WARC, 3 March 2014
LONDON/HOUSTON: Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch energy
giant, is seeking to build up its established global brand with a renewed focus
on digital and social media engagement, the company's deputy head of marketing
has said.
David Bunch, the London-based vice president of marketing at
Shell Retail and chairman of Shell Brands International, told the Houston
Business Journal that the company wants to employ an "aggressive"
digital audience engagement strategy.
Speaking ahead of the AMA Houston's Marketer of the Year
event in March, he observed that up until now Shell had largely had a one-way
dialogue with consumers when communicating its key tenets of "trust,
innovation and quality".
The advent of social media platforms has now changed the
conversation, he said, and social media provides the means for better audience
interaction.
"What technology has done is provide a unique … way to
enable a two-way conversation. It's real time," Bunch told the paper.
"Our approach is one of transparency, education and
engagement," he added. "We have a strong brand amongst our peer
groups, but also a strong brand amongst global brands. The thing about brand
building is it takes time and consistency and effort."
Even though social media is a platform that can't be
controlled, he still thought "the pros clearly outweigh the cons (of the
new era)".
For example, Shell faced an online challenge in 2012 when
Greenpeace, the environmental campaign group, launched a fake Shell website to
draw attention to climate change issues, yet Bunch still thought it critical to
allow opponents to express their opinions and that transparency and engagement
are key responses.
Data sourced from the Houston Business Journal; additional
content by Warc staff
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