In a world of fake content, the noise your communication team is fighting through has never been greater. Amazon and Dove show how empathetic marketing paired with proactive reputation management can make all the difference.
Audio: Listen to this article.
- Dove’s Fantastic Push into Empathetic Marketing
- Amazon Has a Fake Review Problem
- 60-Second Close: Honesty Has Always Been the Best Policy
1. Dove’s Fantastic Push into Empathetic Marketing
- Empathetic marketing is a powerful tool that can help companies build stronger relationships with customers, increase customer loyalty, and drive business growth. In the digital age, customers are bombarded with advertising messages, and it can be challenging for brands to stand out.
- Communicating empathetically creates visceral connections with the audience by understanding their needs, feelings, and perspectives. Holistically, it requires using empathy to engage with customers, showing them the brand understands their pain points, and communicating how the brand can help solve their problems.
- Demonstrating empathy in action, Dove’s "Real Beauty" campaign sought to redefine traditional beauty standards by featuring real women of all shapes, sizes, and ages in their ads. The highly-successful messaging resonated deeply with women around the world and helped position Dove as a brand that cares.
2. Amazon Has a Fake Review Problem
- Many people who regularly purchase products on Amazon have received a mailer promising a gift card in exchange for a 5-star review. For a company that relies heavily on user-generated content in the form of reviews, this practice undermines trust but leads one to further question the ethics of social media.
- Besides being a core tenant of how Google ranks content with its E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) model, promoting fake or misleading content raises an ethical dilemma for your brand.
- There are a number of crossroads in modern communications where the high road is far more advantageous. Examples like disclosing that you work for a company when you like, comment, or share their posts, disclosing that you have a business relationship with a company when you post about them, or disclosing that you received financial consideration for posting about them (free personal training session, free membership, store credit in exchange for a review, etc.) are all easy to implement.
3. 60-Second Close: Honesty Has Always Been the Best Policy
- Empathetic communication starts with understanding the audience’s pain points. That level of strategic understanding can be a powerful tool to build trust and increase engagement.
- In a world of fake content, integrity shines bright, and reputation management is critical. Disclosing the nature of the purpose behind your brand’s messaging builds trust and turns casual users into raving evangelists.
Our team at Axia Public Relations relies on a two-pronged approach of boundless creativity directed by actionable data. Our proven PR strategies across news, social, and web media are what keep our clients’ audiences wanting more. Ready to give life to those unforgettable brand moments your audience never forgets? Just ask me how we can help get you there.
Clients love Jason’s passion, candor, and commitment as well as the team he has formed at Axia Public Relations. He's advised some of America’s most admired brands, including American Airlines, Dave & Buster’s, Hilton, HP, Pizza Hut, and Verizon. He is an Emmy Award-winning, accredited public relations practitioner, speaker, author, and entrepreneur and earned his certification in inbound marketing. He founded the PR firm in July 2002. Learn more about Jason.
Photo by Jill Wellington from Pexels
Comment on This Article