown that these traits link to buying behaviour. Agreeable people prefer Pepsi to Coke and if you link your product messages to excitement and adventure, it will appeal to the extroverts.

All well and good, but how can brands find out the psychological profiles of their potential customers? After all, no-one is going to go through a long personality test to give marketers the information they need to harass them.

The answer is via social media, specifically Twitter. IBM’s research has used software to analyse three months data from 90m Twitter users, matching the words people use against their values and needs. It took just 50 tweets to get a reasonable match for their personality and a very good fit from 200.

Coca Cola, Linguistics & Brand Mgmt.

There has been an article circulating about variations in English pronunciation and word usage around the continental United States. It is a very good read - find it here. After glancing through the 20 plus maps in the article that delineate the variations in English, a few peaked my interest.

The above map shows what words Americans use to describe a "sweetened carbonated beverage". How do you call it? I most certainly do not say pop - which sounds to me like a phrase pulled from the 1920's. 

Coke or Soda: Which One is Better? 

However what we can see from this map is the green area in the southern United States - Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and parts of Georgia. This area uses the word "Coke" to refer to all types of soda. This phenomenon is not new to the marketing world - where one extremely popular, ubiquitous brand becomes the word of choice. The stereotypical examples of this are Kleenex and Bandaid - what do you call a bandaid if it isn't a Bandaid? 

Coke: Brand Dissolution  

I believe that Coca Cola should be mildly concerned with the linguistic developments in the south.  When certain brands become so popular they change the nomenclature of the market - the brand has begun to bleed. When Coke's name, which has been fortified with billions of marketing and branding dollars, is associated with other brands they may begin to enjoy Coke's marketing benefits. Although Coke may rule the South this does not mean that such language cannot spread north or east or west. I think it wouldn't hurt for Coke to invest in a marketing campaign to reassert their position in the market and stem the tide. What do you think?

Just For Fun

I come from RI and we always call the water fountain the bubbler (read: /BUB-lah/) . Is it me or is it weird that Wisconsin and one lone little state in New England use this strange term? #foodforthought

Science Of Persuasion - Social Media Strategy

Now, please imagine the power to convince your followers with a single tweet - to be in control of user's perceptions with a single status update. Why would want this ability - because social media in its nature is a persuasive technology, having a firm grip on customer's behaviors and desires. 

In his YouTube video Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor of Persuasion in Arizona, outlines 6 universals that guide human behavior and most influence action. 

"You Scratch My Back, I'll Scratch Yours"

Reciprocity. Studies show that human beings have an innate need to "return a favor". In one study, post cards were mailed out across the US to random addresses and strangers. Around 80% actually got around to sending return post cards back to the "reply to" address. In social media, the reciprocity tendency means that engagement starts with yourself and that you need to listen more than you create buzz. Want to have followers and hype? You need to engage with individuals without agenda to build up that need for them reciprocate. Example: On LinkedIn - do you want to build up amazing endorsements for all those skills you've listed on your profile? (which is an amazing social tool to keep users dialed in to the site). Start endorsing others and the majority will come around and thank you with an endorsement back. However the gift must be either sincere, personalized or unexpected - or else you will seem to have the agenda and the jig is up. 

"You Always Want What you Can't Have"

 Scarcity. This is one is pretty universal - it can explain the law of supply and demand. The less there is of a thing, the more value that thing has - the more people want it. This one seems to against everything social media stands for - as social media is literally a "democratization of media" and access for all. Ironically, scarcity is hard to find. Environments of scarcity can be created - through online competitions, limited releases, release links that shut down after a designated time or amount of clicks and even websites that market themselves as member's only clubs like guilt.com  or jackthreads.com . 

"Follow Me, I Know What I'm Doing" 

 Authority . People respond positively to authority and tend to find such figures very persuasive - I'm sure we've all heard of Milgram's Experiment. Therefore it is important that inidividuals develop some type of online proficiency or niche expertise. Boiled down to the tweet level, it is important to embrace traditional displays of power or authority. In other words, how you say something matters. When you tweet to persuade - be bold, be confident and make big choices - give them something decisive and a lot more than you expect will fall in line.  

"If that is what I did last time, then..." 

Consistency.  This effect manifests itself by an individual's desire to stay consistent in their actions and outward behavior. If you ask someone for a penny and compliment them on "how generous they are", that person will be more likely to give you a 10$ bill the next time around. This means that every little favor matters and that you should consider using many of these 6 rules together to become highly convincing online. Start out asking as little as possible from your active users, but as you build up a rapport and expected behavior the relationship can blossom.

"Virtual CRM - Sincerity is Key"

Linking . If you are easy to like as a person, than odds are you are more likely to be persuasive. It goes without saying that the same is true online because whet boils right down it is never accounts that interact but individual people - no matter how large the entity. When handling others the universal rule applies - you have to cooperate with others and pay them compliments - treat them how you would like to be treated. It's amazing how simple this rule is, but that makes it all the more forgettable. 

"If They're Doing it, I Should Do it" 

Consensus . This is the oldest social phenomena in the book - the snow-ball effect. However I think it is important to distinguish this from viral phenomena. Most people share viral posts/videos/photos for the novelty of the engagement piece but also to be first to make the kill. People enjoy being the first in their social circle to share a viral post, the same way people enjoy having higher Klout scores (the two are connected FYI). Regardless, this consensus tendency has been somewhat deadened online, as online is demonstration of a use's unique identity. The use of consensus to build persuasive content must be used in very specific ways so as not to step on anyone's virtual toes.

+ Magical Words of Persuasion

• Because
• Now
• Please
• Thank You
• Imagine...
• "A Person's Name"
• Control Words - In Charge, In Control, Its Up to You.  

For more visit our blog at www.insideinfluence.com Animation describing the Universal Principles of Persuasion based on the research of Dr. Robert Cialdini, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing, Arizona State University. Dr. Robert Cialdini & Steve Martin are co-authors (together with Dr. Noah Goldstein) of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week International Bestseller Yes!

Getting to grips with social media | Technology | guardian.co.uk

​This article gives the case study of Cadbury, famous european chocolate brand, and their social media marketing campaigns to increase involvement and also virtual CRM.  

Examples of their Engagement pieces

• ​Facebook pages with competitions to become a "Joyville Taster" for upcoming products
• Live streamed an attempt to create ​build a "larger than life" Facebook like hand out of milk chocolate bars - resulted in 40,000 new fans and 350,000 engaged users. 
• Creativity always wins in social engagement!​